Team Empire on the month’s essential movies

PETITE MAMAN OUT 21 MARCH / CERT U / 73 MINS

After the success of Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, Céline Sciamma could have done anything. That she chose to go petite, rather than grande, only speaks to her thoughtful sensibilities as a filmmaker. Petite Maman is a small film (only 73 minutes long), but such a singular delight. A sweet, gentle fantasy about a young girl meeting her mother at the same age, it is shot naturally and unfussily, yet still finds a sense of magic. Sciamma cited Hayao Miyazaki as a reference point, and the Ghibli-ness of it all seems so obvious on a second watch: the pastoral setting, the whimsical premise, the lack of an antagonist, the matter-of-fact approach to grief and trauma. It’s like a live-action My Neighbour Totoro — and should be lauded as such. JOHN NUGENT

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS OUT TBC / CERT TBC / 142 MINS

It’s fitting for a franchise about the disparity between external appearances and internal realities that The Matrix Resurrections isn’t what it first appears to be. While Lana Wachowski’s fourquel is dressed in the clothes of its predecessors (literally), it’s less an action masterclass, more a sincere romance, conjuring more emotion in the reunion of Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-anne Moss) than the first three films combined. Bathed in natural light, it’s beautiful in its own right — both a ‘fuck you’ to the studio that demanded its existence, and a reclamation of the first film’s distorted pop-cultural legacy. Not the Matrix movie you were expecting, yet a Matrix movie through and through. Maybe that’s not so binary, after all. BEN TRAVIS

NIGHTMARE ALLEY OUT 21 MARCH / CERT 15 / 150 MINS

Guillermo del Toro’s finest movie since Pan’s Labyrinth is a meticulously constructed adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel (filmed in 1947 by RKO) about Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a drifter-turned-grifter who gets in over his head when he meets a mysterious woman (Cate Blanchett) he can’t refuse. It’s none more noir, filled with femme fatales and deadbeat men and murder, but del Toro weaves the material into a compelling psychological horror. Beautifully designed and shot, it features phenomenal performances throughout from Cooper, Blanchett and a stellar supporting cast. The last act in particular is achingly beautiful and excruciatingly painful — Del Toro’s career in microcosm. CHRIS HEWITT

LAMB OUT 28 MARCH / CERT. 15 / 107 MINS

Perhaps it was the lure of Noomi Rapace’s second homeland (she spent several of her childhood years in Iceland), or the nature of the eccentric story. Whatever possessed her to gamble on the tale of a childless couple adopting a mysterious newborn — half lamb, half human — they find on their farm, it pays off handsomely, both as a showcase for the actor-executive producer and for audiences willing to tune into its offbeat frequency. Cheekily mis-marketed as a horror film, in truth it’s a deadpan comedy-drama and sly eco-parable, less apocalyptic than Don’t Look Up, but no less impactful. Director Valdimar Jóhannsson — a topdrawer visual effects artist — nails the lamb-child VFX, and Rapace is equally flawless. DAVID HUGHES

ZEROS AND ONES OUT APRIL 4 / CERT 15 / 85 MINS

While Europe was in lockdown, Abel Ferrara sought exceptional permission to film in the suddenly abandoned public places of Rome. In Ferrara style, he didn’t make a narrative film about the pandemic but a freeform personal journey in the form of a spy thriller. The near-future setting might qualify as semi-apocalyptic, though it just collages elements of the emptied city with the occasional superimposed explosion. An American military operative (Ethan Hawke) is trapped in a literally murky plot, nagged by a revolutionary twin brother — and a version of the real Hawke tops and tails the long night with probably misleading to-camera chats. A sketch for a film, but suspenseful, terrifying and enigmatic in equal measures. KIM NEWMAN

C’MON C’MON OUT NOW / CERT 15 / 108 MINS

A shaggy sort-of road movie and exquisite family drama meet in this story about an uncle left to mind his nephew for a few days. Joaquin Phoenix, on non-showy but hugely effective form, is the radioand-podcast-producing adult; Woody Norman, who’s extraordinary, his mercurial charge. It feels like director Mike Mills just lets real life happen, but this is a delicately balanced account of building relationships and making commitments. There’s the joy of spending time with a happy kid, and the heart-stopping terror of losing a child you’re caring for, and everything in-between. Shot in a soft black-and-white, and sprinkled with real kids talking about their hopes and dreams, this is impossibly charming and deeply affecting. HELEN O’HARA