The Drama

From 3 April

Kristoffer Borgli’s work shares genes with the self-consciously edgy arthouse fare of Yorgos Lanthimos and Ruben Östlund, but hooked to concerns that are extremely online in nature. Now he’s back with another barbed comedy of social mortification in The Drama, this time with A-listers Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in tow. The film follows newly engaged couple Charlie (Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) as they start making plans for their wedding day. But when the happy couple get drunk at a meal tasting with friends Mike (Mamadou Athie) and Rachel (a scene-stealing Alana Haim), Emma drops an absolute bombshell in the midst of a game where they’re asked to reveal the worst thing they’ve ever done. Soon everyone around her starts to question how well they really know her, and Charlie is unsure if he can go through with the wedding.

Naturally, we can’t share the reveal here, which has been the focus of a buzzy marketing campaign by the film’s backers, A24. But let’s just say it’s likely to ruffle a few feathers among audiences, especially in the US, where Borgli’s own past indiscretions came under scrutiny last month. It all makes for an effective riff on the director’s now-signature themes – the performative nature of modern life, the fear of being ‘found out’ – and the film gets good mileage out of mocking the excesses of the wedding industrial complex. Crucially, though, Charlie and Emma never feel like flesh-and-blood characters, and for all its flirting with social taboos the ‘message’, about not judging episodes from people’s past lives too harshly, feels underwhelming in the end.

Rose of Nevada

From 24 April 

Mark Jenkin brings his signature tactile style to an engrossing ghost story in Rose of Nevada, bouncing back from the relative disappointment of Enys Men. When a boat that vanished more than 30 years ago returns to harbour in a crumbling Cornish fishing village, its owner (Jenkin regular Edward Rowe) puts a crew together for a fishing expedition. But when the men return to shore after a successful trip, they find themselves transported back to an earlier era, when the town was still a thriving hub. Cocksure outsider Liam (Callum Turner) seems to take it all in his stride, but Nick (George MacKay) is at a loss to explain what’s going on in this timely exploration of a community haunted by its own past, disconcertingly stitched together with the same skill Jenkin observes in the fishermen making their nets.

Father Mother Sister Brother

From 10 April

Jim Jarmusch has proved himself a master of the anthology film before with the likes of Night on Earth and Mystery Train, and his latest certainly starts out strong, with a miniature masterclass in cringe comedy starring Tom Waits as an eccentric dad and Adam Driver and Mayim Balik as his normie offspring driving out to see him. He’s on less certain ground with the second and third instalments in his triptych, with Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps heading up the former as a pair of neurotic British poshos visiting their standoffish mum (Charlotte Rampling), and Lukas Abbat and Indya Moore in the third as twins clearing out their late parents’ Paris apartment. It’s as cool and understated as ever from the NY indie filmmaking veteran.

Miroirs No 3

From 17 April

A car-crash survivor’s strange relationship with the woman who pulls her from the wreckage is the subject of Christian Petzold’s new film, his fourth to feature a finely calibrated turn from his leading lady of choice, Paula Beer. Laura (Beer) is on a weekend away with her boyfriend, Jakob, and two friends when she suddenly gets cold feet, and is driven to the station to take the train home. Of course, she never makes it that far, and the ensuing crash kills Jakob before she is discovered, shaken but essentially unscathed, by Betty (Barbara Auer), who brings to her home in the country nearby. Laura asks if she can stay, a request that Betty is only too happy to oblige, and the pair enter into a codependent relationship that conceals a troubling family secret. It’s a minor work from the German auteur but beguiling all the same, less interested in exploiting the element of suspense implied by the premise than in crafting a spare and haunting character study.

Night Stage

From 3 April

In Felipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon’s crackling erotic thriller, Gabriel Faryas plays Matias, a theatre performer in Porto Alegre, Brazil, forced to swallow his pride when his colleague and roommate beats him to a role in a local film production. When Matias hooks up with Rafael (Cirillo Luna), a politician running for mayor of the city, the pair discover a shared taste for sex in public that soon opens doors for Matias – but comes at a terrible cost. With a cool colour palette, hot cast and beguiling, throwback-y score recalling the seamy genre delights of Brian De Palma’s early 80s thrillers, it’s a kink-laden thrill laying bare the psychological toll of being queer in the public eye.