It’s another jam-packed week at South African cinemas, with four major new releases ranging from Oscar nominees to crowd-pleasers. In addition to this quartet of movie premieres, also hitting the big screen are Bollywood actioner Deva, and the Throwback return of The Truman Show.


Honestly, Companion seems like the kind of movie where the less you know, the better. Part romance, part horror thriller, part science fiction and part dark comedy, this unpredictable tale stars Heretic and Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher and The Boys’ Jack Quaid, and is being marketed as coming from the creators of Barbarian, and the studio responsible for The Notebook… if you need an indication of what to expect. Your starting point: Friends gather for a lakeside break, except one brings a companion robot.

Look out for our Companion review in the next few days.


Mel Gibson is back behind the camera for action thriller Flight Risk. Michelle Dockery’s U.S. Marshall is transporting a fugitive informant (Topher Grace) across the Alaskan wilderness via a charted flight. The problem is that the pilot (Mark Wahlberg) of the tiny private craft isn’t who he says he is, triggering an airborne battle for survival.


The first of this week’s Oscar nominees is comedy drama Anora, which is in the running for six awards, and has already won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. In this unconventional Cinderella story, Anora (Mikey Madison), a young New York sex worker, marries Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch, only for his parents to arrive, demanding an annulment. Sean Baker directs.


If you love prestige biographies, you’ll want to check out Maria, from Pablo Larraín, the director of Jackie and Spencer. Angelina Jolie plays iconic opera singer Maria Callas in the last week of her life, in 1970s Paris. Jolie missed out on an Oscar nomination in what is considered one of the biggest Academy Award snubs of this year. However, the film is still in the running for Best Cinematography.