Steamy Austen Summer and Everything Else You Should Watch
Season 4 of Bridgerton is hard on our heels with this season focusing on Benedict Bridgerton (Luke Thompson) and Sophie Baek (Yerin Ha) falling for each other. Bridgerton Season 4 will debut in two parts. Part 1 will premiere on 29 Jan, 2026, and Part 2 will premiere on 26 Feb. This season will have a total of eight episodes.
“The storyline is a bit of a twist on Cinderella. You remember being told those stories as a child — the magic and the romance of them,” says Luke Thompson. “It’s really exciting to have that weaved into the world that we know of Bridgerton … It’s such a great story, but it’s also, I hope, really relatable.”
It’s now a given that if your Victorian period romance doesn’t have at least one white wet shirt contest for the leading man then it may as well not even exist. I haven’t seen any evidence of Luke getting drenched yet but we do have visual confirmation in the other Austen-inspired film coming out starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. Wuthering Heights drops in cinemas on the 12th of February, and it promises to be viscerally steamy.
Colin Firth has a lot to answer for.
Die My Love
From renowned filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, Die My Love is a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness. Anchored by a ferocious, tour de force performance from Jennifer Lawrence, and co-starring Robert Pattinson.
The film follows Grace (Lawrence) and her partner Jackson (Pattinson), who have recently moved into an old house deep in the country. With ambitions to write The Great American Novel, Grace settles into her new environment, and the couple welcome a baby soon after. However, with Jackson frequently – and suspiciously – absent, and the pressures of domestic life starting to weigh on her, Grace begins to unravel, leaving a path of destruction in her wake. Based on Ariana Harwicz’s celebrated novel and co-starring Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte, Ramsay marks her eagerly awaited return with this fearless new cinematic vision that charts the complexity of love and how it can change and transform over time.
Streaming 22 December
Marty Supreme
Is it too much to say Timothée Chalamet is a once-in-a-generation actor? His latest film with A24 co-stars Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, and Tyler the Creator. Chalamet plays Marty Mauser in this sports comedy-drama loosely based on the larger than life table tennis champion Marty Reisman. This guy led a wild life and this movie takes every leap to try and tell a story more outrageous than the real deal. To prepare for this role Chalamet began practicing ping-pong back in 2018, he did this throughout all his other projects, Dune 2, Wonka, and The French Dispatch. Ping pong is serious business.
The film was penned by Josh Safdie with longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein. Consider this our most anticipated film for 2026 so far.
In Cinemas 22 January
Atropia
Did you know that the US Army set up fake towns designed by Hollywood prop workers and populated them with actors so soldiers could have a fully immersive role-play experience before shipping off to Iraq, etc. This movie is set in one of those weird un-realities and follows an actress (Alia Shawkat) as she wrestles with unsimulated emotions she grows for one of the soldiers (Callum Turner) cast as an insurgent. The movie is as funny and oddball as it gets, and has trouble keeping itself together. But this is the debut film for director Hailey Gates so I’m willing to cut it some slack for having the balls to pick such a fascinating setting for this comedy-drama.
In Cinemas 12 December
Hamnet
Hamnet follows the life of Agnes, played by Jessie Buckley, the wife of Shakespeare, and pivots on the time he’s working on Hamlet and they’re getting over the loss of their son. While Shakespeare may be a mythic figure at this point, love and loss make us all the same. It’s a tear jerker so be ready. This is the sort of film that makes you want to rush out and hug everyone you love afterwards. Shakespeare is played by fellow Oscar-nominee Paul Mescal and the film was written and directed by Academy Award winning writer/director Chloé Zhao.
In Cinemas 15 January