Everyone loves to hate the sports movie. Oh it’s so predictable, oh it’s so dull, oh it’s so boyish. But now that the Oscars are routinely rewarding boxing films for being rather good, and Sandra Bullock walked away with a Best Actress nod for her part in a film about American Football, we decided it was high time to celebrate the great and good of sports movies. Because they do exist. Honest.

Henry’s Crime is a film about robbery, redemption, love and Chekov. Not as highbrow as it sounds, Keanu Reeves stars in this new dramatic comedy about a man wrongfully imprisoned who decided to commit the crime for which he served the time, aided and abetted by James Caan and Vera Farmiga

Dog Pound details the lives of Davis, Angel and Butch as they try unsuccessfully to stay out of trouble in a Montana detention facility. Director Kim Shapiron addresses gang violence, corrupt prison guards and rape in this brutal drama, which contains haunting moments in spite of the ubiquitous nature of the genre.

And where was Season of the Witch? Nowhere you’d like to take your mum, certainly.

“This year the snow’s going up…”
Many critics say that the London Gangster movie is the last gasp of a dying genre, but Director Ray Burdis breathes new life into it with this sharp, thoughtful comedy/drama that will have you by turns laughing and crying as it takes us on a journey through a family using the spirit of Christmas for redemption while suffering the accidental effects of cocaine.

What comes to mind when you think of Christmas? Santa, (obviously).What comes to mind when you think of Santa? Happiness and a jolly smiling face. Well not for long, in this epic tale of one Christmas, you won’t want your kids sitting on his lap, that’s for sure…

Aslan is back and working in yet more mysterious ways as the younger Pevensies return to Narnia with their unsuspecting cousin. Tasked with delivering the Seven Swords of the Seven Lords to Aslan’s Table (lions don’t have opposable thumbs, you see), the threesome are individually tested as they continue their Narnian adventures. After the disappointing Prince Caspian, can Michael Apted bring magic and wonder back to the world beyond the wardrobe?

12 Angry Lebanese, which recently debuted at the Mosaic Rooms in luxurious Kensington, portrays an unusual set of goings on at Roumieh maximum security jail in Lebanon. Director and therapist Zeina Dacacche spent more than a year working with a group of felons to present an adapted performance of the classic play ’12 Angry Men’; this film is the extraordinary result of her efforts.

When you consider that Primer and A Scanner Darkly DIDN’T make it onto our list of top 10 movies that mess with your mind, doesn’t your brain hurt a little when you consider what actually did?

23 years after his Oscar-winning film Wall Street inspired a generation of high-rollers and corporate raiders, Oliver Stone has reunited with Michael Douglas to bring us the next chapter in the life of legendary greenmailer Gordon Gekko – this time crossing swords with Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan. It’s perfectly adequate when judged on its own merits, but as a follow-up to its extraordinary predecessor it leaves much to be desired.