So Ken Russell has passed away peacefully in his sleep, aged 84. Everyone’s talking about it, but here you are desperately trying to think of a subtler way of saying “Who is the nine hells is Ken Russell?” Don’t worry, as always, we’ve got your back: here’s everything you wanted to know (and a few things you didn’t) about legendary film maverick Ken Russell.

Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon and the sainted David Hare, all working together? Marvellous. Page Eight rises above its dreadful trailer to provide a vivid and sensitively nuanced peek into the reality of modern intelligence-gathering.

EXCLUSIVE – Aung San Suu Kyi’s personal life is to be the subject of a forthcoming biopic starring Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon star Michelle Yeoh.

Helming the spectacular disaster The Invention of Lying and mixed bag Cemetery Junction certainly hasn’t put Ricky Gervais off the big screen. The man most famous for creating The Office and Extras has hinted at his next cinematic project – a film version of his most recent TV offering, Life’s Too Short.

Marvel will film in the UK for the first time, with scenes from Captain America: The First Avenger planned in Manchester’s Northern Quarter.

The Firm is a re-make of a classic TV film of the same name, originally directed by Alan Clarke for the BBC. Not only was it critically acclaimed, but it also Gary Oldman his springboard into stardom. Well done all round, we’re sure you’d agree. So could this re-make push the accolade of the original? Considering the director is Nick Love, a man well versed in football hooliganism having directed both The Football Factory and The Business, we went into this rather optimistically. The result? A well paced, humourous and action-filled hooligan romp which is well worth a watch, without really adding anything new to the original

2009 certainly brought us a few cinematic corkers, from sci-fi epic Avatar to comic-book crunching goodness from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Watchmen. But it wasn’t all wham, bam and explosions – will 2010 be a year of smarter movies? Judging this list… maybe.