10 Hot Films To Watch This Winter

At the film’s premiere in Toronto last month, Jennifer Aniston received a standing ovation for her performance as Claire, a woman living with chronic pain – both physical and emotional – after a devastating car crash. This is as far from glamorous, gorgeous rom-com Jen as we’ve ever seen her; her hair is dirty and unkempt, her scarred face is entirely make-up free, and her wardrobe staples are sweatpants, as Claire struggles through the day on a diet of white wine, Percocet and Oxycontin. For the physical transformation, Jennifer wore a back brace for the entirety of the five-week shoot, and relinquished her regular workout regime entirely. “I pretty much let myself fall apart, physically, for the duration, and that was really important for me physically and emotionally,” she said. On release: TBC

While I realise it’s an unpopular position, I’ve never been entirely convinced about Channing Tatum’s ability to actually act. Then I saw Foxcatcher. Okay, so he isn’t exactly playing against type, as a buff, beefy Olympic wrestling champion, but he shows more range than previous performances have permitted. The film belongs to Steve Carrell, however, who is unutterably creepy as John du Pont, a reclusive billionaire who backs the US wrestling team, with horrible consequences. Bennett Miller, who also directed Capote and Moneyball and spent eight years bringing the film to eerie fruition, directs the true crime thriller. On release: January 9 2015

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you should know by now that the film we’ve been waiting all year for is finally out. We were super-fans of Gillian Flynn’s dark, twisted novel, and the film adaptation – starring Rosamund Pike as Amy, who had disappeared on her fifth wedding anniversary, and Ben Affleck as her husband, Nick, suspected of her murder – doesn’t disappoint. Even for those who have read the book, director David Fincher keeps the tension high, with flashback sequences told from Amy's perspective that reveal the grim disintegration of their once-happy marriage. Chilling and hugely entertaining, this is not, however, first-date fodder. On release: now

Following the story of a group of teenagers, and their parents, as they attempt to navigate the many ways the internet has changed their relationships, their communication, their self-image, and their love lives – through porn, peer pressure and social networking - Men, Women & Children couldn’t be more of-the-moment. Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Emma Thompson and Dean Norris, it’s somewhat depressing in its portrayal of how, in a world of non-stop communication, nobody seems to be communicating very well at all, with a generation of fame-obsessed junkies coming of age. If you’re tempted to check your phone during the film, you might want to think again…On release: 5th December

Jake Gyllenhaal has revealed that his mother got a little concerned about his dramatic weight loss for his latest project. The actor – who is almost unrecognisable in the film - shed two stone to play a freelance crime reporter who uncovers a dark underground world in Los Angeles in Nightcrawler. The story touches on hot topics such as privacy in the internet age and the growth of the tabloid culture in all media organisations. “I'm playing a character who's hungry - figuratively and literally – and who's driven in ways to do things and succeed at any cost,” says Jake. On release: October 31

More Oxbridge-set drama, based on Laura Wade’s hugely successful play, Posh, The Riot Club is a fictionalised version of The Bullingdon Club, the elite Oxford society which counts David Cameron and half the Cabinet as former members. The rich, arrogant, entitled young men in Lone Scherfig’s film version behave recklessly and appallingly, and their annual initiation dinner spirals horribly out of control. However, with a cast whose cheekbones you could grate cheese off - including Burberry models Max Irons and Douglas Booth, plus Sam Claflin – their revolting antics are somehow made eminently watchable. On release: now

Starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything is the true (albeit dramatised a little by Working Title) story of physics genius Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane. Charting their courtship – in the picturesque surroundings of Cambridge colleges - and the development of Hawking’s motor neurone disease, it’s a beautiful, and very British, look at the man – and the marriage - behind the mathematics. And if Eddie Redmayne doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for this physically transformational performance, I’ll eat my physics folder. On release: January 1 2015

One of the biggest hits of the Toronto Film festival, Noah Baumbach’s latest film stars Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried, as two couples in different stages of their lives and relationships, who become BFFS anyway. There’s a slight Woody Allen-ish feel to the comedy, which is perfectly observed, with all its pop-culture reference and intergenerational bumps. Driver – who had no less than three films premiering in Toronto, proving that the biggest, and busiest, break-out star of Girls may actually be a Boy – is on excellent, energetic form, even when he’s being a bit of a git. On release: TBC

Reese Witherspoon – wise woman of Hollywood that she clearly is – bought the film rights to Cheryl Strayed’s moving memoir, Wild, before the book was even published. She now acts as both star and producer of the big screen version of Strayed’s thousand-plus mile trek along the Pacific Coast Trail, after the death of her mother sent her into a spiral of drug use and risky behaviour. With a screenplay by Nick Hornby – who revealed he had “no interest in reading a book about hiking”…until he read it, Wild is directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (who directed The Dallas Buyer’s Club), and is pretty much a shoe-in, or at least a walking-boot in, for an Oscar nomination for Reese. On release: January 16 2015

Maths and Cambridge University are definitely having a moment this winter. X+Y is the touching and funny tale of Nathan, a introverted young man with prodigious talent in numbers (and rather fewer social skills), who competes to take part in the International Mathematical Olympiad in Cambridge. Starring Asa Butterfield, with Sally Hawkins as his mother - who has raised him alone after his father’s death in a car accident – and Rafe Spall as Nathan’s sarcastic, scene-stealing tutor, battling his own difficulties with multiple sclerosis, we defy you not to weep at least once. And no mathematical understanding is necessary – the themes of love, loneliness and human connection require no formula. On release: March 13, 2015