2014 has been a great year for film, from varied action blockbusters to comic-book titans to quirky comedies, in particular it’s truly been the “year of the thriller” with diverse contributions to the genre from ’71 and Fury to Gone Girl and Nightcrawler. FilmPhonic chronicles the people, events and films that have shaped the movie […]

134min Genre:    Drama, Fact-based, Sport Director: Bennett Miller Cast:      Channing Tatum, Steve Carell & Mark Ruffalo …and more Writers:  E. Max Frye & Dan Futterman Based on a true story, Foxcatcher examines the relationship between US Olympic wrestling champions the Schultz brothers and their bizarre coach/sponsor the millionaire du Pont family heir John du Pont, […]

123min Genre:    Drama, Romance, Fact-based Director: James Marsh Cast:      Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Harry Lloyd …and more Writers:  Anthony McCarten & Jane Hawking Eddie Redmayne stars as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife Jane in an English period-piece drama about the complex relationship between one of the greatest minds in modern human history […]

Following a great and varied year of film in 2014, we break down 12 of the must-see films released in the UK and worldwide in the first half of 2015.   January   Foxcatcher Image Source: Annapurna Pictures Genre: Drama, Fact-Based UK Release: 9th of January 2015 Having been the hit of film festivals and […]

115min Genre:    Action, Drama, Thriller Director: Kevin Macdonald Cast:      Jude Law, Scoot McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn …and more Writers:  Dennis Kelly Jude Law stars as a down-on-his-luck Scottish submarine captain forced to take a job searching the bottom of the Black Sea to find a Nazi U-Boat filled with gold, tensions rise between his multinational crew […]

139min Genre:    Biography, Drama, Music Director: Tate Taylor Cast:      Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis, Viola Davis …and more Writers:  Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth & Steven Baigelman The life of The Late Great music legend James Brown gets the big-screen treatment à la Ray and Walk The Line, Chadwick Boseman stars in a story spanning Brown’s tough […]

96min Genre:    Drama, Fact-Based, Crime Director: Steve McQueen Cast:      Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham …more Writers:  Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh Set in the early 1980’s and Based on real events during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, Hunger follows the story of Provisional IRA member and self-declared Political Prisoner Bobby Sands, who following years of […]

97min Genre:    Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery Director: Duncan Jones Cast:      Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott …and more Writers:  Duncan Jones, Nathan Parker Humanity has solved its energy and environmental problems by mining Helium-3 on the Moon which makes nuclear fusion possible on Earth. Astronaut/caretaker Sam Bell is the only man on a semi-automated lunar mining […]

114min Genre:    Drama, War, Fact-Based Director: Morten Tyldum Cast:      Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Charles Dance …more Writers:  Andrew Hodges, Graham Moore Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the legendary British mathematician and wartime code-breaker who helped to end World War II and save millions of lives and in the process become the father of modern […]

169min Genre:    Sci-fi, Adventure, Drama Director: Christopher Nolan Cast:      Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway … Writers:  Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan Planet earth has become a dust-bowl with humanity struggling to grow enough food to survive and where farmers are valued above others, Cooper a former space-pilot engineer joins a group of scientists on humanity’s […]

120min Genre:    Mystery, Fantasy, Drama, Romance Director: Alexandre Aja Cast:      Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella …and more Writers:  Joe Hill, Keith Bunin Daniel Radcliffe stars as a young man who becomes the town pariah when he is suspected of the murder of his girlfriend, he then begins to grow horns with dark supernatural confessional […]

117min Genre:    Thriller, Drama, Crime Director: Dan Gilroy Cast:      Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed …and more Writers:  Dan Gilroy A desperate and obsessive man stumbles upon the world of on-the-scene crime reporting on the streets of L.A. and becomes obsessed with making it in the world of local news, fuelled by sensationalist local news […]

134min Genre:     Action, War, Drama Director:  David Ayer Cast:       Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman …and more Writers:   David Ayer Brad Pitt stars as a battle-hardened US Army Sergeant leading his Tank crew in the dying days of World War II through the desperate but dangerous final resistance of Nazi Germany. Written and Directed by […]

99min Genre:    Drama, Thriller, War Director: Yann Demange Cast:      Jack O’Connell, Sean Harris, Paul Anderson …and more Writers:  Gregory Burke A young private in the British army is deployed to 1970s Northern Ireland at the height of “The Troubles” to help control the volatile streets of West Belfast, only to find himself cut-off from his […]

149min Genre:    Drama, Thriller, Crime, Mystery Director: David Fincher Cast:      Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon …and more Writer:   Gillian Flynn A big city writer and his wife are forced to move back to his small-town roots to the detriment of their marriage only to find that his wife goes missing and is […]

114 min Genre:     Drama, Thriller, Crime Director:  Scott Frank Cast:       Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, David Harbour…and more Writers:   Scott Frank , Lawrence Block Set in the late 90’s, Liam Neeson stars as a tough New York ex-cop turned private investigator hired by a drug-lord to track down the men who kidnapped and brutally murdered his […]

122 min Genre:    Drama, Thriller Director: Anton Corbijn Cast:      Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright…more Writers:  Andrew Bovell , John le Carré The Late, Great Philip Seymour Hoffman stars as a German spy in modern day Hamburg on the trail of a young illegal Chechen immigrant whom he believes is involved in the global […]

124 min Genre:     Family, Fact-Based, Comedy, Drama, Sport Director:  Craig Gillespie Cast:       Jon Hamm, Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal…and more Writers:   Thomas McCarthy Based on a true story, Jon Hamm stars as a down-on-his-luck American sports agent who gambles on a strategy of scouting Indian cricketers through an X-factor-like talent contest to become Major League Baseball […]

103 min Genre:    Drama, Thriller Director: David Michôd Cast:      Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy…and more Writers:  Joel Edgerton & David Michôd Set in the harsh Australian Outback 10 years after an unspecified future economic apocalypse, Guy Pearce stars a gritty loner on a mission to recover his car stolen by criminals on the run, on the […]

130min Genre:    Sci-Fi, Action, Drama Director: Matt Reeves Cast:      Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Andy Serkis…and more Writers:  Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver & Pierre Boulle We find our planet many years after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes where humanity has been decimated by the Simian-Flu leaving pockets of survivors […]

166min Genre:    Drama Director: Richard Linklater Cast:      Ellar Coltrane, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette…and more Writers:  Richard Linklater Writer/Director Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise, School of Rock) brings us an ultra-realistic coming of age drama following a 6 year-old boy over a 12 year period and showing the trials and tribulations of a seemingly typical 21st century American […]

114min Genre:    Comedy, Drama Director: Jon Favreau Cast:      Jon Favreau, John Leguizamo, Scarlett Johansson…and more Writer:   Jon Favreau A top L.A. chef in a creative slump loses his job and reputation through bad social-media etiquette only to take a food truck across America and in the process find himself and fix his relationship […]

112min Genre:    Family-Fun, Adventure, Drama Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet Cast:      Kyle Catlett, Helena Bonham Carter, Judy Davis…and more Writer:   Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Guillaume Laurant , Reif Larsen A precocious 10 year old boy-scientist escapes his dysfunctional family in rural Montana and takes an adventure across the USA to accept an award at the Smithsonian Institute for […]

85min Genre:    Drama Director: Steven Knight Cast:      Tom Hardy, Olivia Colman…and more Writer:   Steven Knight  The ever intense Tom Hardy plays a concrete construction manager driving through the motorways of the UK to do the right thing in his eyes while risking his family, career and everything he has worked hard to achieve in […]

109min Genre:    Crime, Drama, Thriller Director: David Ayer Cast:      Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick…and more Writers:  David Ayer End of Watch follows officers Taylor & Zavala of the LAPD as they navigate and protect the streets of South Central Los Angeles from increasingly bold and violent gangs and organised crime. Writer-Director David Ayer (Training […]

115min Genre:    Comedy, Drama Director: Alexander Payne Cast:      Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Will Forte…and more Writers:  Bob Nelson Directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt), Nebraska stars Bruce Dern in an Oscar nominated performance as Woody Grant, an alcoholic elderly man driving his small town family to despair with his obsession with getting to Nebraska […]

88min Genre:    War, Drama Director: Stanley Kubrick Cast:      Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, George Macready… and more Writers:  Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, Jim Thompson … and more Kirk Douglas stars as Colonel Dax of the French army in the trenches of World War I, forced to defend his men’s lives from overzealous military generals when they […]

91min Genre:    Thriller, Drama, Sci-fi Director: Alfonso Cuarón Cast:      Sandra Bullock, George Clooney …and more Writers:  Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón This is an extraordinary technical achievement in filmmaking and as groundbreaking as Avatar but with an ultimately more original storyline, Gravity is a nerve-wracking more sci-fact than sci-fi thriller. Director Alfonso Cuarón brings to the […]

118min Genre:    War, Drama, Comedy, Fact Based Director: George Clooney Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett…more Writers: George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Robert M. Edsel, Bret Witter  The 12A Rating for this film suggests that you should not expect a particularly gritty or profound film despite being set in World War II and […]

155min Genre:     Drama, Thriller, Crime Director:  Jacques Audiard Cast:       Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif …and more Writers:   Thomas Bidegain, Jacques Audiard, Abdel Raouf Dafri… more A Prophet is a gritty and uncompromising drama set in modern day France and tells the story of Malik a young French-Algerian man navigating his way through a tough […]

117min Genre:    Drama, Fact Based Director: Jean-Marc Vallée Cast:      Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Jared Leto …more Writers:  Craig Borten, Melisa Wallack Based on a true story and set in the height of the AIDS epidemic in 1980s Texas, this is the story of Ron Woodroof a rough living Texas good ole boy whose life is […]