The latest film from John Crowley is a poignant British romantic drama, strikingly led by Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

Rather than a meet-cute, restaurateur Almut and recent divorcee Tobias’s first encounter is quite literally a car crash. After such a memorable meeting, an instant spark forms between the pair, overpowering any disagreements they may have about matrimony and children in their future. However, this romance is far from a fairytale when the cruel realities of mortality creep into Tobias and Almut’s lives, leaving them to reassess what they want from their careers and the life they are building together. Spanning the highs and lows of a decades-long relationship, Crowley’s (Brooklyn) drama is a fresh, funny and deeply moving romance that, thanks to Pugh and Garfield’s incredible chemistry, feels authentic and alive.

Inspired by Chris Marker’s La Jetée and with overtones of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, Asif Kapadia delivers an unsettling commentary on the state of the world today… and tomorrow.

Director’s Statement: 2073 is about a feeling of dread at what is happening and being normalised around the world. The film started after seeing Brexit happen through lies and corruption in the UK, I felt I had to make a film to understand why the world seemed to be moving towards lies, authoritarianism, violence. I interviewed journalists around the world, was I going crazy, or was something happening? The journalists agreed, there was a global trend, a democratic recession, technology played a huge part and this was also helping the destruction of the planet's ecosystem. 2073 has come out of those interviews and research. My aim was to connect the dots between many complex issues and countries in a single cinematic film.

Asif Kapadia is an Academy Award, BAFTA, Grierson and Grammy Award winning film director, writer and producer and one of the most influential filmmakers of our generation. Perhaps best known for his acclaimed trilogy of films AMY, SENNA and DIEGO MARADONA, he also directed eps of the MINDHUNTER series for Netflix, series directed and exec produced the critical hit music series 1971: The Year Music Changed Everything (AppleTV+) and he also co directed and exec produced the mental health series THE ME YOU CAN’T SEE (AppleTV+). We are delighted to welcome him back to The RIverside stage to present his new work.

Olivier award-winning director Damiano Michieletto (Carmen, Cavalleria rusticana/Pagliacci) returns to The Royal Opera for a new production of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann. Conductor Antonello Manacorda, with whom Michieletto previously collaborated on Carmen, leads Juan Diego Flórez and Leonardo Caimi, who share the role of the poet E.T.A. Hoffmann, Alex Esposito as the Four Villains, Julie Boulianne as Nicklausse and Ermonela Jaho, Olga Pudova and Marina Costa-Jackson as Hoffmann’s unforgettable trio of lovers.

Helsinki, 1945. The end of the war brings a new sense of artistic and social freedom for painter Tove Jansson. Modern art, dizzying parties and an open relationship with a married politician: Her unconventional life puts her at odds with her sculptor father's strict ideals.

Tove's desire for liberty is put to the test when she meets theatre director Vivica Bandler. Her love for Vivica is electric and all-consuming but Tove begins to realise that the love she truly yearns has to be reciprocated. As she struggles with her personal life, her creative endeavours take her in an unexpected direction. While focusing her artistic dreams on her painting, the work that started as a side project, the melancholic, haunting tales she told scared children in bomb shelters, rapidly takes on a life of its own.

The exploits of the Moomins, infused with inspiration from her own life, bring Tove international fame and financial freedom. There's a daily comic strip, a stage play and stories that continue to delight people around the world. But as she begins to find her artistic identity she has to learn to find herself. Her unrequited love for Vivica is preventing her true liberty and only by learning to break away from her can she truly be free.

TOVE is a captivating drama about the creative energy of an iconic talent and her turbulent search for identity, desire and freedom.

In poor health, Maria Callas wanders around a picturesque Paris as she recounts to an adoring journalist the highs of her career and litany of past loves. Angelina Jolie gives a transforming performance, capturing the myriad layers and masks of this legendary singer’s personality, from pithy to heartbreakingly vulnerable, while showing flashes of the personality that saw her idolised as an opera star. Featuring a stellar cast that includes Valeria Golino, Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher, Maria is a stunning addition to Larraín’s portrait of iconic women subjected to an alarming degree of scrutiny, while the world looked on.

The third instalment brings Paddington's story to Peru as he returns to visit his beloved Aunt Lucy, who now resides at the Home for Retired Bears. With the Brown Family in tow, a thrilling adventure ensues when a mystery plunges them into an unexpected journey through the Amazon rainforest and up to the mountain peaks of Peru.

The incredible ensemble cast includes Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Antonio Banderas, Olivia Colman, Julie Walters, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Carla Tous and Jim Broadbent. Ben Whishaw and Imelda Staunton both return as the voices of Paddington and Aunt Lucy.

“How do you film the life of an artist as protean, elusive, egomaniacal, imaginative, surprising, and heavily mythologized as Bob Dylan? Haynes’s playful, gutsy biopic, in which six actors take turns embodying one of America’s most legendary musicians, considers that question and swallows it whole. It was in Haynes’s movie that Heath Ledger gave one of his best performances, but the star of the show is Cate Blanchett, who turns Dylan’s rock-star persona into a heroic, electrifying showcase for her own remarkable gifts.”

Screening in preparation for the forthcoming new Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, which screens at The Riverside in early February.

Luca Guadagnino and Challengers writer Justin Kuritzkes transport us to Mexico City in the 1940s with their adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel. Daniel Craig dazzles as William Lee, an outcast American expat who becomes infatuated with an elusive younger man while living in Mexico City. He also revels in the city’s nightlife and its colourful, larger-than-life characters. Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville and impressive newcomer Drew Starkey populate Guadagnino’s richly evocative and sensual film, which features a typically immersive score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Jesse Eisenberg cements his reputation as a gifted filmmaker with this witty and heartfelt portrait of two estranged cousins honouring their roots.

Benji and David travel to Poland to pay respects to their Jewish grandmother. No sooner are they on the road, they realise why they don’t spend much time together anymore. Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin dazzle in their roles as the familial odd-couple, trading witty barbs and sobering ruminations on mid-adulthood growing pains, in this deftly scripted film full of humour and hope.

When Romy (Nicole Kidman), starts cheating on her urbane theatre director husband (Antonio Banderas), it’s not because their sex life has diminished. But when he goes to sleep, Romy sneaks out of the room to finish, alone, what she clearly couldn’t achieve with him. When Romy meets Samuel (Harris Dickinson), an impertinent intern at her company who can intuit more about her than she intends to share — and who’s happy to take control — it’s only a matter of time before they find themselves in a seedy hotel together. They wrestle, literally and figuratively, over a twisty power dynamic. Romy’s age and position give her an advantage, but as Samuel reminds her, he could ruin her life with one phone call.

A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

Written and directed by Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse) with an all-star cast that includes Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Ralph Ineson, Simon McBurney, and Willem Dafoe.

Timothée Chalamet stars and sings as Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s new film.

New York, early 1960s. Against the backdrop of a vibrant music scene and tumultuous cultural upheaval, an enigmatic 19-year-old from Minnesota arrives in the West Village with his guitar and revolutionary talent, destined to change the course of American music.  As he forms his most intimate relationships during his rise to fame, he grows restless with the folk movement and, refusing to be defined, makes a controversial choice that culturally reverberates worldwide.

Nominated for Three 2025 Golden Globes: Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture—Drama (Timothée Chalamet), Best Actor for a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture (Edward Norton), and Best Motion Picture—Drama

"Like its subject has done so many times in his six-decade career, this one exceeds expectations... Mangold’s approach demands a great deal of Chalamet, and he nails it... It gives the film an electricity that biopics almost always lack, feeling urgent instead of merely like a jukebox that’s been played a hundred times." RogerEbert.com

"While we’ve seen that kind of portrait of an artist before—surely most of the greats have at least a dash of cruel vanity in them—Chalamet makes it fresh. To watch him is to feel what so many other characters in the film do: an affection and a curious sense of loss as he drifts away into the lonely mists of talent and fame."    Vanity Fair                                                            

 Advisory note: A Complete Unknown contains several sequences with flashing lights that may affect those who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy or have other photosensitivities.

A screening of the stage concert of the musical phenomenon, filmed at the Gielgud Theatre.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the world’s most popular musical, a unique opportunity to experience the spectacular staged concert version on the big screen featuring an all-star cast including Michael Ball, Alfie Boe, Carrie Hope Fletcher, Matt Lucas and John Owen Jones.

With a cast and orchestra of over 65 and including the songs I Dreamed A Dream, Bring Him Home, One Day More and On My Own, this sensational staged concert is not to be missed!

Please note this screening is part of Woodbridge Film Society's 2024/2025 Season and therefore not open to the public. You can read more about the Film Society and how to join here

Suitable for all ages, this wordless nature documentary showcases the spectacular forest ecosystem supported by a majestic, 210-year-old French oak tree. Dispensing with voiceover, the film instead fuses innovative camerawork with environmental sounds and a vibrant score to immerse the viewer in diverse life stories from root to branch. Its cast of characters includes ants, acorn weevils, field mice, squirrels, Eurasian jays and tawny owls. The result is a mesmerising kaleidoscope of arboreal adventure, as entertaining as it is educational.

David Tennant (Doctor Who, Broadchurch) and Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife, Criminal Record) lead a stellar cast in an ‘enthralling’ (★★★★★ Daily Telegraph) new production of Shakespeare’s MACBETH, filmed live at the Donmar Warehouse in London, especially for the big screen. Unsettling intimacy and brutal action combine at breakneck speed as Max Webster (Life of Pi, Henry V) directs this tragic tale of love, murder, and nature’s power of renewal. With staging ‘full of wolfish imagination and alarming surprise’ (★★★★★ The Guardian), the immersive 5.1 cinema surround sound places the audience inside the minds of the Macbeths, asking are we ever really responsible for our actions?

TICKETS ON SALE 16TH OCTOBER

Friend of The Riverside, Mike Leigh, returns with this uncompromising, yet heartfelt, portrait of contemporary family life in London.

Sisters Pansy and Chantal are chalk and cheese, but their close bond is the foundation that their extended family is built upon. Lately, life has proven too much for Pansy, her anguish manifests in relentless criticism of the world, leaving her husband Curtley, son Moses and Chantal walking on eggshells. Things come to a head over the course of a Mother’s Day weekend. Rarely have the nuances of familial relations been so accurately captured on screen. Working with regular collaborators Dick Pope (cinematography), Jacqueline Duran (costume design), Gary Yershon (music) and Suzie Davis (production design), Hard Truths ranks with Leigh’s finest films. Michelle Austin, David Webber and Tuwaine Barrett excel as members of the Pansy family. But in reuniting with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies), audiences are treated to a performance so intimate in its details, it could almost be moments from a home movie.

Reuniting the director, writer and stars of FORREST GUMP– HERE is an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the most relatable of human experiences. Zemeckis directs from a screenplay by Eric Roth and him. Told much in the style of the acclaimed graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright star in a tale of love, loss, laughter and life, all of which happen right HERE. The film also stars Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly and Michelle Dockery, and is produced by Zemeckis, Jack Rapke, Derek Hogue and Bill Block.

Join us for an afternoon of fast moving, hard hitting, toe tapping contemporary jazz from a spectacular 18 piece big band that features soloists and ensemble players from around East Anglia.

Horn Factory perform an impressive and extensive range of contemporary big band jazz by composers such as Buddy Rich, Bob Mintzer, Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, Maynard Ferguson, James Morrison, Bobby Shew, Sammy Nestico and Gordon Goodwin, plus arrangements of music normally associated with smaller groups, including Thelonious Monk, Joe Henderson, Chuck Mangione, Chick Corea and Horace Silver.

“There is nothing quite like the sound of a Big Band up close . Not to be missed!”