Benedict Cumberbatch gives a magnificent performance in the highly anticipated screen adaptation of Max Porter’s award-winning Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.

A mother dies, leaving two primary school-aged children and ‘Sad Dad’. Before long, ‘Crow’ emerges from the pages of the book Sad Dad is writing, to peck at the open wounds and shepherd them through their grief, in the only way it knows how. Dylan Southern employs great visual flair to soulfully explore the chaos, pain and redemption of our most-feared emotion.

Todd Haynes’ homage to Douglas Sirk’s style of social critique by way of melodrama, masterfully tells the story of a well-to-do suburban couple in 1950s America, straitjacketed by convention, yet desperate to lead lives they are seemingly denied. In the autumn of 1957 in the affluent small town of Hartford, Connecticut, Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is a beautiful but sober mother of two, married to Frank (Dennis Quaid), a ruggedly handsome, former naval officer, now go-ahead executive at a television company. It is a blissfully happy family scene into which drama and tragedy have yet to intrude. It’s shattered when Cathy surprises Frank at work and finds him in the arms of another man. Unable to tell anyone in her social circle, she finds solace in their African-American gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). However, when they are seen alone together by Cathy's best friend - a social taboo in that era - the gossip begins, threatening to reveal all of the Whitaker's secret life.

The final film in our Melodrama Season.

Ralph Fiennes leads an excellent ensemble of new and established talent in this funny and moving First World War drama by beloved writer Alan Bennett.

A Yorkshire village’s choral society finds its ranks depleted as men head off to war. With the annual performance looming, the society is forced to change its entry rules to enlist some unlikely teens and the musically gifted but socially scandalous Dr. Guthrie. Brimming with humour and hope, Bennett and Nicholas Hytner’s (The Madness of King George, The Lady in the Van) latest triumph celebrates the power of community in the darkest of days.

Friend of The Riverside, Edgar Wright, and star Glen Powell team up for a spirited take on Stephen King’s dystopian life-or-death gameshow thriller.

Edgar Wright’s film is a high-octane, fast-paced and thrilling adaptation of Stephen King’s dystopian take on future TV entertainment. The Running Man is a top-rated show, attracting an audience of millions, who watch the spectacle of contestants running for their lives as they’re hunted down. Blue-collar worker Ben Richards signs on, hoping to raise the money for his sick daughter’s treatment, but it soon becomes clear the game is rigged and he must do all he can to survive.

Joe Dante's hilariously overblown comedy horror cheerfully pits man against beast in a cosy suburban setting. Zach Galligan is the hapless teenager who receives the oh-so-loveable Mogwai, Gizmo, for Christmas, completely disregards the instructions not to get it wet or feed it after midnight, and watches, along with his girlfriend Phoebe Cates, the mayhem unfold when the goggle-eyed cutie starts birthing evil sprites as a result. Played almost totally for laughs (even Cates' monologue on how she found out there's no Santa Claus has a vein of pitch black humour in it), this serves as a delightfully offbeat reminder of how inventive and witty blockbusters seemed when you were a kid.

Dante’s critters-run-amok-in-snowbound-Spielberg-suburbia satire takes the Christmas milieu of It’s A Wonderful Life (Screening as part of this season on 18th December) and splatters it with cartoony carnage, anarchic comedy and a stripe of gleeful subversion a mile wide.

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 each Christmas Films Season

Stanley's War (2018, Dir. Tim Curtis) dramatises stories of love, loss and sacrifice, following the lives of Suffolk people during WW1.The film recounts the true life-changing experiences at the Western Front of Stanley Banyard, a farm hand from Ramsholt, and how he saved the lives of his comrades lost in no-man's-land by using skills he learnt as a boy from a Suffolk gamekeeper. In contrast, the Pretty family of Ipswich (later of Sutton Hoo fame) suffer family tragedy.

The War Just Outside Ipswich (2020, Dir. Tim Curtis) For nearly two decades, Akenham’s purpose-built trench system has drawn filmmakers seeking to recreate the chaos of the First World War, from Downton Abbey and Journey’s End to Private Peaceful and the iconic Sainsbury’s Christmas advert. This fascinating behind-the-scenes documentary explores Suffolk’s own cinematic battlefield, where mud, history, and movie magic collide. 

Tim Curtis joined forces with manager Neil to make the film during Covid, and it has been updated in 2025. 

Following the screening there will be an on stage discussion with war historian Taff Gillingham of Khaki Devil and our manager, Neil.

Last year’s global cinematic cultural sensation, which became the most successful Broadway film adaptation of all time, now reaches its epic, electrifying, emotional conclusion in Wicked: For Good. 

Directed once again by award-winning director Jon M. Chu and starring the spectacular returning cast, led by Academy Award® nominated superstars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the final chapter of the untold story of the witches of Oz begins with Elphaba and Glinda estranged and living with the consequences of their choices. 

Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), now demonized as The Wicked Witch of the West, lives in exile, hidden within the Ozian forest while continuing her fight for the freedom of Oz’s silenced Animals and desperately trying to expose the truth she knows about The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Glinda, meanwhile, has become the glamorous symbol of Goodness for all of Oz, living at the palace in Emerald City and reveling in the perks of fame and popularity.

As an angry mob rises against the Wicked Witch, Glinda and Elphaba will need to come together one final time. With their singular friendship now the fulcrum of their futures, they will need to truly see each other, with honesty and empathy, if they are to change themselves, and all of Oz, for good.

Fire Over Shingle Street—Fact, Fiction, or Propaganda?

A new documentary by Suffolk-based filmmaker Tim Curtis (Life on the Deben, Stanley's War) delves into one of Britain’s most persistent Second World War mysteries, asking: Has this enduring enigma been fully accounted for, or are there still unanswered questions?

For decades the Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ has divided the views of locals, journalists and historians alike with incredible and unexplained stories of the sea being set on fire, dead soldiers bodies on the beach and strange happenings in the night.

Was this remote stretch of Suffolk’s coast the site of a German invasion attempt? Did British forces set fire to the sea with petroleum weapons to repel the enemy? Or could it have been part of an elaborate wartime deception, designed to maintain national morale?

The film examines how the Suffolk coast was a hub of military secrecy—home to radar development and experimental weapons testing. Did these classified operations (with some still under wraps) combined with wartime propaganda help create the perfect conditions for rumours to fuel a wartime mystery?

The Shingle Street ‘Mystery’ gained renewed attention in the 1990s when the East Anglian Daily Times was contacted by an ‘MOD Whistleblower’ claiming to have a file—soon to be destroyed—detailing a horrific accident in which British soldiers had been killed in a training exercise.

The ensuing media frenzy led to the early release of classified documents from the National Archives at Kew. However, the files revealed little, sparking claims of a cover-up.

This gripping documentary takes viewers deep into Suffolk’s wartime history, and attempts to unravel a mystery that refuses to fade.

The Muppets perform the classic Christmas tale by Charles Dickens, the iconic Michael Caine playing Ebenezer Scrooge, with Kermit the Frog playing Bob Cratchit. Miss Piggy, Gonzo and Fozzie Bear take up supporting roles as Scrooge receives visits from the spirits of Christmas past, Christmas present and Christmas future. The Spirits do everything in their power to show him the error of his ways and to help him find redemption and lasting happiness.

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 each Christmas Films Season

There have been many contenders over the past twenty years, but ELF is clearly the first and best classic Christmas movie of the 21st century.  Buddy, a human orphan raised by Santa’s elves at the North Pole, learns that his father is still alive and on the naughty list. Determined to save his father from such a fate, Buddy travels to New York City to meet him for the first time and inspire some Christmas spirit, but the Big Apple is very different from the North Pole. Can Buddy save his father from the naughty list, but more importantly, figure out where Buddy truly belongs?

Screening as part of our 6 for £6 Christmas Season

Federico Fellini returned to the provincial landscape of his childhood with this carnivalesque reminiscence, recreating his hometown of Rimini in Cinecittà’s studios and rendering its daily life as a circus of social rituals, adolescent desires, male fantasies, and political subterfuge. Sketching a gallery of warmly observed comic caricatures, Fellini affectionately evokes a vanished world haloed with the glow of memory, even as he sends up authority figures representing church and state, satirizing a country stultified by Fascism. Winner of Fellini’s fourth Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Amarcord remains one of the director’s best-loved creations, beautifully weaving together Giuseppe Rottuno’s colourful Technicolor cinematography, Danilo Donati’s extravagant costumes and sets, and Nino Rota’s nostalgia-tinged score.

Screening as part of our Around the World in Technicolor Season

Basel Adra, a young Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, has been fighting his community's mass expulsion by the Israeli occupation since childhood. Basel documents the gradual erasure of Masafer Yatta, as soldiers destroy the homes of families - the largest single act of forced transfer ever carried out in the occupied West Bank. He crosses paths with Yuval, an Israeli journalist, and for over half a decade they fight against the expulsion while growing closer.

This film, by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of four young activists, was co-created during the darkest, most terrifying times in the region, as an act of creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

????? "Powerful Israel-Palestine documentary is essential viewing" - The Guardian

Berlinale Documentary Award and Panorama Audience Award for Best Documentary Film

Spanning three decades, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG charts the turbulent relationship between composer Franklin Shepard and his two lifelong friends — writer Mary and lyricist & playwright Charley. Originally produced on Broadway in 1981, then becoming an inventive cult-classic ahead of its time, the musical features some of Stephen Sondheim’s most celebrated and personal songs.

The 2023-2024 Broadway production, directed by Maria Friedman, redefined the show for a new era,

bringing Stephen Sondheim’s intricate score and George Furth’s book to vivid life with extraordinary

depth and clarity. MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG shattered the Hudson Theatre’s house record on Broadway, solidifying its place as a landmark event in Broadway history. The critically acclaimed production wonthe 2024 Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical and Best Orchestrations.

Additionally, in London, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG garnered the most five-star reviews in West-End

history.

MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG is produced by Sonia Friedman, David Babani, Patrick Catullo, F. Richard

Pappas, RadicalMedia’s Jon Kamen, and Dave Sirulnick. Executive Producers include Meredith Bennett, No Guarantees Productions, Scott Abrams, Jonathan Corr, Mary Maggio, Jeff Romley, Tony Yurgaitis, Andrew Cohen, Amanda Lipitz, Henry Tisch alongside Co-executive producer Stephanie P. McClelland. Karla Zambrano and Alec Sash serve as Supervising Producers

Please note that this is a private screening for members of Woodbridge Film Society and not open to the public. If you wish to join the Film Society then please visit their page here

Last Swim follows Ziba (Deba Hekmat) as she holds her breath on A-level results day. Desperate to study astrophysics at university, she’s equally determined to make the first day of her adult life a day to remember. But when her tight-knit group of friends are joined in a cross-London all-day party by newcomer Malcolm (Denzel Baidoo), she must reckon with a darker truth that none of her friends have been brought into.

Last Swim’s plot has plenty of high-stakes elements, but it never strays into melodrama, aided by an impressive young cast – many of them new faces – who bring improvisational and lived-in quality to the performances. At the centre of this group is the wonderful Deba Hekmat, in a performance that makes her one to watch. As in her terrific supporting role as tearaway best friend in Luna Carmoon’s Hoard, Hekmat conveys a world of grand and petty frustrations in a single look. Giving specificity to Ziba’s Iranian-British roots (as well as crafting a genuine friendship group to surround her), first-time director Sasha Nathwani captures a day that will live on in nostalgia; at once quotidian and human-sized, but tinged with emotions that scream with galactic significance for those on the edge of adulthood.

Five-time Olivier Award winner Imelda Staunton (The Crown) joins forces with her real-life daughter Bessie Carter (Bridgerton) for the very first time, playing mother and daughter in Bernard Shaw’s incendiary moral classic.

Vivie Warren is a woman ahead of her time. Her mother, however, is a product of that old patriarchal order. Exploiting it has earned Mrs. Warren a fortune – but at what cost?

Filmed live from the West End, this new production reunites Staunton with director Dominic Cooke (Follies, Good), exploring the clash between morality and independence, traditions and progress.

SPECIAL EVENT !

We are delighted that highly acclaimed British filmmaker Gerard Johnson, director of tonight's film, will be joining us this evening for our screening of ODYSSEY, along with his brother, Matt Johnson, who has scored this film and Gerard's previous films. Matt Johnson is perhaps better known to many as The The.

Fiery, sharp-tongued, and ambitious real estate agent Natasha Flynn lives every day on the verge of total success – or ruin. Her luxurious lifestyle is an unaffordable mask for the lonely void she’s tried to fill with the hustle for success. Then, when a shady lender forces her complicity in a criminal scheme to settle a debt, Natasha seeks out a dangerous old friend for help. As pressure from colleagues, collectors and criminals escalates, so begins a wild, neon-soaked ride through London’s dark underbelly.

This stylish, gritty, and darkly comedic thriller fearlessly confronting the contemporary housing crisis and corporate greed is led by a powerhouse performance from Polly Maberly (Muscle) who stars alongside Mikael Persbrandt (Sex Education, The Salvation, The Hobbit). The cast is rounded out by incredible British talent including Guy Burnet (Oppenheimer, Ray Donovan), Jasmine Blackborow (The Gentlemen, Marie Antoinette), Daniel De Bourg (MobLand, Fountain of Youth) and Peter Ferdinando (Ghost in the Shell, High-Rise).

A critical hit following its World Premiere at SXSW 2025, Odyssey is the latest feature from acclaimed director, Gerard Johnson, known for previous adrenaline-fuelled thrillers Tony, Hyena and Muscle.

“Heart-pounding” ★★★★ DREAD CENTRAL

“Riveting” ★★★★ THE HOLLYWOOD NEWS

“Wildly entertaining” ★★★★ THE MOVIE WAFFLER

“A new breed of antihero” DEADLINE

“Refreshingly dark” COLLIDER

“A masterclass” SCREEN ANARCHY

6:00pm Intro from Gerard and Matt Johnson

6:10pm Film

8pm - short break

8:10pm Q&A with Matt and Gerard

9:00pm End