Till

(12A, 130 mins)

In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi during a visit to his cousins. He was accused of making inappropriate advances to a white female store owner.

Two men stood trial for killing Emmett and were found not guilty by an all-white jury.

The following year, the men admitted to the crime in a magazine interview, protected against prosecution for the same offence by the double jeopardy clause in the US Constitution.

Director Chinonye Chukwu's harrowing drama relives this shocking chapter in modern US history and the subsequent quest for justice spearheaded by Emmett's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley.

Danielle Deadwyler electrifies every frame of Till as the grief-stricken yet defiant matriarch, urging her boy to be on his best behaviour in Mississippi ("Be smart down there") and passionately advocating solidarity at a Harlem rally to effect change ("The lynching of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.")

A script co-written by Michael Reilly, Keith Beauchamp and Chukwu is respectful to a fault and exercises restraint at the most critical juncture (Emmett's horrific final moments are heard but not seen.)

Mamie Till-Mobley (Deadwyler) lives in a middle class, all-black neighbourhood of 1955 Chicago with her 14-year-old son Emmett (Jalyn Hall), who is about to visit his cousins down in Mississippi.

She is reluctant to let her boy stray outside the city limits.

"I don't want him seeing himself the way those people are seen down there," Mamie tells her mother Alma (Whoopi Goldberg), but she nervously relents and Emmett travels to the town of Money - population 398 - with his cousins Maurice (Diallo Thompson), Wheeler (Gem Collins) and Simmy (Tyrik Johnson).

At the Bryant's Country Store, Emmett violates an unspoken code of conduct by paying 21-year-old white proprietor Carolyn Bryant (Haley Bennett) a compliment: "You look like a movie star."

In the dead of night, Carolyn's hot-headed husband Roy (Sean Michael Weber), and accomplices, drag Emmett from his cousins' home.

A grief-stricken Mamie insists on an open coffin and the US is confronted with shocking images of Emmett's bludgeoned face, which intensifies efforts by the NAACP to introduce legislation.

Till is a deeply affecting history lesson that does not stray outside clearly marked dramatic lines that relate to the court case and its aftermath.

Deadwyler is sensational and richly merits a seat at the Academy Awards nominations table, with sterling support from Hall, who exudes fresh-faced innocence from his opening scene. Period detail is impeccable.

As a bruising parting shot, closing title cards remind us that lynching only became a federal hate crime in March 29, 2022 when President Joe Biden signed The Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law.

Chukwu's picture could not be more timely.

Empire of Light

(15, 115 mins)

Writer-director Sam Mendes' unabashed love letter to the moving image unfolds in a fading picture house on the English coast in the early 1980s when an adult ticket cost £1.50 and a box of Maltesers from the concessions stand would set you back two shiny 10p pieces.

On the big screen, the Elwood brothers played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd loudly preached Everybody Needs Somebody To Love and on the streets of Thatcherite Britain, the National Front clashed violently with police.

Racial tensions provide the hastily sketched backdrop to Mendes' intimate character study informed by memories of his mother's struggles with mental illness, necessitating an abrupt change of tone for the second half that hinges on a dazzling central performance from Oscar-winner Olivia Colman.

She is perpetually luminous when Mendes' script feels dim and unfocused, navigating mood swings of a diagnosed schizophrenic who stops taking her prescribed lithium and spirals in front of the one person who genuinely cares about her.

A workplace romance with co-star Micheal Ward is artfully shot but his character is underwritten and Mendes barely scratches the surface of bigotry and intolerance of the era.

Empire Of Light opens in late December 1980.

The Blues Brothers and All That Jazz are playing on the two remaining screens of a cinema managed by Donald Ellis (Colin Firth).

An art deco chandelier and faded murals hint at the building's glorious past and an inscription on one wall - "Find where light in darkness lies" - feels like a futile exercise for duty manager Hilary Small (Colman).

She is embroiled in a grubby affair with her boss behind the back of his wife Brenda (Sara Stewart).

"We've been sleeping in different rooms since last summer," Donald assures Hilary. "She won't even make me a cup of tea."

A new member of staff called Stephen (Ward) jolts Hilary out of her rut.

He introduces her to two-tone music and shares details about his life such as a burning desire to study architecture.

"No one's going to give you the life you want, you have to go out and get it," Hilary encourages him.

Donald excitedly reveals the cinema will host the regional gala premiere of Chariots Of Fire and Hilary and Stephen join other purple-uniformed staff in sprucing up the place while projectionist Norman (Toby Jones) eagerly awaits the arrival of film canisters.

Empire Of Light is a valentine to the communal experience of cinemagoing.

Colman is terrific and Jones casts a warm, avuncular glow in the projection booth, preaching about the flaw in the optic nerve that creates the illusion of motion when a film runs at 24 frames per second.

"An illusion of life," he gushes.

That feels like a fitting summary of Mendes' beautifully crafted but tonally uneven picture.

A Man Called Otto

(15, 126 mins)

Tom Hanks headlines the English-language remake of writer-director Hannes Holm's 2015 comedy drama A Man Called Ove adapted from the novel by Fredrik Backman, which was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best International Feature Film.

Screenwriter David Magee transplants the titular curmudgeon (Hanks) from Sweden to the US Midwest.

Otto Anderson's wife Sonya (Rachel Keller) recently died and he has grown resentful of neighbours and old friend Rueben (Peter Lawson Jones) and his wife Anita (Juanita Jennings).

Seemingly alone in the world, Otto decides to take his own life so he can be reunited with his beloved.

During a suicide attempt, he is interrupted by new neighbours Marisol (Mariana Trevino) and Tommy (Manuel Garcia-Ruflo).

An unlikely friendship forms between Otto and Marisol and she helps the widower to confront his demons and acknowledge the precious gift of his everyday existence.

The Enforcer

(18, 90 mins)

Released: January 6 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

Commercial and short film director Richard Hughes makes his feature debut with an action thriller about a veteran hit man on the road to redemption.

Ageing mob heavy Cuda (Antonio Banderas) serves time behind bars to protect his powerful employer Estelle (Kate Bosworth) and he re-enters society with a strong desire to rebuild bridges with his estranged teenage daughter.

Haunted by his deficiencies as a father, Cuda takes pity on 15-year-old runaway Billie (Zolee Griggs), who is shoplifting to survive on the streets of Miami.

Billie is subsequently abducted - fresh meat for a child sex trafficking ring with strong ties to Estelle's criminal empire.

Cuda resolves to rescue the girl and forcibly bites the hand that feeds him, moulding a streetfighter called the Stray (Mojean Aria) into his protege capable of killing anyone that stands in their way.

The Herald:

Piggy

(18, 100 mins)

School bullies get their comeuppance in a blood-soaked Spanish horror written and directed by Carlota Pereda, which is expanded from her award-winning 2019 short film of the same title.

Sara (Laura Galan) is painfully self-conscious about her weight and a clique of girls in town mercilessly target her insecurities.

After one horrific incident of humiliation, Sara is sole witness to an enigmatic stranger (Richard Holmes) kidnapping one of her tormentors.

Grateful that someone in the world is on her side, Sara faces a moral dilemma about reporting the crime or remaining silent.

As the stranger targets more venomous youngsters in the community, Sara becomes an accomplice to crimes that shock local police and her overly protective mother Asun (Carmen Machi).

Alcarras

(15, 120 mins)

A family of peach farmers face a serious threat to their livelihood in a Catalan-language drama directed by Carla Simo, which collected the coveted Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival.

For generations, the Sole family have harvested fruit on their land based on a verbal agreement with original owners, the Pinyols.

Quimet Sole (Jordi Pujol Dolcet) and his wife Dolors (Anna Otin) are the current caretakers of tradition, supported by their three children, Roger (Albert Bosch), Mariona (Xenia Roset) and Iris (Ainet Jounou), and grandfather Rogelio (Josep Abad).

When the current head of the Pinyol clan reneges on the handshake deal and instigates a plan to cut down trees and install solar panels, the Soles are faced with the prospect of eviction from the only home they have ever known.