It's very easy to be cynical about movies at the moment. Here, watch this: last week, the number one film at the UK box office was Taylor Swift's glorified DVD featurette thing. This week, it's Tron: Ares, a Frankensteined franchise movie (red flag) about AI (red flag) starring Jared Leto (red! flag!). They both kept One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson's film-bro sensation, out of the top spot. It's enough to send you crawling into a padded room (in this case, the Criterion Closet).

But don't let that nonsense distract you from the fact that we are living through the greatest movie year in nearly a decade. And I can say that full-throatedly now, as the London Film Festival draws to a close, having seen the majority of the key contenders for next year's Oscars - most of which will be coming out here in the next three months. There are two or three genuine masterpieces coming down the pike, and a handful of really, really good films alongside them. And that's even taking into account that some of the ones I was most excited for were a little disappointing (sorry to Jay Kelly and After the Hunt; Adam Sandler and Julia Roberts remain innocent, however).

Below, I've whittled festival season's greatest offerings down to five stone-cold killers that will, I think, be talked about and celebrated over the coming months. It was a hard cull, because there are plenty more films that I want to scream about. Take, for example, The Testament of Ann Lee, a movie that sounds completely insane and kind of is. It's a musical about a real-life Quaker leader from the 1700s who created a new sect of the movement renouncing sex, written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, the married duo behind The Brutalist. I haven't seen anything like it before - in a good way! And then there's Is This Thing On?, Bradley Cooper's relatively quaint new film based loosely on the origin story of John Bishop's comedy career (yes, actually). Will Arnett plays a middle-aged divorcé (likely thing for him to be) trying out stand-up for the first time. It's the best romcom I've seen in a while. Anyway, read about some even better movies:

A House of Dynamite - 24 October

I saw this nuclear war movie at 9am with a seven out of 10 hangover, in a screening room with the volume turned all the way up. Once you've seen it, you'll understand how far from ideal that is. But this will give you an idea: it's about the US government dealing with an incoming nuclear missile in real time. We see the same 18 minutes repeated three times from several different perspectives, as officials on several rungs on the national security ladder - Rebecca Ferguson panicking in a control room! Idris Elba shitting the bed as the president! - go from stoically competent to blubberingly useless in the face of incomprehensible disaster. It feels like watching a very plausible beginning to the end of the world. It's out on Netflix next week. Have fun!

Wake Up Dead Man - 12 December

A film about faith that'll only convince you about the almighty charisma of Josh O'Connor (whom I spoke to for GQ's November cover). I'll be honest, the other movies in the Knives Out franchise - Rian Johnson's detective series led by Daniel Craig's Foghorn Leghorn-esque detective Benoit Blanc - didn't do much for me. But this one, about the killing of a dogmatic monsignor in upstate New York, feels like a big step up - it's funny, gripping, and it really nails the emotional beats. The building blocks are largely the same, with A-listers playing silly side characters wrapped up in a tightly plotted mystery, but it's elevated by O'Connor's earnest and empathetic performance as a boxer turned priest, who happens to be the lead suspect. On top of that, it'll make a fantastic crowd-pleaser for a Christmas afternoon film with the family.

Sentimental Value - 26 December

If you haven't seen The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier's revered drama about a woman (played by the excellent Renate Reinsve) undergoing a quarter-life crisis in Oslo, you're obviously not spending enough time on Mubi. His latest, Sentimental Value, is even better. In it, Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård on Oscar-threatening form), a grumpy old director who can't communicate with his estranged daughter Nora (Reinsve once again), writes a movie with the intention of her playing the lead. But she turns it down, and Elle Fanning's Rachel steps in. It's one of the more cathartic movies I've ever seen about broken families. There are about six scenes that are seared into my brain but the one I can't stop thinking about sees Nora attempt to flee a theatre she's acting in right when she's supposed to go on stage. Dynamite stuff.

Marty Supreme - 26 December

It's Rocky for lads with poor bone density. Marty Supreme - Josh Safdie's frenetic biopic about table tennis superstar Marty Mauser - is the only film on this list that I haven't seen yet, but good lord did I try. I procured a ticket to LFF's annual surprise film hoping Timmy Chalamet might show up with his newly buzzed head to introduce it, as he did at the New York Film Festival a few days prior. But nope, I got a movie in which Leo Woodall plays a piano tuner turned safe-cracker. Serves me right! Anyway - Marty Supreme is so clearly for me, an Uncut Gems lover, and after the borderline hysterical reactions from its world premiere at the New York Film Festival last week ("Looks, sounds and feels like losing your wallet in a crowd", the podcaster Sean Fennessey wrote on X), I'll be shocked if it isn't in my top five movies of the year. Get seated.

Hamnet - 6 January

The largest mass weeping event I have ever attended was a screening of Chloé Zhao's Hamnet last weekend. I had heard from several people beforehand that this film, based on Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel about the family tragedy that some believe inspired Hamlet, is violently sad, and I still felt underprepared. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, as Agnes and William Shakespeare, are both unbelievably good, somehow transmitting raw, god-awful grief through the screen. Watching the last 40 minutes of this movie is like reliving the worst thing that's ever happened to you, but somehow it feels cathartic. It is almost certainly the frontrunner for best picture, Buckley is a lock for best actress, and Mescal should give Skarsgård a run for his money in supporting actor, too. Only Paul Thomas Anderson and the "few small beers" boys can stop Hamnet now. Let's see about that...

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