When I Saw You — Mubi.com
Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir was the first female Palestinian to direct a feature film. This, her second feature from 2012, is a touching story of a mother and son, separated from his father and living in limbo in a Jordanian refugee camp after the 1967 Six Day War. Eleven-year-old Tarek and his mother, Ghadyaa, are two of thousands of displaced refugees placed in “temporary camps” after the war. As it becomes clear to Tarek their situation is far more permanent than his mother would have him believe, he looks for ways to escape the boredom of their new life. He becomes entangled in a potentially dangerous situation shaped by large political pressures far beyond his control. Only his mother can save him from making a decision that could shatter any hope of returning to some sort of normality. Submitted as Palestine’s entry for the 2012 Academy Awards, it is a small story with big intentions that remains pertinent.
The Night Manager Season 2 — Prime Video
Tom Hiddleston returns as hotel night manager turned undercover British operative Jonathan Pine in the long-anticipated sequel to the 2016 series adaptation of the John Le Carré novel. This time around the show’s creator, David Farr, ventures into new territory for which there is no Le Carré blueprint. Years after his takedown of multimillionaire arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), Pine finds himself working in the unglamorous world of the intelligence service’s “night owl” division, until a series of fateful events bring him back into the field as a rogue operator working in Colombia to expose a dangerous villain who may have links to Roper. It’s good, twisty globe-trotting cloak-and-dagger fun, and Hiddleston slips easily back into a role he was born to play.
Hijack Season 2 — Apple TV+
Idris Elba returns for a second season of the silly but engaging action drama series, which trades planes for trains and sees Elba’s character, Sam Nelson, taking on dangerously dodgy action in pursuit of revenge. As a Berlin train slowly becomes the target of a hijacking, the city’s police, British intelligence and Sam and his family are at the centre of a knife-edge race against the clock.
The Rip — Netflix
Director Joe Carnahan reunites best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on screen and teams them with rising star Teyana Taylor in this gritty, corrupt cop thriller set in the underbelly of Miami. When a group of cops discover millions of dollars in cash, they find themselves in the middle of a violent conspiracy that will test their relationships with each other and the rest of the city’s law enforcement as the sharks begin to circle.
The Life of Chuck — Showmax
Last year was something of a bumper year for screen adaptations of the works of Stephen King, and this one, directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Tom Hiddleston, was one of the best. Hiddleston plays Charles “Chuck” Krantz, an ordinary man living an ordinary life whose story is told in three chapters that bend genre and ooze with optimism in an ode to the small pleasures of life that keep us from falling completely off the edge.
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