Marty Supreme ★★★★★

Directed by Josh Safdie. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Odessa A’zion, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin O’Leary, Sandra Bernhard, Emory Cohen, Ralph Colucci, Fran Drescher, Abel Ferrara, Pico Iyer. 15A cert, gen release, 150 min

Chalamet plays an insufferable table-tennis prodigy in a dazzling, dizzying, sometimes sickening epic from one half of the sibling team behind Uncut Gems. Inspired loosely by the story of Marty Reisman, 1958 US tennis-table champion, Marty Supreme is, despite the crafty use of 1980s pop songs such as Alphaville’s Forever Young and Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants to Rule the World, deeply rooted in its chosen period of the 1950s. Marty is representative of a class of youthful American arrogance that, during the nation’s postwar ascendancy, deeply irritated the rest of the world. Strong support from an astonishing cast. Full review DC

Cover-Up ★★★★★

Directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus. Featuring Seymour Hersh. No cert, Netflix, 118 min

Rigorous, enraging doc about the US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Poitras, the Oscar-winner behind Citizenfour, teams with Obenhaus to shape the film around Hersh’s voice and body of work. They condense 50 years of his revelations, tracing a line from the Vietnam War through today’s conflicts, including Gaza, to show a recurring pattern of official secrecy and manipulation. Now 88, the man Richard Nixon once branded a “son of a bitch” still works surrounded by towering piles of documents, making calls, publishing on Substack. Without journalists of his calibre we’d remain in ignorance. Full review TB

Sentimental Value ★★★★☆

Directed by Joachim Trier. Starring Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgard, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning, Anders Danielsen, Jesper Christensen, Lena Endre, Cory Michael Smith. 15A cert, limited release, 133 min

Skarsgard is at his absolute best as Gustav Borg, a borderline-blocked film-maker who returns with a project that, touching personal tragedies, disturbs already fraught familial relations. All sorts of Scandinavian geniuses are referenced. Nora (Renate Reinsve), his daughter, has just taken a bad a turn while performing in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. That reminds us a little of Liv Ullmann being rendered silent as the actor in Ingmar Bergman’s Persona. There is much to enjoy in this beautifully appointed, eminently civilised Norwegian film, even if it never quite escapes high-middle brow entertainment. Full review DC

Bowie: The Final Act ★★★☆☆

Directed by Jonathan Stiasny. Featuring Rick Wakeman, Earl Slick, Reeves Gabrels, Hanif Kureshi, Chris Hadfield. No cert, limited release, 90 min

Marking the 10th anniversary of David Bowie’s death, Bowie: The Last Chapter offers an overview of the late star’s career, with a particular emphasis on how Bowie turned his confrontation with death into Black Star, his final artistic statement. We’ve been here before: David Bowie: The Last Five Years, Francis Whately’s 2017 documentary, meticulously detailed its subject’s autumnal resurgence, similarly using archive footage and first-hand interviews. Stiasny’s film amplifies the idea of Bowie as a constantly evolving artist, even if it occasionally overstates the ebb and flow, framing Bowie’s triumphant Glastonbury 2000 headline set as a late reinvention. Full review TB