TV movie picks (UK): Monday, January 19 - Sunday, January 25

TERRESTRIAL: After WWII, Sidney Bernstein (who later founded Granada Television) tried to make a documentary using footage filmed in the concentration camps of Germany and Eastern Europe to provide undeniable proof of the atrocities committed there. He even recruited his friend Alfred Hitchcock to help him. But the project was deemed too politically sensitive and soon abandoned. Seventy years later, the Imperial War Museum has restored and completed Bernstein’s film, and Holocaust: Night Will Fall (Saturday, 21:00, Channel 4) – effectively, a documentary about a documentary – tells its story. Yes, the film is harrowing and upsetting but, if you only watch one thing on TV this week, make it this.

Felicity Jones is the best thing about The Theory of Everything (“an ordinary film about an extraordinary man” as one perceptive reviewer put it) and she’s pretty good in Albatross (Friday, 23:05, BBC 2) too. Jones plays Beth, a bookish 17-year-old whose friendship with force-of-nature Emelia (the excellent Jessica Brown-Findlay) threatens her future and family life.

CABLE & SATELLITE: Set your PVR for Birth (Tonight, 02:30, Sky Drama). Grief-stricken widow Nicole Kidman’s world is turned upside down when she meets a boy claiming to be the reincarnation of her dead husband. Under The Skin director Jonathan Glazer’s clever follow-up to Sexy Beast is criminally underrated and well worth a look. 

Terry Gilliam proves his mettle as a consummate world builder yet again but The Zero Theorem (from Friday, 10:15 and 22:00, Sky Premiere) never hits the heights of his most celebrated work. Christoph Waltz is always watchable though.

VOD: Boyhood (BT TV, Sky Store, Virgin Movies) has already bagged three Golden Globes – one for best film drama – and took home three more major awards at last night’s London Critics’ Circle bash. Shot over 12 years with the same cast, Richard Linklater’s film is a coming-of-age drama like no other. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll marvel at the superb performances (especially Patricia Arquette’s) and sheer bloody-mindedness of the director to get such an ambitious project onto the screen. Please don’t let the film’s 165-minute running time deter you. Nearly as good is A Most Wanted Man (BT TV, Sky Store, Virgin Movies), Anton Corbijn’s icy, atmospheric spy thriller set in Hamburg. Perplexingly ignored this awards season, the film is most notable for featuring the late Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final starring role. Hearing the great man say the word “barracuda” in a heavy German accent is worth the price of admission on its own.

Oscar nominations 2015: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

THE GOOD

1. Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel receiving nine nominations each is thoroughly well deserved, as are the six for Boyhood. Any one of them would be a worthy best picture winner.

2. Ida (Poland) and Two Days, One Night (Belgium) both escaping the shackles of the foreign language category to land noms for best cinematography and best actress (Marion Cotillard) respectively.

3. The Boxtrolls – one of the most eccentric and grotesque kids’ films I’ve ever seen – making it into the best animated feature category.

4. Emma Stone’s reaction to her supporting actress nod for Birdman. “I am so fucking excited,” she said in a statement. Are you allowed to say fuck when you're making a statement for the Oscars? I’m just really fucking excited.” It makes a nice change from all that “honoured and humbled” nonsense.

5. Meryl Streep receiving a 19^th career Oscar nomination (best supporting actress for Into the Woods) is an extraordinary achievement. My money’s firmly on Patricia Arquette (for Boyhood) though.

THE BAD

1. The nomination of American Sniper as best picture. Clint Eastwood’s film has its moments and Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller turn in career-best performances, but it is in no way one of the best eight pictures of the past year. Foxcatcher, for instance, pisses on it from a great height.

2. The shocking absence of The Lego Movie in the animated category has to be one of the most egregious snubs in years. At least the film’s director has a sense of humour about it.

3. Only one nom for the extraordinary and caustic Nightcrawler (best original screenplay). At the very least, Jake Gyllenhaal should have copped a best actor nod.
4. Not a single mention in any category for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin – even Mica Levi’s head-spinning soundtrack was snubbed.

5. The fact so many of the nominated films still haven't opened in the UK. We’re yet to see the likes of Selma, Wild, and Still Alice, while Whiplash only opened today. And the movie industry wonders why piracy is still so prevalent…

…AND THE UGLY

1. A frightening lack of ethnic and gender diversity in the acting, writing and directing categories. Apparently, it's the first time since 1998 that all the nominees in each of the four main acting categories is white. But what do you expect when Oscar voters are 94 per cent white, 77 per cent male and only 14 per cent are under the age of 50? Perhaps the Academy thinks it filled its “quota” last year by rewarding 12 Years a Slave and Lupita Nyong’o.

The best of 2014 part two

Numbers 15 to 6 on my top 25 films of the year...

15. We are the Best (Lukas Moodysson)
Uplifting celebration of youthful rebellion and friendship focusing on the three members of an all-girl punk band in 1980s Stockholm. It would have been easy for this to be patronising or slip into sickly sentiment; instead it crackles with energy, humour and chaotic charm. White Lung, or somebody equally punk-rock, really need to cover 'Hate the Sport' right now.

14. '71 (Yann Demange)

Although Unbroken received decidedly iffy reviews (I haven’t seen it yet myself), Jack O’Connell has still had a truly stellar year. He was great in prison drama Starred Up but ’71 is the better film – a taut, edge-of-your-seat thriller set in Belfast during the Troubles.

13. Bastards (Claire Denis)
Bleak (that word again), brutal French revenge flick starring the magnificently grizzled Vincent Lindon. Frequently disturbing and grubbily believable, its darker moments rattled around in my head for days after I’d first seen it.

12. Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier)

On the surface it's a revenge thriller with all that entails but as the plot develops it becomes so much more – a commentary on other revenge movies, a critique of US gun law, and a fascinating character study to boot. Maybe Kickstarter is good for something after all…

11. Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn)
Not a bad year for the superhero blockbuster with enjoyable new outings for both the X-Men and Captain America. This was the best of the bunch, though, an action-packed treat that was also joyous, wildly inventive and laugh-out-loud funny.

10. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch)
Tom Hiddlestone and Tilda Swinton are on gloriously camp form in this arch and highly amusing vampire film that balances its jet-black humour with melancholy ruminations on decay, disillusion and ennui.

9. Welcome to New York (Abel Ferrera)
Gerard Depardieu is immense (in so many ways!) as a thinly-disguised version of disgraced former head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. A horrible, unflinching, forensic examination of a powerful sociopath whose every act is steeped in misogyny and selfishness. Hard going at times but worth every minute.

8. Pride (Matthew Warchus)
I was worried this was going to be twee and patronising – a Richard Curtis-style take on the Miner’s Strike with all the difficult, political stuff taken out. I needn't have worried; Matthew Beresford’s script is hilarious and moving, every performance is spot-on and, most importantly of all, it's unapologetically left-wing.

7. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

I was trying to remember the last time I loved a Scorsese movie as much as this one. Casino? Goodfellas? Whatever, Wolf marked a blistering return to form for the director, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s charismatic turn as uber-capitalist con-man Jordan Belfort a revelation. It was slyly subversive, too, satirising and skewering modern capitalism even as it was inviting you to empathise with Belfort and his gang.

6. Boyhood (Richard Linklater)

Not only a great film but also a genuine feat of dedication, organisation and sheer bloody-mindedness. Filmed at various stages over 12 years with the same cast, it follows Ellar Coltrane’s Mason as he grows from a tousle-haired six-year-old into a talented and likeable young man just starting college. Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette – as Mason’s mum and dad – are both superb. Low on melodrama, this is just life as it’s lived and it’s never less than fascinating.  

Numbers 5 to 1... coming soon