5 things to watch this weekend – 29 November to 1 December

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide

Payal Kapadia’s sensuous drama about the intersecting lives of three nurses in modern Mumbai had a history-making bow at Cannes in the spring, becoming the first Indian film to screen in competition there for 30 years. It won the festival’s Grand Prix, and has been earning ecstatic reviews ever since. Its vision of working lives in the city is rendered with a kind of dreamy vérité style, which feels alive to the textures and sense of dislocation of urban existence. Its dramatisation of the relationships between the three women, all of whom have come to the city from smaller towns, is deeply empathetic and humane. All We Imagine as Light builds on the stunning achievement of Kapadia’s first feature, the black-and-white docu-essay A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021).

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide

From Edward Berger, the German director of the Oscar-winning 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front, comes this Oscar-tipped adaptation of Robert Harris’s 2016 pageturner of the same name – a fictional intrigue about the death of a pope and the convoluted machinations behind the process to elect a new one. Ralph Fiennes plays the cardinal tasked with overseeing the conclave, with Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow among the various contenders jostling for pole position as various secrets and deceits come to light. Berger’s prestige pulp may be cinema made in the image of high-end TV, but there’s much to enjoy in the cloistered skullduggery and some wonderfully waspish performances.

Where’s it on? 4K UHD and Blu-ray

A welcome Blu-ray and UHD release for Martin Rosen’s 1978 film Watership Down, adapted from Richard Adams’ modern classic for children. Whether Rosen’s film is also ‘for children’ is a contested point, as this much-celebrated animated feature has always been a special kind of nightmare fuel. Following a breakaway bunch of rabbits who make a dangerous journey in search of new burrows, its ominous vision of destructive change in the English countryside feels much more of a piece with other dark 1970s rural fare, such as A Warning to the Curious (1972) or The Wicker Man (1973), than it does your average animated feature today. The limited-edition disc comes with a book packed with new writing about the film.

Where’s it on? Talking Pictures TV, Sunday, 08:40

Here is another dark British vision of things to come, this time from nearly 90 years ago. A landmark of British sci-fi cinema, this adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel spans many decades of speculative history, beginning in the city of Everytown in the year 1940, running up through a global war and ensuing pestilence, and climaxing sometime in 2036. As produced by Alexander Korda, and featuring grand futuristic production designs, it’s something like a UK equivalent to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and laid the groundwork for a fascinating strain of pessimistic homegrown prognostication, including films like The War Game (1966) and Threads (1984). What’s more, it all kicks off at Christmas, so makes for an alarming kind of seasonal viewing.

Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide

This intimate diary film from Sri Lankan-British filmmaker Chloe Abrahams delves into her own family history, specifically the three-generational relationship between herself, her mother Rozana and her grandmother. As a child, Rozana was abused by her stepfather, and The Taste of Mango confronts the lingering distress caused by Abrahams’ grandmother’s decision to ‘stand by her man’ and stay married to him even after he was convicted as a sex offender. Abrahams’ film captures a family visit from her grandma, the handheld camera fascinated by her sphinx-like enigma and the raw emotions that ripple under each encounter. It’s nuanced, affecting filmmaking, which doubles as a process of healing.