The Apprentice

From October 18

Donald Trump must have dreamed have one day getting his own biopic, but let’s just say Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice is not the film he’d have wished for. Starring Trump (Sebastian Stan) as young business protege to the cadaverous Roy Cohn (Succession’s Jeremy Strong), a New York prosecutor and former witchfinder general in the McCarthyite anti-communist crusades, the film has endured a bumpy ride to the screen since premiering at Cannes in May: Trump tried to block its release, and it struggled to pick up distribution until Tom Ortenberg’s Briarcliff Entertainment (Fahrenheit 9/11) secured a tasty pre-election release slot in the US.

The Crime Is Mine

From October 18

In François Ozon’s 30s-set screwball comedy, Madeleine (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) is a struggling actress who concocts a plan with her lawyer flatmate (Rebecca Marder) to confess to the murder of a philandering film producer. Her show-stopping performance in court sees her hailed as a feminist hero avant la lettre, and her career skyrockets – but when a haughty older actress (Isabelle Huppert, very much ready for her close-up) turns up taking credit for the crime, all bets are off. As a satire of post-#MeToo sexual mores, Ozon’s film is maybe a trifle too pleased with itself at times, but the zingers keep coming in this sparkling jeu d’esprit, gamely performed by a top-notch cast.

The Room Next Door

From October 25

Pedro Almodóvar’s long-awaited English-language debut is an end-of-life drama that makes an impassioned case for euthanasia, anchored by fine turns from Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore. It wobbles a bit in the exposition-heavy opening 20 minutes, but stick with it: the director soon finds his groove in this bittersweet, blackly comic gem that finds all manner of mischief in the details.

Read our review of the film here.

Dahomey

From October 25

The repatriation of looted treasures to former European colonies is big news right now, but is it cinematic? Atlantics director Mati Diop makes it so in her moving and dreamlike documentary on the return of 26 historical artefacts from France to their Beninese homelands, telling her story through the eyes of King Ghezo, a former ruler of the kingdom of Dahomey incarnated here as a carved statue. We trace his journey from the perpetual night of a Paris storeroom – “cut off from the land of my birth, as if I were dead” – to the streets of modern-day Benin, where his arrival sparks parties in the street and debate in the student halls of Cotonou.

Black Box Diaries

From October 25

Journalist Shiori Itō’s five-year investigation into her own sexual assault forms the basis of Black Box Diaries, a shattering account of the case that brought a #MeToo reckoning to Japan. In 2015, Itō reported her rape by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a prominent journalist with close ties to late prime minister Shinzo Abe, only to find herself repeatedly shut down by police. Documenting her experiences every step of the way, she drew on her investigative skills to find evidence of collusion among the authorities in failing to prosecute the case, finally winning a landmark civil action against her attacker. Her bravery, needless to say, is immense, but what’s even more moving about this remarkable film is Itō’s willingness to address the deep lingering scars that remain even after her legal victory.