Jane (dir: Brett Morgen, 2017, cert PG)
Using previously unseen footage from the National Geographic archive accomplished documentarian Brett Morgen has pieced together a remarkable portrait of Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on Chimpanzees who has spent decades studying the primates beginning in the early sixties in Tanzania. The ‘home movie’ feel to a lot of the film and Philip Glass’ understated score adds an innocent piquancy to Goodall’s fearless work, inspiring and moving.
Tue 23 Jan to Thu 25 Jan at the mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH £9 macbirmingham.co.uk

State of Siege (dir: Costa-Gavras, 1973, cert 15)
Gavras’ coruscating thriller tears into political violence in all its decrepit guises as a band of Uruguayan urban guerilla’s outraged by US interference across Latin America kidnap a government official, played with resigned cynicism by an excellent Yves Montand. The media circus that explodes only serves to sharpen the exhausting violent cycle kept in motion by all sides. Like his earlier film Z, screened at the mac earlier this month, State of Siege is a prescient and powerful masterpiece.
Tue 23 Jan at the mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham B12 9QH £9 macbirmingham.co.uk

Van Diemen’s Land (dir: Jonathan auf der Heide, 2009, cert 15)
A collaboration between the city’s premier film festival Flatpack and its most cutting edge museum Ikon, has got us very excited. To complement the current exhibitions of nineteenth century convict artist, the Birmingham born Thomas Bock and artist in residence at HMP Grendon, Edmund Clark, a series of innovative screenings have been lined up. First up is Van Diemen’s Land, a tense, frightening and sometimes grisly, Tasmanian set thriller recounting the true story of the infamous Irish thief Alexander Pearce’s escape from the Sarah Island penal settlement in 1822.
Wed 24 Jan 6pm at The Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, Birmingham B1 2HS Free ikon-gallery.org

Withnail and I (dir: Bruce Robinson, 1987, cert 15)
One of the most quotable films ever, ‘I feel like a pig shat in my head’, and a staple of the UK student film canon since it’s release. Withnail is not just uproarious high jinks as our heroes go on holiday by mistake, the film is a subtly nuanced tragedy as the youthful I has to decide whether it’s time to take a leap into adulthood and the future.
Wed 24 Jan 8.30pm at The Mockingbird, The Custard Factory, Gibb St, Birmingham B9 4AA £5 veezi.com

The Florida Project (dir: Sean Baker, 2017, cert 15)
This is a remarkable film. Sumptuous cinematography and sublime composition ensure Sean Baker’s The Florida Project was one of the best movies released last year. The budget Magic Castle Motel is the setting for a disparate group of characters conjoined by the antics of their precociously mature children. Willem Dafoe excels as put upon Motel manager Bobby; but Moonee, Scooty and Jancey, three startlingly streetwise six year olds, will take your breath away. It is a film rich with artful symbolism as their deprived lives unfold in the shadow of Disneyland. Stunning cinema.
Fri 26 Jan to Thu 1 Feb at The Mockingbird, The Custard Factory, Gibb St, Birmingham B9 4AA £5 veezi.com

Vertigo (dir: Alfred Hitchcock, 1958, cert PG)
Never pass up the opportunity to see Hitchcock on the big screen, the master of suspense’ incredible oeuvre demands the cinema experience and if that film is Vertigo we’ll have front row seats please. Famously replacing Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made, in a 2012 BFI poll of world critics, it is a sublimely exquisite and psychologically undermining joy from start to finish. Contains our favourite MacGuffin in the never seen Carlotta Valdes and look out for a bugle case carrying Hitch cameoing about ten minutes into the film.
Sat 27 Jan 11am at Artrix, Slideslow Dr, Bromsgrove B60 1GN £7 www.artrix.co.uk

Merlot on the Orient Express wine tasting 
Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of the Agatha Christie classic is littered with stars and twenty first century pizazz but lacks the simple class of the 1974 production, where a bristling Albert Finney twirls the relentless Belgian detective Poirot’s moustache. What this screening does have though, is a selection of fine wines to taste selected by somelier Tony Elvin and themed along the many stations the titular locomotive passes through.
Sun 28 Jan 5pm at The Electric, Station Street, Birmingham B5 4DY £24 www.theelectric.co.uk