My Father’s Dragon ★★★★☆
Directed by Nora Twomey. Voices of Jacob Tremblay, Gaten Matarazzo, Golshifteh Farahani, Dianne Wiest, Rita Moreno, Chris O’Dowd, Judy Greer, Alan Cumming, Whoopi Goldberg, Ian McShane. PG cert, limited release, 99 min
The latest feature from Kilkenny’s Cartoon Saloon takes a small boy from a grim city to bizarre, freaky island where he is tasked with rescuing a timid dragon. Though based on an American novel and utilising a largely US voice cast, this still feels very much like a Cartoon Saloon joint. There are fewer of the Celtic whorls that wrapped themselves round Wolfwalkers and The Secret of Kells, but the studio’s intimate, dappled aesthetic nonetheless remains firmly in place. Stuffed with visual elan and powered by good nature, it confirms the outfit’s desire to stretch in hitherto unexplored directions. Full review DC
Lyra ★★★★☆
Directed by Alison Millar. Featuring Lyra McKee. 12A, limited release, 93 min
Gripping, economically edited documentary on Lyra McKee, the talented young journalist shot dead in Derry three and a half year ago. The film places McKee’s death in historical context, but it is most valuable for fleshing out the extraordinary human being herself. Born and raised in Belfast, McKee took to journalism from a young age and — as friends and colleagues agree — managed the tricky task of blending unremitting doggedness with an endless amiability. Director Millar also fits in thumbnail sketches of stories that McKee uncovered on her way to what should have been international fame. Full review DC
Living ★★★★★
Directed by Oliver Hermanus. Starring Bill Nighy, Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke. PG cert, gen release, 103 min
Nighy is flawless as British civil servant facing up to a terminal illness in the 1950s. Classic weepies tend toward large gestures and tearful denouements. Novelist Kazuo Ishiguro’s adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 salaryman melodrama Ikiru acts as a gentle corrective to the genre’s operatic tendencies. Living, which is composed entirely of delicate movements and earnest pleasantries, maintains a quietude and stiff upper lip in the face of tragedy. Every detail, from Sandy Powell’s period costumes to Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s music, is just perfect. Would make a stone cry. Full review TB
The Peculiar Sensation of Being Pat Ingoldsby ★★★★☆
Directed by Seamus Murphy. Featuring Pat Ingoldsby. 15A cert, gen release, 97 min
For years, poet, performer, presenter, hat-wearer, and national treasure Pat Ingoldsby resisted the idea of being at the centre of a documentary. Until as recently as 2015 Ingoldsby could be found on Dublin’s most-pounded pavements, selling his self-published poetry collections and gabbing entertainingly with passers-by. In recent years, the polio that kept him at home during childhood - listening to BBC Radio and his peers playing outside from the sofa - has entailed a retreat from his street life, a misfortune that makes this lovely, heartfelt documentary portrait all the more welcome. Full review TB
