Video game spinoff was the highest-grossing film of the year at £56.88m as the sector continued its recovery after Covid

The UK and Irish box office has recorded its best annual performance since the Covid pandemic, with A Minecraft Movie ending 2025 as the highest-grossing film of the year.

Figures released by box-office analysts Comscore show that box office revenue in the UK and Ireland totalled £1.07bn, an increase of 1% on 2024’s total of £1.06bn. At the same time there was a slight decrease in the amount of films released: 1,092 in 2025, compared with 1,124 in 2024.

The internationally acclaimed film-maker was renowned for beautifully shot cinematic epics

• Peter Bradshaw: With Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies, Béla Tarr became the vividly disquieting master of spiritual desolation

Béla Tarr, the Hungarian film-maker renowned for lengthy, challenging and beautifully shot films including Sátántangó, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Man from London, has died aged 70. The Hungarian Film Artists Association said in a statement that Tarr died on Tuesday “after a long and serious illness” and that “the grieving family asks for the understanding of the press and the public, and that they not be contacted for a statement during these difficult days”.

Tarr became renowned internationally in the 90s and 00s as his films were shown more widely – partly because of their inordinate length (including the seven-and-a-half-hour Sátántangó), and partly because of what appeared to be his definitive expression of middle-European black and white miserablism. But in an interview with the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw in 2024, well after Tarr had retired from active film directing in 2011, he said his films had been misunderstood: “My opinion is that we were doing comedies. You can laugh a lot.” He added that they were not pessimistic. “I only ask this – how did you feel when you came out of the movie theatre after watching my film? Did you feel stronger or weaker? That’s the main question. I want you to be stronger.”

Denying any prior knowledge of the appeal, the actor said he would ‘rather stick a gun up my ass and pull the trigger’ than accept the money

Actor Mickey Rourke has denounced an online fundraiser that was set up in his name, and designed to pay off $60,000 (£44,000, A$89,000) that he allegedly owes in rent on his Los Angeles home.

Rourke posted a video on social media, in response to news stories that emerged on Monday that his management team had launched a fundraiser with his permission, having said Rourke was threatened with eviction.

From much-anticipated sequels to music mockumentaries to auteur returns, the next 12 months offers up a wide variety of intriguing new movies

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I doubt very much that 2026 will see anything in the Marty Supreme league, but here’s hoping one of the most bizarre side-steps of the decade turns out as interesting as it hopes. Short of Christopher Nolan signing on to the new Mr Men movie, I didn’t think much would throw the industry a loop as when Greta Gerwig decided to follow up bubblegum blockbuster Barbie with …… a Narnia movie. More specifically, Gerwig – previously a skilled purveyor of achingly hip alt-indie comedy with Lady Bird, Frances Ha and Damsels in Distress – is restarting the Narnia series, which had got through three of CS Lewis’s series before Netflix took over the rights. To my mind, though, The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis’s origins/prequel to the Wardrobe/Caspian/Dawn Treader narrative, is the most interesting of the entire Narnia canon, with its Edenic fall, “deplorable word” and mystical apple. We know some of the cast: Emma Mackey is the future White Witch, Carey Mulligan the terminally ill mother of one of the main kids, and Daniel Craig might be Aslan or mad inventor Uncle Andrew – or both, or neither. All eyes will be naturally be on Gerwig, but I have confidence she will pull it off in style. Andrew Pulver

The Marty Supreme and Hamnet stars are jockeying for pole position for the big Hollywood prize after a night in which One Battle After Another and Adolescence were also recognised

Timothée Chalamet and Jessie Buckley have surged into serious contention for the Oscars for their roles in, respectively, Marty Supreme and Hamnet, after picking up the top prizes for acting at the Critics Choice awards on Sunday.

Chalamet, who has been on a highly visible promotional tour for the film, defeated Oscar favourite Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) in the best actor race, as well as Michael B Jordan (Sinners) and Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon). Chalamet, who plays a wannabe table-tennis champ in the early 1950s in Marty Supreme, thanked Kylie Jenner in his acceptance speech, saying: “Thank you to my partner for three years … I love you. I couldn’t do this without you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”