A 1985 Epic Tops the New Films This Week in UK Cinemas

Four new films this week arrived in British and Irish cinemas, and the strangest thing about the line-up is that the title pulling the warmest notices first met an audience in 1985. Peter Brook's The Mahabharata, rebuilt in 8K, is sharing screens with an $80 million dinosaur picture, a biopic about a teenage Anthony Bourdain, and a mockumentary about a truly awful aristocrat.

The Irish Times reviewed all four together. Brook's epic took four and a half stars, the highest score of the batch. The End of Oak Street and Tony landed on four apiece, and Lady — a first feature from British director Samuel Abrahams — got three and a half. Not one of them is a sequel, a reboot or a superhero film, which for mid-August is close to a novelty.

That's worth knowing before you book. Between them the three with confirmed running times cover just over five hours: Oak Street runs 110 minutes, Tony 106, Lady 95. Three carry a 15A certificate in Ireland, though UK ratings are set separately by the BBFC, so check the listing if you're taking teenagers along.

The $80m dinosaur film with a shaky start

The End of Oak Street is the week's big swing. David Robert Mitchell, who made It Follows, wrote and directed it, with J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot producing. A cosmic event rips a 1980s Michigan street out of suburbia and drops it — houses, families, dogs — into the age of dinosaurs. Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor play a couple whose marriage troubles are abruptly demoted to second place.

Critics have been generous, and the film was sitting at 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. The money looks less comfortable. Trade reports put the budget near $80 million, roughly £60 million at current rates, and Variety reported early US takings of $8.1 million while Spider-Man: Brand New Day held the top spot on $19 million. For Warner Bros, after a rough year, that is a tense weekend rather than a triumphant one.

How to pick between the new films this week

Three of the four are small films by blockbuster standards, and they want different things from you. Here is the honest sorting, based on what each one is actually trying to do rather than what the poster promises.

Tony, if you ever read Kitchen Confidential

Matt Johnson, who made BlackBerry, has skipped the whole celebrity-chef arc. Tony sticks to one summer — 1975, Provincetown, Massachusetts — when a nineteen-year-old Bourdain washed dishes in a seafood restaurant and found the thing he was good at, just before enrolling at the Culinary Institute of America. Dominic Sessa, of The Holdovers, plays him, with Emilia Jones, Leo Woodall and Antonio Banderas alongside. It holds a 94% score from 132 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

Lady, if your comedy can be uncomfortable

Siân Clifford, Claire in Fleabag, plays a narcissistic aristocrat who hires a documentary crew by letting the director believe Netflix is behind it. Her grand artistic project turns out to be entering the estate's children's talent contest. Abrahams co-wrote it with Miranda Campbell Bowling; MetFilm produced. It's on limited release, so it may not be at your nearest multiplex.

The Mahabharata, if you want an event

Brook's condensed screen version of the Sanskrit epic uses a deliberately international cast — Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Sotigui Kouyaté, Ciarán Hinds among them — all performing in English. It is the least casual watch of the four and the one people will still be discussing next year.

The 3,451 reels behind the 8K rescue

The restoration is the buried story here. Brook died in 2022; his son Simon led the recovery, tracking down camera negative for about 95% of the film across 3,451 scattered reels of picture and sound, then scanning it at 8K — billed as a first for a European heritage title. The result premiered in Official Selection at Venice in 2024, had its UK premiere at BFI IMAX on 20 July, and the BFI issued a 4K restoration on Blu-ray on 10 August.

What this week says about the cinema calendar

August used to be a dumping ground. This week it's carrying an original sci-fi film with real stars, an A24 biopic that avoids the usual rise-and-fall shape, a debut British comedy and a decades-old epic getting a proper theatrical run. That mix only exists because restorations and small features now fill the gaps blockbusters leave, and because distributors have stopped assuming nobody books a ticket in high summer.

If you're planning ahead: watch The End of Oak Street's second weekend, because a hold above 50% would change the conversation about whether an original film that size can still work. Book Lady early — limited releases vanish fast. And if The Mahabharata isn't listed near you, the BFI disc is out, though a screen the size of a wall is rather the point.