Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Cast: Mark Strong, Antonio Banderas, Tahar Rahim
Certificate: TBC
Release Date: Friday 24th February

Under the unforgiving desert sky, two warring leaders come face to face. The bodies of their warriors litter the battlefield. The victorious Nesib, Emir of Hobeika (ANTONIO BANDERAS), lays down his peace terms to his rival Amar, Sultan of Salmaah (MARK STRONG). The two men agree that neither may lay claim to the area of no man’s land between them called The Yellow Belt. In return and according to the tribal customs of the time, Nesib will “adopt”- or take hostage- Amar’s two boys Saleeh (AKIN GAZI) and Auda (TAHAR RAHIM); a guarantee that neither man can invade the other. Years later, Saleeh and Auda have grown into young men. Saleeh, the warrior, itches to escape his gilded cage and return to his father’s land. Auda cares only for books and the pursuit of knowledge. One day, their adopted father Nesib is visited by an American oil man from Texas (COREY JOHNSON). He tells the Emir that his land is blessed with oil and promises him riches beyond his imagination. Nesib imagines a realm of infinite possibility, a kingdom with roads, schools and hospitals all paid for by the black gold beneath the barren sand. There is only one problem. The precious oil is located in the Yellow Belt.

Saleeh is killed in his attempts to escape and return to his father’s kingdom. The task of negotiating peace between the two kingdoms falls to young Auda. Nesib orchestrates the wedding of his beautiful daughter, Princess Leyla (FREIDA PINTO) to Auda. Though that union is borne of political convenience, ridding Nesib of his final obligations to his peace treaty with Amar, for Auda and Leyla their marriage is the symbol of a new beginning, a love that began in their childhood and the chance to shape the world around them. Auda is sent to Salmaah as an emissary of peace. Reunited with his father Amar, he discovers a new outlook on life, one based on devotion, piety and humility. His father offers him a seemingly impossible task, to cross the forbidding desert landscape of the House of Allah, along with his half-brother Ali (RIZ AHMED), as a decoy with nothing more than a ragtag army of thieves. The idea is to trick Nesib and allow Amar to mobilise his real army and conquer the kingdom of Hobeika. Through his journey, which is filled with many spectacular battles against rival tribes and clansmen and sees him free the beautiful slave girl Aicha (LIYA KEBEDE), Auda is transformed from a librarian into a leader.

The stage is now set for an epic showdown for control of the Yellow Belt, for control of the two kingdoms, for control of the future.

Director: Tomas Alfredson
Cast: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Toby Jones
Certificate: 15
Release Date: Monday 30th January
RRP: £19.99

"I'm retired." Those are the first words spoken by George Smiley (Oldman), and they don't occur until 15 minutes in. But even before then we've spent enough time with Tinker Tailor's hero to know what he's about. We see him forced out of MI5 ("The Circus") alongside the paranoid chief, Control (Hurt), and follow him home during the muted opening credits. Throughout, Smiley says nothing.

It's a hugely effective sequence that sees allegiances change, powers shift, and paperwork go up and down in a lift. Welcome to Tomas Alfredson's take on John le Carré's world. It's a quiet, tense, and stylish place to be betrayed. How British.

Director: Tomas Alfredson
Cast: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Toby Jones
Certificate: 15

"I'm retired." Those are the first words spoken by George Smiley (Oldman), and they don't occur until 15 minutes in. But even before then we've spent enough time with Tinker, Tailor's hero to know what he's about. We see him forced out of MI5 ("The Circus") alongside the paranoid chief, Control (Hurt), and follow him home during the muted opening credits. Throughout, Smiley says nothing.

It's a hugely effective sequence that sees allegiances change, powers shift, and paperwork go up and down in a lift. Welcome to Tomas Alfredson's take on John le Carré's world. It's a quiet, tense, and stylish place to be betrayed. How British.

The new Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy quad poster turned up in my inbox over the weekend - and it's awesome. Here it is, because sometimes Mondays need cheering up:

Read on for the other new Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy character posters. They're also excellent, mainly because they feature Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong and Tom Hardy. (Sorry John Hurt, Toby Jones and Ciaran Hinds - no posters for you.)

Tomas Alfredson's take on John Le Carre's novel is out in cinemas on Friday 16th September. Head this way to watch the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy trailer - or read our review of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Director: John Michael McDonagh
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham
Certificate: 15
Release Date: Friday 19th August

Sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is a small-town cop with a confrontational personality, a subversive sense of humour, a dying mother, a fondness for prostitutes, and absolutely no interest whatsoever in the international cocaine-smuggling ring that has brought FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to his door. However, despite the fact that Boyle seems more interested in mocking and undermining Everett than in actively working to solve the case, he finds that circumstances keep pulling him back into the thick of it.

First his tiresomely enthusiastic new partner McBride disappears, then his favourite hooker attempts to blackmail him into turning a blind eye, and finally the drug-traffickers themselves try to buy him off as they have every other member of the local police force. These events unwittingly offend Boyle's murky moral code. He realises that he needs to take matters into his own hands, and the only person he can trust is Everett. And so the scene is set for an explosive finale.

Director: John Michael McDonagh
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong
Certificate: 15
Trailer

"I can't tell if you're really motherfucking smart, or really motherfucking dumb." So says Don Cheadle of Brendan Gleeson's deadpan crime-fighter. A hardened FBI officer sent to the West coast of Ireland, Wendell spends most of the film working out what to make of backwater Sergeant Gerry Boyle. Is he a drunk racist? A sarcastic genius? Or just a really brilliant actor? (Spoiler: It's all three. But mostly he's racist.)

As if you needed an excuse to stare at Gary Oldman for 10 minutes:

 

George Smiley's face is the best word search ever. These are the words to find:

Mole, Karla, Witchcraft, Tinker, Poorman, Beggarman, Tail, Smiley, Circus, Scalphunters, Polyakov, Agent

(The answers to the wordsearch are here.)

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is out on Friday 16th September. Head this way to see the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy trailer - or read our review of Tinker, Tailor.

An Arrietty trailer and some new images have turned up in our inbox. And as you'd expect from a Studio Ghibli adaptation of The Borrowers, they're lovely.

Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the animated tale focuses on little heroine Arrietty and full-sized Sho, who moves into the house where she and her family live. Discovered by Sho, Arrietty and the young boy become friends in true Ghibli fashion. And, inevitably, it all looks as beautiful as Arrietty's UK poster.

Just look at her, with her tiny little hands and tiny little feet, like some kind of really tiny person. It's adorable. And that's even with the trailer's slightly unnecessary Dr Seuss voiceover.

"Discover a world beneath our own, where little people have made their home..." the narrator begins, before going on to remind us of Ghibli's ridiculously brilliant track record in animation. Unsurprisingly, he can't think of anything to rhyme with "Ponyo".

Co-written by Hayao Miyazaki, Arrietty is released on Friday 29th July. Read on for the new Arrietty images and the full video, head this way for our Arrietty review, or check out the Arrietty trailer, official synopsis and cast list (including Saoirse Ronan and Mark Strong).

Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Cast (dubbed): Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, Mark Strong, Olivia Colman, Phyllida Law, Geraldine McEwan
Certificate: TBC
Release Date: Friday 29th July
Read our Arrietty review

This is a story of a family of “little” people. Beneath the floorboards of a sprawling mansion set in a magical, overgrown garden in the suburbs of Tokyo, tiny 14-year-old Arrietty lives with her equally tiny parents.The house is occupied by two old ladies, who are absolutely unaware of the existence of their miniature tenants.

Arrietty and her family live by "borrowing". Everything they have, they borrow or make from the things they have borrowed. Essentials like cooking gas, water and food. Tables, chairs, cooking utensils. And treats - a sugar cube here, a scrap of material there. But only a little each time, so the ladies do not notice.

A 12-year-old boy, Sho, moves in the mansion while he waits for urgent medical treatment in the city. Arrietty's parents have always warned her: "Never let humans see you." Once seen, little people always have to move on. But the adventurous Arrietty doesn't listen, and Sho discovers her.

The two begin to confide in each other and, before long, a friendship begins to blossom...

"There's a mole. Right at the top of the circus..."

Just when you thought 2011 was looking dull and nothing would ever make you feel all Smiley again, up pops the international teaser trailer for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. And it's flipping perfect. PERFECT, I say. 

Adapted from the seminal John le Carré spy novel - already transformed into that classic BBC series starring Alec Guinness - the film follows George Smiley sneaking about inside MI6 trying to uncover a mole. The most exciting thing? It's directed by Let the Right One In's Tomas Alfredson. Oh, and George Smiley is played by Gary Oldman. And Colin Firth is in too.

I could go on. Actually, it's far easier if I just write a long list of awesome things. You can fill in the gaps with squees of excitement. John le Carré. Gary Oldman. Tomas Alfredson. Colin Firth. Tom Hardy. Mark Strong. Toby Jones. Benedict Cumberbatch. John Hurt. September 16th.

Released exclusively over at the Guardian, the trailer (complete with sinister strings on the soundtrack) is pretty much 80 seconds of perfection. A perfect story of subterfuge and double-crossing? Oh yes, this could even be better than Channel 5's classic reality TV series The Mole. And that had helicopters. And a really cheesy opening credits sequence.

Read on for the full Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy video. Sadly, you'll have to wait over two months to find out if George Smiley identifies the mole, the traitor, the insider, the saboteur. Oh wait, that's the intro to the Channel 5 series again. Read on to see a video of that as well.