If you thought Luke Skywalker’s victory over the empire was the most thrilling tale of against-the-odds rebellion in the universe, then you haven’t been paying attention to the cinema listings for the weekend of 15 December. That’s when The Last Jedi, AKA Star Wars: Episode VIII, opens at UK cinemas, along with eight films you’ve probably never heard of. “When you’ve got a behemoth like that, a lot of films will run terrified,” says Andreas Wiseman, deputy editor of Screen International. “They did when The Force Awakens came out in 2015. But it’s interesting to see that this time they’re not quite as terrified.”
Indeed, a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away etc), a film like the Chinese coming-of-age drama Youth or the meditative, Willem Dafoe-narrated documentary...