Ringo Lam’s 1987 cop yarn starring a magnetic Chow Yun-fat delivers the violent realism and emotional heft that shaped Reservoir Dogs’ bloody caper

Ringo Lam’s Hong Kong cop thriller gained a new level of recognition in the west when Quentin Tarantino admitted he’d borrowed heavily from its plot for his own Reservoir Dogs. In truth, apart from the bare bones of the plot (culminating in that famous Mexican standoff), there’s little comparison. No wisecracking about Madonna lyrics or torture scenes set to 70s soft rock here; instead, you get gritty, often bloody violence in the bustling streets and night markets of Hong Kong (which look splendid in this new restoration), and an effective tale of cops, robbers and divided loyalty. (And to be fair, Lam in turn was inspired by 1970s Indian thriller Gaddaar.)

You also get Chow Yun-fat in his prime, as an undercover police officer charged with infiltrating a gang of jewel thieves. Unlike Reservoir Dogs, though, we know he’s a cop from the outset, and the story contrasts his own force’s infighting and inhumanity with the relative honour and camaraderie he finds among the criminals – that even includes the one who killed his colleague (Danny Lee). In his undercover persona Chow is cool and clownish, but he also effectively conveys the toll and turmoil of his double identity. Chow’s work in John Woo’s operatically flashy action movies such as A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled put this era of late-80s and early-90s Hong Kong cinema on the global map, but this is a more brutal and realistic kind of movie, full of grubby locations, tough choices and sudden deaths as well as some thrilling foot chases and shootouts.

This taut psychological two-hander between Danes and Matthew Rhys will surely win awards. You cannot look away

It comes as a great surprise to learn that The Beast in Me is its creator, writer and executive producer Gabe Rotter’s first major work for the screen. Because it is, simply put, so very, very good. Even without two astonishing performances from the lead actors – Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys – the script, the sheer style and confidence of it all, would be things of beauty. But add what that pair are doing, and this clever, taut eight-part psychological thriller moves seamlessly into top-tier television.

Danes plays Aggie Wiggs (Rotter may still have some work to do honing his naming skills), a writer who made her name with a book about her troubled relationship with her father. She is currently stuck on her next book, about the friendship between supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her fellow judge but polar political opposite Antonin Scalia, not least because she is grieving the eight-year-old son she and her now ex-wife Shelley (Natalie Morales) lost to a drunk driver four years earlier. The driver, a young man called Teddy, who lives locally and frequent sightings of whom negate any chance of peace for Aggie, managed to delay a breathalyser test at the time and avoid being charged with the boy’s death. Aggie lives alone with her rage and grief in the large, empty house that was supposed to overflow with family.

From Southampton to Sarajevo, urban mosaicists are transforming city spaces and bringing communities together – one tile at a time

Our cities are full of grey tower blocks built for efficiency rather than aesthetics. Public benches are made of cheap concrete, pavements are falling apart, old structures are left derelict. Amid this backdrop of unloved, muted ugliness, a new wave of guerrilla mosaicists are enlivening their cities with beautiful, colourful designs.

These artists rarely get official sign-off for their work. The legality of their art can be murky, with one of the medium’s more prolific artists, Will Rosie , calling it “Permission-vague street art” (His book is aptly named Mr Mosaic: Unarrestable). Rosie installs Mr Men and other cartoon-inspired mosaics around Southampton, where he lives. He encourages volunteers to assist him with projects to make the art form more accessible. “People are bored and missing community,” the 52-year-old youth worker says. “I want to make the city a better place, and people can see that. And they love that I’m doing it without permission because it’s like: ‘Stick it to the man, you ain’t got no power over me, coppers!’”

This sprawling tale of college kids who summon evil with lifelong consequences is a fantastic read

Six oddball but doughty kids fall into the path of a vast and terrible supernatural evil which has come into our world from the outer limits of darkness. They must spend their lifetimes battling it, facing horror after horror in the process.

This is the plot, roughly, of Stephen King’s novel It (his best; no arguments). It is also the plot, roughly, of King’s son Joe Hill’s new horror doorstopper, in which six friends summon the ancient, infinitely malicious dragon King Sorrow from the Long Dark to help them defeat some baddies. Needless to say, their supernatural ritual backfires.

Short story set in 1983, and published a year after the former prime minister’s death, considers ‘what happens when people feel they don’t have a voice’ says director John Young

Hilary Mantel’s controversial story imagining the murder of Margaret Thatcher in the summer of 1983 is to be staged next year in Liverpool.

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher – August 6th 1983 was published in the Guardian in 2014 and gave the title to Mantel’s collection of short stories that year. In the tale, a woman opens the front door of her flat in a “genteel corner” of Windsor expecting a plumber yet finds a gunman entering. He is intent on using her home’s vantage point to take aim at the then prime minister, who is having an eye operation at a nearby private hospital.

Levy’s work was ‘ahead of her time’ and speaks to current debate around feminism, LGBTQ+ literature and Jewish identity, say researchers

For one of Victorian literature’s most distinctive voices, who was once hailed as a genius by Oscar Wilde, very little has been known about Amy Levy for more than a century.

But audiences will now have the opportunity to become more deeply acquainted with a writer whose pioneering work explored women’s independence, Jewish identity and same-sex desire.

The cars, the races, the wins and the fans: Taschen’s new Ferrari book – full of unseen photographs, sketches and documents – celebrates a high-speed icon

Skeletons rattle and good people turn bad in ruthless tale that is very well played but not quite lethal enough

A bit of a throwback to the kind of noir-tinged black-comedy-dramas of yore where good people break very bad, this quietly ruthless film sticks to the template but throws in some new-fangled touches. It also draws on the talents of a cracking roster of supporting players, who add a substantial amount of texture and colour to the proceedings, not least among them the film’s own director Alex Winter, best known for playing Bill opposite Keanu Reeves’ Ted. In a peripheral but significant role, Winter plays a sad-sack stoner, the kind of tragic loser Bill might have grown up to be if he and Ted had never encountered George Carlin and his most excellent time machine.

That said, something feels a bit undercooked here, perhaps due to Winter’s direction or Michael MB Galvin’s script, which seems to lack a little torque in the last turns of the screw. The set-up is simple enough, a quite relatable for anyone who has an ageing parent and shiftless siblings. Meg (Kaya Scodelario) has outsourced the care of her widowed mother Judy (Ingunn Omholt) to home-help Grace (Billie Lourd, gloriously trashy) while Meg raises her kids and tries to get her business selling stuff on Facebook up and running. When Judy has a stroke, Meg’s wannabe screenwriter brother Noah (Josh Gad) arrives in town and the two siblings must prepare for their parent’s death and the division of assets.

From Kristen Stewart to Willem Dafoe, everyone is telling the site their top four movies – but here are unwritten rules that will make sure you stand out

Once a humble app feature, Letterboxd’s Four Favourites has mutated into our era’s cinematic confession booth. Users choose (and can endlessly reshuffle) their top four films on their profile, while clips of celebrities and civilians alike performing the same ritual play out to Letterboxd’s 2.4 million Instagram followers.

It’s now a social-media genre of its own: the red carpet backdrop, the jaunty music, the snappy edits, the cheerful pings as posters slide into place. Each clip is a perfect little slice of fame, fandom and carefully choreographed spontaneity. And yet, beneath the surface chaos, there are rules. Unwritten (until now), but as binding as an Oscars embargo. So if you ever find yourself ambushed by the Letterboxd camera, here’s how to put in a convincing performance.