In the age of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Anne Hathaway is booked and busy, touring the globe for not just one but two films as she takes on the role of a haunted pop star in Mother Mary. This is just one of six films Attitude has carefully reviewed for readers to add to their must-watch list in the upcoming months, as Andrew Durham’s Fairyland, Madfabulous starring Callum Scott Howells, and Tuner featuring Leo Woodall gear up for their highly anticipated releases.

As well as this, we revisit a queer cult classic. Marking 55 years since its release, Pink Narcissus is definitely one to revisit.

Fairyland – starring Scoot McNairy, Nessa Dougherty, Emilia Jones

★★★★

It’s taken more than three years for Andrew Durham’s tender, deeply felt directorial debut to reach UK screens since its Sundance Film Festival premiere. Sometimes, such a delay is down to a film being not particularly audience-friendly, but that’s not the case here. Produced by Sofia Coppola, this queer father-daughter portrait is a multi-hanky tearjerker, heartwarmer and crowd-pleaser all in one, though it doesn’t overly simplify its sensitive emotional material.

It’s based on a memoir by author Alysia Abbott, recounting her experience of growing up in 1970s San Francisco as the only child of her single father Steve, who, in the years after being widowed, gradually comes out as a gay man. He’s certainly in the right city to do so. With fluid, organic-feeling, 16mm cinematography, Durham captures the airy sense of liberty and possibility that made San Francisco the capital of queer counterculture in that decade. But what’s freeing for Dad isn’t necessarily the same for his daughter: a rift grows between them as Alysia comes of age in the more conservative Reagan era and becomes increasingly ashamed of Steve’s sexuality, while the long shadow of the AIDS crisis looms over them.

Stories of queer parenting during this era are rare, though Durham’s adaptation movingly foregrounds the family dynamics that make Abbott’s account universally recognisable. It’s anchored by a wonderfully wry, mellow performance by Scoot McNairy as a man only beginning to find himself, as his daughter (played as a young child by the irresistible Nessa Dougherty, and as a more guarded teen by CODA star Emilia Jones) faces the same challenge. Fairyland is an evocative, bittersweet articulation of one of the hardest realisations that comes with age: that the parents we assumed had it all figured out are still growing up themselves.

Out 29 May

Rose of Nevada – starring George MacKay, Callum Turner, Rosalind Eleazar

★★★★

Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin had a surprise hit with Bait, his handcrafted, ultra low-budget portrait of a fishing community, and while his latest sees him upping the star power – with Callum Turner and George MacKay in the leads – this strikingly original sci-fi tale is made very much on his own singular terms.

The setting is, once more, a Cornish fishing village, where a boat returns to the harbour 30 years after it had been assumed to have been lost at sea. Two young fishermen head out on it once more – where it goes is decidedly off course. The less you know going in the better, but the result is an elegantly head-scrambling puzzle with surprisingly deep human stakes.

Out now

Mother Mary – starring Anne Hathaway, Michaela Coen, Hunter Schafer

★★★

It’s going to be a big summer for Anne Hathaway, but before the blockbuster double of The Devil Wears Prada 2 and The Odyssey, she has this chilly independent oddity for us to mull over, courtesy of unpredictable auteur David Lowery (The Green Knight, A Ghost Story).

As a vastly successful but fragile pop star having an internal breakdown, Hathaway absolutely looks and sounds the part – with sleek original electro bangers by Jack Antonoff and FKA twigs. But the film is primarily a chamber piece, playing out away from the stage and in the secluded studio of a fashion designer (cryptically played by Michaela Coel) with whom the star has a thornily complicated history. It’s a stylish, teasingly aloof film that never quite shows its full hand.

Out now

Madfabulous – starring Callum Scott Howells, Rupert Everett, Greta Jones, Ruby Stokes

★★★

A British peer and black sheep of his noble family, Henry Cyril Paget assumed the title of 5th Marquess of Anglesey in his early twenties, scandalising late 19th-century society as he squandered his inheritance on large-living, cross-dressing antics. Though he never confirmed his sexuality, history treats him as a queer icon – and so does Celyn Jones’s uneven but colourful biopic.

In the film, It’s a Sin star Callum Scott Howells brings bright, dizzy life to Paget, while Rupert Everett is a warm, stabilising presence as his loyal family butler. It’s a whirling portrait that duly captures Paget’s aura of both madness and fabulosity, though there’s not much beneath the glittery surface.

Out 5 June

Tuner – starring Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu

★★★★

This smart, sure-handed thriller is the first fiction film from Canadian director Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for his ripped-from-the-headlines documentary Navalny. But while this may seem an unlikely pivot, his serious-minded storytelling economy carries over from one project to the other.

Leo Woodall is on fine form as Niki, a shy apprentice piano tuner – his ageing mentor is played with shaggy warmth by Dustin Hoffman – whose very particular skills also turn out to be ideal for cracking safes. What follows from this discovery is an intricately worked, old-school heist movie with a soulful romantic undercurrent, beautifully served by its cast, and not to be ignored amid the noisier multiplex attractions.

Out 29 May

Queer classic

Pink Narcissus

Fifty-five years old this year, this landmark work of experimental queer erotica is getting a re-release courtesy of the BFI in June, though it merits a stream for those of you who can’t get to the cinema. It’s an eye-opener on any size screen, depicting the sexual daydreams of a gay New York sex worker, which take him from the Roman Empire to a Spanish bullfighting arena with consistently kinky results. Filmed on scrappy 8mm stock, but with sensually saturated, iridescently hued results, it’s hot fun on its own terms, but also a vital, way-ahead-of-its-time marker of sex-positive queer expression.

Out now

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This feature appears in the May/June 2026 issue of Attitude.