Night Ripper 1986

In February 2021, orbiters from China and the UAE settled into their positions above Mars, and Nasa’s Perseverance rover touched down on its surface. Maggie Aderin-Pocock reviews the astonishing footage the rover has already sent back, and talks with its legendary chief designer Adam Seltzer about the challenges of missions to the red planet.

Britain's space industry is booming. According to UK Space Agency, its annual income now stands at ?16.4bn, and it employs over 45,000 people. Britain has always been a leader in the world's aerospace industries. Airbus's huge manufacturing plant in Stevenage was originally owned by de Havilland, where they made 'Blue Streak', Britain's intercontinental ballistic missile which became part of the ESA's 'Europa' rocket.

Comets and asteroids are the building blocks of the planets, relics from the early days of the solar system. They have been witnessed in our skies for millennia - tantalising, yet too small and too distant to study. However, over the course of the past 60 years, developments in astronomy and space exploration have allowed scientists to now see these tiny, mysterious worlds up close - and the Sky at Night has been there every step of the way.

Margo, Kelly, and CeCe have three things in common: they're roomates, they're gorgeous, and they're hooked on the glamour and excitement of L.A.'s rock and roll night life. When they get mixed up with a rock star, an arrogant ex-boyfriend, a pseudo-sadist, and the nicest nerd in The City Of Angels, it's a full night to say the least!

A homicidal maniac is on the loose, killing motorists at random in his "death car" - after losing his brother to the twisted assassin "Skull", Rick Benten becomes a vigilante, and takes it upon himself to hunt down the reckless drivers that fill the streets at night.

Filmed without sets and in available light, the plotless story follows a few cabbies pulling the night shift (Nilsson himself was a former taxi driver). They drive, encounter each other in their cabs, sit around the depot playing poker. The film has distinct sequences played out one after the other, making it feel as if different members of the cast (comprised of actor friends of Nilsson) had their own idea for a scene to be included – so we see an audition for an Odet play, a sequence showing the cab drivers and their fares, a couple of bull sessions around a poker table where stories and jokes are swapped, a two-character dialogue that strips layers off the machismo pretence reserved for everyone else, and a mostly wordless finale when we see exactly what/where one of the cabbies returns to after his shift is done….

Over the course of a nearly forty-year career, Louis Malle forged a reputation as one of the world’s most versatile cinematic storytellers, with such widely acclaimed, and wide-ranging, masterpieces as Elevator to the Gallows, My Dinner with Andre, and Au revoir les enfants. At the same time, however, with less fanfare, Malle was creating a parallel, even more personal body of work as a documentary filmmaker. With the discerning eye of a true artist and the investigatory skills of a great journalist, Malle takes us from a street corner in Paris to America’s heartland to the expanses of India in his astonishing epic Phantom India. These are some of the most engaging and fascinating nonfiction films ever made.

Kin-Dza-Dza is something like an "advanced cyberpunk film". It's a lot about people and social structures which on the planet of "Pluke" of course have many parallels to our society. It's a very funny movie, but it's also a melancholic movie with great philosophical sense.

The life of little St. Therese of Lisieux, depicted in minimalist vignettes. Therese and her sisters are all nuns in a Carmelite convent. Her devotion to Jesus and her concept of "the little way" to God are shown clearly, using plain modern language. A sense of angelic simplicity comes across without fancy lights, choirs, or showy miracles.