J.K. Rowling fans rejoice: more wizardly goodness this month in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, in which Colin Farrell flashes his magic-stick all over New York. Oh yeah, ol’ freckle-face is in it, too.

Based on the wonderfully true story of a ginger cat that befriended James Bowne, a chap who was down-and-out for a while, A Street Cat Named Bob stars the actual Bob, after he turned out to be better on-screen than the multiple feline actors trained and brought in from Canada for the task.

Will Ang Lee’s 120fps gamble pay off? Maybe. Will you be able to see Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk in all its glory at a cinema near you? Probably not. Only about six cinemas worldwide are equipped for that many frames.

In Allied, blockbuster king Bob Zemeckis brings us a sweeping, romantic, “Mr & Mrs Smith-in-WWII” scenario, starring Marion Cotillard and Brad Pitt.

We cannot get enough of the trailer for Toni Erdmann. The advance praise is so crazy, an American remake surely can’t be far behind.

Basically what you’d get if you throw the worst parts of a Todd Solondz film, the worst parts of a Jared Hess film, the worst parts of a John Waters film, the worst parts of a Seth MacFarlane series, the worst parts of a Tommy Wiseau film, and the worst parts of the Tim & Eric show and film into a blender, take a giant smelly dump all over it, and blend it all together. The Greasy Strangler is one of the most depressingly unfunny, atrociously acted, and horrendously awful piles of filth I’ve ever had the misfortune of watching. —Dawson Joyce

The Greasy Strangler succeeds so well in developing a fully immersive world of awkward and at times juvenile surrealism, that the intentionally stilted acting, hilariously repetitive dialogue, strange edits, non-sequiturs, and shots that last entirely too long feel totally natural and artistically brilliant within the world of the film. I’m not gonna pretend The Greasy Strangler is for everyone, but for those of you who can appreciate the fever dream that this movie wants to be, you’re going to LOVE it. Personally, there were several points in this film where I was in tears. I lost the ability to breathe. My lungs were close to collapsing, that’s how hard I was laughing. Maybe even if you CAN’T appreciate that, you still might enjoy it simply on the merit that The Greasy Strangler creates a fully immersive, bizarre experience that, shockingly, ends up becoming quite a touching story. … Just go see it. —FriendLee93

The small cast and claustrophobic wooded location go a long way here, but the compact script lends a convincing chemistry to the three leads as their relationships break down and disintegrate. It’s a slow burn to a chilling conclusion but the way there isn’t totally worthless: side comments criticize American values, media consumption, and gender dynamics. The use of the black-and-white night vision camera lends a terrifying authenticity to these scenes: this isn’t “horror movie darkness”, where the light is carefully manufactured to reveal just enough: this is true darkness, where you can’t see 10 feet past the end of your nose, and The Blair Witch Project knows that what you can’t see is truly the scariest and so it never shows us a thing. —Ethan C. Fardoux

Released over two decades ago, Gregg Araki’s Totally F***ed Up is a somewhat unseen film within the New Queer Cinema movement but it has a frankness that’s rarely showcased in the teen movies of today. Presented as the opening chapter to Araki’s angst-ridden Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy, the movie is free-spirited and ironic yet its sympathy for a bunch of homosexual Gen-X youngsters has allowed it to become preserved in time as a candid photograph of an era where being gay was still edgy and counter-cultural. Informed by the peculiarities of a bunch of drug-taking, punk rock, egocentric liberals, Totally F***ed Up exposes a world that still exists today. It peels back the layers of a self-deprecating community who are so often dissatisfied and critical towards one another, yet Araki somehow manages to bring everyone together as he shows diversity by refusing to put his characters on a path towards a definitive goal. Confusion is part of growing up and Araki never panders towards the narcissism of adolescence. He merely shows it as being a flawed yet natural part of becoming your true self. —Alice Bishop

To celebrate its newest theater in Brooklyn, New York, renowned cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse—founded by wife-and-husband team Karrie and (long-time Letterboxd fan) Tim League—has some new public messages about talking and texting in the theater. They star Janeane Garofalo, the couple from High Maintenance, and Mike Birbiglia and friends from indie-improv comedy Don’t Think Twice.

What’s really the main problem in movie theaters these days? Constant texting? Expired nachos? Sticky seats? Bed bugs? Nope, something much closer to our heart, writes Matt Singer. “Fewer and fewer theaters are going to the trouble to pay attention to screen masking”, writes Matt. “The most common screen masking problem I see is scope movies projected on flat screens, with the image letterboxed between black bars…

“A properly masked 2D movie is just as immersive as 3D. An improperly masked 2D movie looks flatter, and less convincing in its illusion of depth. It’s one more barrier between us and the world of the movie, one more thing to get past before you can give yourself over completely to the film.” Read more at Screencrush.

Rounding up some notable lists this month, first we have movies where white people solve racism (i.e. where the main protagonist in a story about the lives of people of color is a white savior). Then there’s the highly specific movies that have a large energy beam shooting to the sky in the climax that can almost destroy the world but are stopped in due time. We kinda prefer the "in my pants" version of this meme, but this one is also a bit of silly fun.

This clever list invites you to submit your favorite review (of your own) to add to a selection of personal-faves from across the Letterboxd community. Nice.

This list with two faces is a thing of beauty. Who knew there were quite so many?

Doing some home decorating? Take some inspiration from this list of posters seen on walls in John Waters films.

Swastikaren’t: a list of films where “fascists and other totalitarian groups wear symbols that are meant to look like swastikas in some way, but aren’t”.

As the US election (or is it one long reality show shoot?) bears down upon the world, so the Trumpian lists appear. It seems there are films that are less coherent than Donald Trump.

And finally, movies with characters less orange than Donald Trump’s face.