Everest (2015)

Disaster/survival film about the true-life events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster involving two climbing groups, led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Everything turns nasty when a storm blows in and the mountaineers find themselves badly underprepared. 

It’s an extremely tense drama that’s all the more affecting because these events actually happened. 

Josh Brolin plays Beck Weathers, who survives but loses his hands and nose to frostbite. Robin Wright plays his wife back home, hoping to coordinate a helicopter rescue attempt. 

Keira Knightley plays Rob Hall’s wife and does the “terrified spouse stuck at home” part better than most, probably because the role is fully developed and she’s given a character to explore. 

Also excellent is Emily Watson as Helen Wilton, the base camp manager. Her experience of the escalating horror conveys just what it must have been like to witness this nightmare and be powerless to stop it. 

The film doesn’t moralise or pass judgement on why the deaths occurred. Instead, it pieces together a narrative that lets you make up your own mind.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Despite the confusing title, this is the second film in the rebooted series. It’s incredibly intense. Ten years have passed and human civilisation has been decimated by the Simian Flu. The apes are living in the forest outside San Francisco in an advanced civilisation beyond that of cavemen, with buildings, developed relationships and basic language. Inevitably, this fragile human/ape coexistence is threatened when the humans intrude on the apes’ living space in their quest to restore a local power source at a hydroelectric dam. Before you know it, there’s all-out war.

As with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the CGI is remarkably convincing. There are hefty themes about war, peace, trust, power, politics and social organisation. And there’s a lot of shooting. The film challenges the usual monsters-are-bad logic by letting the apes and humans be equally complex, with factions of both species intent on seeking conflict and peace. It’s gripping throughout, as well as strangely moving.