Marvel's latest run of superhero films didn't quite end with Avengers: Endgame. Spider-Man: Far from Home is set shortly after all the deaths and rebirths in that record-smashing blockbuster, which means that Spider-Man's mentor, Iron Man, is out of the picture, and Spidey himself(Tom Holland) has just been zapped back into existence after five years in oblivion. And you thought things were confusing for you as a teenager. To complicate matters further, a supervillain (Jake Gyllenhaal) pops in from another universe, and Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) wants the web-slinger to sign up as a government secret agent. Still, between all the mourning, the spying and the dimension-hopping, our hero has time for a European holiday with his friends, so expect more of the high-school comedy hijinks that made 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming so much fun.

The Lion King

The Lion King was the highest grossing film of 1994 and the highest grossing hand-drawn animated film ever, so it was only a matter of time before Disney's executives got their claws into it again: this year alone, the studio has already released remakes of Dumbo and Aladdin. Directed by Jon Favreau, the new Lion King replaces the traditional animation with photo-realistic CGI, and it has some new songs as well as a new voice cast – including Beyoncé, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Seth Rogen and Donald Glover. But is it essentially the same film that audiences know off by heart? Favreau claims not. "It diverges quite a bit," he says. "It's much longer than the original film. And part of what we're doing here is to give it more dimension not just visually but both story-wise and emotionally." We'll soon see.

At the start of The Farewell, Chinese-American New Yorker Billi (Awkwafina) learns that her beloved grandmother has terminal cancer. But instead of telling the old woman, the family stages a wedding in China so that they can get together to celebrate her life, without her realising that her life is nearly over. It may sound like a far-fetched comedy-drama premise, but this very deception happened in the family of Lulu Wang, the writer-director, which could be why her film is so touchingly believable.

The Art of Self-Defense

Karate Kid meets Fight Club in this black-belt black comedy written and directed by Riley Stearns. Jesse Eisenberg stars as a nervous accountant who gets even more nervous after he is beaten up by a gang of bikers. When he finally plucks up enough courage to leave the house, he discovers a dojo where a stone-faced sensei (Alessandro Nivola) promises to mould him into the intimidating alpha male he's always wanted to be. But while the sensei's initial teachings seem innocent (if ludicrous) enough – "kick with your fists and punch with your feet" – they soon become more sinister, and the film becomes a satire of toxic masculinity. Film Threat writes that The Art of Self-Defense is "hilarious", "unpredictable", and a "contender for best film of the year".