The film Don’t Look Up, from director Adam McKay and writer David Sirota, tells the story of Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), two astronomers who discover a comet that will impact the Earth in just over six months. The certainty of impact is 99.7%, as certain as just about anything in science.

The two astronomers are given a 20-minute audience with the president, who is glad to hear that impact isn’t technically 100% certain. Weighing election strategy above the fate of the planet, she decides to “sit tight and assess”. Desperate, they then go on a national morning show, but the TV hosts make light of their warning.

By now, the approaching collision with comet Dibiasky is confirmed by scientists around the world. After political winds shift, the president initiates a mission to divert (使转向) the comet, but changes her mind at the last moment when urged to do so by a billionaire donor with his own plan to guide it to a safe landing, using unproven technology, in order to claim its precious metals.

We live in a society in which, despite extraordinarily clear climate danger, more than half of Republican members of Congress still say climate change is a trick and many more wish to block action. Given all this, dismissing Don’t Look Up as too obvious might say more about the critic than the film. It’s funny and terrifying because it conveys a certain cold truth that climate scientists and others who understand the full depth of the climate emergency are living every day.

I hope that this movie, comically describing how hard it is to break through general norms, actually helps break through those norms in real life. I also hope Hollywood is learning how to tell climate stories that highlight the many absurdities that arise from collectively knowing what’s coming while collectively failing to act, instead of stories that create comforting distance from the grave danger we are in via unrealistic technology fixes for unrealistic disaster scenarios (设想). More and better facts will not catalyze (催化) this sociocultural tipping point, but more and better stories might.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to see the world through an animal’s eyes? For example, what a chimpanzee sees as it sits at the top of a tree, or a penguin’s view as it dives into the sea to catch its dinner?

These questions are answered in the nature documentary Animals with Cameras, produced by the BBC. The three-part series was first aired in the UK last month. To explore animal stories “told” by the animals themselves, the documentary’s filmmakers worked with scientists to develop cameras that wild animals could wear.

“Never before have we seen such high-quality footage (连续镜头) directly from the animal’s point of view,” BBC Nature executive producer Fred Kaufman told PBS. “This miniseries greatly expands our comprehension of animal behavior and this camera technology opens up new possibilities for discovering so much more.”

Indeed, the groundbreaking technology provides a new viewpoint of the animal kingdom. New cameras with enough battery life to shoot for hours at a time were designed to be comfortable enough for animals to wear, according to the documentary’s camera designer Chris Watts.

The technical challenges didn’t stop there. Some animals were very curious about the equipment, with some even fighting each other for the chance to wear a camera. In the case of chimpanzees, “we had to create dummy (仿造的) cameras, so that every chimpanzee could get one”, the miniseries’ wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan told Live Science.

For animals that were comfortable enough to be with human beings, the cameras could be fitted and removed by hand. But for others, the cameras came off automatically using a timed release and were collected afterward. This meant that the cameras needed to be as tough as possible.

To avoid disturbing the animals, scientists who were good at dealing with wildlife came to help by putting the cameras on the animals. “The last thing we want to do is cause them distress.” the documentary’s producer Dan Rees told the BBC. “To follow an animal in the first place, there had to be a clear benefit in terms of knowledge about it that might be useful to protecting a species in the future.”

Their efforts certainly paid off. “Footage that captures (捕捉) these rare and exciting glimpses of animals hidden habits is important to scientists, but documentaries like Animals with Cameras also resonate with (引起共鸣) audiences, connecting them with the beauty — and danger — of wildlife in their natural environments,” Live Science noted.

Turning Red

The heroine in question is Meilin — or Mei — (Rosalie Chiang), a hard-working student who transforms into a huge, shaggy red panda whenever she is stressed. Turning Red appears to be drawn from the experiences of its writer-director, Domee Shi — except, presumably, for the bit about swelling up into a giant, furry animal.

Released internationally on 11 July.

The Batman

Robert Pattinson channels his inner bat in this latest reboot. Matt Reeves, who co-wrote and directed, told Empire he sees his version of the crime-fighter as a recluse inspired by Kurt Cobain. Pattinson has the right brooding game for this, portraying a hero who is only in his second year of saving Gotham, still finding his way as he takes on the ruthless Riddler (Paul Dano).

Released, internationally on 4 March

Avatar 2

The new film returns to the planet of Pandora; where blue-skinned Neytiri (Zoet Saldana) and her human husband Jake (Sam Worthington) are now parents, and Earthling is still haven’t solved the climate crisis. Most of the action took place underwater and was shot in a 900,000-gallon tank. The Avatar sequels have been in the works for a decade, but Cameron’s water-logged hits, Titanic and The Abyss, also arrived behind schedule, and it all turned out just fine.

Released internationally on 27 May.

Top Gun: Maverick

It was back in 1986 that Cruise last played Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a trainee fighter pilot in the US Navy. Can anyone really believe that all these years later, Maverick would only be a captain while his old frenemy “Iceman” (Val Kilmer) would be a four-star general? Maybe not, but it should be fun to see Cruise in his Aviator shades and bomber jacket once again, alongside such new recruits to the series as Jennifer Connelly, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris and Miles Teller.

Released internationally on 16 December.