It’s not every day that you get to play a real-life sports icon and feminist hero, while also receiving tennis lessons from the person you’re playing in preparation. But that’s just what Emma Stone got for her role as tennis legend Billie Jean King in this film.

Battle of the Sexes is loosely based on the legendary 1973 tennis face-off between King and the retired Bobby Riggs (Carell). The tennis match came after much publicity, when the misogynistic and self-promoting Riggs challenged King to face-off against him, publically claiming that he could beat any female tennis player even at 55 years of age. In the end, the match between King and Riggs became the most viewed tennis game in US history.

Directed by the team behind Little Miss Sunshine, this offers a similar type of adrenaline rush to the comedy and bruised family drama exemplified in their Oscar-winning debut. Battle of the Sexes is highly entertaining, inspiring, and just the kind of progressive comedy-drama that we need today.

What would you do if your life depended on a stranger? If that stranger was me, then you’re probably doomed. If that stranger was played by either Idris Elba or Kate Winslet, then you might just stand a fighting chance of survival. And maybe even falling in love.

After the cancellation of their flight due to stormy weather, Dr. Ben Bass (Elba) and photojournalist Alex Martin (Winslet) find themselves stuck at the airport at a most inconvenient time. Both are in a hurry – Ben has patients that require urgent attention, and Alex is getting married the next day.

Ben decides to hire a charter plane to get where he needs to be, and offers Alex a seat. But they get more in-flight entertainment than they bargained for when their pilot suffers a heart attack mid-flight, and the plane crashes in the winter wilderness. Injured, ill-equipped, and with no one knowing that they’re missing, Ben and Alex have no choice but to rely on each other to stay alive.

No stranger to taking audiences on a roller coaster ride of emotions, Dutch-Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad (Omar, The Idol) makes his Hollywood debut here adapting Charles Martin’s novel. Part survival drama, part romantic first date, The Mountain Between Us truly puts its characters – and us – through the wringer.