89-year-old WWII Royal Navy veteran Bernard Jordan (Michael Caine) lives in a seaside aged care home with his wife, Irene (the late Glenda Jackson). In the summer of 2014, after failing to get included on an official excursion to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the D-Day landings in Normandy, Bernard sneaks out on his own and embarks on a secret trip to France. Meanwhile, back at the care home, the sardonic Irene must cover up for her husband’s absence by lying to the home’s staff to allow him to get as far away as possible before the alarm is raised.

Michael Caine sadly announced his retirement from acting late last year, so The Great Escaper could ostensibly be his last film. Fortunately, it’s a hugely enjoyable true-life heartwarmer that ends the legendary actor's 70-plus-year career on a high.

In 1989, reclusive gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) falls hard for an ambitious bodybuilder named Jackie (newcomer Katy O’Brien). But their passionate new love affair is complicated by the affairs of Lou’s family: her father, Lou Sr. (Ed Harris), is a local crime lord and gunrunner, while her sister (Jena Malone) struggles in an abusive marriage with an odious womaniser (Dave Franco). So it’s not long before Lou and Jackie’s plans for future are sucked into a squalid whirlwind of violence, death and steroids.

British director Rose Glass broke out in 2020 with her acclaimed, low-budget horror film, Saint Maud, and continues to build up her genre credentials with this pulpy gut punch of a crime thriller. Much like its steroid-using protagonist, Love Lies Bleeding gets bolder and more outrageous as it barrels towards its extreme, ultra-violent conclusion.