H Is for Hawk

Philippa Lowthorpe's 2025 film adapts Helen Macdonald's 2014 memoir, with a screenplay the director wrote alongside the novelist Emma Donoghue. After her father's sudden death, Helen looks for a way through grief not in nature generally but in one very particular occupation: training a wild goshawk named Mabel. As the bird's training progresses she realises how long she has been pushing her own feelings aside. The film links nature and mourning without falling into cliché; the hawk is not used as a metaphor but remains a genuinely difficult, dangerous creature that demands patience. Claire Foy's performance is at the centre, with Brendan Gleeson as the father. It premiered at Telluride. Who it's for: viewers who like British drama about grief and films about a relationship with the natural world. Who it's not for: anyone who would rather not approach the loss of a parent, or who will be troubled by the hunting scenes.