Summer in February

Teacher Jonathan Smith's novel about a real-life group of bohemian artists living on the Cornish coast just before the First World War was published in 1996. Back then, he probably never imagined that his most prodigious student would go on to produce and take a lead role in its big-screen adaptation. But his pupil was Downton Abbey star Dan Stevens, and he has brought his mentor's work to glittering life here, with a touching performance as Gilbert Evans, the land agent in charge of the Lamorna Estate. Dominic Cooper oozes charisma as roguish artist AJ Munnings, who is at the heart of the group, but events take a devastating turn when effortless beauty Florence Carter-Wood (played by Emily Browning) arrives and steals the hearts of both men. The real star of the film, however, is undoubtedly the landscape: the dramatic cliffs, crashing waves and oppressive clouds gloriously captured gathering overhead create the perfect setting for this heartbreaking love-triangle.