Adapted from Jack London's wilderness-adventure novel, The Call of the Wild tells the shaggy dog story of a domestic St Bernard / Scotch Collie cross called Buck who is taken to the frozen north during the Klondike Gold Rush. Luckily for him, he is befriended by the only creature in the area more gruff, grizzled and hairy than he is – a prospector played by Harrison Ford. The computer-generated Buck certainly looks convincing, and the film's director, Chris Sanders, knows how to make films about hostile terrains (The Croods) and human-animal friendships (How To Train Your Dragon).

Emma

Picturesque comedy-dramas adapted from 19th-Century novels seem to be making a comeback. Following in the carriage wheel-tracks of Little Women and The Personal History of David Copperfield, Jane Austen's Emma returns to the big screen for the first time since the matchmaking know-it-all was played by Gwyneth Paltrow in 1996. The new version stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the "handsome, clever, and rich" Emma Woodhouse, alongside Johnny Flynn, Josh O'Connor, Bill Nighy and Miranda Hart.

Saint Frances

Kelly O'Sullivan is both the screenwriter and star of this sensitive indie comedy about Bridget, a directionless Chicago thirtysomething who gets a job as a six-year-old's nanny. Of course, Bridget is soon learning as much from Frances (Ramona Edith-Williams) as Frances is learning from her. Saint Frances was the audience-award winner at last year's SXSW festival, where Brian Tallerico at RogerEbert wrote that "the movie really snuck up on me and walloped me emotionally in the final scenes in ways I wasn't expecting". The reason: "we believe in its characters... Bridget makes mistakes, but they feel organic and genuine, not designed as 'movie lessons'."

Considering that he is famous for his lightning-fast running, Sonic the Hedgehog has taken a long time to reach cinemas. The Sega video-game character debuted in 1991, but his first film wasn't due to be released until last September. Then, when a trailer went online in April, Sonic's prickly fans complained that he didn't look right, and the film was delayed by a few months while he was redesigned. Now at last we can see a computer-generated Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz) being chased by a live-action Dr Ivo Robotnik (Jim Carrey). Let's hope the results aren't quite as mind-bogglingly weird as Pokémon Detective Pikachu, the last Hollywood film to be based on a Japanese game.

Wendy

Eight years on from his Oscar-nominated debut, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin has concocted an even wilder mixture of ragged reality and breath-taking fantasy: an epic reimagining of Peter Pan which begins in rural America. Newcomer Devin France stars as Wendy, a Louisiana girl who takes a train to a magical tropical island ruled by the feral Peter (Yashua Mack). Todd McCarthy at the Hollywood Reporter says that "every frame of the film is excitingly alive and freshly conceived, making it something very much worth seeing on the big screen". But anyone thinking of taking along a small child to see it should beware: Wendy is a very different beast from Disney's Peter Pan.