If you want to see how a movie that’s all talk and no plot can keep you on the edge of your seat, don’t bother with The Hateful Eight – check out James Ponsoldt’s ingeniously flowing drama about David Foster Wallace, a writer so tormented by the convolutions of his egomania that he couldn’t even allow himself to enjoy his own fame. Jason Segel, in an extraordinary performance, plays Wallace as a loping Gen-X sage in a hoodie scarf who has the insight – and perversity – to treat success as failure. Jesse Eisenberg, as the Rolling Stone reporter interviewing him, is all avid rationality, but The End of the Tour is ultimately about the enigma of Wallace’s suicide. The movie says that he was addicted to his need to one-up everyone around him – even if that meant exposing what a sham role he now occupied by snuffing out his celebrity himself. (Credit: A24/Sony)