Hot on the heels of Tintin, this pleasant and sentimental drama adapted from the novel by Michael Morpurgo is Spielberg's latest attempt to nab himself a third best director Oscar.

It's the sort of sweeping, handsome, old fashioned family adventure yarn that Sunday afternoons were made for, and begins with young Albert (Jeremy Irvine) witnessing the birth of a horse on the neighbouring West Country farm to his own.