DIRECTED by the masterful Steven Soderbergh, Contagion is a stylish thriller which imagines the panic when a deadly new virus threatens to become a global epidemic.

Scott Z Burns’s smart script zig-zags from Hong Kong to London, Tokyo, Minnesota and beyond, examining the reaction of governments, scientists and the public, unearthing personal dramas in the midst of devastating global catastrophe.

Beth Emhoff (Paltrow) returns from a business trip in Hong Kong with acute flu-like symptoms.

Her husband Mitch (Damon) dutifully nurses her and their son Clark (Kane), who is also feeling under the weather.

Following a seizure, Beth dies, and, within hours, Clark is dead, too.

Mitch is rushed into isolation, but seems to be immune to the outbreak, and is soon allowed to return home with his daughter, Jory (Jacoby-Heron), who has been out of town.

More cases are reported by an increasingly hysterical media and Dr Ellis Cheever (Fishburne) from the Centre For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) dispatches one of his best operatives, Dr Erin Mears (Winslet), to the Emhoff house in Minneapolis to trace the pathogen.

Meanwhile, epidemiologist Dr Leonora Orantes (Cotillard) heads for Hong Kong to see if Beth contracted the virus there.

In a secret laboratory, Dr Ally Hextall (Ehle) and Dr David Eisenberg (Martin) try to grow the virus, in order to attempt to engineer an antivirus, with guidance from Dr Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould).