His dark materials
Matteo Garrone’s live-action version of Pinocchio is visually sumptuous and there are some enchanting characters (my favourite: Snail). And unlike…
Double trouble
American Pickle is a comedy based on a short story by Simon Rich, originally published in the New Yorker, and…
Holiday park hell
Make Up is the first full-length film from writer–director Claire Oakley, set in an out-of-season holiday park on the Cornish…
There will be blood
Two films about young women this week, one at the cinema, if you dare, and one to stream, if you…
Licensed to kill
Clemency stars Alfre Woodard as a prison warden on death row whose job is beginning to take its toll, and…
Half baked
Some cinemas have reopened, with the rest to follow by the end of the month, thankfully. But the big, hotly…
The great pretender
In the past Werner Herzog has given us a man pushing a ship up a mountain, a 16th-century conquistador going…
Nearly nul points
This comedy stars Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo whose biggest dream is to represent their country…
Going through the motions
Resistance stars Jesse Eisenberg and tells the true story of how mime artist Marcel Marceau helped orphaned Jewish children to…
Black lives didn’t matter
Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is about four African-American vets who return to Vietnam to locate the body of their…
Allen key
A Rainy Day in New York is Woody Allen’s 49th film and it’s not been without its troubles. When accusations…
Catastrophe
At the outset of lockdown I gave you my list of top mustn’t-watch films — that is, the ones that…
There’s something about dairy
You may be asking yourself: have I reached that point in lockdown where I’m watching Icelandic dramas about the price…
The Heckler: Why does anyone still rate Vertigo?
Here’s something that may interest you. Or not. (Could go either way.) I was looking over Sight & Sound’s ‘100…
Doggie style
This week I’d like to point you in the direction of the British Film Institute and its free online archive…
Deborah Ross
First, the latest digital film release: The Assistant, starring Julia Garner in a slowly, slowly, catchy, catchy tale that won’t…
Don’t look now
As all other publications are offering guides saying what to watch from home during this pandemic — ‘the 50 best…
Georgia on my mind
The film you want to see this week that you mightn’t have seen if you weren’t stuck at home is…
Untruthful
To tell you the truth about The Truth, even though it stars Catherine Deneuve at her most Catherine Deneuve-ish (i.e.…
When perving was the norm
Misbehaviour is a film about the 1970 Miss World contest that was disrupted by ‘bloody women’s libbers’ — that’s what…
Sisters are doing it for themselves
Military Wives is a British comedy drama starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan. It is based on the true…
What a scorcher
Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set on a remote, windswept Brittany island in the late 18th…
Greed is bad
Greed is Michael Winterbottom’s satire on the obscenely rich and, in particular, a billionaire, asset-stripping retail tycoon whose resemblance to…
Oscar-winning ‘Parasite’ reviewed
Bong Joon-ho's award-winning film is satire, thriller, comedy, allegory and horror all rolled into one
Space invaders
Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won the Bafta for best foreign film and is up for six Oscars and it is an…
