Cinema

Watch the 1978 version instead: Superman reviewed

12 July 2025 9:00 am

My father took us to the cinema (Odeon, Leicester Square) once a year at Christmas and in 1978 the film…

Jurassic Park Rebirth is the dumbest yet

5 July 2025 9:00 am

Midway through Jurassic World Rebirth the scientist character played by Jonathan Bailey, whom we can all immediately spot as a…

Magnificently bloodthirsty: 28 Years Later reviewed

21 June 2025 9:00 am

First it was 28 Days Later (directed by Danny Boyle, 2002), then 28 Weeks Later  (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 2007) and…

Darkly comic samurai spaghetti western: Tornado reviewed

14 June 2025 9:00 am

Tornado is a samurai spaghetti western starring Tim Roth, Jack Lowden and Takehiro Hira (among others). Samurai spaghetti westerns aren’t…

Literate and sensitive romance: Falling Into Place reviewed

7 June 2025 9:00 am

Falling Into Place is a love story written by Aylin Tezel, directed by Aylin Tezel, and starring Aylin Tezel. That’s…

A remarkable story: The Salt Path reviewed

31 May 2025 9:00 am

The Salt Path is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Raynor Winn. It tells the true story of how…

Wes Anderson’s latest is as hollow as anything AI could come up with

24 May 2025 9:00 am

AI is coming for everyone’s jobs, but especially mine. There is absolutely no good reason for The Spectator to keep…

Cinema has reached a nadir in the new Mission: Impossible

24 May 2025 9:00 am

You have to time your arrival at cinemas carefully if you want to avoid the high-volume, rapid-fire edits of trailers…

Tantalisingly ambiguous – or just plain baffling: Hallow Road reviewed

17 May 2025 9:00 am

An 80-minute film which for almost all of the time features two people in a car mightn’t sound particularly ambitious.…

What did Leni Riefenstahl know?

10 May 2025 9:00 am

Leni Riefenstahl: what are we to make of her? What did she know? Often described as ‘Hitler’s favourite filmmaker’, she…

Confusing but highly watchable: Slade in Flame reviewed

3 May 2025 9:00 am

Slade in Flame was glam-rock band Slade’s first foray into film – and also their last. It was a flop…

Dry retelling of the Odyssey – but Fiennes is ripped: The Return reviewed

12 April 2025 9:00 am

Uberto Pasolini’s The Return stars Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche in a retelling of the last section of Homer’s Odyssey.…

Never fully comes to life, alas: Mr Burton reviewed

5 April 2025 9:00 am

Mr Burton is a biopic of Richard Burton’s early years and an origins story, if you like. It stars Harry…

I genuinely feared The End would never end

29 March 2025 9:00 am

Joshua Oppenheimer’s The End is a ‘post-apocalyptic musical’ starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon that is being sold as a…

Who wants a ‘girl boss’ Snow White?

22 March 2025 9:00 am

Disney’s new Snow White is a live-action remake of the beloved 1937 classic that was cinema’s first full-length animated feature…

Cartoonish, sub-Armando Iannucci comic caper: Mickey 17 reviewed

8 March 2025 9:00 am

Mickey 17 is the latest film from the South Korean writer-director Bong Joon-ho, who won an Oscar for Parasite and…

Pamela Anderson is a thing of wonder: The Last Showgirl reviewed

1 March 2025 9:00 am

The Last Showgirl stars Pamela Anderson as a Las Vegas dancer who has reached the end of her career (too…

Proudly dumb – and all the better for it: The Monkey reviewed

22 February 2025 9:00 am

The monkey is an organ-grinder’s monkey toy. Wind up the key jutting out of its back, and its lips will…

Strangely moving: Bridget Jones – Mad About the Boy reviewed

15 February 2025 9:00 am

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is the fourth outing for our heroine as played by Renée Zellweger and I…

Extraordinary: The Seed of the Sacred Fig reviewed

8 February 2025 9:00 am

The Seed of the Sacred Fig is by the Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and all you need to know is…

Miserable but compelling: Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths reviewed

1 February 2025 9:00 am

Pansy is meant to be a sympathetic figure, but I felt sorrier for those who had to put up with…

It’s no Citizen Kane: The Brutalist reviewed

25 January 2025 9:00 am

The Brutalist, which is a fictional account of a Jewish-Hungarian architect in postwar America, has attracted a great deal of…

As good a Dylan biopic as you’ll ever get: A Complete Unknown reviewed

18 January 2025 9:00 am

It doesn’t have anything new to say, which is right. If you could figure Dylan out, it would all be…