Film
A work of extraordinary delicacy, poignancy and tenderness: Minari reviewed
In the summer of 2018, when film-maker Lee Isaac Chung was on the brink of giving up filmmaking and had…
The fossil-hunting is more interesting than the sex: Ammonite reviewed
Ammonite is writer-director Francis Lee’s second film after God’s Own Country, one of the best films of 2017, and possibly…
Spellbinding: Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time reviewed
The premise for the unsnappily titled Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is this: a Hungarian…
The best film of the year: Judas and the Black Messiah reviewed
Judas and the Black Messiah is a biopic about Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, but it’s not your regular biopic…
It'll please small kids, but they're never to be trusted: Raya and the Last Dragon reviewed
Raya and the Last Dragon has everything you might want nowadays from a major Disney film — feisty kick-ass heroine,…
Contains nothing you couldn't get from Wikipedia or YouTube: Netflix's Pelé reviewed
Pelé is a two-hour documentary about the great Brazilian footballer — the greatest footballer ever, some would say — who…
Horrible – but in a very fun way: I Care a Lot reviewed
I Care a Lot is a deliciously dark comic thriller that You’ll Enjoy a Lot. It’s heartless. It’s vicious. It’s…
Predictable, repetitive and exploitative: Run Hide Fight reviewed
In this line of business you receive many emails from PRs ‘reaching out’ about their particular film, which I really…
This is cinema as car ad, says Geoff Dyer: News of the World reviewed
It’s a premise with plenty of previous. Children whose parents were murdered by Indians on the frontier of the American…
The Icelandic version was better – and had better knits: Rams reviewed
Rams is an average film with a better film trying to get out, and you may already have seen that…
Remarkably moving: The Dig reviewed
Just before the outbreak of the second world war a discovery was made in a riverside field at Sutton Hoo…
So good I watched it twice: Netflix's The White Tiger reviewed
The White Tiger is adapted from the Booker-prize winning novel (2008) by Aravind Adiga. It is directed by Ramin Bahrani…
The acting is very Scooby-Doo: Blithe Spirit reviewed
The comedy Blithe Spiritwas written by Noël Coward in 1941. It is, essentially, about a séance going wrong and a…
Riveting: Dear Comrades! reviewed
Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! is based on a true event and set in 1962 in the Russian city of Novocherkassk…
Even I, a bitter and cynical middle-aged woman, felt stirred: Sylvie’s Love reviewed
Sylvie’s Love is an exquisitely styled, swooning, old-school, period Hollywood romance and while it has been described as ‘glib’ in…
It’ll blow you away: Collective reviewed
When I recommend this documentary to people, telling them it follows the journalistic investigation into a fire that broke out…
Like a never-ending episode of The Jerry Springer Show: Hillbilly Elegy reviewed
Hillbilly Elegy is an adaptation of the best-selling memoir, published in 2016, by J.D. Vance and it’s quite a story.…
This is what cinema is for: Netflix’s Cuties reviewed
Cuties is the subject of a moral panic and a hashtag #CancelNetflix. It tells the story of Amy (Fathia Youssouf),…
Half the fun of the animation – and much longer: Mulan reviewed
Mulan is Disney’s latest live-action remake, coming in at 120 minutes, compared with the 1998 animation, which ran to 80.…
Heavy-handed satire and schmaltz: American Pickle reviewed
American Pickle is a comedy based on a short story by Simon Rich, originally published in the New Yorker, and…
An extraordinary debut: Make Up reviewed
Make Up is the first full-length film from writer–director Claire Oakley, set in an out-of-season holiday park on the Cornish…
Worth catching the virus for: Saint Frances reviewed
Two films about young women this week, one at the cinema, if you dare, and one to stream, if you…
Held me so fast I was outbid on eBay: Clemency reviewed
Clemency stars Alfre Woodard as a prison warden on death row whose job is beginning to take its toll, and…
Fascinatingly weird – but not satisfyingly weird: Herzog’s Family Romance LLC reviewed
In the past Werner Herzog has given us a man pushing a ship up a mountain, a 16th-century conquistador going…
Not nul points but it’s no Spinal Tap: Eurovision Song Contest – The Story of Fire Saga reviewed
This comedy stars Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo whose biggest dream is to represent their country…