Film
Intensely powerful: Herself reviewed
Herself is an intensely powerful film about domestic violence that isn’t Nil By Mouth or The Killer Inside Me or…
My literary heroes have led me astray
Gstaad Good manners aside, what I miss nowadays is a new, intelligent, finely acted movie. Never have I seen…
A fantastical fever dream that's hard to follow or enjoy: Annette reviewed
Leos Carax is the director whose films have always been wilfully odd. Ron and Russell Mael (the brothers from the…
The genius of Basic Instinct
Our occasional series on cinema’s most underrated films arrives at what many have considered the peak of misogynistic trash. We’re…
An intensely quiet and soulful performance from Nicolas Cage: Pig reviewed
What use does a fallen and corrupted world have for a man of integrity? This was not the question I…
The best Cold War thriller I've seen that I fully understand: The Courier reviewed
The Courier is a Cold War spy thriller and the prospect of a Cold War spy thriller always makes my…
Mesmerising and monstrous: @zola reviewed
The distinction between on and offline life blurred long ago. The greatest spats, sexual self-fashionings and mad soliloquies now unfurl…
When family viewing was full of creeping menace
Strange, really, that the scheduled output of traditional broadcasters became known as ‘terrestrial’ television, given that TV is an etheric…
I laughed quite a lot when I shouldn’t have: Old reviewed
The biggest challenge in reviewing M. Night Shyamalan’s Old lies in describing its central idea without making the film sound…
Quietly devastating: Nowhere Special reviewed
Not one, but two British films this week, one that’s only being screened at the cinema (if you’re brave enough)…
Lame and formulaic: Black Widow reviewed
Black Widow is the latest Marvel film and although I’d sworn off these films a while ago, due to sheer…
Wallace Shawn's Designated Mourner feels like watching the news
Pity the aesthete, the flâneur and the opera-goer. Those who find the contents of their own heads so dull and…
If you didn’t love Jansson already, you will now: Tove reviewed
Tove is a biopic of the Finnish artist Tove Jansson who, most famously, created the Moomins, that gentle family of…
An unrewarding slog: Thomas Vinterberg's Another Round reviewed
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round has been heaped with awards: an Oscar, a Bafta, it swept the European Film Awards. And…
Harry Potter meets Ikea: Backlot Cafe reviewed
Harry Potter is a fictional orphan locked in a cupboard by his aunt and uncle, after which he discovers a…
Tucci and Firth are like Eric and Ernie but sexier: Supernova reviewed
At the time Supernova went into production one headline read: ‘What did we do to deserve a love story starring…
Blissfully colourful, fun and basic: In The Heights reviewed
In The Heights is an adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit stage musical — the one he wrote before Hamilton —…
Two hours of kitsch tomfoolery: Amélie at the Criterion reviewed
The latest movie to turn into a musical is Amélie, from 2001, about a Parisian do-gooder or ‘godmother of the…
Anthony Hopkins's portrayal of dementia will undo you: The Father reviewed
The Father is an immensely powerful film about dementia starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was asleep in his bed in…
Remembering David Storey, giant of postwar English culture
Jasper Rees remembers David Storey, giant of postwar English culture and wry teller of tales, whose newly published memoir is perhaps his most remarkable work
Children will love it – alas: Peter Rabbit 2 reviewed
The cinemas finally reopened this week and what better way to celebrate than with Peter Rabbit 2? You’ll probably be…
A window on a fascinatingly weird place: Some Kind of Heaven reviewed
Some Kind of Heaven is a documentary set in The Villages, Florida, which is often described as a ‘Disneyland for…
This film deserves all the awards and praise: Nomadland reviewed
Nomadland won multiple Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, and if there’d been an award for Best…
Audiences don’t want woke: comic-book writer Mark Millar interviewed
James Delingpole talks to comic-book writer Mark Millar about the joy of Catholicism, our sorry lack of male action figures and his childhood superpower