Following the sweeping swooning romance of masterpiece ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, this gentle family drama with fantasy elements initially feels slight, but its small scale and brief, seventy-two minute running time, belie something bittersweet and enc…

An air of exquisite melancholy hangs over this stately-paced adaptation of the Haruki Murakami short story. Theatre actor and director Yūsuke (Nishijima) lives in Tokyo with his partner Oto (Kirishima) a TV screenwriter. They are content in their routines…

The best biopics often don’t concentrate on the big picture preferring, instead, to use one pivotal moment to illustrate their character. This portrait of Diana Spencer takes place over a three day period in the early 90s at Sandringham Estate, her last w…

This rockumentary wrapped in a mockumentary wrapped in a feature chronicles musician-actor turned director Carrie Brownstein’s (or a version of Brownstein) attempts to make a tour documentary for musician St. Vincent aka Annie Clark (or a version of Clark…

Anderson’s latest confection is a very busy anthology tribute to old-time publications a la The New Yorker and the disparate eccentrics who worked for them, set in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. If that name made you chuckle knowingly this …

Part one of Dennis Villeneuve’s long-anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi opus Dune, the second version of the ‘unfilmable’ book to make it to the screen, doesn’t quite do justice to the classic novel, but it comes pretty close, and unlike Dav…

This documentary portrait of hugely influential East Coast rock band, Dinosaur Jr. is a kind of slacker soap opera that also serves as a snapshot of the late 80s/early 90s US alt rock scene. Hardcore musicians J. Mascis and Lou Barlow formed the band in A…

This being the last outing for Daniel Craig’s iteration of the 007, the stakes were always going to be pretty high. After an eighteen-month COVID delay, Bond is facing his greatest challenge yet; to Save Cinema Itself and get reluctant punters back in the…

While not an essential addition to canon, this prequel to TV’s ‘The Sopranos’ has enough going on to warrant a revisit (previsit?). It begins in the late 60s where New Jersey gangster Dickie Moltisanti (Nivola), uncle to Tony and future father of Christop…

Writer-director Marley Morrison’s feature debut is a low-key but amiable coming of age comic drama which charts a torturously familiar holiday for a squabbling family. It focuses on AJ, a socially conscious and self-conscious seventeen-year-old, about to …

This complex and deftly-executed Danish police thriller drama nods to U.S crime dramas as ‘Training Day’ and Assault on Precinct Thirteen while delivering some prescient social observations. It begins just after an incident in which police brutalise a ni…

Fashioned from Sparks brothers Ron and Russel Mael’s intended concept album, visionary French director Leos Carax’s crazed Cannes-opening musical, aims high, but is, alas, a leaden, glib and overlong misfire. It begins promisingly enough with Carax and Ro…

Sean Durkin’s long-awaited follow-up to his feature debut, 2011’s disturbing psychological drama ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ is an 80s-set depiction of familial breakdown with supernatural touches. Law is Rory, a brash working class London boy who has mad…

In her fifth feature film, Zaida Bergroth paints a charming and poised portrait of the illustrator Tove Jansson, most famously known as the creator of the Moomins. The film follows Tove from World War II to the mid-fifties, as she sets out to discover th…

This bracingly original debut from cowriter-director Michael Sarnoski debut walk a fine line between absurdism and realism, and comedy and complete earnestness. Consequently Nicolas Cage is a fitting lead. He is Robin, a reclusive grizzled loner who ha…

This clever and atmospheric horror is set in during video nasty hysteria of the tumultuous early 80s. The skilfully-mounted opening provides a context as outraged Tory MPs and concerned family value types voice their fears that films such as ‘Cannibal Hol…

‘Y'all wanna hear a story about why me & this bitch here fell out? It's kind of long but full of suspense’ begins this audacious adaptation of the 140-post tweet thread from A’Ziah King that became a viral smash when it dropped in 2015. The narration come…

A group of asylum seekers kill time on a remote Scottish island in this wistful and humane comedy drama from Scottish writer-director Sharrock After fleeing Syria in undisclosed circumstances, traumatised musician Omar (El-Masry) is placed in a ramshackl…

This melancholic and quietly devastating documentary charts the experiences of Björn Andrésen, the fifteen-year-old Swedish boy plucked from obscurity to play Tadzio, Dirk Bogarde’s object of desire in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 Thomas Mann adaptation ‘Death…

Edgar Wright’s affectionate overview of the much-loved dizzyingly eclectic and eccentric art pop band Sparks’ fifty-year career and twenty-five album output is exhaustive and a little exhausting at 135 minutes. It runs chronologically as the amusingly wry…

As archly amusing as it was, Danish writer-director Jensen’s previous picture the Mads Mikkelsen-starring arch comedy ‘Men & Chicken’ could safely have been filed under the acquired taste category. This riotous follow-up, a dark and constantly surprising…

French writer-director-star Dupontel’s madcap comedy has been a huge box hit in France as well as a multi-Cesar award winner, but its charms may prove more elusive to British audiences. It begins promisingly in what is presumably the near future as IT se…

A radical departure from normal prison movie fare, Ivory Coast writer-director Philippe Lacôte’s picture is a bold combination of West African griot storytelling tradition, dance, social realism and fantasy elements. The result is demanding but bracingly …

Writer-director Filippo Meneghetti’s impressive feature debut juggles romantic drama, social commentary and thriller elements to involving effect. Nina (Sukowa) and Madeline (Chevallier) are retired women who live across the hall from each other in an apa…

Although probably best known for his 2010 debut ‘Rubber’ in which a killer tyre roams the Californian desert in search of victims, French writer-director Dupieux’s latest picture is ensured a higher profile thanks to starring roles for Gallic A-listers Je…

In the same summer of ‘69 that saw Woodstock, there was another, lesser known and lesser celebrated event that took place in NYC over six weekends in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park, the Harlem Cultural Festival. Live performances from Stevie Wonder, Mahalia J…

Hard to quantify, but Belgian writer-director Zoé Wittock’s feature debut about a young woman with objectophilia (attraction to the inanimate) might be described as a whimsical take on ‘Crash’ (the Cronenberg/Ballard one) crossed with an 80s ET-style frie…

The first solo (and posthumous) outing for the Marvel heroine is a fun if overlong and busy mashup of 70s era Bond globetrotting espionage picture and dysfunctional family comedy drama. It gets off to dramatic start in the 1995-set prologue in Ohio where …

The latest picture from quality horror purveyors Blumhouse is a typically brisk, bloody and smart riff on the body swap genre bolstered by game central…

Danish writer-director Vinterberg’s puckish midlife crisis comedy drama may not have anything profound to impart about masculinity…

This compelling and empathetic study of social media addiction which also contains thriller elements features a star-making turn from stage actor Magdalena Kolesnik.…

Actor turned writer-director Harry Macqueen’s second feature is a slightly mannered but touching two-hander relationship drama meets road movie.…

This long-gestating adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s upper Manhattan-set musical eschews some of the knottier subject matter and ambiguity of the…

Palestine writer-actor-director Suleiman’s latest, a deceptively slight globe-trotting series of absurdist sketches, set in Nazareth, Paris and New York…

Adapted from his own play with help from British screenwriter Christopher Hampton French director Zeller’s feature debut is a wholly original, moving and unnerving cinematic depiction of dementia.…

The estimable Joanna Scanlan delivers what may be a career-best performance as a mourning wife in this quietly understated but affecting and complex drama.…

Writer-director Machoian’s solo feature debut is an understated and economic but gripping study of wounded masculinity and marital disintegration.…

Trading in the awe-inspiring vistas of previous picture ‘Aquarela’, a globe-trotting documentary which explored …

John Krasinski’s first ‘A Quiet Place’, in which a family fought off blind, sound-sensitive mysterious monsters in their farmhouse, made a virtue of its simplicity…

Argentinian writer-director Katz’s touching absurdist drama, with its short running time and languid pacing, may sound slight, but there’s enough going on her to fill three normal pictures.…

American writer-director Reichardt’s loose adaptation of Jon Raymond’s ‘The Half-Life’, (Raymond co-wrote the screenplay) may be her finest film to date.…

For her writing-directing effort Billie Piper aims high but misfires spectacularly with this shrill, barely coherent and tiring ‘anti rom com’.…

The opening of Lance Oppenheim’s accomplished debut, a documentary about retirement community The Villages, with its shots of synchronised golf buggy…

The Greek weird wave a la Yorgos Lanthimos continues with this droll and spookily prescient first feature from director Christos Nikou.…

Like her previous picture ‘Mr Jones’, which profiled the Welsh journalist who unearthed the truth about the Stalin regime, Polish director Holland’s latest…

Inspired by journalist Jessica Bruder’s 2017 book ‘Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century’, Chloé Zhao’s third picture, a soulful and insightful study…

Originally envisioned as a documentary exclusively about Capote, but revised in the event of ‘The Capote Tapes’, Vreeland’s film is a fascinating account of the forty-year-old friendship…

Actor-writer turned director Levine’s third picture is a boldly experimental meta-tale with dashes of pitch black comedy and Lynchian dread. …

Despite the potentially heady subject matter, twenty-year-old writer-director-star Lindon’s portrait of a sixteen-year-old and her relationship with a man twice her age, is a wilfully breezy affair.…

Japanese writer-director Kawase’s adaptation of mystery writer Mizuki Tsujimura’s novel is a unwieldly family drama and study of motherhood with thriller and social realist elements.…

Shades of Gregg Araki’s neon-lit strangeness in this accomplished debut from Australian writer-director Samuel Van Grinsven, a coming-of-age tale with thriller …

German writer-director Petzold reunites with the stars of his haunting existential thriller, 'Transit' for this oblique but nicely-played romantic drama, inspired by the titular myth.…

Following the charming cats in Istanbul documentary ‘Kedi’, the latest addition to the Turkish vérité quadruped-verse is a melancholy but tentatively hopeful study of three stray dog…

British director’s Lee’s follow-up to his feature debut ‘God’s Own County’ is another unvarnished but affecting love story, loosely inspired the life of 19th century palaeontologist Mary Anning.…