Zar Amir Ebrahami, star of the accomplished Iran-set thriller ‘Holy Spider’, shifts to more low-key fare with this affecting 90s set Australian drama, a semi-autobiographical tale from writer-director Noora Niasari. Ebrahami is the titular character, an I…
Pitched as an ‘ambient slasher’ this minimalist horror picture is, sadly, not as groundbreaking as mooted. Filmed in boxy aspect ratio, it takes place mostly from the vantage point (over the shoulder, mainly) of a demonic serial killer. It starts with the…
Writer-director Minia Chokri’s picture initially feels like a traditionally middlebrow, French, wryly comic, relationship drama, but it’s subverted by an audacious execution. The excellent Blondeau is Sophia, a fortysomething philosophy lecturer living wi…
Following the raucous steampunk fantasia that was 'Poor Things', director Jorgos Lanthimos returns, partially, to his austere and formalist Greek Weird Wave roots with this absurdist triptych in which he uses the same cast members to play different charac…
Form meets subject matter in Spanish writer and activist Prediaco’s audacious, playful and thought-provoking documentary essay, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s ground-breaking 1928 novel. In Woolf’s book (and Sally Potter’s celebrated film adaption) an Eliza…
The last ‘Inside Out’ movie ended with the occupants of teenage girl Riley’s mind – embodied emotions, Joy (Poehler), Fear (Hale), Sadness (Smith) Rage (Black), Disgust and Sadness - discovering, via a red alarm bell, that they will have to navigate the c…
This Australian-made, Brooklyn-set, wilfully b-movieish horror has its moments but feels too much in thrall to its influences. Alyla Browne is Charlotte (as in Web, geddit?), a twelve-year-old living in a pokey apartment with her mum Heather (Mitchell) a…
George Miller’s prequel to his remake of the austerely plotted, but highly effective actioner 2015’s ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ is a messier and more sprawling affair, which charts the origin of the fearsome Furiosa, who was played in the earlier picture by Cha…
Lithuanian writer-director Marija Kavtaradze’s picture is a flawed, but nonetheless affecting romantic drama that explores a relatively neglected subject. The luminous Grinevičiūtė is Elena, a contemporary dancer who also teaches at movement classes. Elen…
Skilfully related from multiple perspectives, veteran Polish director Holland’s picture is a harrowing depiction of the refugee experience as well as a heartfelt plea for humanity. It begins in 2021 on a plane bound to Belarus where we meet a Syrian famil…
Inspired by the 1903 Henry James novella ‘The Beast in the Jungle’ and set over three time periods, French writer-director Betrand Bonello’s romantic drama meets dystopian sci-fi flick features compelling ideas, but the picture is undone by a lack of focu…
This middlebrow, but likeable enough drama, is loosely based on Clémentine Delait, ‘the most illustrious and celebrated bearded lady in France’. Tereszkiewicz is Rosalie, a young woman in 1870s France, who lives with her father (Kervern) in a French villa…
The Scorsese influence hangs heavy over this 60s-set biker movie, inspired by the photography book of the same name by Danny Lyon. (The picture uses Danny’s interviews with his subjects as a framing device.) In a singsong gossipy voice, Kathy (Comer), a c…
Following their excellent semi-documentary about LA barflies ‘Bloody Noses, Empty Pockets’ filmmaker brothers Turner Ross and Bill Ross VI head out into the wide open for this realist-ish road trip with moments of beauty and grace scattered throughout. To…
It may be little over eighty minutes long and barely possess a plot, but Belgian writer-director Bas Devos’s picture contains multitudes. Stefan (Gota) is a quiet Romanian construction worker labouring in Belgium. His down time is spent hanging out and en…
Written and directed by John Krasinski, this obvious labour of love aims for poignancy and fun but flounders due to bizarrely convoluted execution. Casey Fleming is Bea, a twelve-year-old girl who lost her mum some years earlier. When her dad (Krasinski) …
The latest instalment in the Apes franchise (dread word) from the director of the ‘Maze Runner’ series is, reportedly, the first part of a trilogy, and it feels very much like a part rather than a satisfactory whole. It’s ‘many generations’ since chimp…
The spring of horniness continues apace with this frantic, sweaty ‘roided up drama from UK director, Rose Glass. It’s 1989 and Lou (Stewart) is the put-upon manager of a gym in New Mexico. An early sequence has Lou unblocking a filthy toilet, setting out …
Ryan Gosling continues his mainstream trajectory with this fiddly and overlong, but frequently amusing comedy, based on the Lee Majors-starring teatime favourite. We meet Gosling’s Colt Seavers as he is about to perform a vertiginous stunt on an action mo…
The pitch black side of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll is uncovered in this handsomely assembled documentary portrait of actor, model and muse Anita Pallenberg, narrated by Scarlett Johansson from Pallenberg’s unpublished memoirs. Raised in Germany and Ital…
Shades of ‘Ginger Snaps’ and ‘Mean Girls’ in the impressive feature debut from Malaysian writer-director Amanda Nell Eu. Zaffan (Zairizal) is the free-spirited and popular twelve-year-old girl at a conservative Islamic religious girls’ school. We are intr…
Sprinklings of magic realism enliven this slightly staid drama from writer-director Soudade Kaadan. The title in Arabic means ‘the displacement of souls, water and people’. It revolves around a family who have remained in their family home in a Damascus t…
As well as a faithful follower and advocate of the British/Hungarian filmmaking duo, director and film scholar Martin Scorsese also has a personal stake in Powell’s life. As a young director, Scorsese sought Powell, who was then a virtual recluse after hi…
Alice Rohrwacher’s latest is a typically freewheeling and lyrical tale set in 80s Tuscany. It’s also her most enjoyable picture to date. Josh O’Connor is Arthur, a shabby, disreputable-looking English archaeological scholar, just released from prison. He …
Writer-director Naverriani’s picture is a slow-burning but deeply affecting feminist portrait of a middle-aged woman living life to her own rules. Forty-eight-year old Etero runs a drab supermarket in a small Georgian village. Most of her adult life was s…
Echoes of Hirokazu Koreeda’s ‘Nobody Knows’ in its depiction of children left to their own devices in this occasionally harrowing but hopeful semi-autobiographical picture from Mongolian writer-director Purevdash. Ulzii (Uurtsaikh) is a gifted fourtee…
While it has its moments and boasts striking visuals, writer-director Alex Garland’s latest, an episodic wartime road movie, feels like a missed opportunity. It’s set in a dystopian future where Florida and Texas, the ‘Western Forces’ have seceded from th…
Sam Taylor-Johnson’s already controversial biopic of late singer Amy Whitehouse (the director’s second Brit biopic after Lennon picture 2009’s ‘Nowhere Boy’) more or less succeeds despite some flaws and an extended running time. It starts like fairly stan…
This prequel to the 1976 horror classic ‘The Omen’ feels substantially more than mere franchise-milking thanks to some strong performances and muscular direction from first-time feature helmer Arkasha Stevenson. ‘Game of Throne’s’ Nell Tiger Free is Marga…
Directed by the artist’s son Neo Sara, this solo concert performance, the final, from the late, great Ryiuichi Sakamoto is a fitting farewell to the Japanese musician who died a year ago of cancer. It’s an austere affair rendered in pristine black, white …
The debut feature from writer-director Milena Aboyan is an impressive and commendably nuanced feminist drama. Bayan Layla is the titular character, a modern twenty-two-year-old German-Kurdish woman who is about to be married to the more traditional Nasim …
Veteran director Marco Bellocchio's historical drama has a solid, based-on-a-true-story premise, but the execution is middlebrow. It’s 1858 and Jewish man Solomone Mortara (Alesi) lives with his wife Marianna (Ronchi) and several children in Bologna. Thei…
British director Samuel’s stoner biblical comedy, the follow-up to his supremely confident Western ‘The Harder They Fall’, feels less sure-footed. Stanfield is Clarence, the opportunistic twin brother of apostle Thomas. A frantic scene-setting opening see…
Fifty years into a career which debuted with the astonishing, poetic ‘The Spirit of the Beehive’, Spanish director Victor Erice’s fourth feature, his first in thirty years, is a typically lyrical and semi-autobiographical examination of memory, identity, …
Garrone’s best film since the classic ‘Gomorra’ follows two Senegalese teens as they embark on a perilous journey to Italy. Excellent newcomer Sarr is Seydou a sixteen-year-old who lives just outside of Dakar in a one-bedroom house with his mother and lit…
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow up to his sublime Haruki Murakami adaptation ‘Drive My Car’ is a more oblique, but endlessly compelling affair. The setting is Mizubiki, a small woodland village just outside of Tokyo. Woodcutter Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) lives wit…
Shades of Abbas Kiarostami's 'Close-Up' in director Ben Hania's audacious experimental picture, a documentary come dramatization come therapy session that blurs the boundaries between realism and drama while investigating a family's complex history. It fo…
The second part of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic 1965 science fiction novel picks up the pace and lightens the tone a little following its ponderous predecessor. Like David Lynch’s inspired/bonkers/incomprehensible 1984 version,…
A top-flight cast are wasted in this misfiring period Britpic, based on the true story of a 20s coastal town scandalised by an obscene letter campaign conducted by a mystery writer. The strait-laced and pious Edith (Colman) lives with her spiteful father …
This riveting German drama begins as a social realist-style tale before shifting to intense psychological thriller. Benesch is Carla, a liberal and committed Polish maths and PE teacher working at a German high school. A series of thefts has occurred at t…
Director Koreeda returns to his native Japan after five years for this typically affecting if distractingly complex ‘Rashomon’-style triptych scripted by Sakamoto Yuji. It begins with an eleven-year-old boy Minato (Soya) observing a fire at a hos…
Adapted from Sara Varon’s graphic novel, Spanish director Pablo Berger’s picture is a charming and affecting portrait of loneliness and companionship in the big city. It’s the 80s and Dog, a dog, is tired of rattling around his apartment and eating TV din…
Zar Amir Ebrahami, star of the excellent Iran-set thriller ‘Holy Spider’, shifts to more low-key fare with this affecting 90s set Australian drama, a semi-autobiographical tale from writer-director Noora Niasari. Ebrahami is the titular character, an Iran…
Romanian writer-director Jude’s follow-up to ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ is a typically anarchic, discursive, sprawling satire on workplace culture and vulture capitalism, dotted with moments of insight and brilliance, and soundtracked to a combinati…
Argentinian writer-director Moreno’s wildly ambitious film begins like a larky heist picture before transforming into an existential meditation on loneliness, freedom, and desire. Morán (Elias) is a meek single bank clerk tired of his wage slave routine i…
Writer-director Franco’s film is a touching story of two troubled souls finding a connection. Chastain is Sylvia, a care home employee. A single mother and recovering alcoholic Sylvia broadly avoids socialising and lives in a small Brooklyn apartment with…
Writer and Director Leo Leigh’s debut fiction feature, Sweet Sue, is a bleakly comic story about lives imperfectly lived, complicated relationships and, at times, abject misery, lifted from lasting gloom by lashings of absurdity, dark humour, and strong c…
Despite their huge influence on soul, jazz and hip-hop on both sides of the Atlantic, British band Cymande are presently still best known mainly to seasoned crate diggers and rare groove aficionados. This documentary should introduce them to a bigger audi…
Septuagenarian German director Wenders shows no sign of slowing down with this, his second release in under four months, following ‘Anselm’ his haunting profile documentary of artist Anselm Kiefer. Co-written by Takuma Takasaki, his latest profiles Hiraya…
DuVernay’s time-juggling, globe-straddling picture, based on the nonfiction book ‘Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents’ by Isabel Wilkerson is ambitious but flawed. Ellis-Taylor plays Black author Wilkerson. It begins in the aftermath of the shooting of …
This multi-layered comedy drama, the debut feature of Cord Jefferson, adapted from the book ‘Erasure’ by Percival Everett, plays like a literary and more artful take on 'Bamboozled'. Jeffrey Wright is Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison a writer and disaffected lec…
Like his previous book adaptation ‘Under the Skin’, director Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of the 2014 Martin Amis novel strips away most of the narrative, as well as Amis’s dark humour, for a stark and rigidly formalist depiction of the life of concentrat…
This history of the London repertory cinema, famous for its eclectic programming, is suitably rambunctious and freewheeling, even if the self-mythologizing is occasionally a bit much. Formed from a defunct Socialist collective, The Other Cinema, The Scala…
The first home-grown Godzilla film since 2016’s ‘Shin Godzilla’ winds the clock back to the aftermath of WWII to immensely satisfying and thematically rich effect. A 1944 prologue on Pacific island Odo has kamikaze pilot Kōichi (Kamiki) feigning a mechani…
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