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…
It will do your head in: Black Bear review
Black Bear is one of those indie dramas that is meta on so many levels you can either sit with…
Clever, funny and stomach-knotting: Promising Young Woman reviewed
Promising Young Woman is a rape-revenge-thriller that has already proved divisive but is a wonderfully clever, darkly funny, stomach-knotting —…
Riveting and heartbreaking: Sound of Metal reviewed
The multi-Oscar-nominated Sound of Metalstars Riz Ahmed as a heavy-metal drummer whose life is in freefall after losing his hearing.…
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…
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…
Buttercup the cow was so convincing I felt quite moved: Jack and the Beanstalk reviewed
This pantomime was filmed by ‘legendary Blue Peter presenter’ Peter Duncan in his back garden over the summer. It was…
A hard watch, but ultimately a rewarding one: County Lines reviewed
County Lines is the kind of social realism that the British do so well, if not too well. In other…
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.…
A gripping portrait: Billie reviewed
This documentary about Billie Holiday is transfixing. Not just because it’s about Billie Holiday — I am not into jazz…
