Cinema

I’ve never seen a film like it: Ordinary Love reviewed

7 December 2019 9:00 am

Ordinary Love stars Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson as a long-married couple whose lives are disrupted when she is diagnosed…

Wildly entertaining Pope-off: The Two Popes reviewed

30 November 2019 9:00 am

The Two Popes stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce — that’s two reasons to buy a ticket, right there —…

Detailed and devastating: Marriage Story reviewed

16 November 2019 9:00 am

Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is a drama about the breakdown of a marriage and it is, at times, devastatingly painful.…

Scorsese at his most leisurely, meandering and engrossing: The Irishman reviewed

9 November 2019 9:00 am

The Irishman is Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic — a mobster-a-thon, you could say — starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino,…

Scooby Doo with better CGI: Doctor Sleep reviewed

2 November 2019 9:00 am

Wheeeere’s Johnny? Nearly 40 years ago Jack Nicholson went berserk in a snowbound Rockies hotel, smashing an axe through a…

The best Terminator film since the first: Terminator Six reviewed

26 October 2019 9:00 am

The first Terminator film, which came out in 1984, was a high-concept sci-fi serial killer thriller. You can just imagine…

The Disney sequel that no one wanted is finally here – what a relief! Maleficent: Mistress of Evil reviewed

19 October 2019 9:00 am

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is the sequel to the 2014 film Maleficent, and it will certainly come as a relief…

Only fitfully funny: Chris Morris’s The Day Shall Come reviewed

12 October 2019 9:00 am

The Day Shall Come is a second feature from British satirist Chris Morris and like the first, Four Lions, it…

Spellbinding: Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck in Joker

If you ever want to sleep again, step away from Joker

5 October 2019 9:00 am

Judy is in cinemas this week and so is Joker and if you have to choose between the two, then…

You may not wish to kiss the ground when you finally leave the cinema, but I did: The Goldfinch reviewed

28 September 2019 9:00 am

The Goldfinch is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt that centres on a great work of…

Painful, funny — and with a brilliant twist: The Farewell reviewed

21 September 2019 9:00 am

The Farewell is a quiet film that builds and builds and builds into a wonderful exploration of belonging, loss, family…

Extremely predictable and extremely dull: Downton Abbey reviewed

14 September 2019 9:00 am

The much-anticipated film version of Downton Abbey has arrived and I suppose you could describe it as the Avengers Assemble…

Is this film saying relationships between teachers and kids are OK? Scarborough reviewed

7 September 2019 9:00 am

Scarborough is a small British film but it will give you a very big headache. Its subject is teachers who…

Sensational: Honor Swinton Byrne as Julie and Tom Burke as Anthony

Sensational: The Souvenir reviewed

31 August 2019 9:00 am

Joanna Hogg’s films are the antithesis of popcorn entertainment so if it’s not the antithesis of popcorn entertainment that you…

Back together again: Antonio Banderas as Salvador Mallo and Asier Etxeandia as Alberto

Love me tender

24 August 2019 9:00 am

Pedro Almodovar can sometimes be overly flamboyant if not out-and-out nuts — let us never talk about I’m So Excited!…

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

DiCaprio and Pitt are transfixing: Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood reviewed

17 August 2019 9:00 am

Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is a sprawling tale set in Hollywood in 1969, against…

Sweet but formulaic: Blinded by Light reviewed

10 August 2019 9:00 am

Once upon a time two men sat in a New York bar lamenting the state of Broadway. So they decided…

Grandma (Farrukh Jaffar) and grandson (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) in Photograph by Ritesh Batra

So sloooooooow: Photograph reviewed

3 August 2019 9:00 am

Ritesh Batra had a smash hit with his gentle romance The Lunchbox (2013) and then made a couple of less…

Young love: Ihlen and Cohen in the 1960s

Uncomfortable and distasteful: Marianne & Leonard reviewed

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love is Nick Broomfield’s documentary chronicling the muse-artist relationship between Marianne Ihlen and Leonard Cohen.…

Animal magnetism: you’ll want to reach into the screen, pluck Simba out and take him on to your lap for a cuddle

Completely and utterly and entirely blown away: the Lion King reviewed

20 July 2019 9:00 am

The Lion King is Disney’s photorealistic CGI remake of the beloved, hand-drawn 1994 original that, for many children, offered a…

Steve Bannon will be thrilled by The Brink

13 July 2019 9:00 am

The Brink is Alison Klayman’s documentary portrait of Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist (he shaped the ‘America First’…

A good horror film for those who don’t like horror films: Midsommar reviewed

6 July 2019 9:00 am

Midsommar is the latest horror film from Ari Aster, who made Hereditary, which starred Toni Collette and was a sensation.…

Himesh Patel as Jack in Yesterday

Funny moments swamped by an intolerable romance: Yesterday reviewed

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Yesterday is the latest comedy (with sad bits) from Richard Curtis, directed by Danny Boyle, about an unsuccessful singer-songwriter, Jack,…

You’ve got a friend in me: Woody and Forky getting acquainted in Toy Story 4

Still reliably fab: Toy Story 4 reviewed

22 June 2019 9:00 am

Nearly 25 years on from its immaculate birth, Toy Story — like Wagner’s Ring, like John Updike’s Rabbit novels —…

Ball boy: Maradona and his parents

Gripping and heartbreaking but I wanted to know more: Diego Maradona reviewed

15 June 2019 9:00 am

Diego Maradona, Asif Kapadia’s take on the poor boy from the slums of Buenos Aires who became a footballing god,…