The fact one of the most important movies of 2026 is the remastered director’s cut of a very controversial movie made in 1971 is one of the most incredible things to happen in recent cinematic history. Ken Russell’s The Devils (marketed as such to differentiate from the original 1971 version) …
It Will Happen Tonight pulls off a very difficult trick: it takes a story of infidelity and makes it exceptionally romantic. This is a huge surprise, because obviously you really shouldn’t be going around falling in love with people who aren’t the ones you married. But everyone knows the heart …
The global appetite for American stories is shrinking. The American political climate has an international impact which hardly any ordinary American person realises, but why should they, when they are too busy trying to survive it directly themselves. Bored kids with no money, nothing to do and no future to …
The Scottish Ballet is justifiably taking a great deal of pride in These Violent Delights. The dance company is one of the artistic endeavours Scotland is most proud of and this movie – a modern version of Romeo and Juliet, told entirely through dance – will bring its its ethos …
It is so depressing to watch a movie that should have been fun, but isn’t. The Spiral is worse than a prank gone wrong. It’s even worse than telling someone on their way home from a funeral to smile. When a movie should have been a camp delight and is …
There is a really boring recent trend in world cinema to make movies about rich people learning valuable lessons. From Triangle of Sadness onwards there has been too many movies about affluent people being all surprised that someone’s money is not the most important thing about them. The trouble is …
Company is directed by Casey Affleck, whose reputation as an actor is not unblemished, and whose reputation as a director will not be helped by the fact there are eight (eight!) credited cinematographers on Company, including himself. It is also not necessarily a positive thing that two of the movie’s …
Once again Tom Cruise has tried to hit a triple but instead has been immediately caught by the shortstop for a major out. Mr. Cruise’s first non-action role since his Axl Rose impression in 2012’s Rock of Ages was meant to be a bonanza for both the man as well …
It might be necessary to have a certain kind of family to truly appreciate this kind of disaster movie. If you know someone – your sister-in-law, perhaps? Or your least favourite cousin? – whose reaction on learning another relative will not be attending Christmas dinner is “How dare that bitch …
The self-indulgence of Hombre al Agua (which translates to “Man Overboard”) is kind of its point, for it’s about the ways people play parts in their lives and how privilege allows the privileged to change the terms of the act. Fortunately a movie in which the writer-director-coproducer also stars as …
A family is a fragile thing too often taken for granted, and once the love is gone it’s very hard to bring back. A Common Story has an unusual gimmick: it is about a family, but the child hardly features. For she has grown up and gone off to university, …
Sometimes it feels like modern technology has given us the worst of both worlds. We have the capacity to be constantly connected with our loved ones no matter where in the world we may be. This can provide the illusion that we are in the same place as those we …
So this is how the world ends: not with a bang, but with a bunch of French politicians arguing with each other in a meeting room. As France grapples with the new world order, where America is no longer an ally and Russia is very much worse, its art has …
Quentin Dupieux is not only an electronic musician (who earned a UK number one back in 1999) but also the finest surrealist filmmaker of our times. To say his movies are unpredictable, illogical, ridiculous and violent is an understatement. But their wildness and their misbehaviour has the feel of ordinary …
It was notable at this year’s Cannes how many movies re-examined France and the Second World War. It’s been obvious for some years now how the French film industry has been retelling its own stories and creating blockbusters for home audiences without caring too much about how they’ll land overseas. …
Tin Castle aka Irish Travellers is the very rare documentary worth seeing for its cinematography. Unfortunately the cinematography is the best thing about the film. Director Alexander Murphy also shot the film and some of its images are among the most surprisingly beautiful that have ever been captured in a …
For a movie about the limits of memory, Blue Heron made the bad decision to be from the point of the youngest family member. That’s to say, the person present with the most limited understanding of what was happening while it was happening. The fact that the young daughter, Sasha …
Dollars to donuts director Rodrigo Sorogoyen was not happy to learn about Sentimental Value. Its brief outline is the same to that of The Beloved – volatile director tries to reconnect with his daughter by working with her on a movie – but of course Sentimental Value came out last …
The most shocking thing in Parallel Tales is Isabelle Huppert lighting a cigarette with a toaster. There’s a sense of unpredictability in that one moment that the rest of Parallel Tales was aiming for and somehow didn’t achieve. It’s hard to say why it falls so flat, since there is …
Alicia Vikander has had an impressive year of making extremely interesting choices but, with the noble exception of Hope, unfortunately those choices have not worked out. Some of that is because of the difficulty of the topics, but in the case of The Echo Chamber it’s because of its frightful …