Author Jack Blackwell

One of the things that separates my very favourite films from those that are merely excellent is that they seem to fold in other mediums as they go. With its dense plotting and lovingly textured surroundings,...

This film was previously reviewed in October 2019 as part of our London Film Festival coverage. If you’re going to make a movie about modern youth, you have to consult with modern youth. Too many films...

This film was previously reviewed in October 2019 as part of our coverage for London Film Festival. A film like The Painted Bird does not want to be ‘liked’. It wants to shock, to disgust, to viscerally...

This film was previously reviewed in October 2019 for our London Film Festival coverage. No two Pablo Larraín films are quite the same but, even so, Ema marks a departure. An opaque story told mainly...

This film was previously reviewed in October 2019 as part of our London Film Festival coverage. It isn’t easy to imagine oneself feeling much sympathy for the characters of a film about the Apartheid-era...

With his focus on the terror of the indescribable, H.P. Lovecraft has always proved hard to adapt. Whether it’s the Garth Marenghi-esque ‘70s version of The Dunwich Horror or Guillermo Del Toro being...

With Sweet Country, The Nightingale, and now True History of the Kelly Gang, the outback western is having a real moment, bringing a more than welcome Aussie chaos to that most epic and stately of genres....

Originally reviewed as part of our London Film Festival coverage in October 2019. With a rollout soured by director Michael Winterbottom being pressured by Sony to make its end credits less political, Greed...

With dull, failed reboots like Men in Black and Hellboy, and heinous franchise finales like Rise of Skywalker and Dark Phoenix, 2019 was a bad year for blockbusters. Thankfully, 2020 seems to be here to set it...

At its best, cinema can approach being indescribable. ‘F.W. Murnau directs an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ doesn’t make any kind of coherent sense on paper, nor is it something you can...

In 2019, we weren’t exactly hurting for ‘topical’ or ‘timely’ films. From January – with The Favourite’s vision of a Britain ruled by sad and grotesque schemers – to December – with...

Though Martin Scorsese’s mooted upcoming films sound exciting, it’s hard to believe that they’re ever coming out at all. The Irishman has such an air of emphatic finality about it, and serves as such a...

Few films commit to their titles like Ordinary Love. This is a movie of calm, contemplative realism that never falsely raises its stakes as it studies the effect of a cancer diagnosis on a retired couple in...

Originally published as part of our London Film Festival coverage in October 2019 As much as American cinema is based in LA, it’s New York that has always been the country’s most iconic on-screen...

If, at the start of the year, you were asked which Steven Soderbergh project sounded more exciting between ‘the one shot entirely on an iPhone’ and ‘the one starring Meryl Streep’, then it would have...