Author Tom Bond

The college coming-of-age story is such a tried-and-tested subgenre that it’s impressive when someone offers a new take. Freshman Year, the debut feature from writer, director and lead, Cooper Raiff, shows...

There are sure to be countless Covid films tackling the biggest global disruption of our lifetimes, and The Falls takes an interesting approach, relegating this cataclysm to a sub-plot. We begin in Taipei,...

Directing your debut feature as an established actor has its pros and cons. You can call in favours to land a stellar cast including Olivia Colman, Ed Harris, Dakota Johnson, Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley,...

Official Competition brings a mischievous premise worth the admission fee alone: acclaimed director Lola Cuevas (Penélope Cruz) is hired to make a prestigious adaptation with two of Spain’s finest actors,...

Some films have a profound message in the gaps between their 24 frames a second, and some just want to show you a damn good time. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon spirits up a woozy vibe that thrills for every...

The Inner Cage’s rural Sardinian prison is due to be shut down, but an administrative hiccup forces a skeleton staff to remain and guard a dozen prisoners who can’t be moved elsewhere yet. Every frame...

Last Night in Soho starts shakily, with the slow establishment of Ellie’s (Thomasin McKenzie) move to London to study fashion. Her struggles are about as thrilling as any freshers’ week that’s not your...

The Hand of God is Paolo Sorrentino’s most personal film yet, re-telling key events of his youth in Naples, including the tragic moment that left him orphaned. His films have always had an air of melancholy,...

Pablo Larraín’s Princess Diana biopic, Spencer, gets about as far away from a cradle-to-grave template as possible, instead charting the three days of Christmas, 1991, as the pressure to conform to royal...

The Card Counter marks a highly anticipated return for Paul Schrader, after his career-best First Reformed. He’s paired with another acting heavyweight in Oscar Isaac to explore the gambling world (one of...

Parallel Mothers is a twisting tale of two single mothers, Janis (Penélope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit), whose fates become entwined. Where some films could survive on just an affair, or just an unexpected...

Jane Campion’s latest film, an adaptation of Thomas Savage’s The Power of the Dog, is a masterful excavation of the cracks and wrinkles of masculinity, and the ways that men hide from themselves in order...

This film was previously reviewed in May 2019 as part of our Cannes Film Festival coverage. Any film not made for mass audiences is always at risk of sliding into a montage of first world problems, such is...

The greatest films linger in your memory long after the credits have rolled, but there’s a particular power to those we watch as children: impressionable young minds latching onto striking images and twisted...

This film was previously reviewed in October 2020 as part of our London Film Festival coverage. David Byrne’s American Utopia begins with what is almost a caricature of the man himself. Infamously awkward...