article placeholder

County Lines – Review

This film was previously reviewed in October 2019 as part of our London Film Festival coverage. County Lines is an impressive feature debut for director Henry Blake, who based the story on real incidents...
article placeholder

Rocks – Review

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...
article placeholder

The Painted Bird – Review

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...
article placeholder

Ema – Review

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...
article placeholder

Moffie – Review

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...
article placeholder

Greed – Review

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...
article placeholder

The Irishman – LFF 2019 Review

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...
article placeholder

Piranhas – LFF 2019 Review

Piranhas is at once a thoroughly conventional gangster movie and a fresh take on the genre. If you’ve seen a mob flick made since The Public Enemy you can guess most of the plot, but director Claudio...
article placeholder

Ordinary Love – LFF 2019 Review

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...
article placeholder

Uncut Gems – Review

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...
article placeholder

Lingua Franca – LFF 2019 Review

The summary of Lingua Franca below could mislead you into expecting some sort of topical melodrama, featuring the big issues of today blown up to cinema scale. Instead, the film is a slow-paced, slice-of-life...
article placeholder

The Two Popes – LFF 2019 Review

Anthony McCarten has, in recent years, made his name as one of the premier screenwriters of mass appeal but mediocre historical films like Darkest Hour and Bohemian Rhapsody. His latest, The Two Popes, teams...
article placeholder

The Aeronauts – LFF 2019 Review

‘Gravity, but Victorian’, is an intriguing pitch and, visually, The Aeronauts delivers on this strange, exciting promise. As Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne journey through the skies in a giant hot air...
article placeholder

Luce – LFF 2019 Review

It is hard to explain exactly what Luce is. Initially a serious look at the pressure put on high-achieving black students in US schools, it shifts so many times – even into trashy thriller territory – that...