ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2021: #1 – Petite Maman Anna McKibbin December 31, 2021 Analysis, Features, Top 10 As Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) sleeps securely in her mother’s arms, a bright circle of light skittishly bounces across the door, its glow illuminating the murky shape of a key. Nelly and Marion (Gabrielle Sanz)...
ORWAV’S Top 20 Films of 2021: #2 – The Green Knight Carmen Paddock December 31, 2021 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Recent cinema has been marked by its reckoning with myths and legends: some based in truth, some overt fabrications, some lost to time, some painfully traceable. Spencer tackles the Royal Family; Dune brings a...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2021: #3 – Limbo Anahit Behrooz December 31, 2021 Analysis, Features, Top 10 There is something deliriously off-kilter about Limbo, Ben Sharrock’s absurdist comedy about a group of asylum seekers awaiting processing on a remote Scottish island. Nothing is ever quite right. In its...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #9 – Rocks Angela Moore December 27, 2020 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Rocks was a shot of life and energy in an otherwise listless year. The film takes us into the world of a group of young girls in Hackney – their loyalties and their rivalries, their music and their jokes. It...
In A World: Cinema’s Most Innovative Trailers George Howarth September 3, 2020 Features, Opinion, Top 10 So you're a director, you've made your genre-defining debut picture, and now it's time to convince the viewing public that your film blows the other cinematic dross out of the water. But how do you prove it?...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2019: #10 – Burning Jack Blackwell December 28, 2019 Analysis, Features, Top 10 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...
ORWAV’S Top 20 Films of 2018: #2 – The Shape of Water Josefine Algieri December 30, 2018 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Even nearly 12 months after its initial UK release, Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water has lost none of its magic. The film not only captured the hearts of critics, but also of cinemagoers worldwide,...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2018: #9 – First Reformed Calum Baker December 23, 2018 Analysis, Features, Top 10 The long shadow cast by Paul Schrader has given us the best, and the most dreary and insulting, of modern cinema. As a writer, his neuroses combined with his deep understanding of film noir helped create a...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2018: #10 – Widows Katy Moon December 22, 2018 Analysis, Features, Top 10 It’s a dangerous world out there for a film protagonist’s wife. Kidnapped, brutalised, often fridged in favour of the development of their male co-stars, it’s habitually a thankless role that comes with...
A Millennial’s Guide to Movies Patrick Taylor April 12, 2018 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Millennials don't have it easy. From finding the ideal life partner, carving out the perfect career, buying a property and just generally, y'know, figuring out what it all means, there's a lot to consider....
Top 20 Films of 2017: #8 – Toni Erdmann Calum Baker December 23, 2017 Analysis, Features, Top 10 You've no doubt heard the old Italian joke (well, the joke quoted in Watchmen at least) about the depressed man who, passing through a small town, decides enough is enough and he needs help. "Dottore," he...
10 of the Greatest Dogs in Cinema Phil W. Bayles May 2, 2017 Analysis, Features, Top 10 A Dog’s Purpose tells the story of Toby, a dog with the voice of the snowman from Frozen, who dies and is reincarnated four times in an attempt to reunite with his master. That’s pretty impressive loyalty,...
10 Historical Figures Who Deserve Their Own Biopics David Brake February 15, 2017 Analysis, Features, Top 10 History is Hollywood's best friend of late. It represents a reliable, endless supply of stories that can add innate credibility to marketing materials, and can be transformed into soaring, emotional...
Top 20 Films of 2016: 8. Anomalisa Conor Morgan December 23, 2016 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Despite all of the numerous terrible things that have happened, 2016 has at least given us some truly original films. We’ve seen such leftfield ideas as a punk rock siege led by neo-Nazi Captain Picard,...
10 Fictional Movie Languages We’d Love To Learn Phil W. Bayles November 10, 2016 Analysis, Features, Top 10 The idea of visitors from other worlds is one of the oldest in all of science fiction, but Denis Villeneuve's new film Arrival is one of the very few that poses a genuinely thorny problem: how would we...