While the rest of us were mastering sourdough, Jordan Peele spent the pandemic fusing sci-fi, horror and westerns to create a whole new kind of monster movie. The result – with no disrespect to any our baking efforts – was even better: an unnervy, unsettling and frequently funny third Peele effort, lit up by Keke Palmer’s livewire performance, a […]
It’s been a bittersweet 2022 for Iranian filmmaker Panah Panahi: his dad, legendary auteur Jafar (The White Balloon), was sentenced to six years in prison by the country’s oppressive regime; but it’s also been the year his debut film, a beguiling but quietly tumultuous family drama set on the dusty highways of Iran, met its
It might sound like a poundshop Transformers on paper, but this lo-fi, seriously funny and utterly beguiling British robot comedy is proof that you don’t need Hollywood budgets to forge something special out of the sci-fi genre. Sometimes a mannequin’s head, an old washing machine and a big heart works even better. That dummy’s head and Zanussi-shaped torso
Somewhere out there is a small but fanatical posse that holds Swiss Army Man on their shoulders as an unheralded classic. For the rest of us, this high-concept multiversal sci-fi is the first proper showcase of what directing duo the Daniels could do. With Michelle Yeoh launching from laundromat owner going through marital strife – basically a
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In a year in which the US Supreme Court put Roe v Wade in its crosshairs, Audrey Diwan’s tumultous, hard-hitting drama arrives to show the realities of illegal abortions. It’s not for the faint hearted – it goes further than Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake in depicting this bleak world – but it’s a gripping story of a
Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve is the heart and soul of this touching and inventive account of one millennial life that unfolds over several years in Oslo. Very much not the worst person in the world, her medical student-turned-writer is a perfect avatar for the uncertainties and confusions of young adulthood: a whole mess of conflicting desires, moments
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Pedro Almodóvar gets serious with this poignant investigation of Spain’s buried Civil War trauma, although without ever sacrificing his light touch and delight in giddying melodrama. Penélope Cruz lights it all up like a starburst, with her performance as a new mum caught up in a case of mistaken identity in the maternity ward a career
‘A widescreen rallying cry for cinema in the age of streaming’. So read Time Out’s admittedly fairly breathless appraisal of Robert Eggers’ brilliant, blood-soaked Viking epic when it landed in (smashed into? Ransacked?) cinemas in April. But the sentiment stands, because in an age increasingly dominated by streaming sites, The Northman is a useful reminder that the place
Okay, hands up who saw this practically flawless blockbuster coming? A few people probably did – this long-in-the-making Top Gun sequel was originally due out two years ago – but that enforced delay detracts not one iota from the purest widescreen thrill ride of the year so far. Tom Cruise’s ace pilot provides heart, soul and some
Okay, hands up who saw this practically flawless blockbuster coming? A few people probably did – this long-in-the-making Top Gun sequel was originally due out two years ago – but that enforced delay detracts not one iota from the purest widescreen thrill ride of the year so far. Tom Cruise’s ace pilot provides heart, soul and some