|
4/5
|
H Is for Hawk
(2025)
|
Matthew Bond
|
The end result has a pleasing honesty, an eye-catching supporting turn from Sam Spruell as Helen’s hawking mentor and an unexpectedly lovely ending.
Posted Jan 27, 2026
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
H Is for Hawk
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The story does not unfold as I expected, but then grief rarely does. Which might be the whole point. Whatever, it’s a very worthwhile film, with a superb performance from Foy at its heart.
Posted Jan 27, 2026
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
(2026)
|
Brian Viner
|
It is superbly acted throughout by a splendid cast.
Posted Jan 20, 2026
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
The Rip
(2026)
|
Brian Viner
|
There are glimmers of suspense as we try to guess who the bent cops might be, because the formula decrees that there must be at least one.
Posted Jan 20, 2026
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
Song Sung Blue
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Almost all the performances in this film are very good. It's the narrative that hits the odd bum note.
Posted Jan 05, 2026
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Secrets of the Conclave
(2025)
|
Christopher Stevens
|
We heard nothing of the deliberations and, though the frontrunners were named, there were few hints of how anyone voted.
Posted Dec 30, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
The Housemaid
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The Housemaid is worth seeing for anyone who likes their thrillers high in saturated fat.
Posted Dec 29, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
Marty Supreme
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
While touching on dark themes such as antisemitism and even the Holocaust, Safdie has an almost indecent amount of fun with all this.
Posted Dec 29, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Avatar: Fire and Ash
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Cameron overdoes it. The narrative becomes turgid and repetitive.
Posted Dec 23, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Accidental Tourist
(2025)
|
Christopher Stevens
|
Most of this pilot episode consisted of filler and repetition. Any hopes of an entire series are as cold and unappealing as a squid in a Korean fish market.
Posted Dec 18, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Lurker
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Excruciatingly tense, this is a brilliantly assured directorial debut from Alex Russell.
Posted Dec 17, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Silent Night, Deadly Night
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Filmmaker Mike P. Nelson injects some welcome twists, including a Hallmark style romance involving Ruby Modine (daughter of Matthew). And if his holiday horror falls short as regards humour and scares, be assured it delivers sackloads of gore.
Posted Dec 17, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
1/5
|
Ella McCay
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The story-telling is an absolute dog’s breakfast.
Posted Dec 17, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Fackham Hall
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
On the whole Fackham Hall, like a flatulent family retriever in the drawing-room, is best ignored.
Posted Dec 17, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Eleanor the Great
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
This is all very capably acted, but in the end the story is perturbingly glib in the way it addresses such weighty themes.
Posted Dec 13, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
Goodbye June
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The few crass and clunky lines of dialogue might have been swerved by a more mature writer, but they don't stop it being a creditable effort by a fellow so young, who very knowingly tackles grief, sibling dynamics and general family dysfunction head on.
Posted Dec 13, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Testimony
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The shocking story has been dramatised in films such as Philomena (2013) and Small Things Like These (2024) but it needed telling in documentary form, and Testimony does that compellingly.
Posted Dec 13, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
The Carpenter's Son
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
An overwrought exercise in biblical-horror which doesn’t name Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but we’re left in no doubt that’s who they are.
Posted Dec 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
The Thing with Feathers
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Cumberbatch acting with every sinew is always worth the price of admission.
Posted Dec 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Zootopia 2
(2025)
|
Peter Hoskin
|
It involves compromises and hard truths; as kids' films go, it's pretty mature.
Posted Dec 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Craig is fabulous, but even he is eclipsed by the superb Josh O'Connor.
Posted Dec 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Blue Moon
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The acting is wonderful, but really this rather theatrical film is all about the dialogue: a bit smart-alecky at times but crafted with manifest respect for our intelligence, which always feels flattering.
Posted Dec 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
Blue Moon
(2025)
|
Matthew Bond
|
It has a wordy but deliciously witty screenplay.
Posted Dec 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Sisu: Road to Revenge
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Amid all the violence and gore, Road To Revenge is exhilaratingly, laugh-out-loud bonkers, with spectacular stunts involving planes, trains and automobiles… and tanks.
Posted Nov 24, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
1/5
|
Christmas Karma
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
It’s hard to decide what the film’s most gobsmackingly, cringe-inducingly, ill-conceived moment is, given the stiff competition.
Posted Nov 24, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Nuremberg
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
There's some really clunky exposition in this film and an even clunkier reconstruction of Rudolf Hess's notorious 1941 flight to Scotland.
Posted Nov 18, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
The Running Man
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
It's exciting and energetic, and Powell is a charismatic lead.
Posted Nov 18, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
Wicked: For Good
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
This one is extravagantly sumptuous on the eye. The sets and costumes are truly spectacular, and the animal exodus from Oz is superbly rendered.
Posted Nov 18, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
The Choral
(2025)
|
Matthew Bond
|
It’s well acted and manages to be both funny and moving.
Posted Nov 13, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
Train Dreams
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
There's a sense something bad is going to happen, and it does, but this is a film light on action, heavy on mood, and consistently appealing on the eye.
Posted Nov 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Die My Love
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
It's bleak stuff indeed.
Posted Nov 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Predator: Badlands
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Director Dan Trachtenberg's 2016 film 10 Cloverfield Lane was one of the better sci-fi horror films of recent years. Predator: Badlands does not scale the same heights.
Posted Nov 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Anemone
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
It's a heavy, intense tale, in which Jem tries to draw Ray towards some kind of reconciliation, but except for the mighty acting there is nothing to relieve the film's unrelenting gloom.
Posted Nov 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Dragonfly
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Dragonfly is quite brilliantly written and directed, and revolves around two acting performances that could be shown to drama students for the rest of time.
Posted Nov 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
The Choral
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
In trying to be a comedy, a weepie and a history lesson; in attempting to tackle class, sexuality and bereavement; in straining to be melancholic, profound and fun... The Choral never quite convinces as an actual story.
Posted Nov 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
It’s crafted with passion and conviction.
Posted Oct 28, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Christy
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Christy is one of those biopics in which the subject's renown is eclipsed by that of the star playing her.
Posted Oct 22, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
Moss & Freud
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
As a cinematic portrait of a friendship, it’s too heavy-handed by half.
Posted Oct 15, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
Hamnet
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Buckley's performance is a proper tour de force.
Posted Oct 14, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
TRON: Ares
(2025)
|
Peter Hoskin
|
There are motivations. There are stakes. There is character development. It all makes sense, mostly.
Posted Oct 14, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
(2025)
|
Matthew Bond
|
Bigelow’s film superbly evokes the furnace of decision-making that such an agonising dilemma might ignite.
Posted Oct 07, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
One Battle After Another
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Sean Penn pinches every scene he’s in as an unhinged army officer, driven first by lust and later by loathing, whose downfall, when it comes, is one of the most startling things you will see in the cinema this year.
Posted Sep 23, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
2/5
|
The Man in My Basement
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
The acting is fine but the plot is convoluted and the dialogue over-written.
Posted Sep 12, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
The Golden Spurtle
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
One of those films that celebrate eccentricity and make you downright proud to be British, it's a delight from start to finish.
Posted Sep 12, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
Islands
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Director Jan-Ole Gerster toys with our narrative expectations, playfully back-handing red herrings our way.
Posted Sep 12, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
The Long Walk
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
This has really impressive performances from Cooper Hoffman and the excellent young British actor David Jonsson.
Posted Sep 12, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
3/5
|
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
There are plenty of snappy one-liners to enjoy.
Posted Sep 12, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Bigelow’s film superbly evokes the furnace of decision-making that such an agonising dilemma might ignite.
Posted Sep 05, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
4/5
|
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
It's corny and formulaic, sometimes even preposterous, but two hours immersed in Downton is fundamentally the same as it's always been, like luxuriating in a warm bath. And hurrah for that. I'll rather miss it.
Posted Sep 05, 2025
Edit critic review
|
|
5/5
|
The Wizard of the Kremlin
(2025)
|
Brian Viner
|
Cleverly, Assayas presents all this not as recent history dramatised by a blend of fact and informed supposition, but as a lively thriller.
Posted Sep 02, 2025
Edit critic review
|
Continue with Google
>
