sat 31/05/2025

Film reviews, news & interviews

The Salt Path review - the transformative power of nature

Markie Robson-Scott

“I can’t move my arms or legs, but apart from that I’m good to go.” Moth (Jason Isaacs) has to be pulled out of the tent in his sleeping bag by his wife Ray (Gillian Anderson). And this is only the second day of their 630-mile walk, split into two summers, along the south-west coastal path from Minehead to South Haven Point.

Bogancloch review - every frame a work of art

Sarah Kent

Director Ben Rivers is primarily an artist, and it shows. Every frame of Bogancloch is treated as a work of art and the viewer is given ample time to relish the beauty of the framing, lighting and composition. Many of the shots fall into traditional categories such as still life, landscape and portraiture and would work equally well as photographs.

When the Light Breaks review - only lovers left...

Nick Hasted

Grief takes unexpected turns over the course of a long Icelandic day in Rúnar Rúnarsson’s romantic tragedy, a Prix Un Certain Regard contender at...

Blu-ray: Strange New Worlds - Science Fiction at...

Graham Rickson

DEFA was East Germany’s state film studio, operating between 1946 and 1992. Among its vast output were four lavish science fiction adventures,...

Mongrel review - deeply empathetic filmmaking...

Harry Thorfinn-George

There is a dark, spectral quality to this compassionate film about Southeast Asian migrant workers in rural Taiwan. At the centre of this story is...

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The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idiosyncratic world of Wes Anderson

Adam Sweeting

Benicio del Toro's megalomaniac tycoon heads a star-studded cast

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this really be the end for Ethan Hunt?

Adam Sweeting

Tom Cruise's eighth M:I film shows symptoms of battle fatigue

Magic Farm review - numpties from the Nineties

James Saynor

A comedy about youth TV putting trends above truth

Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and his pal

Graham Fuller

A wise-beyond-her-years teen discovers male limitations in a deft indie drama

E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull docu-fiction take on the designer-architect

Saskia Baron

Iconic Irish modernist Eileen Gray gets an artsy and overly reverential appraisal

The Marching Band review - what's the French for 'Brassed Off'?

Sebastian Scotney

Brothers suddenly united in blood kinship – and music

The Last Musician of Auschwitz review - a haunting testament

Sarah Kent

When fine music was played in a death factory

DVD/Blu-ray: Slade in Flame

Tim Cumming

One of the great rock movies gets a 50th anniversary revival

Riefenstahl review - fascinating fascism? Portrait of the Nazis' favourite film-maker

Saskia Baron

A new documentary unlocks the archive of the woman who directed 'Triumph of the Will'

The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and out in western Australia

Markie Robson-Scott

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan's manic take on macho surfer culture

Desire: The Carl Craig Story review - a worthy, brand-conscious encomium for a techno star

Sebastian Scotney

Documentary on the Detroit electronic music producer borders on hagiographic

Words of War review - portrait of a doomed truth-seeker in Putin's Russia

Hugh Barnes

Maxine Peake gives a poignant performance as the fearless reporter Anna Politkovskaya

theartsdesk Q&A: Gary Oldman on playing John Cheever in 'Parthenope' and beating the booze

Pamela Jahn

Exclusive: A candid interview with the master actor

Blu-ray: Laurel & Hardy - The Silent Years (1928)

Graham Rickson

Ten more early shorts, handsomely restored and annotated

Two to One review - bank heist with a big catch

Hugh Barnes

'Christiane F' star Natja Brunckhorst directs Sandra Hüller in East German crime story

theartsdesk Q&A: film director Déa Kulumbegashvili on her startling second feature, 'April'

Pamela Jahn

The Georgian filmmaker talks about her award-winning abortion drama, motherhood and her relationship with the unknown

The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music, dance, film and spoken word

Helen Hawkins

A cache of love letters inspires samey songs and not enough wonder

Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade review - how the great man spent his thirties

Kathryn Reilly

The former Beatle's final years discussed and dissected

theartsdesk Q&A: director Leonardo Van Dijl discusses his sexual abuse drama 'Julie Keeps Quiet'

Pamela Jahn

The Belgian filmmaker unfolds an all too familiar tragedy in the world of tennis

DVD/Blu-ray: All We Imagine as Light

Graham Rickson

Epic but intimate Cannes prize-winner, ripe for repeated viewings

Stelios review - Athenian rhapsody in blues

Hugh Barnes

Big fat Greek biopic hits the high notes but lacks punk spirit

The Accountant 2 review - belated return of Ben Affleck's lethal bean-counter

Adam Sweeting

Horror, humour and mind games combine in Gavin O'Connor's sequel

The Ugly Stepsister review - gleeful Grimm revamp

James Saynor

A cutting Norwegian take on Cinderella and her adversaries

April review - powerfully acted portrait of a conflicted doctor in eastern Georgia

Helen Hawkins

Dea Kukumbegashvili's second film is stylistically striking and emotionally raw

Footnote: a brief history of British film

England was movie-mad long before the US. Contrary to appearances in a Hollywood-dominated world, the celluloid film process was patented in London in 1890 and by 1905 minute-long films of news and horse-racing were being made and shown widely in purpose-built cinemas, with added sound. The race to set up a film industry, though, was swiftly won by the entrepreneurial Americans, attracting eager new UK talents like Charlie Chaplin. However, it was a British film that in 1925 was the world's first in-flight movie, and soon the arrival of young suspense genius Alfred Hitchcock and a new legal requirement for a "quota" of British film in cinemas assisted a golden age for UK film. Under the leadership of Alexander Korda's London Films, Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) is considered the first true sound movie, documentary techniques developed and the first Technicolor movies were made.

Brief_EncounterWhen war intervened, British filmmakers turned effectively to lean, effective propaganda documentaries and heroic, studio-based war-films. After Hitchcock too left for Hollywood, David Lean launched into an epic career with Brief Encounter (pictured), Powell and Pressburger took up the fantasy mantle with The Red Shoes, while Carol Reed created Anglo films noirs such as The Third Man. Fifties tastes were more domestic, with Ealing comedies succeeded by Hammer horror and Carry-Ons; and more challenging in the Sixties, with New Wave films about sex and class by Lindsay Anderson, Joseph Losey and Tony Richardson. But it was Sixties British escapism which finally went global: the Bond films, Lean's Dr Zhivago, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music made Sean Connery, Julie Christie and Julie Andrews Hollywood's top stars.

In the 1970s, recession and the TV boom undermined cinema-going and censorship changes brought controversy: a British porn boom and scandals over The Devils, Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange. While Hollywood fielded Spielberg, Coppola and Scorsese epics, Britain riposted with The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire and Gandhi, but 1980s recession dealt a sharp blow to British cinema, and the Rank Organisation closed, after more than half a century. However more recently social comedies such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and The Full Monty, and royal dramas such as The Queen and The King's Speech have enhanced British reputation for wit, social observation and character acting.

As more films are globally co-produced, the success of British individual talents has come to outweigh the modest showing of the industry itself. Every week The Arts Desk reviews latest releases as well as leading international film festivals, and features in-depth career interviews with leading stars. Its writers include Jasper Rees, Graham Fuller, Anne Billson, Nick Hasted, Alexandra Coghlan, Veronica Lee, Emma Simmonds, Adam Sweeting and Matt Wolf

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