wed 09/07/2025

Film Reviews

Hot Milk review - a mother of a problem

Graham Fuller

Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk, adapted from Deborah Levy’s 2016 Man Booker shortlistee, has been described as a "psychological drama". Strictly speaking, it's a psychoanalytic one – a clue-sprinkled case study, involving talk therapy, of a woman whose repressed trauma has confined her to a wheelchair for 20 years. 

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The Shrouds review - he wouldn't let it lie

James Saynor

“Dying is an act of eroticism,” suggested one of the many disposable characters in David Cronenberg’s first full-length feature, Shivers (1975), and that slippery adage could sum up more than a few of the Canadian sensationalist’s movies in the past 50 years – not least his latest, The Shrouds, which was in competition at Cannes last year.

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Jurassic World Rebirth review - prehistoric franchise gets a new lease of life

Adam Sweeting

The first Jurassic Park movie now seems virtually Jurassic itself, having been released in the sepia-tinged year of 1993. Directed with pizzazz by Steven Spielberg, it was ground-breaking (and indeed ground-shaking) enough to earn admission to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry on account of being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

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Sudan, Remember Us review - the revolution will be memorised

Hugh Barnes

In 2019, French-Tunisian journalist and documentary filmmaker Hind Meddeb flew to Sudan after the overthrow of hated dictator Omar al-Bashir, hoping to chronicle the dream of an Arab country shaken up by a feminist revolution. The young pro-democracy activists, mostly women, she met at a sit-in protest outside army headquarters in Khartoum became the focus of Sudan, Remember Us, which she filmed over the next four years.

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Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs (and one chicken)

Helen Hawkins

Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the punk parody single “Jilted John” and Sheffield’s finest, the car-coated singer-songwriter John Shuttleworth. But they may leave disappointed.

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F1: The Movie review - Brad Pitt rolls back the years as maverick racer Sonny Hayes

Adam Sweeting

As producer Jerry Bruckheimer cautioned a preview audience, “Remember, this is not a documentary. It’s a movie.” Bruckheimer teamed up with director Joseph Kosinski to make Brad Pitt’s Formula One movie, the same duo who masterminded Top Gun: Maverick. Both films share a kind of dazzling hyper-reality which dares you to try to deny it.

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28 Years Later review - an unsentimental, undead education

Nick Hasted

The 23 years since 28 Days Later and especially those since Danny Boyle’s soulful encapsulation of Britain’s best spirit at the 2012 Olympics have offered rich material for a franchise about deserted cities, rampaging viruses, hard quarantines and an insular, afraid country hacked adrift from Europe.

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Red Path review - the dead know everything

James Saynor

Here’s a film you might not feel like seeing. After all, Red Path tells of a 14-year-old in Tunisia who is forced to carry home the head of his teenage cousin after the cousin is executed by jihadists. But see the film you really should.

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Tornado review - samurai swordswoman takes Scotland by storm

Justine Elias

The opening images of Tornado are striking. A wild-haired young woman in Japanese peasant garb runs for her life through a barren forest and across burnt-orange fields. As her pursuers, a rough-looking band of thieves, draw nearer, she seeks refuge in a seemingly deserted mansion. Where are we? When are we?

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Lollipop review - a family torn apart

Graham Fuller

On leaving prison, Lollipop’s thirtyish single mum Molly discovers that reclaiming her kids from social care is akin to doing lengths in a shark-infested swimming pool teeming with naval mines. 

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Jane Austen Wrecked My Life review - persuading us that the French can do you-know-who

James Saynor

Do the French do irony? Well, was Astérix a Gaul? Obviously they do, and do it pretty well to judge by many of their movies down the decades. As we brave the salutes on this side of the Channel to arch irony-spinner Jane Austen’s 250th birth-year – from gushing BBC documentaries to actually quite witty Hallmark cable movies – France offers up Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, a cordial, low-energy rom com that sets out to Austenify the lovelorn of Paris.

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Big Star: The Nick Skelton Story review - the ways of a man with his mount

Justine Elias

If you’re horse mad or merely an every-four-years Olympic fan, you already know Nick Skelton’s story. Equestrianism can favour mature competitors, but Skelton was twice the age of his rivals. He'd survived numerous injuries – including a broken neck – by the time he propelled Britain to showjumping gold in 2012. Fifty-four at the London games, he wasn’t done. Both he and his horse Big Star returned to the Olympics four years later to win the individual gold medal.

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Ballerina review - hollow point

Nick Hasted

John Wick’s simple story of a man and his dog became a bonkers, baroque franchise in record time, converting Keanu Reeves’ limited acting into Zen killer cool. Now Ana de Armas extends her delightful No Time to Die cameo as a high-kicking, cocktail-dressed MI6 agent into her own heroic assassin.

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Goebbels and the Führer review - behind the scenes from the Nazi perpetrators' perspective

Markie Robson-Scott

“Do you know the name of the propaganda minister of England, or America, or even Stalin? No. But Joseph Goebbels? Everyone knows him.” The cynical, grinning Dr Goebbels (Robert Stadlober), perhaps the first master of fake news, is not short on confidence.

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The Ballad of Wallis Island review - the healing power of the old songs

Anthony Cecil

I think The Ballad of Wallis Island is the best British romcom since I Know Where I’m Going! (1945), which it closely resembles.

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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.

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