thu 10/07/2025

Film Reviews

Love Lies Bleeding review - a pumped-up neo-noir

Justine Elias

Somewhere along a desert highway in the American Southwest, where there's not much to do besides get drunk, shoot guns, and pump iron, a stranger comes to town.

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Nezouh review - seeking magic in a war

James Saynor

The 21st century learnt afresh about the reality of carpet-bombed cities thanks to the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. And the Syrian war-set movie Nezouh begins with a teenage girl huddled in a tight, enclosed space – perhaps the bunk bed of an underground shelter – fervently scratching some message of distress or emblem of yearning on a piece of board.

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I.S.S. review - sci-fi with a sting in the tail

Justine Elias

Earthrise, the 1968 Apollo 8 photograph of our small island of a planet, taken from the Moon’s surface, transformed our vision of our fragile home world. “To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats,” wrote Archibald MacLeish, “is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold.”

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That They May Face The Rising Sun review - lyrical adaptation of John McGahern's novel

Markie Robson-Scott

In director Pat Collins’s lyrical adaptation of John McGahern’s last novel, with cinematography by Richard Kendrick, the landscape is perhaps the most important character – though there’s a fine cast of well known mainly Irish actors.

If you’re feeling hemmed in by concrete and city life, it’s a balm to take a deep breath and listen to the birdsong while watching the lake, the trees and the hills change colour through the seasons.

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Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a multi-media artist

Sarah Kent

Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s Hunger. It’s gripping from the first frame to the last; the tension rarely lets up as we watch the main character lying and cheating his way through life as he struggles with addiction and is fleeced by card and loan sharks. In a heart-wrenching scene, his brother Paul (expertly played by Cam Riley) begs him to seek help.

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Fantastic Machine review - photography's story from one camera to 45 billion

Sarah Kent

The first photograph was taken nearly 200 years ago in France by Joseph Niépce, and the first picture of a person was taken in Paris by Louis Daguerre in 1838 (main picture). 

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All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic

Justine Elias

Music, when the singer’s voice dies away, vibrates in the memory. In the hypnotic new Irish horror film All You Need Is Death, those who search for long-unheard songs crave a certain melody that works a terrible magic on the living. In this pleasingly eldritch narrative debut by documentary-maker Paul Duane, it’s unclear whether the forbidden tune will turn out to be a love ballad, a curse, or both.

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If Only I Could Hibernate review - kids in grinding poverty in Ulaanbaatar

Markie Robson-Scott

Teenage Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh in an elegantly restrained performance) is looking after his little sister and brother in Ulaanbaatar after their illiterate mother has returned to the countryside to look for work. They’ve run out of coal and wood and it’s freezing inside their yurt. “If only we could hibernate, like bears. Never get cold, never catch the flu,” says the brother.

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The Book of Clarence review - larky jaunt through biblical epic territory

Helen Hawkins

The Book of Clarence comes lumbered with the charge of being the new Life of Brian, an irreverent spoof of the life of Christ destined to ruffle good Christians’ feathers. It turns out not to be the “new” anything, though: it’s refreshingly sui generis, as the Romans might have said.

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Back to Black review - rock biopic with a loving but soft touch

Helen Hawkins

Sam Taylor-Johnson has fashioned her biopic of Amy Winehouse with great care and affection, but sometimes, as she shows her subject discovering, love isn’t quite enough. 

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Civil War review - God help America

Adam Sweeting

Alex Garland’s fourth movie as writer/director is a chilling glimpse of an American dystopia, fortuitously timed for the run-up to the forthcoming US elections. However, it steers fastidiously clear of drawing any obvious Trump vs Biden parallels, though it’s difficult to imagine that it hasn’t imbibed any inspiration from the Maga mob’s insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021.

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Evil Does Not Exist review - Ryusuke Hamaguchi's nuanced follow-up to 'Drive My Car'

Saskia Baron

While Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist doesn’t cast a spell as strongly as his Oscar-winning hit Drive My Car, it is a thought-provoking film well worth seeing for anyone with an interest in ecology or a penchant for subtle thrillers

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Io Capitano review - gripping odyssey from Senegal to Italy

Saskia Baron

Io Capitano works on several levels. At first glance, it’s a ripping yarn – two optimistic Senegalese teenagers embark on a dangerous journey, across the Sahara, through the hell of Libya and on to an overcrowded boat across the Mediterranean – all inspired by the lads’ dream of Europe. 

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The Trouble with Jessica review - the London housing market wreaks havoc on a group of friends

Markie Robson-Scott

Before moving house, Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) are throwing a final dinner for their best and oldest friends. Sarah wants it to be special. It turns out to be very special. Disastrous, in fact.

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Silver Haze review - daughters of Albion dealing with damage

Graham Fuller

In a Dagenham hospital, Silver Haze’s compassionate nurse Franky, played by Vicky Knight, meets Florence (Esmé Creed-Miles), who’s been admitted as a patient for having attempted suicide. After Franky dumps her boyfriend, the two women begin a tempestuous affair – or is that a tautology?                   

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Mothers' Instinct review - 'Mad Women'

Nick Hasted

This is a Nineties psycho thriller in Mad Men clothes, undermining its Sixties suburban gloss and Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain’s desperate housewives with genre clichés, yet sustained by the courage of debuting director Benoît Delhomme’s un-Hollywood conviction.

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