sat 05/04/2025

Film Reviews

Hillbilly Elegy review - misery in the heartland

Graham Fuller

Published in June 2016, J.D.

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Leap of Faith review – Alexandre O. Philippe examines ‘The Exorcist’

Joseph Walsh

Films are about the mystery of fate or the mystery of faith,” proclaims director William Friedkin in Alexandre O. Philippe’s latest documentary, Leap of Faith. At 84 years old, Friedkin proves himself to be a master of storytelling, not only behind the camera but in front of it, spiritedly discussing the genesis of his horror masterpiece with Philippe.

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No Hard Feelings review - tough-minded yet tender

Matt Wolf

Love triangles rarely feel more truthful or more tender than in No Hard Feelings, a beautiful film that announces debut director Faraz Shariat as a filmmaker worth reckoning with.

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Billie review – new documentary captures the rebel

Joseph Walsh

Listen to "The Blues are Brewin", "You Better Go Now", or even "Ill be Seeing You", and you can hear the hurt reverberate in every note Billie Holiday sang. Her voice rang with the wisdom of experience – perhaps too much experience.

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Words on Bathroom Walls review - well-meaning but glib

Matt Wolf

Adam (Charlie Plummer) is being tested for glaucoma at the start of Words on Bathroom Walls, the director Thor Freudenthal's adaptation of Julia Walton's 2017 Young Adult novel.

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The Three Kings review – saluting Busby, Shankly and Stein

Graham Fuller

If Shakespeare had lived in post-war Britain, he surely would have dramatised the careers of the three towering contemporaneous Scottish football managers whose visions of how football should be played and its importance to ordinary people left a greater impact on the nation’s selfhood than any 20th century political...

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Queen of Hearts review - Trine Dyrholm stars as a stylish sexual predator

Markie Robson-Scott

“Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.

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Luxor review - Andrea Riseborough stars in cathartic drama about healing old wounds

Joseph Walsh

Zeina Durras sophomore feature arrives on our screens a decade on from her debut, The Imperialists Are Still Alive! It was worth the wait.

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Relic review – a deadly disappearing act

Graham Fuller

The bleak power of the Australian horror movie Relic, Natalie Erika James’s feature debut, derives from its masterful use of a simple metaphor.

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The Witches review – new take lacks magic

Joseph Walsh

 A long shadow looms over Robert Zemeckisnew take on Roald Dahls classic 1980s book The Witches, starring Octavia Spencer, Anne Hathaway and newcomer Jahzir Bruno.

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Mogul Mowgli review - displacement and generational trauma

Owen Richards

When Mogul Mowgli was first announced, it was fair to expect something of a realist biopic. After all, you had documentary director Bassam Tariq and actor/musician extraordinaire Riz Ahmed helming a film about a British-Pakistani rapper.

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Shirley review - hothouse art film about American horror writer

Saskia Baron

Shirley is one of those films that the mood you’re in when you watch it will dictate whether you think it’s a great psychological horror movie or overheated and pretentious.

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The Secret Garden review - blooming charming

Owen Richards

With Netflix releasing Rebecca on Wednesday, who’d have thought that a kid’s film would be this week’s best adaptation about an estate haunted by the memory of the deceased lady of the manor?

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Rebecca review - mishap at Manderley

Graham Fuller

When it was announced that Ben Wheatley would be directing a new version of Rebecca, his fans must have wondered what kind of exciting damage he would do to the neo-Gothic template of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel – and how he might spin the material in a different way than did Alfred Hitchcock...

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One Man and His Shoes review - beautifully crafted, fast-paced documentary

Sarah Kent

“Black people, since the beginning of time, have always made things cool. Jazz, rock ’n’ roll… pick anything from a cultural standpoint and we have always been the arbitrators of cool,” says sports journalist Jamele Hill. “And it was really no different with sneakers.”

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Summer of 85 review - a tender, tragic coming-of-age

Tom Birchenough

Intriguingly, Summer of 85 could have been François Ozon’s very first film.

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