Sight & Sound

Film of the week: Kills on Wheels slings sarcasm and shootouts

Disabled hitmen go on a murder spree in this fantastical, ingenious Hungarian action movie that feels refreshingly unpatronising, writes Philip Kemp.

Thursday 14 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Twin Peaks: The Return finale (episodes 17 & 18) recap – you can never go home again

The final two episodes of David Lynch’s epic, mind-altering anti-detective story gave us exactly what we expected, by giving us nothing that we expected, says Tom Huddlestone.

Friday 8 September 2017

TV

Close Encounters of the Third Kind archive review: a startlingly innovative blockbuster

Steven Spielberg’s alien visitation tale returns to cinemas for its 40th anniverary in a 4K restoration of its director’s cut version. On its first release, the Monthly Film Bulletin’s Richard Combs hailed a ‘new breed’ of intelligent science fiction film.

Thursday 14 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Venice review: Custody, a scintillating separation drama

This scintillating separation drama deservedly won first-time feature director Xavier Legrand the Venice Film Festival’s Best Director award, writes Paul O’Callaghan.

Saturday 16 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Toronto review: The Children Act – Emma Thompson explores the heart of a judge

Thompson’s Justice Maye weighs lives and loves in the balance in this restrained tragedy, adapted by Ian McEwan from his own novel and consummately directed by Richard Eyre, writes Tom Charity.

Monday 18 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Film of the week: Insyriated evokes life under siege in Damascus

Confined to 24 hours in a flat in Syria, this masterfully claustrophobic drama reminds us that war rages within walls as well as without, writes Nikki Baughan.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

It review: diminishing returns of the King

This new Iteration of the classic Stephen King novel is heavy on scares and light on whimsy, with Bill Skarsgård’s predatory Pennywise the least of the horrors facing the kids of Derry, Maine, writes Kim Newman.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Immersion island: virtual reality at the 2017 Venice Film Festival

In a 16th-century leprosarium accessible only by an antique boat, festival-goers were able to explore new interactive narratives via a wildly diverse set of entries in Venice’s first VR competition, reports Paul O’Callaghan.

Tuesday 12 September 2017

Festivals

Battle of the Sexes announced as 61st BFI London Film Festival American Express Gala

Starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell as 1970s tennis greats Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, Battle of the Sexes receives its European premiere.

Tuesday 15 August 2017

Announcements

Venice review: Foxtrot, a savage satire of Israeli military grief and grind

Following his Venice Golden Lion winner Lebanon, Samuel Maoz extends his range with this Silver Lion – Grand Jury Prize winner, playing off home-front traumas with the absurdism and rage of life on the Israeli frontline, writes Paul O’Callaghan.

Monday 11 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Venice review: Brawl in Cell Block 99 – Vince Vaughn’s headbanger in the clanger

S. Craig Zahler follows Bone Tomahawk with a slice of prison guignol as Vince Vaughn, Don Johnson and Udo Kier paint the jailhouse black and blue, writes Neil Young.

Tuesday 12 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri to close 61st BFI London Film Festival

Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic drama will receive its UK premiere at the Festival.

Tuesday 22 August 2017

Announcements

Belle de Jour archive review: Catherine Deneuve finds release in Luis Buñuel’s liberation fantasy

Back in cinemas for its 50th anniversary, this drama follows a French housewife who uses sex work to enliven her afternoons. On its first release, Jan Dawson praised the film’s exquisite elision of dream and reality.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Venice review: EX LIBRIS – the New York Public Library, Fred Wiseman’s ode to patience and fortitude

The director’s latest magisterial study of a public institution is a tribute to the power of education and the importance of community, characteristically ambitious yet surprisingly brisk, writes Neil Young.

Thursday 7 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Venice review: Lean on Pete – Andrew Haigh’s low-key road movie hits hard

A shy teenager crosses America with his horse in this bracing, well-crafted coming-of-age fable that sees the 45 Years director tackle a broader canvas, writes Paul O’Callaghan.

Tuesday 5 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Venice review: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s magical anti-fascist fairytale

Guillermo del Toro conjures a cinematic extravaganza teeming with high notes, from Sally Hawkins’ mute, dreamy musical-loving cleaner to the B-movie creature from the deep she sides with against the worst of 1960s US military-industrial iniquity, writes Nick James.

Saturday 2 September 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Tobe Hooper obituary: Texan horror genius who ushered in a grisly new era

With the ferociously brilliant Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the director created new vistas for horror cinema, and became a catalyst for independent filmmaking in his home state, remembers Nick Pinkerton.

Friday 1 September 2017

Obituaries

Film of the week: God’s Own Country unites males in the Dales

Both post-gay and pre-Brexit, Francis Lee’s debut feature is anything but a straightforward coming-out tale. Instead it’s an eerily beautiful love story between two men, and the wild Yorkshire landscape, writes Alex Davidson.

Thursday 31 August 2017

Reviews and recommendations

Lucrecia Martel on location with Zama: “All that heroic past and brave macho stuff makes me ill”

On the set of the Argentinian director’s long-awaited new film Zama, Diego Lerer spoke to her about the radical language of the film’s source novel and how to shoot a period film on a modest budget.

Thursday 27 July 2017

Interviews

Wrapped in plasticity: Twin Peaks’ myriad Laura Palmers

Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin conduct a forensic examination of the slippages at play in David Lynch and Mark Frost’s surrealistic investigative series.

Friday 28 April 2017

Video

Hollywood icon/oclast: the art of Jack Nicholson

From New Hollywood rebel to arch Hollywood devil, Jack Nicholson has been our gold-standard baby boomer, on the run from his demons even as he upends the world – and hounds down the last laugh. As he turns 80, Leigh Singer looks back at the art of Jack.

Friday 21 April 2017

Video

Video: Scorsese NYC

It’s complicated: Martin Scorsese’s irresistible passion for the mean streets of his hometown show us not just the psyche of a city, but the soul of a nation, says Leigh Singer.

Friday 3 February 2017

Video

Video essay: What is neorealism?

kogonada pits the director of The Bicycle Thieves against the producer of Gone with the Wind on the same movie material.

Friday 17 May 2013

Video