Round-ups
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Men in focus: five British documentaries at LFF 2018
Many of the new documentaries at this year’s London Film Festival showed us men under pressure: from boyband stars reconciling themselves to their past in the spotlight to a group of factory workers fighting for their jobs, writes Caitlin Quinlan.
Thursday 1 November 2018 -
Female firsts: four debut features by women at London Film Festival 2018
Gender inclusivity was at the heart of the LFF agenda this year with 38 per cent of films directed by women. These distinctive female-directed debuts bode well for future parity, writes Alex Ramon.
Friday 26 October 2018 -
Podcast: Widows, Ash Is Purest White and three more highlights of the 2018 London Film Festival
What does Steve McQueen’s new heist thriller Widows tell us about race and class in contemporary America? Plus Ash Is Purest White, Joy, Support the Girls and Long Day’s Journey into Night.
Wednesday 17 October 2018 -
A Faustian feast: 9 new Cult finds at the 2018 London Film Festival
This year’s LFF Cult strand ventures beyond the bounds of identity, adolescence and ethics in these incautious cautionary tales from France to Brazil, Norway to Indonesia, says Anton Bitel.
Sunday 14 October 2018 -
11 Treasures from the Archive at the 2018 London Film Festival – as we first reviewed them
This year’s LFF retrospective runs the gamut from Some Like It Hot to John Carpenter’s The Fog and Euzhan Palcy’s Sugar Cane Alley. Here’s how we first reviewed them.
Sunday 14 October 2018
Our latest reviews from the festival
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They Shall Not Grow Old review: Peter Jackson brings controversial colour to WWI footage
Does Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson’s colourising of archive film of WWI soldiers make them more or less real to us? The critics and archivists who argue it’s a travesty have got it wrong, says Ian Christie.
Friday 9 November 2018 -
Thunder Road review: American indie portrait of a policeman on the verge of a nervous breakdown
Jim Cummings makes an impressive debut with this tragicomic tale of a police officer struggling to stay afloat in the wake of divorce, a near-breakdown and bereavement, finds Anjana Janardhan.
Tuesday 6 November 2018 -
Film of the week: Vs. lets the Southend rap battles fly
Connor Swindells’s foster teen channels his hurt into rap in Ed Lilly’s feisty and evocative pierside drama, says Katherine McLaughlin.
Sunday 21 October 2018 -
Happy New Year, Colin Burstead. first look: Ben Wheatley convenes that sinking family feeling
Wheatley’s mordant big-family-gathering tragicomedy sets the temperature to slow-burn, says Ella Kemp.
Monday 15 October 2018 -
Quién te cantará review: a pop star, transubstantiated
A drama of an amnesiac cult singer and her karaoke impersonator that refracts its own cinematic influences dazzlingly, Carlos Vermut’s latest is a dark, dreamy fairytale of identities absorbed and reborn, says Mar Diestro-Dópido.
Sunday 21 October 2018 -
Make Me Up review: Rachel Maclean takes a cyber cleaver to art history
Multimedia artist Rachel Maclean offers a digital twist on the suffragette assault on art-historical misogyny – a sherbert-fountain-screened unmasking of cultural command and control, writes Tara Judah.
Monday 15 October 2018 -
The Great Victorian Moving Picture Show review: shadows of our magnified ancestors
For the 2018 London Film Festival Archive Gala, the BFI IMAX staged a variety show of early-cinema large-format actuality films, offering a towering immersion in the spectacles of our forebears, reports Pamela Hutchinson.
Sunday 21 October 2018
The Sight & Sound Gala
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Burning first look: Lee Chang-dong’s film sets a noirish love triangle alight
Lee Chang-dong’s masterful and unclassifiable follow-up to Poetry teems with ambiguity, inevitability and sublime mystery, says Jessica Kiang.
Friday 18 May 2018
Other gala reviews
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Beautiful Boy first look: the messy destruction of a father-son bond
Timothée Chalamet plays a young man who succumbs to meth addiction and Steve Carell his distraught dad in this touching character study, writes Katie Goh.
Tuesday 25 September 2018 -
Widows first look: Steve McQueen steals the heist genre
Steve McQueen floors it with a perfectly proportioned, whip-smart heist thriller, not least showcasing the talents of boss widow Viola Davis and henchman Daniel Kaluuya, writes Simran Hans.
Monday 10 September 2018 -
The Favourite first look: Yorgos Lanthimos courts controversy but cops out
Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone play pointless power games in Yorgos Lanthimos’s baroque and profane regal romp that runs out of steam far too soon, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Friday 31 August 2018 -
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs first look: a six-pack of western rambles by way of the Coen brothers
Joel and Ethan Coen explore how the west was spun in an eclectic portmanteau that covers the American cinema’s foundational genre territory with gimlet-eyed glee, says Michael Leader.
Monday 3 September 2018 -
Can You Ever Forgive Me? first look: building sympathy for a literary forger
Melissa McCarthy dials down her portrait of convicted celebrity-letter counterfeiter Lee Israel in Marielle Heller’s empathetic, shabby-chic New York expression of contorted creativity, says Abbey Bender.
Tuesday 11 September 2018 -
Wild Rose first look: Jessie Buckley follows her star
Buckley blazes bright as a young Glaswegian ne’er-do-well with a star-bound state of mind in Tom Harper’s unblinkered but cheerful wanderlust fable, writes Ella Kemp.
Friday 14 September 2018 -
Gräns (Border) first look: Ali Abassi unleashes a dark Scandinavian folk fantasy
Border guard Tina has a powerful nose for trouble in this twisted combination of procedural crime drama and animalistic romance, writes Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Monday 14 May 2018 -
Capernaüm first look: a potent indictment of a 12-year-old’s scraps of life
Salvation is barely a twinkle in the eye of pre-teen scrabbler Zain, driven to sue his parents for bringing him in to a life of destitution in Nadine Labaki’s furious, tumultuous Lebanese drama, writes Caspar Salmon.
Saturday 19 May 2018 -
Roma first look: the film of Alfonso Cuarón’s career
A turbulent year in Mexico City is seen through the eyes of a young woman and the family she works for, in this very personal film that reframes the director’s own childhood memories, writes Beth Webb.
Friday 31 August 2018 -
Fahrenheit 11/9 first look: Michael Moore reclaims American populism
Galvanised by the election of a demagogic monster to the seat of power, Michael Moore places the blame, prospects the consequences and exhorts the resistance, writes Tom Charity.
Monday 10 September 2018 -
Out of Blue first look: a cosmic film noir that fades to black
Carol Morley knocks Martin Amis’s Night Train into deep space, with Patricia Clarkson’s post-traumatic police detective following a murdered astrophysicist into an indubitably dark if questionably material place, finds Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Monday 10 September 2018 -
Rafiki first look: the risk-taking lesbian romance banned in Kenya
This fresh and courageous coming-out drama from Wanuri Kahiu deserves to be seen, especially in its home nation where, as the film shows, homophobia is rife, writes Amy Taubin.
Monday 14 May 2018
Offical Competition reviews
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Birds of Passage first look: gang warfare in the desert
The crime saga is reimagined in the tribal lands of north Colombia in this vivid, distinctive film from the makers of Embrace of the Serpent, writes Christina Newland.
Thursday 10 May 2018 -
Happy as Lazzaro first look: Alice Rohrwacher practises magic neorealism
Alice Rohrwacher follows The Wondera with a boldly unsentimental tale of a holy innocent, an inexplicable miracle and a tyrannous aristocrat, writes Geoff Andrew.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
In Fabric first look: Peter Strickland’s killer dress call the shots
Peter Strickland’s exuberantly designed costume horror has dastardly ways to replenish its crimson accents; its critique of consumerist weakness is ruthless going on sadistic, finds Abbey Bender.
Wednesday 12 September 2018 -
Shadow first look: Zhang Yimou doodles a wuxia intrigue
Zhang Yimou’s latest martial ballet leads on designer stylings including a novel colour palette, letting its Three Kingdoms courtiers be led by their plots, writes Tom Charity.
Monday 10 September 2018 -
Sunset first look: a belle epoque a hatstand of a movie
László Nemes’s overblown melodrama tracks Juli Jakab’s would-be hatter through a lavishly recreated late-imperial Budapest, a florid procession of headwear and a madly unfocussed plot, writes Jessica Kiang.
Tuesday 4 September 2018 -
Too Late to Die Young first look: a country comes of age
Set in the aftermath of the Pinochet regime, Dominga Sotomayor’s accomplished third film explores different generations adapting to new freedoms and an uncertain future, writes Josh Slater-Williams.
Wednesday 15 August 2018
First Feature Competition reviews
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Girl first look: a touching portrait of a transgender ballet dancer
Lukas Dhont’s debut feature is a breathtakingly empathetic tale of a young woman struggling to be at peace in her body, with a breakout performance from Victor Polster, writes Katherine McLaughlin.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Ray & Liz first look: revealing a troubled family scrap by scrap
Richard Billingham’s obliquely topical debut feature offers a fragmented story of life in inner-city Birmingham during the Thatcher years, as bruising memories rise to the surface, writes James Lattimer.
Wednesday 15 August 2018 -
Wildlife first look: Paul Dano’s film is a picture of suburban sorrow
A teenage boy watches his parents’ marriage crumble in Dano’s nuanced directorial debut, which features exemplary lead performances from Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, writes Ella Kemp.
Saturday 12 May 2018
Documentary Competition reviews
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Courting the impossible: The Task and Bisbee ’17 at True/False 2018
A first visit to the True/False festival means stepping on to enjoyably shaky ground. Two films at this year’s event in particular offered a destabilised and fascinating view of cinematic reality, writes Irina Trocan.
Wednesday 21 March 2018 -
Strongmen take all at Karlovy Vary 2018
Three studies of mighty male monsters won the three top prizes at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Sign of the times, asks Jessica Kiang.
Sunday 22 July 2018
Other strand reviews
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Asako I & II first look: a mournful drama out of quarter-life-crisis doubt
A lost lover haunts a young woman in Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s beguiling and mysterious follow-up to ensemble epic Happy Hour, writes Michael Leader.
Wednesday 16 May 2018 -
Donbass first look: both too much and too little about the war in Ukraine
Though Sergei Loznitsa’s episodic film has valuable moments of insight, it lacks the quiet openness found in his documentaries, as it veers wildly between drama and farce, writes James Lattimer.
Thursday 10 May 2018 -
Girls of the Sun first look: Eva Husson's Kurdish war drama drills home female victimhood
Eva Husson’s crudely didactic drama about Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State emphasises misogynist pain and degradation at every chance, says Christina Newland.
Friday 18 May 2018 -
Non-Fiction first look: Juliette Binoche and Guillaume Canet talk out publishing’s digital takeover
Set in the analogue milieu of a digitally discombobulated Parisian media couple, Olivier Assayas’s latest pulse-of-the-times drama falls back to old-school 16mm and a lot of old-hat debates over the page versus the pixel, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Monday 3 September 2018 -
Rosie first look: two days, one night incarnating Dublin’s housing crisis
Sarah Greene carries Paddy Breathnach’s Dardennian thriller as a newly evicted mother of four, send round in increasingly desperate circles by a heedless non-housing system, writes Pamela Hutchinson.
Friday 14 September 2018 -
There’s no cheap sentiment or easy answers as Ursula Meier scrutinises real-life Swiss parenticidal diarist Benjamin Feller through the eyes of the teacher who ‘inspired’ him, writes Patrick Gamble.
Friday 23 February 2018 -
A brave experiment in opening the screen to less sexually cocksure voices, Pintilie’s unflinching portrait of differently marginalised characters learning to find comfort in their own skin is at its best when at its most direct, says Paul O’Callaghan.
Monday 26 February 2018 -
U – July 22 (Utøya 22. juli) review: Norwegian kills for thrills?
Erik Poppe’s hyperrealist one-take dramatisation of Anders Breivik’s summer camp massacre offers little sign of moral perspective, says Ian Mantgani.
Friday 23 February 2018 -
Woman at War first look: can a guerrilla earth mother have it all?
Benedikt Erlingsson’s follow-up to Of Horses and Men mixes absurdist comedy and tense thriller, with Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir as an eco-justice warrior faced with the challenge of juggling protest responsibilities and foster motherhood, writes John Bleasdale.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
Dogman first look: Matteo Garrone’s film grits its teeth in the face of life’s savagings
Marcello Fonte won the Best Actor award at Cannes for his role as a big-hearted but beleagued dog sitter who tries to turn worm in Matteo Garrone’s gimlet-eyed Roman revenger. John Bleasdale reviews.
Saturday 19 May 2018 -
The Green Fog first look: Guy Maddin’s giddy San Francisco remake
The Manitoba maestro has conjured a surreal, sharp city symphony out of thousands of film clips and the spine of his beloved Vertigo, writes Geoff Andrew.
Wednesday 21 February 2018 -
Madeline’s Madeline first look: an unusually bold teen movie that bridges trauma and art
Josephine Decker pauses only to grapple with her own working methods in this thrilling, formally daring drama about an emotionally fraught teenage girl, writes Paul O’Callaghan.
Thursday 15 February 2018 -
Petra first look: Jaime Rosales’s playful family tragedy
Spanish auteur Jaime Rosales softens his experimental edges a notch with a cerebral and darkly witty melodrama in which a truth-seeking artist meets her malicious nemesis, writes Michael Leader.
Sunday 13 May 2018 -
Sauvage first look: a young man’s wild quest for love
Félix Maritaud pulls out the stops as a gay sex worker diving for a deeper connection in Camille Vidal-Naquet’s fulsomely passionate and explicit feature debut, writes Elena Lazic.
Sunday 13 May 2018 -
Suburban Birds first look: Qiu Sheng’s debut feature forges magical links between generations
A group of adult engineers and another of playful children tread the same ground in Qiu Sheng’s impressive debut feature, in which the company we keep tilts the world on its axis, writes John Bleasdale.
Thursday 9 August 2018 -
El Angel first look: hitching a ride on a teenage killing spree
Luis Ortega’s film doesn’t judge the horrible crimes of its baby-faced serial killer anithero, played by Lorenzo Ferro. Instead it’s a subversively funny and cool take on the crime movie, writes Christina Newland.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
Museum first look: Gael García Bernal steals time in a dazzling true-life heist fantasy
Alonso Ruizpalacios’s delightfully fresh dramatisation of Mexico’s most scandalous museum heist (and then some) is as unorthodox as the young conspirators it depicts, says Ella Kemp.
Tuesday 27 February 2018 -
Mandy first look: Nicolas Cage wreaks revenge at the fiery gates of hell
Panos Cosmatos’s follow-up to Beyond the Black Rainbow is a gloriously lurid mock-80s revenge quest that aims a raging, roaring Nicolas Cage at villains from another dimension, reports Katherine McLaughlin.
Thursday 24 May 2018 -
Ash Is Purest White first look: Jia Zhangke’s magisterial mob critique
Jia Zhangke explores the masculine codes of his previous work in this ravishing, self-referential film about a woman in love with a mobster, with an astonishing lead performance from Zhao Tao, writes Giovanni Marchini Camia.
Sunday 13 May 2018 -
Dovlatov first look: a talented artist’s frustrations in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union
Milan Marić brings a commanding wit to his portrayal of writer Sergei Dovlatov in the new dense and formally rigorous film from Alexei German, Jr, writes Michael Pattison.
Thursday 22 February 2018 -
Long Day’s Journey into Night first look: Bi Gan’s film follows its own woozy dream logic
The dream-like, noir-ish second film from the twenty-something Chinese director Bi Gan follows a solitary man as he attempts to track down a past lover.
Wednesday 23 May 2018 -
Maya first look: Mia Hansen-Løve watches a man in flight find a reason to stand
A freed hostage of war who absconds to Goa, Roman Kolinka is a soul unbound before Aarshi Banerjee’s winning Maya brings his life back in to focus in this tacit, ineffable Mia Hansen-Løve story, writes Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Thursday 13 September 2018 -
Three Faces first look: Jafar Panahi takes a road trip to familiar ground
The Iranian director’s latest is both one of his most conventional films and an enjoyable return to elements from both his and Abbas Kiarostami’s back catalogue, writes Geoff Andrew.
Tuesday 15 May 2018 -
The Wild Pear Tree first look: Nuri Bilge Ceylan contemplates a restive rural homecoming
Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest follows a would-be writer’s reluctant return to his small-town fold, spinning an extensive series of conversational encounters into a typically rich, wry, melancholic mood-piece, says Geoff Andrew.
Friday 18 May 2018 -
Vox Lux first look: a roiling satire of post-traumatic popsploitation
Raffey Cassidy and Natalie Portman play a mass-shooting survivor turned pop puppet coming apart at the seams in Brady Corbet’s turbo-burlesque, in which fame is just another form of assault, writes Paul O’Callaghan.
Friday 7 September 2018 -
The Sisters Brothers first look: Jacques Audiard takes a delightful detour from the western trail
Jacques Audiard’s take on the deathless genre is a mournfully comic yarn that builds at its own loose pace to a surprisingly profound conclusion, writes Jessica Kiang.
Tuesday 4 September 2018
Experimenta
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Diamantino first look: a sweetly bizarre fantasy mocking the cult of fame
Unconventional storytelling, adorable pets and topical references swell this affectionate yarn about a Cristiano Ronaldo-esque soccer star being co-opted into an anti-EU plot, writes Sophie Monks Kaufman.
Tuesday 15 May 2018
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10-21 October 2018. The world’s best new films in cinemas across London.
Further reading
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