Sight and Sound: the May 2026 issue

“The first thing we see is a jellyfish, pulsing in the oily grey shallows of a Cornish harbour. Rust eats at the metal of the moorings, oxidising the paintwork into blooms that resemble fungi and moss. Blades of new grass sway against the backdrop of a boat that hasn’t seen the sea in a lifetime. The static images themselves seem to tremble. Time erodes. Nature reclaims. In Mark Jenkin’s films, work is rarely far away: boots walking, nets dragging, the slow rhythm of industry meeting the sea. We follow the boots to the harbour’s edge. A man drops down on to the deck of a waiting boat. For the denizens of Rose of Nevada, Jenkin’s third feature, the past does not stay sunken. It seeps into the present like seawater through rotting wood.”

— Mike Williams on Rose of Nevada, in our cover interview

After his breakout with the handmade 16mm coastal-village drama Bait, and its mystical island follow-up Enys Men, Cornish auteur Mark Jenkin is back with Rose of Nevada, a story of two fishermen slipping through time’s net to a more hopeful past. He talks about embracing his Cornish identity, the joy and freedom of analogue filmmaking and the artistic influences of Jaws and Jeanne Dielman. By Mike Williams.

Released in the West just as Japan’s 1980s boom was hitting the skids, Otomo Katsuhiro’s cyberpunk sensation Akira brought a first taste of anime’s cinematic scale and potency, as well as its apocalyptic leanings. As it returns to UK cinemas nearly four decades on, can it speak to our 21st-century condition? By Roger Luckhurst.

Writing exclusively for Sight and Sound, Quentin Tarantino sings the praises of Joe Carnahan’s thriller The Rip, which puts the heat on Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s cops in a cartel stash house. It’s an achievement savvy enough to show the most jaded of genre buffs that Hollywood can still make ’em like it did in the 1970s glory days.

No ordinary issue film, Chris Petit and Emma Matthews’ D is for Distance turns a heartrending account of their son Louis’s drug-resistant epilepsy into a richly illustrated contemplation of inner landscapes and looking-glass worlds. The trio talk about turning their medical anguish into cinematic wonder. By Jason Wood.

As his documentary portrait Orwell: 2+2=5 plays in UK cinemas, the well-travelled Haitian filmmaker reflects on his first encounters with white cinema, the bonds he forged with filmmakers including Krzysztof Kieślowski and Agnieszka Holland in 1980s Berlin, and his measure of great artistry in movies today. Interview and introduction by Nick Bradshaw.

Baz Luhrmann returns to his Presley project with a concert film edited from unseen footage – part of a wave of movies using modern technology to add a new level of excitement to musical performance. By Nick Hasted.

New films by Cheryl Dunye, Martin Scorsese, Michaela Coel and Alice Rohrwacher. By Hope Rangaswami.

The Catalan filmmaker mines her personal history for her features, and Romería, about a woman’s search for her family, is no exception. By Elisabet Cabeza.

Writing-directing duo Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin discuss their devotion to fight-scene realism, Italian comedies and bringing screwball and slapstick high jinks back to the cinema. By John Bleasdale.

A rich swathe of nonfiction adventures, many channelling the theme of ‘hypervigilance’ in an anxious world, launched at Copenhagen’s international documentary festival. By Nick Bradshaw.

Almost 20 years after making her debut on stage as a dancer in London and New York with the British star Akram Khan, Juliette Binoche has directed a documentary, In-I in Motion, of the transformative performance. By Nick Bradshaw.

It’s been a long journey for the thoughtful and collaborative composer, from playing experimental music in a tiny east London café to an Oscar win for The Brutalist and recreating Shaker hymns for The Testament of Ann Lee. By David Thompson.

Director Mark Cousins on guest-curating a film festival – with a touch of Orson Welles – in northern Scotland under cover of darkness.

A boxing drama that refuses to hit all the typical notes of the genre, Valéry Carnoy’s drama takes the teenage protagonist into the woods and shows how much moral and metaphorical weight the genre can carry. By Clive Chijioke Nwonka.

A common thread runs through four films – each of their posters tell stories with textiles. By Hope Rangaswami.

Emerald Fennell’s version of Brontë is sanitised, prettified, BookTokified, and perfectly in tune with the times. By Nicole Flattery. 

It’s not just ballet and opera that are struggling to find fans – so is the idea of film as a serious artform. By Pamela Hutchinson. 

The BBC Lord of the Flies shows that it’s not the literary qualities that make a great book adaptation. By Andrew Male. 

Film posters are a form of parallel cinema – Philip Castle and Drew Struzan were two of the art’s finest auteurs. By Mike Williams.

A classic modern opera filmed by a great director, and with an astonishing cast – Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr… And yet somehow, this version of Gershwin has slipped out of film history into something not far from oblivion. By Holli Weston.

From their links to British cinema history to their peers in the 60s film underground and their soundtracks for Antonioni and more, Pink Floyd have been a band steeped in the movies. By Sophia Satchell-Baeza.

Twenty-five years ago, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, a quirky comedy about an elfish café waitress and the Parisian community she tends to, took French screens and society by storm. As it is re-released in the UK, we republish these reflections on its hi-tech, throwback fantasy, its broad appeal and its wildly divided reception. By Ginette Vincendeau.

Our critics review: The Blue Trail, Father Mother Sister Brother, Wild Foxes, Romería, Ultras, Primavera, Underrtone, Diamanti, Karavidhe, Mirrors No. 3, The Bride, Project Hail Mary, The Stranger, My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, Fuze, California Schemin’, Rebuilding, The Plague, Rose of Nevada, The Wizard of the Kremlin, Exit 8.

Our critics review: The Devil’s Hand, The Breakfast Club, The Man Who Wasn’t There, The Dancing Hawk, Archive TV, The Day of the Locust, The Old Woman with the Knife, Negatives, Long Live the Republic, Fear in the Night, Hard Boiled.

Our critics review: Trans Cinema: making communities, identities, and worlds, Hard Streets: working-class lives in Charlie Chaplin’s London, A Hard Day’s Night.