Hash Import 2026 05 18 12 34

Sin City (2005)

★★★½ — Sin City (2005)

Robert Rodriguez adapted Frank Miller's long-running Dark Horse Comics series of the same name, working so closely with Miller on the production that Miller received a co-director credit, his first time in the chair (guest director Quentin Tarantino also helmed a brief scene as a favour). Shot almost entirely against green screen at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios in Austin, Texas, the film leant heavily on digital backlot techniques that were still relatively new to mainstream cinema, owing a clear debt to the approach Peter Jackson had used in Lord of the Rings. Released in April 2005, it arrived during a period of renewed commercial interest in comic-book adaptations and went on to gross nearly $160 million worldwide against a $40 million budget, a result that quickly greenlit a sequel.

Amazing artistically, just lacking something... Visually, this film is stunning. The black and white aesthetic with bursts of colour is iconic, it’s like watching a graphic novel brought to life in real time. The art direction is genuinely some of the best ever put to screen, and the all-star cast leans into the pulpy, noir world with great success. The soundtrack is perfectly moody. It’s one of the finest examples of comic book to screen adaptation, no doubt. But it does feel like it’s missing something. Maybe it overstays its welcome a bit, tighten it to 90 minutes and it might’ve been near perfect. Still, as far as stylised storytelling goes, it’s an unforgettable and bold piece of filmmaking.

Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 2005 | Watched: 2025-04-14

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch (UK)

Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video
Physical: Amazon UK

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) arrived at a strange crossroads in American cinema: too modest to be a prestige picture, too unsettling to be a forgettable B-movie. Adapted from Jack Finney’s serialised novel The Body Snatchers and shot at Allied Artists on a budget barely

Fantastic Planet (1973)

René Laloux’s Fantastic Planet (1973) is one of those films that doesn’t really fit anywhere: too cerebral for kids, too odd for animation festivals, too steeped in European political theory for the Saturday-morning slot, and too visually fearless to ignore. A 72-minute French–Czech co-production designed by the

Viy (1967)

Viy (1967) is a strange and almost solitary object in Soviet cinema: a horror film, an actual horror film with monsters and demons and supernatural set-pieces, in a national cinema that mostly didn’t make horror at all. Officially endorsed by Mosfilm and based on a Nikolai Gogol folktale, it

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Disney’s Alice in Wonderland (1951) is the studio’s middle-period work par excellence: technically polished, commercially tested, narratively cautious, and just slightly off. Made between two of Disney’s commercial successes (Cinderella in 1950, which had rescued the studio from one of its periodic financial near-misses, and Peter Pan

Read more

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Fantastic Planet (1973)

Viy (1967)

Alice in Wonderland (1951)