Rating: 3.0★
Released in 1946 by RKO Radio Pictures, The Spiral Staircase arrived at a moment when Hollywood was finding its appetite for shadows. The postwar years had produced a run of crime pictures and psychological thrillers that leaned into moral ambiguity and visual darkness, and this film sits comfortably within that
Rating: 3.0★
Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts comic strip ran from October 1950 until February 2000, the final instalment published the day after Schulz himself died. Over those five decades it became one of the most widely syndicated strips in history, appearing in thousands of newspapers across dozens of countries and
Rating: 3.0★
Yokohama, 1963. Japan is preparing to host the following year's Olympic Games, a moment freighted with national pride and a quiet, collective desire to draw a line under the devastation of the Second World War. It is into this particular atmosphere of forward momentum and unresolved memory that
country-uk
There is a genuinely intriguing moral knot at the centre of How to Hide It, the short film co-written and co-directed by Ramla Ali and Richard A. Moore, and for thirteen minutes it packs in a surprising amount of story. I caught it at the BFI London Film
Rating: 3.0★
There are films that arrive carrying the full weight of critical consensus behind them, and Annie Hall is one of the heaviest. Released in 1977 by United Artists, through the production banner of Jack Rollins and Charles H. Joffe, it took the Best Picture Oscar that year and remains the
Rating: 3.0★
By 1967, Hollywood was in the middle of an identity crisis it could not quite name. The old studio system was crumbling, European art cinema was bleeding across the Atlantic, and a generation of filmmakers was working out what American genre pictures could look like if you dismantled them from
Rating: 3.0★
There are films that arrive trailing so much reputation that the act of watching them becomes almost secondary to the weight of what you already know. On the Waterfront is one of those films. Released in 1954 by Columbia Pictures and Horizon Pictures, it tells the story of Terry Malloy,
country-uk
There is a very particular pleasure in a short film that knows exactly what it is and does it well, and A Twist of Hate, Madeleine Shenai's nine-minute short film, is a neat little example. I caught it at the BFI London Film Festival, and while it
country-uk
Nine minutes is barely any time at all to win someone over, yet Sweet Bitter Sweet, Nicolee Tsin's charming short film, manages it with room to spare. I caught it at the BFI London Film Festival and came out grinning, which is really the whole review in a
Country United Kingdom
There is a particular kind of documentary I have a real soft spot for: the one that sets out with a clear mission, only to discover, in the making, that the film has quietly become about something else entirely. Sid Elbadawi's (Failing to Make) A Documentary About My
Rating: 3.0★
Jordan Peele's debut feature arrived in early 2017 with the kind of cultural momentum that very few horror films ever generate. Made for a reported budget of around 4.5 million dollars under the Blumhouse Productions model (low cost, creatively unencumbered, share in the upside if it lands)
Rating: 3.0★
Licorice Pizza arrives with the kind of creative pedigree that tends to generate genuine anticipation rather than mere industry buzz. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, it is a loose, sun-drenched coming-of-age story set in the San Fernando Valley during 1973, a film built less around
Film images and data courtesy of TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.
The best new reviews, a buried gem with where to watch it, and where the every-country challenge is up to. Free, no spam.
Subscribe free