Drama
Leave No Trace
It’s been 8 years since Leave No Trace director Debra Granik’s last film Winter’s Bone. And while that film has become famous for putting a certain Jennifer Lawrence on the map it does Winter’s Bone a mis-service to say that wa...
Lucky
Lucky is a film you should see for two very good reasons. The first of those reasons is Harry Dean Stanton—giving a performance which would not only be one of his last but may well be his best, as an ageing loner, with no fami...
Beast
Part psychological thriller, part twisted fairy tale, part character drama Beast is a film that manages, like its lead character, to never conform to one thing. As such it is a film that demands your attention, but never allows...
Lady Bird
There is a scene early on in Lady Bird which sees the titular character and her mother shopping in a thrift store looking for a dress for a school dance. They bicker, they snipe at each other and then they find the perfect dres...
You Were Never Really Here
Imagine if a film like Taken had substance. If it wasn’t just about bloody revenge and action set pieces. Imagine if a revenge thriller was less about the revenging and the thrilling as it was about the emotional impact these e...
The Shape Of Water
The Shape Of Water director Guillermo del Toro is often cited as a ‘horror’ filmmaker. But to label him as such is an oversight. Yes, for much of his career he has used horror as a device to articulate his unique aesthetic and ...
The Post
Long before Woodward and Bernstein uncovered all things Watergate related it seems The Washington Post was already at war with President Nixon. Or rather at war with the Vietnam War. The Post tells a fascinating and lesser told...
All The Money In The World
It’s difficult to discuss All The Money In The World without referencing the elephant in the room that is Kevin Spacey. After the Oscar winning actor had numerous allegations levied at him director Ridley Scott took the eye-wid...
Stronger
You probably don’t wait for a film about the Boston Marathon bombing and then two turn up at once in the shape of Patriots Day and Stronger. But while Peter Berg’s film charted the police investigation and manhunt for those res...
Annihilation
Annihilation should have been seen in cinemas. It is one of the most visually cinematic films in recent memory. But a paranoid studio head saw to it that what he considered to be an overly intellectualised piece of sci-fi would...
Thelma
Mainstream cinema is currently in the throws of a love affair with all things superhero. In an era when there is political turmoil and a fear of the future, superheroes offer a form of much needed escapism. But for the most par...
Wind River
Despite it’s stars (Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen) Wind River is not The Avenger’s Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch investigating a murder. Although, Marvel, we’d watch that. Instead Wind River is from writer, and here also direct...
Dunkirk
Rarely is a film as meticulously or as perfectly directed as Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. That might sound hyperbolic but the reality is Dunkirk should see The Dark Knight helmsman win all the awards going. From it’...
War Of The Planet For The Apes
There is a point around midway through the latest apes trilogy, roughly two thirds of the way through Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, where you realise you are no longer rooting for the humans to win. It’s a stroke of genius be...
Song To Song
You know the Hollywood system has successfully killed the wattage of star power when a film with a cast like Song To Song fails to make any kind of dent at the box office. But then again perhaps Terrence Malick is not a filmmak...
Lady Macbeth
Looking bleaker than a Dickensian abode Lady Macbeth, based on the novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov, is, unsurprisingly, a fairly harrowing watch. Not from a horror or violence point of view, althoug...
The Handmaiden
Whatever happened to the erotic thrillers of the ‘80s and ‘90s? Films like Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct and The Last Seduction in which sex and betrayal were the most natural of bedfellows. Perhaps in the era of new feminis...
Free Fire
You never quite know what you’re going to get from Free Fire director Ben Wheatley. From the kitchen sink drama of Down Terrace, the hallucinogenic A Field In England, the nightmarish Kill List and the social commentary of High...
The Lost City Of Z
“Mankind awaits our discoveries.” And such is the pressure Percy Fawcett places upon himself and his team of explorers as they set out to find The Lost City Of Z. Or Eldorado, or The City Of Gold. But this is no ‘80s cartoon ad...
A Quiet Passion
Terence Davies is a director whose work is systematically outpaced by reputation. Unlike many directors who hit the ground running straight out of film school, Davies left school at the age of sixteen and spent the best part of...
