Sight and Sound

08/11/2024

“One gasps one's way through Point Break, partly in admiration, partly in shock, often because time to breathe appears limited”

Read our verdict on Kathryn Bigelow’s adrenaline-fuelled game of cat-and-mouse, as it skydives back into UK cinemas

“One gasps one's way through Point Break, partly in admiration, partly in shock, often because time to breathe appears limited,” wrote our critic upon the initial release of Kathryn Bigelow’s…

08/11/2024

Filmed by media activists from both Israel and Palestine, this eloquent documentary captures the reality of a land struggle between resident Palestinians and the occupying Israeli forces seeking their expulsion.

Nick Bradshaw reviews No Other Land, out now.

Filmed by media activists from both Israel and Palestine, this eloquent documentary captures the reality of a land struggle between resident Palestinians and the occupying Israeli forces seeking…

08/11/2024

“The film dutifully nods at the immigrant experience of reconciling two homelands, but can’t give this third outing the emotional heft it needs to sit alongside its heart-warming forebears.”

Katie Stables reviews Paddington in Peru, out now.

It has the adorable retro-styling of the previous films, but not nearly enough hilarity ensues on Paddington’s grand South American adventure.

07/11/2024

“Pharrell has always had a remarkable knack for putting novel twists on forms by marrying elements in quirky, intuitive ways. This feature is the result of the application of his genius to film.”

Alex Dudok de Wit reviews Piece by Piece, in cinemas Friday.

A new animated documentary presents the life of musician Pharrell Williams in an enjoyable and surprising Lego package.

07/11/2024

America’s taboo-busting trash classics offer a gleeful celebration of everything that might appal a mainstream audience. From our September 2015 issue

Shot largely without technical skill and featuring performers without conventional talent, America’s taboo-busting trash classics offer a gleeful celebration of everything that might appal a…

05/11/2024

“It’s hardly the most vigorous filmmaking of his career, but it’s been a while since Eastwood – albeit in his typically brisk, terse fashion – had quite this much to say.”

Guy Lodge reviews Juror #2, Clint Eastwood’s 40th feature film.

A juror on a murder trial comes to suspect himself as the killer in Clint Eastwood’s terse interrogation of the American justice system.

05/11/2024

“The scale of any project is secondary – it’s always about the quality of the writing”

— Cillian Murphy on Small Things like These, a quiet, pained drama about the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland

The actor’s first film since Oppenheimer is a quiet, pained drama about the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, where young pregnant women were sent to work and their babies were sold for adoption.

03/11/2024

“It is a small story, set in a small town, pivoting on a small act of grace, in the grand scheme of it all. But that is how big wrongs are addressed, with small things like these.”

Cillian Murphy stars as a conflicted soul grappling with his town’s complicity in the mistreatment of local women housed in a Magdalene Laundry in this intimately inhabited adaptation of Claire…

03/11/2024

“For all its megawatt charm, Anora is not a fairytale. It’s a Cinde-f**king-rella story.”

reviews Sean Baker’s Anora, out now.

Mikey Madison achieves instant star status as Ani, a funny, fiery Brooklyn s*x worker who enters a whirlwind marriage with the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch, in this electrifying…

01/11/2024

“A lot of this footage had never been seen in South Africa… The people who handed it to us said: ‘This is a poison chalice. Be careful how you use it.’”

Nick Bradshaw speaks to Milisuthando Bongela about her documentary-memoir on life during apartheid

Director Milisuthando Bongela explains how she used her childhood experiences of life in South Africa to explore the ongoing psychological impact of apartheid.

01/11/2024

💜 NEW ISSUE ALERT 💜

✨ Payal Kapadia, the brilliant director of All We Imagine as Light, is our new cover star

Read what's inside 👉 https://buff.ly/40srsfy

On sale now: https://buff.ly/3M1uQ8F

31/10/2024

Cillian Murphy stars as a quiet soul grappling with his town’s complicity in the mistreatment of women housed in a Magdalene Laundry in this moving adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novella.

Jessica Kiang reviews Small Things like These, out Friday.

Cillian Murphy stars as a conflicted soul grappling with his town’s complicity in the mistreatment of local women housed in a Magdalene Laundry in this intimately inhabited adaptation of Claire…

29/10/2024

“Anora plays like a dizzy homage to, and then a breakneck evisceration of, the whole Pretty Woman fantasy machine”

Jessica Kiang reviews Sean Baker’s Anora, in cinemas Friday.

Mikey Madison achieves instant star status as Ani, a funny, fiery Brooklyn s*x worker who enters a whirlwind marriage with the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch, in this electrifying…

29/10/2024

The ending of Teshigahara Hiroshi’s haunting Woman of the Dunes (1964), about a man imprisoned at the bottom of a deep pit, offers some gloomy parallels with the modern world

The close of Teshigahara Hiroshi’s haunting 1964 fable, about a man imprisoned at the bottom of a deep pit, offers some gloomy parallels with the modern world.

28/10/2024

“Hugh Grant is a good enough actor to weaponise his charm-offensive persona in ways that draw blood”

Adam Nayman reviews Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ theological horror Heretic, out this week.

Two young Mormon missionaries find themselves entrapped by a villainous Hugh Grant in a gimmicky, zeitgeist-surfing horror that finds its chills in religious debate.

28/10/2024

In this fascinating interview from more than 50 years ago, legendary director Raoul Walsh looks back on a career working with some of the greatest names in American film history, from Gloria Swanson and Ida Lupino to James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart

In this fascinating interview from more than 50 years ago, the legendary Hollywood director looks back on a career working with some of the greatest names in American film history, from Gloria…

27/10/2024

“A mix of genres ranging from crime caper to q***r musical, trans telenovela and le***an romance to state-of-the-nation exposé… Emilia Pérez is many things, but it most definitely is not boring.”

Sophia Satchell-Baeza reviews Jacques Audiard’s divisive musical Emilia Pérez, out now.

Jacques Audiard’s story of a Mexican cartel leader who fakes their own death to conceal a gender transition is anything but subtle, but it’s never boring.

25/10/2024

Upon its initial UK release, our critic praised John Carpenter’s Halloween as “one of the cinema's most perfectly engineered devices for saying ‘Boo!’”

Upon its initial UK release, our critic praised John Carpenter’s third feature as “one of the cinema's most perfectly engineered devices for saying ‘Boo!’”