The Little Mermaid deserves a progressive remake. This isn’t it
Its black Ariel caused a racist backlash, but Bridgerton-style casting isn’t enough to give Disney’s new version any cultural depth.
ByFilm reviews
Explore the world of cinema with our selection of film reviews, providing in-depth analysis, thoughtful critiques, and captivating insights into the latest releases and timeless classics.
Paul Schrader’s Master Gardener is inexcusably nasty – and yet I loved it
This story of an ex-white supremacist and a mixed-race woman tending to the grounds of a former plantation will make…
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Beau Is Afraid is a cartoonishly Freudian horror
Ari Aster’s black comedy about malign maternal influence is full of cod-psychology that makes Psycho look like a Mother’s Day…
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The Eight Mountains is a rare portrait of male friendship
This moving film takes on a truly unusual subject: a durable, unstated, non-sexual relationship between two men.
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A Thousand and One understands the effects of gentrification
In this sensitive debut about a mother who steals her son from care, AV Rockwell maps the contours of a…
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Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself: the worst people in the world?
The wretchedly self-absorbed lead and her artist boyfriend are truly, absurdly awful. To what end?
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Hail the assassins
The American youth has lost its radical temper – Daniel Goldhaber’s film How to Blow Up a Pipeline is an…
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The Night of the 12th: a grim look at an unsolved murder
The director Dominik Moll is known for his tightly-plotted French thrillers. Now, he takes on an unsolved true crime.
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God’s Creatures is a powerful portrait of a toxic mother-son relationship
Paul Mescal and Emily Watson bring inner darkness to this story of trauma in a tiny Irish town.
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The rise of Mia Goth mania
In the horror films Pearl and Infinity Pool, the 29-year-old actor delivers two pleasingly unhinged performances.
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Rye Lane is a bright, euphoric south London romcom
Raine Allen-Miller’s visually dynamic debut turns a boy-meets-girl story into a joyous fantasy.
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A Winnie-the-Pooh horror film? Welcome to the public domain
From Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey to The Gay Gatsby, the expiry of copyright on popular literature has seen…
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Why Everything Everywhere All at Once deserves every Oscar going
The anti-superhero film encapsulates our dissatisfied, lonely age with wit and originality.
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Allelujah is Alan Bennett’s ode to the NHS
His 2018 play, set in a Yorkshire geriatric ward, is now a starry movie – with a pandemic-focused final act.
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How The Fabelmans, a box-office bomb in the US, became an instant classic in France
French critics have hailed Steven Spielberg’s belated coming-of-age movie as a “magisterial” and “Truffaldian” masterwork.
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Lukas Dhont’s Close explores the abrupt end of boyhood
This is a tender portrait of an innocent, intimate relationship between two best friends. So why must it veer into…
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The degradation of Marilyn Monroe
In death as in life, the actress has been used, abused and commodified. Netflix’s film Blonde is just the latest…
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Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin: a brilliantly nasty Irish fable
The director reunites Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in a timeless film full of heartbreaking sunsets and superb knitwear.
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Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale is dismal, claustrophobic and sometimes cruel
Brendan Fraser’s performance as an obese shut-in could win him an Oscar, but this bleak, suffocating film is hard to…
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Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is a major and personal work
The director’s 34th feature – and the first to turn the camera on himself – ranks as one of his…
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