Close

Review by Isabella Littler Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont’s second feature, Close (2022), paints an incredibly intimate portrait of the relationship between two young boys. Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav De Waele) are inseparable, sharing everything from beds to families. However, the extent of their relationship is questioned by classmates upon entering secondary school. Through

The Case For Best Picture

With the Oscars coming up soon, everyone has a choice for Best Picture. Our writers are here to tell you what film should win and why. Aftersun Katie McKenna In recent years it seems that films have lost their vulnerability. Following every possible chance for genuine emotion with a joke is a great strategy to

Tár

Review by Cat Earley In the initial run-up to Todd Field’s widely-anticipated new film, a coworker of mine casually asks me:  “Have you seen they’re making a movie about Lydia Tár?”  In the flutter of press surrounding Tár (2022, Todd Field) I don’t believe that this coworker was particularly out of step with the general

The Fabelmans

Review by Luke Bradley In the wake of films like Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018), Belfast (Kenneth Branagh, 2022), and the recent Armageddon Time (James Gray, 2022), an aversion to the “director retells their childhood” subgenre is growing. If ever a director has earned the benefit of the doubt, however, it’s Steven Spielberg. With The Fabelmans

Avatar: The Way of the Water

Review by Lila Funge 25 years after Titanic (1997), James Cameron finally returns to the sea for his most recent work Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)…and it is pretty magnificent.  With Cameron inventing new underwater motion capture cameras solely for this project, The Way of Water is unabashedly about its spectacle – not its

Empire of Light

Review by Chiara Gregor With Empire of Light (2022), Sam Mendes has attempted two things many filmmakers have before him. Firstly, to write and direct a project themselves, and secondly, to make a film in and about the film theatre. Throughout cinematic history, the theatre has been a favoured locality on screen, as a setting

The Banshees of Inisherin

Review by Luke Bradley The Banshees of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh, 2022) sees Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Martin McDonagh team up once again for an impossibly Irish tale of a falling out between two lifelong friends. It would be difficult to deny that the prospect of an In Bruges (McDonagh, 2008) reunion didn’t excite me

See How They Run

Review by Luke Bradley See How They Run (Tom George, 2022) launches straight into its ‘whodunnit’ narrative. Scored by the narration of Adrien Brody’s hot-shot director Leo Köpernick, he criticises the ‘second-rate murder-mysteries’ of the 1950s. ‘It’s a whodunnit; you see one, you’ve seen them all’, Köpernick laments. Opening with such a brazenly self-referential statement

The Case for Best Picture: Joker

Written by Hiram Harrington Full disclosure: I loved Joker. I sat in the cinema, watching it for the first time, and laughed, gasped, and held my breath as much as any director could have hoped for. At this stage of the game, it seems almost gross for me to champion Todd Philip’s Joker. In a

The Case for Best Picture: The Irishman

Written by Barry Murphy There should be no debate around which film should win best picture at the 2020 Academy Awards. The Irishman is the perfect conclusion to one of Hollywood’s most storied careers and is a film so flawless that the only shots that can seemingly be taken at it are concerning its lengthy