sat 10/05/2025

Film Reviews

Riefenstahl review - fascinating fascism? Portrait of the Nazis' favourite film-maker

Saskia Baron

There used to be an unwritten rule among BBC commissioners about how long an interval had to pass before greenlighting a new documentary on a familiar subject – Shakespeare, Ancient Egypt, Andy Warhol – they all came round again with a decent interlude between reassessments. But if the pitch involved Nazis, all bets were off.

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The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and out in western Australia

Markie Robson-Scott

“Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” is the menacing motto (sounds more scary with an Australian accent) of the tanned, muscular denizens of Luna Bay beach. But the unnamed hero known as The Surfer, played by Nicolas Cage, isn’t listening.

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Desire: The Carl Craig Story review - a worthy, brand-conscious encomium for a techno star

Sebastian Scotney

Carl Craig (b.1969) is a leading Detroit electronic music producer and DJ whose Planet E Communications label has existed for over three decades. This 90-minute documentary, which was directed by Jean-Cosme Delaloye and features over thirty interviews, tells Craig's life story and attempts to define his importance. It's accompanied by a soundtrack largely comprising music recorded by him, either under his own name or under his many aliases.

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Words of War review - portrait of a doomed truth-seeker in Putin's Russia

Hugh Barnes

The reporting of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building in 2006 – on Vladimir Putin’s birthday, a deranged gift from his loyal security services – is perhaps the nearest thing we have to a full diagnosis of the horrifying corruption and brutality of Russia under his governance.

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Two to One review - bank heist with a big catch

Hugh Barnes

The Ealing-like comedy heist caper Two to One is Natja Brunckhorst’s second feature as a director, after the 2002 short film La Mer, but most people will remember her for an extraordinary performance as a 13-year-old actor in Uli Edel’s 1981 cult film Christiane F. The following year, she had an equally memorable walk-on in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film ...

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The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music, dance, film and spoken word

Helen Hawkins

The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie and stablemate of the fictive biopic 20,000 Days on Earth, about Nick Cave, from the same film-makers. It’s one part arty documentary to two parts music video, both a daughter’s tribute to her mother and a singer’s elaborate way of promoting her latest album.

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The Accountant 2 review - belated return of Ben Affleck's lethal bean-counter

Adam Sweeting

It’s been nine years since Ben Affleck’s original portrayal of Christian Wolff in The Accountant, who’s not only an accountant but also a super-efficient assassin working for the highest bidders.

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The Ugly Stepsister review - gleeful Grimm revamp

James Saynor

Although both of the Brothers Grimm died around 1860, they still insist on getting dozens of film and TV credits in each decade of our present age. They might be seen, in a sense, as inventing the modern horror movie far more than Poe or Shelley or Stoker – largely because of their stories’ especially swingeing violence.

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April review - powerfully acted portrait of a conflicted doctor in eastern Georgia

Helen Hawkins

It’s easy to see metaphors about the status of modern Georgia, once again threatened by the Russian boot, in its recent artistic output. So while there are no overt political allusions in director Dea Kulumbegashshvili’s April, at its core you sense a tacit and urgent debate about how to square your conscience with the “rules” that govern the country’s conduct.

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Neil Young: Coastal review - the old campaigner gets back on the trail

Adam Sweeting

As well as generating a ceaseless stream of albums, whether live, studio or culled from his copious archives, Neil Young has also amassed a fairly hefty body of film work, either as director, star or both. Like his music, his movies are created with a kind of confrontational spontaneity, grabbed on the run with rough edges and non-sequiturs still intact. His directorial debut, 1973’s only fleetingly coherent Journey Through the Past, gave early warning of what to expect.

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The Penguin Lessons review - Steve Coogan and his flippered friend

Saskia Baron

As if penguins didn’t have enough to fret about with impending tariffs on exporting guano to America, here comes Steve Coogan to ruffle their feathers. The Penguin Lessons is a pretty loose adaptation of a memoir by Tom Michell, about his stint as a young English teacher in an ersatz British boarding school in Argentina.

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Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story - compelling portrait of the ground-breaking Irish writer

Markie Robson-Scott

“I was born with the ability and the demon to write. I have been punished for it constantly.” Written and directed by Sinéad O’Shea, this fascinating documentary is a testimony to Edna O’Brien’s rebellious talent, her prolific output – a novel a year for a while – and her star-studded socialising.

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The Amateur review - revenge of the nerd

Adam Sweeting

In a world of macho super-achievers like Jack Reacher and Ethan Hunt, maybe it’s time to hear it for the nerdy guys. The Amateur (based on a novel by Robert Littell) was made once before, in 1981, starring John Savage and Christopher Plummer and directed by Charles Jarrott.

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Holy Cow review - perfectly pitched coming-of-age tale in rural France

Helen Hawkins

Director Louise Courvoisier has put herself firmly on the film map with this story of young Totone and his little sister, carving out a living in the modern-day Jura countryside after being orphaned. Think the Dardenne  brothers with more sunshine and less angst, a way of life where young calves are transported to market in the front seat of the family car.

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Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham review - New York stories

John Carvill

Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Woody Allen weighs in at an eye-popping 800 pages, yet he waits only for the fourth paragraph of his introduction before mentioning the toxic elephant in the room: i.e. the sad fact that, despite never having been charged with – let alone convicted of – any crime, Allen in 2025 is, to all intents and purposes, cancelled.

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Mr Burton review - modest film about the birth of an extraordinary talent

Helen Hawkins

Many know that the actor Richard Burton began life as a miner’s son called Richard Jenkins. Not so many are aware of the reason he changed his name. This film directed by Marc Evans explains how it came about.

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Riefenstahl review - fascinating fascism? Portrait of the Na...

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The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and ou...

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