HeadStuff • 23rd April 2026

Mother Mary movie review | Hathaway does Madonna in hollow superstar meltdown - HeadStuff

It used to be that, in times of trouble, Mother Mary came to us speaking words of wisdom. Now, she arrives looking like Anne Hathaway caught in a downpour and approaching a nervous breakdown. Mother Mary is not lacking for compelling imagery but, for all its subverted religious imagery, writer-director David Lowery’s latest tale of a desperate search for identity is closer to “Jesus Christ” than “Yaaasss, kweeen”. 


Stabs at psychosexuality? Flirtations with violence? Award-tickling prestige?...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 20th April 2026

Surviving Earth Review: Pain Is A Drug

With honesty, slick production and a terrific lead, Surviving Earth is a heartfelt and attention-grabbing feature debut for Thea Gajic.


This time is precious, a moment when life seemed good for Vlad, and people in general, free of international strife and a pervading sense of depression. As we learn, Vlad’s had his share of that. A veteran of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, Vlad came to Britain to improve his lot. Feature debut director Thea Gajic paints the world her lead inhabits in bright...

HeadStuff • 17th April 2026

The Wizard of the Kremlin movie review | The Rule Of Law Undermined In Shaky Political Drama - HeadStuff

It’s apt that The Wizard of the Kremlin centres on a theatre director and playwright, as its overwritten and overwrought nature means it would probably play best on stage. Rather than a stage play, director Olivier Assayas delivers a political drama of the kind he’s made before to mixed effect. The Wizard of the Kremlin is itself a mixed bag, though it’ll be interesting to revisit in years to come, to see how much of its power lies in its topicality. Explanations for Vladimir Putin’s continued m...

HeadStuff • 9th April 2026

The Stranger movie review | Camus Can Do, But Ozon Ain’t The Fella To Film This Novella - HeadStuff

The indifference and absurdity at the heart of Albert Camus’ novella L’Étranger don’t scream out for a cinematic treatment, but François Ozon revels in manifesting lofty ideas in a grounded and (sometimes overly) tasteful manner. That’s exactly what we get in The Stranger, a handsome and well-meaning adaptation of Camus’ masterwork that was doomed to struggle to portray the novel’s themes with the same profundity and candor.


“Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” The first lin...

HeadStuff • 23rd March 2026

Dead Man’s Wire movie review | Dog Day Afterthought - HeadStuff

In his acceptance speech for the Academy Award for Best Picture, Paul Thomas Anderson cited the phenomenal quintet of films that made up the nominees for that same award in 1975. He mooted that their shared quality shows that the films this year needn’t compete amongst one another for attention and acclaim (though anyone who saw Frankenstein or F1 knows that simply isn’t true). The rebellious spirit of the likes of Dog Day Afternoon informed Anderson’s vision in One Battle After Another, but Dea...

Philip Bagnall • 20th March 2026

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man

What are we supposed to do with this, anyway? Did anyone ask for a Peaky Blinders sequel? Fans of the show (This writer included) certainly didn’t, and its arrival on Netflix (following a brief stint in a handful of cinemas, as per Ted Sarandos’ ‘commitment’ to theatrical distribution) invites little beyond a shrug. Contempt would take up too much energy.Peaky Blinders concluded its broadcast run in 2021, with creator Steven Knight wrapping up a multi-year character-driven narrative that saw the...

FILMHOUNDS Magazine • 6th March 2026

The Love That Remains (Film Review) – Love On Ice

The Icelandics were always bound to have a unique and quirky sense of humour. Alien to North Americans, but just too far adrift from the rest of Scandinavia, Iceland lies far enough removed from everywhere to evolve an artistic and comedic sensibility all its own. What a pleasant surprise, then, to find that its process of evolution was entirely convergent. The Love That Remains might play as too wry for some, but the ideas it touches on and the wicked humour on display have universal appeal. A...

FILMHOUNDS Magazine • 22nd February 2026

Menus-Plaisirs, les Troisgros (Film Review) – In-Depth And Delicious

Dining at a Michelin-starred restaurant is often reserved as an experience, something to be savoured because the judges from the tyre company deemed it worthy. Since the three-star hierarchy was established by the Guide Michelin in 1931, few establishments have managed to garner the illustrious full three stars. Menus-Plaisirs, les Troisgros is an attempt to show the ambition and effort that goes into earning and maintaining such a reputation, as the Troisgros family continue to run three restau...

HeadStuff • 19th February 2026

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You Movie Review | Rose Byrne Is One Tough Mother! - HeadStuff

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You opens on a close-up of Linda’s (Rose Byrne) face, and the camera is reluctant to leave her for most of the film that follows. Mothers are often put in an uncomfortable gaze by people who aren’t in their shoes, and Mary Bronstein’s brilliantly paranoid fable manifests that discomfort in terrifyingly vivid detail. Walk a mile in someone’s shoes to know them, they say. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You runs a marathon in Linda’s unsupportive flats while having a panic attack....

HeadStuff • 12th February 2026

Little Amélie or The Character of Rain | Dazzling Animation Treats Kids With Intelligence And Respect - HeadStuff

Animation is so often demoted to the realm of ‘children’s entertainment’, but Little Amélie or the Character of Rain is different. It knows it’s aimed at kids, and tells its story from a child’s point of view, but that doesn’t stop it from engaging with loftier ideas, centred on spiritual and human connection. In its opening sequence, a child narrates the story of her birth, and posits the idea that she is nothing less than God. Any parent of a newborn will tell you that their child becomes the...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 13th January 2026

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Review

Director Nia DaCosta follows Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later with The Bone Temple, a leaner, smarter, nastier sequel, the best of the franchise since the original.


Both were potent on those terms, but 28 Years Later saw returning director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland try to do too much. It proved more effective at its musings on the inevitability of time and death than when grappling with the aftermaths of Covid-19 and Brexit.


Watching 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, it’s clear that d...

HeadStuff • 8th January 2026

Hamnet Movie Review | Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal’s Sublimely Sad Shakespeare Story - HeadStuff

Hamnet opens on Agnes (Jessie Buckley) lying amongst the raised roots of a mighty tree in a forest glade. Enveloped in the greenery and birdsong, the image evokes memories of Millais’ painting of Ophelia drowning after Hamlet has driven her insane. The evocation is apt, as Agnes is more commonly known as Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare. In this image, director Chloé Zhao lays down her intent. This story is something more elemental and deeply felt than the usual biopic. Hamnet isn’...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 29th December 2025

Craig Brewer on Song Sung Blue: Interview

Watch and read our interview with director Craig Brewer, who tells us about Song Sung Blue, Lightning & Thunder and Neil Diamond ahead of the film’s theatrical release.


Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman), a middle-aged Vietnam vet and recovering alcoholic, makes ends meet with a job as a mechanic, but he has bigger dreams. He moonlights as “Lighting”, a cover artist on the local circuit in Milwaukee, but with little success. When he meets Patsy Cline impersonator Claire Stengl (Kate Hudson) at a gig...

HeadStuff • 23rd December 2025

Marty Supreme movie review | Timothée Chalamet's ping-pong epic is a total smash! - HeadStuff

The fallacy at the heart of the American Dream is that working hard and nurturing one’s own talent will guarantee success. Marty Supreme sees poor Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) learn that this isn’t necessarily so. From the opening scenes, it’s readily apparent that Mauser isn’t mousy, his silver tongue helping him sell shoes to punters like ice to an Inuit. He may be able to flog clogs, but his larger dream of sporting glory is gonna take more than a quick turn of phrase to achieve.


After...

FILMHOUNDS Magazine • 4th December 2025

L'Atalante (4K Review)

The legacy of director Jean Vigo (1905 -1934) stretches far beyond his meagre oeuvre. His tragic death from tuberculosis at the age of 29 has always added a layer of sadness to his films, as well as regret that he never got to make more. However, any number of revisits to his only feature film L'Atalante show that the sadness and regret are justified. Like Charles Laughton with The Night of the Hunter, it should have been one of the great debuts at the start of a long career, but it still stands...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 24th November 2025

Interview: Shih-Ching Tsou on Left-Handed Girl

We interview Left-Handed Girl writer-director Shih-Ching Tsou about her creative process, her approaches to casting and shooting in her native Taiwan.


In Left-Handed Girl, Shu-Fen (Janel Tsai) takes her children, teenager I-Ann (Shih-yuan Ma) and little moppet I-Jing (Nina Yeh), to her hometown of Taipei to set up a noodle stall, but their new home and circumstances bring challenges and bitter truths. As I-Jing contemplates her place in her family and new city, her grandfather’s admonition of...

HeadStuff • 13th November 2025

The Running Man movie review | Edgar Wright's flashy remake runs out of puff long before the finish line - HeadStuff

Glen Powell is making all the right moves to become an old-school, bona fide movie star. Even if we’re not making them anymore, he’ll almost certainly be one. An appearance by Tom Cruise, the real running man, at Powell’s latest world premiere feels like an endorsement in that direction. This is in spite of Powell’s choices of scripts, which often involve him obscuring his looks for the plot. Powell is front and centre in The Running Man, which forces his charisma into the faces of his audience....

Loud And Clear Reviews • 23rd October 2025

Kenny Dalglish Review: Long Live The King

Asif Kapadia’s Kenny Dalglish is a heartfelt tribute to the Scotland and Liverpool legend, albeit lacking the bite of his best work.


This lad from Glasgow who made good on the promise he showed from his youth seems an unlikely subject for a documentary from Asif Kapadia. The Academy Award-winning director has cornered the market on cautionary tales, but he locates enough tragedy amongst the talent in Kenny Dalglish to play to his strengths, and a compelling (if unremarkable) portrait emerges....

Loud And Clear Reviews • 17th October 2025

The Death of Bunny Munro Review

Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro comes to our screens with two compelling lead performances and a smart balance between smut and sentiment.


As made clear in the first two episodes of the new mini-series that were screened at the BFI London Film Festival, this story of a man addicted to sex, alcohol and general hedonism is tailor-made for an actor who wants to shed a nice boy image, but who also wants to retain the charm and mutate it into something more primal and dangerous.


Smith is f...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 16th October 2025

Anemone Review: A Day-Lewis Family Affair

An overqualified cast and a beautiful look can’t lift Ronan Day-Lewis’ Anemone above its obvious script and direction.


A number of relationships are at work in Anemone, but at its core are two brothers. Jem (Sean Bean) journeys from his home in Sheffield to a sparse and barely habitable woodland. Deep amongst the trees lies an old cottage, with just enough comforts to house Jem’s brother, the reclusive Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis). The crux of the film’s publicity (and its whole reason for existing...

Loud And Clear Reviews • 12th October 2025

Reflection in a Dead Diamond Review: A Fun Gem

Reflection in a Dead Diamond is Cattet and Forzani’s most dynamic and fun film yet, spoofing and honouring the many genres the writers-directors love.


From the first scene, husband-and-wife filmmaker duo Bruno Forzani and Hélène Cattet promise that their latest film is full of the sex appeal and wit that defines their features to date. However, this one also has tuxedos, ninjas and comic book panels. The directors are always playful, but they’ve never been this fun.


Since before their feat...

HeadStuff • 24th September 2025

One Battle After Another movie review | Paul Thomas Anderson masterfully reckons with This American Moment - HeadStuff

Paul Thomas Anderson is a historian. Over his nine films to date, he has charted the 20th century with remarkable insight. His history has been out of order, but the points he makes are legitimate. The early 1900s reflected the late 2000s with the pursuit of oil spurred on by corrupted religion (There Will Be Blood). The 1950s saw the cult of personality take root in men whose own personas were destroyed in war (The Master) while the rest of the world rebuilt itself in the self-important image o...

HeadStuff • 4th September 2025

A Writer’s Pride Leads To Hoffman’s Height | Capote at 20 - HeadStuff

Capote is a black-and-white film, but it’s made in colour. Despite its late-1950s rural American setting, Capote has to be in colour when there’s such a colourful character at its core. In his time, Truman Capote (1924 – 1984) was as notable for his flamboyance as for his writing. He is best known now for his contributions to the New Journalism school of writing, and his masterpiece non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, but the personality that won him so much of his notoriety was both help and hindr...

HeadStuff • 22nd August 2025

The Life of Chuck movie review | sappy sentimental nonsense is a new kind of Stephen King horror - HeadStuff

Watching The Life of Chuck, one suspects that Mike Flanagan has some leftover issues from his teenage years to resolve. If he wasn’t a teen maths whizz and a member of the high school dance club, he should have been, given how cool his newest film insists these phenomena are. Of course, he’s leaning into his own interests as a writer/director here, making his third adaptation based on the works of Stephen King. As indulgent as Doctor Sleep was in entertaining King’s complaints about Kubrick’s ve...