Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014

  Watched 22 Dec 2024

  The Grand Budapest Hotel is ten years old this year, and that is reason enough to watch (or more likely rewatch it). It concerns the concierge of a grand hotel in the 1930s, Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes) who is caught up in a series of escapades in an alternate interwar Europe. Whilst it is not Wes Anderson’s masterpiece (that is The Royal Tenenbaums), it is still an exceptional piece of work that burnishes the careers of everyone involved.

  This recommendation, by Joel Bishton, originally appeared in December's 'What to Watch and Play' feature, which you can read here

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  I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians 2018

  Watched 22 Dec 2024

  Barbarians is fundamentally slippery. It takes pains not to restrict itself wholly to fiction: leading actress Iona Iacob introduces herself directly to the handheld camera in the film’s first five minutes, whilst director Radu Jude’s repeated use of archive footage demands you reconcile his script with the historical atrocities it concerns. Iacob’s performance as a Bucharest director on a doomed quest to prevent the mangling of her work into ethnic pantomime is Barbarians’ beating heart, but it lives and dies…

Popular reviews

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  Crossing 2024

  Watched 18 Nov 2024

  Levan Akin’s Crossing is an exploration of what it means to move that comes from a place of real empathy. Its titular verb refers least of all in this context to the crass spectacle often made of gender transition— which Akin deftly avoids with regard to the trans woman at the centre of his narrative—but more so to how a person changes, in space and in self. We travel from Caucasia to the city where two continents meet in an…

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  Trap 2024

  Watched 22 Dec 2024

  The undisputed star of Trap is Josh Hartnett, delivering (without spoiling too much) what can only be described as a note-perfect performance that tows the line between wacky irreverence and deep disturbance. Above all, it’s just exhilaratingly cool. The pace grips from moment one.

  Our full review, by Sol Camden, appeared as part of our Best Films of 2024 feature, which you can view here