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BULK

All pic credits: d.p. Nick Gillespie

Director – Ben Wheatley – 2025 – UK – Cert. 15 – 90m

*****

An abducted journalist finds himself involved in multi-dimensional travel – quasi-experimental and completely bonkers sci-fi drama embarks on a tour of UK cinemas, from the smallest to the largest, on Thursday, January 15th

We are watching black and white footage. (The film occasionally uses colour, for instance footage of Sam Riley – from Islands, Jan-Ole Gerster, 2025; Firebrand, Karim Ainouz, 2023; Control, Anton Corbijn, 2007 – in a grey-blue suit reminiscing about what happened to his character). “25 kilometres from the epicentre,” says a voice, instantly recognisable as Bill Nighy (from Living, Oliver Hermanus, 2022; Minamata, Andrew Levitas, 2020; I Capture the Castle, Tim Fywell, 2003), who performs similar duties throughout, including reading the film’s title when it appears moments and several shots later on the screen.

Some of those shots are worth talking about in detail, because they help convey everything that’s great about this lovingly hand-to-mouth-crafted movie. They include library footage – a jet trail across what could be detail of a planet, troops watching an A-bomb explosion from the trenches.

As Nighy speaks, two tiny static figures stand in a landscape (which looks like a model although it could be a still photographic element behind which is composited live action footage of clouds moving across in a sky.… Read the rest

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Lollipop

Director – Daisy-May Hudson – 2024 – UK – Cert. 15 – 100m

*****

After four months in prison, a young woman must deal with the UK’s social services to regain custody of her kids – on BBC iPlayer from Friday, January 16th

East Londoner Molly (Posy Sterling) leaves prison following a four-month sentence to discover that her two kids Ava, 11 (Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads) and Leo, 5 (Luke Howitt) have been taken into care because her alcoholic mum Sylvie (TeriAnne Cousins from Silver Haze, Sasha Polak, 2023) couldn’t cope with them. This means the kids have been taken into care by social services, and in order to get them back, Molly has to have a roof over her head. Alas, while she was detained, the council have taken her home off her.

She finds herself trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea – she can’t get her kids back until she has a suitable home, and she can’t get a suitable home because, until she gets her kids back, she will only be offered accommodation suitable for a single homeless woman. For the time being, she lives out of a tent.

The impulsive Molly worsens her own situation when, during a supervised visit, she abducts her kids and flees with them on the train to the wilds of the countryside.… Read the rest

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The Ice Tower
(La Tour de Glace)

Director – Lucile Hadzihalilovic – 2025 – France, Germany, Italy – Cert. 15 – 117m

*****

Midwinter. A homeless girl stumbles onto a film set where a notoriously difficult actress is shooting an adaptation of The Snow Queen – screens exclusively on BFI Player from Monday, January 12th

Opening with microscopic images of of snowflakes and more abstract visuals of refracted light, this swiftly delivers a female voiceover (by Aurélia Petit from Saint Omer, Alice Diop, 2022; By the Grace of God, François Ozon, 2018; Happy End, Michael Haneke, 2017; Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas, 2016; The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry, 2006) in French with English subtitles for those of us in the UK, in which the word ‘neige’ (snow) is seemingly, endlessly repeated. Then images of a girl wandering snow covered mountainsides gives way to night time small town streets before Jeanne (newcomer Clara Pacini) is told off for arriving late at the supper table. “I was afraid you’d gone”, says one of the younger girls (Cassandre Louis Urbain).

At night, Jeanne surreptitiously reads a postcard from a friend picturing Alpenaille skating rink addressed to her at the Bon Secours (Good Rescue) Foster Home.… Read the rest

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The Running Man
(2025)

Director – Edgar Wright – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 133m

***1/2

In an America controlled by a TV network producing violent game shows, a poor man signs on for its biggest show The Running Man whose contestants never come back – Stephen King adaptation available to buy on digital Tuesday, January 13th & to rent on Tuesday, January 27th; on 4K UHD Steelbook, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD Monday, March 2nd, 2026

His baby daughter is sick, and medical treatment is expensive. His wife is working as many shifts as she can at a hostess club (we never see it – it’s described in dialogue) in an attempt to bring in some money. But it’s not enough. Ben Richards (Glen Powell) needs to find more money to pay the bills and keep his family alive. While he is good at what he does, he has a tendency to speak up when things aren’t as they should be, and this gets him into trouble. As in, he has been blacklisted by previous employers of whom he’s fallen foul. So, he turns to the Free-Vee TV network that controls and runs everything, providing a subsidised TV to every home and non-stop, reality TV and game show programming.… Read the rest

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Oh, Canada

Director – Paul Schrader – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

From the novel by Russell Banks

***

A documentary filmmaker dying of cancer consents to a filmed interview about his life and work to air his dirty laundry – on UK and Ireland digital platforms on Monday, January 12th

“Remind me why I agreed to do this,” says the ageing Leonard Fife, aka Leo (Richard Gere, from Schrader’s earlier American Gigolo, 1980) setting up for a filmed interview, about his life and work as a documentary filmmaker, at which he has insisted his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), a former student of his, be present. His interviewer Malcolm (Michael Imperioli from Song Sung Blue, Craig Brewer, 2025; The White Lotus, TV series, Mike White, 2021; The Sopranos, TV series, 1999–2007) is another former student, as is Malcolm’s producer Diana (Victoria Hill from First Reformed, 2017; Master Gardener, 2022, both Paul Schrader), another former student conquest of Leo’s; Malcolm’s production assistant is 24-year old Sloan (Penelope Mitchell from Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024; Hellboy, Neil Marshall, 2019; The Vampire Diaries, TV series, 2014-15; Hemlock Grove, TV series, 2013).

What lies behind Leonard’s acceptance of the gig swiftly becomes clear when he hijacks the first question, framing it with a date in 1968 of great significance in his personal life.… Read the rest

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Hamnet

Director – Chloé Zhao – 2025 – UK, US – Cert. 12a – 125m

*****

An imagining of the story of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, whose name gave rise to the play Hamlet – Maggie O’Farrell’s adaptation of her own novel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 9th

According to the opening title card, the names Hamlet and Hamnet were regarded as interchangeable in Elizabethan England. This is curious, since the piece’s female lead (Jessie Buckley from Women Talking, Sarah Polley, 2022; Men, Alex Garland, 2022; Misbehaviour, Philippa Lowthorpe, 2020) appears to be variously addressed as Alice, Agnes or Anyes while the male lead (Paul Mescal from Gladiator II, Ridley Scott, 2024; All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh, 2023; Aftersun, Charlotte Wells, 2022) is not referred to by name as William Shakespeare until well towards the end. Since this is being promoted as the story of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, whose name gave rise to the play Hamlet – as you can see from the trailer below – audiences will enter the film knowing who the Paul Mescal character is as soon as he appears unnamed.

The outdoors, looking up through the trees of a forest.… Read the rest

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Top Ten Movies
(and more,
excluding re-releases)
2025

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2025, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course.

All numbered films received either a theatrical, online or home media release in the UK between 01/01/25 and 31/12/25.

This version excludes re-releases (Battleship Potemkin, The Piano Teacher or Hard Boiled, among others) would top everything here). In addition to re-releases, this version also excludes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any other UK release in 2025. For that even longer list, click here.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2025

Please click on titles to see reviews.

The numbering will mostly be added later when I’ve watched more of the outstanding 2024 titles, and they have stopped moving around. So, currently, positions in this list should be taken with a pinch of salt.

*****

1=. Flow (2024, Belgium, France, Latvia)

1=. The Glassworker (2024, Pakistan, Spain)

1=. One Battle After Another (2025, US)

1=. Riefenstahl (2024, Germany)

1=. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024, Iran, Germany, France)

6=. Mars Express (2023, France)

6=. On Swift Horses (2024, US)

6=. … Read the rest

Categories
Animation Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music Shorts Top Ten

Top Ten Movies
(and more)
2025

Work in progress – subject to change. Because I am still watching movies released in 2025, so it’s always possible that a new title could usurp the number one in due course.

All numbered films received either a theatrical, online or home media release in the UK between 01/01/25 and 31/12/25.

This version includes re-releases, but those aren’t numbered. It’s hard to imagine movies improving on Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin, Haneke’s The Piano Teacher or Woo’s Hard Boiled.

In addition to re-releases, this version also includes films seen in festivals which haven’t had any wider UK release in 2025.

Finally, last year’s list is here.

Top Ten Movies (and more) 2025

Please click on titles to see reviews.

The numbering will mostly be added later when I’ve watched more of the outstanding 2024 titles, and they have stopped moving around. So, currently, positions in this list should be taken with a pinch of salt.

*****

Babe (1995, Australia – reissue)

Battleship Potemkin / Music by Pet Shop Boys (1925, USSR – reissue, new score)

Brief Encounter (1945, UK – reissue; also in Film Tottenham’s BFI / Love & Obsession programme)

A Clockwork Orange (1971, US, UK – in Film Tottenham’s Cinema for All / 100 Years of Community Cinema programme)

The Devil’s Backbone (2001, Mexico, Spain – reissue)

Dogtooth (2009, Greece – reissue)

1=. … Read the rest

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Hamnet

Directed by Chloé Zhao
Certificate 12A
125 minutes
Released 9 January

Shakespeare’s romantic relationship, family life and the tragedy of bereavement resulted in his writing one of his bestknown plays, Hamlet. In Elizabethan England, we are told at the start of Hamnet, the two names were interchangeable. Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, this film is well-served by the landscape-friendly sensibilities of the director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland). [Read the rest at Reform magazine…]

[Read my longer review on this site…]

Hamnet is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, January 9th.

Trailer:

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Marty Supreme

Director – Josh Safdie – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 149m

*****

In the 1950s, a young New Yorker with the odds against him is determined to become a top table tennis player – in cinemas from Friday, December 26th

Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the 1950s. Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) has a dream. It is, admittedly, a pretty odd dream which involves him rising to the top of a sport to which no-one in his native America currently pays any attention: table tennis. Also, he is possessed of the quintessentially New York sensibility of the street smart hustler who can, he believes, sell anything to anyone. A mere 23 years of age, he is naive and optimistic, but if you think that means the hard realities of day-to-day living are about to grind him down, you’ve got another think coming. For Marty is nothing less than a force of nature, blessed with unshakeable self-belief. And he needs it, because in this seriocomic rollercoaster of a sports drama, the odds seem to be increasingly stacked against him at every turn.

On top of all this, Marty is at once the person who through shrewd manoeuvring on the one hand makes his own luck and slowly builds his own destiny, and through hubris on the other has an unfortunate tendency to shoot himself in the foot..… Read the rest