Category: Movies

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Animation Features Movies

Arco
(Arco)

Director – Ugo Bienvenu – 2025 – France – Cert. PG – 82m

French with subtitles (not in UK cinemas) *****

English dubbed version (in UK cinemas) ****1/2

A boy from the far future attempts time travel too young and gets stranded in an earlier time – animated SF feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 20th

Somewhere in the distant future, above the clouds where the birds fly, in semi-spherical houses constructed on supports rising through the clouds, live the likes of Arco (English voice: Juliano Krue Valdi; French voice: Oscar Tresanini) with his mother (voices: America Ferreira; Sophie Mas) and father (Roeg Sutherland; Oxmo Puccino), and his elder sister (unknown; Joséphine Mancini). His daily routine includes feeding the hens and the pigs, but not flying because he’s not yet 12 and, as his dad constantly reminds him, that’s the law.

The house is powered at least in part by small water wheels. It would appear to be self-sustaining. The family grow a lot of plants as part of their self-sufficient diet, and the daily flights of Arco’s father, mother and sister take them to other times to gather samples of new plant species to grow as nutrients.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

Scarlet
(Hateshinaki Sukaretto,
果てしなきスカーレット,
lit. Endless Scarlet)

Director – Mamoru Hosoda – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 111m

****

Trapped in the Otherworld, a limbo preceding the afterlife, Princess Scarlet seeks revenge on her uncle who has killed her father the King – anime reimagining of Hamlet is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

Walking across a vast desert and dying of thirst, a redhead recalls how she came to be there. Those were happier times in sixteenth century Denmark, when Scarlet (voice: Mana Ashida from Lonely Castle in the Mirror, Keiichi Hara, 2022; The House of the Lost on the Cape, Shinya Kawatsura, 2021; Poupelle of Chimney Town, Yusuke Hirota, 2020; Pacific Rim, Guillermo del Toro, 2013) – for it is she – spent time with her father King Amleth (voice: Masachika Ichimura from Giovanni’s Island, 2014), drawing his portrait outdoors. Amleth always had the best interests of his people at heart.

Yet there was always a dark foreboding in the background – Scarlet’s severe mother Gertrude (voice: Yuki Saito from The Third Murder, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017) who ripped up her drawing, her power-hungry, warmongering Uncle Claudius (voice: Koji Yakusho from Perfect Days, Wim Wenders, 2023; Belle, Mamoru Hosoda, 2021, The Third Murder; Cure, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997; Shall We Dance, Masayuki Suo, 1996) with his greedy eyes on the throne.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

How to Make a Killing

Director – John Patton Ford – 2026 – UK, France – Cert. 15 – 105m

****

A disinherited son culls the seven family members standing between him and the fortune of his super-rich family one by one – US reimagining of Kind Hearts and Coronets is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

Sentenced to death for murder, Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell) asks for a priest to visit his cell on death row so he can recount the long story behind his incarceration. The priest arrives, and Becket starts to tell his tale…

Mary Redfellow (Nell Williams) has a child, Becket (Grady Wilson), with a man her wealthy family, the Redfellows, consider beneath her station. As a result, they cut her off. She nevertheless teaches the child to be mindful of gaining his true inheritance. She has him learn archery and piano. At a piano recital as a child, he meets Julia (Maggie Toomey), a monied girl his own age, and the two immediately hit it off.

As an adult, the family’s rejection of Becket and his mother is made crystal clear to him when his mother dies and he attempts to get family funding for her funeral, the refusal coming in the terse form of a three-line letter delivered by chauffeur-driven car to the family estate gates where Becket is waiting.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Resurrection
(Kuangye Shidai,
狂野时代,
lit. Wild Times)

Director – Bi Gan – 2025 – China – Cert. 15 – 160m

****

An authority figure pursues a Deliriant – a man who escapes the authorities and his own social responsibilities by dreaming – through a period of a hundred years – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

This opens with a long series of intertitles about people discovering that the secret to eternal life is to stop dreaming. Rebels who refuse to do this are known as Deliriants, and they cause all manner of disruption to wider society. Then, the celluloid image catches fire…

revealing people watching stupified from the cinema stalls only to be rushed out by a truncheon-wielding policeman as music plays in the manner of a silent film. A lady photographer (Shu Qi from The Assassin, Hou Hsaio-hsien, 2015; The Transporter, Louis LeTerrier, Corey Yuen, 2002; Millennium Mambo, Hou Hsaio-Hsien, 2001) appears to take a picture of the unseen projector (where we, the audience, are sitting).

The intertitles continue. One Deliriant (Jackson Yee from The Battle at Lake Changjin II: Water Gate Bridge, Tsui Hark, 2022; The Battle at Lake Changjin, Chen Kaige, Dante Lam, Tsui Hark, 2021) has been forgotten because he’s hiding in an ancient, distant past – that is film.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

A Pale View of Hills
(Toi Yamanamino Hikari,
遠い山なみの光)

Director – Kei Ishikawa – 2025 – UK, Japan, Poland – Cert. 12a – 123m

From the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro

***1/2

An aspiring journalist in 1982 England delves into her mother’s past life in 1952 Nagasaki and unearths dark family secrets – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 13th

As will be seen from the above logline description, this essentially plays out in two timelines.

One is in Nagasaki, Japan in 1952, less than a decade after the dropping of the atomic bomb, where the married and barely visibly pregnant Etsuko (Suzo Hirose from Lupin III the First, Takashi Yamazaki, 2019; The Third Murder, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2017; The Boy and the Beast, Mamoru Hosoda, 2015; Our Little Sister, Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2015) befriends Sachiko (Fumi Nikaido from River’s Edge, Isao Yukisada, 2018; Himizu, Sion Sono, 2011), the mother of local waif Mariko (Mio Suzuki), who lives in an isolated shack near the river and plans to emigrate to the US with a man named ‘Frank’.

The other is in a town in England somewhere near Greenham Common, Berkshire, in 1982, where aspiring journalist Niki (Camilla Aiko from Dr.… Read the rest

Categories
Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Turner & Constable

Director – David Bickerstaff – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 93m

****

A journey through the current Tate Britain show and art history about the two rival landscape painters – out in UK cinemas from Tuesday, March 10th

This latest Exhibition on Screen entry kicks off in uncharacteristic fashion with photographic shots of landscape (typical of views that used by painters Turner and Constable) accompanied by an excerpt from the poem Richmond by James Thomson (1834-1882), a favourite of both painters whose work will be similarly deployed (voiced by Robert Lindsay) at appropriate intervals throughout this documentary.

Amy Concannon © David Bickerstaff

However, the film soon moves into more familiar territory with shots of present day London and of the Tate Britain’s current Turner & Constable exhibition, with visitors admiring some of the paintings on display. Amy Concannon, Manton Senior Curator, Historic British Art, Tate Britain, notes that this show represents the first time the two painters have been displays side by side on such a vast scale. Turner & Constable were born within a year of one another, which became a catalyst for the current show’s displaying them together.

Lachlan Goudie © David Bickerstaff

Artist, writer and broadcaster Lachlan Goudie talks about the “dazzling” influence of both artists on the likes of Delacroix.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Hard Boiled
(Lat Sau San Taam,
辣手神探)

Director – John Woo –1992 – Hong Kong – Cert. 18 – 128m

*****

One of the greatest action pictures ever made – back in a 4K Restoration in UK cinemas on Friday, March 6th

Woo’s directorial valediction to Hong Kong, at least for a time as he attempted to break Hollywood, rehashes his now familiar territory of brotherhood, loyalty and betrayal, etched in trademark bullets and blood with grander and greater operatic flourish than his earlier efforts. On-screen alter-ego Chow Yun-fat (The Killer, John Woo, 1989; An Autumn‘s Tale, Mabel Cheung, 1987) is cast for the first time in Woo not as gangster but cop, bonding with a ruthless triad hit man Alan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai from Bullet In The Head, John Woo, 1990, In The Mood For Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2000; Lust Caution, Ang Lee, 2007; Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Destin Daniel Cretton, 2021). For good measure, Woo throws in therising, young gangster killing the old leader to take over the mob from A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986) (here played by Anthony Wong and Kwan Hui-sang respectively).

Hard Boiled opens with a spectacular tea house shoot out where Insp.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Bride!

Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal – 2026 – US – Cert. 15 – 126m

**

In 1930s Chicago, Frankenstein’s monster seeks love and companionship, so a dead girl, possessed by the spirit of Mary Shelley, is reanimated as his Bride – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 6th

Stuck for eons in a black and white limbo, having died of brain cancer after writing the novel Frankenstein – perhaps the novel was part of a brain tumour – and feeling that she’d not managed to say within it what she needed to say, the departed spirit of Mary Shelley (Jessie Buckley from Hamnet, Chloe Zhao, 2025; The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021; Misbehaviour, Phillippa Lowthorpe, 2020) observes the world of the living, in colour, and enters it to take possession of a living woman in 1930s Chicago through whom she intends to say what still needs to be said. She picks the fearless and vivacious Ida (Buckley again) in the orbit of ruthless gangster Lupino (Zlatko Burić from Superman, James Gunn, 2025; Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund, 2022; Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn, 1996).

Being fed one oyster too many in a nightclub, Ida wilfully throws up over one of Lupino’s men.… Read the rest

Categories
Dance Features Live Action Movies Music

Sirāt
(Sirāt)

Director – Óliver Laxe – 2025 – Spain, France – Cert. 15 – 115m

*****

Young son in tow, a man goes in search of his daughter who has gone missing at raves in the North African desert – 2025 Cannes Jury Prize Winner is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 27th

Luis (Sergi López from Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro, 2006; Dirty Pretty Things, Stephen Frears, 2002; Harry, He’s Here to Help, Dominik Moll, 2000) and his son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona) are searching for his son’s elder sister who vanished five months ago. Believing she is headed to a rave in the Moroccan desert, they turn up there to hand out Missing fliers and ask people there if they have seen her.

No-one has seen her.

They start off asking among dancing revellers, but soon move on to try people resting or on the fringes of the event. One group of three people halfway up a hillside, seem more sympathetic than most, but they’ve not seen the daughter so there isn’t a lot they can do to help. 

The rave is an illicit event not sanctioned in any way by the authorities, so it’s perhaps not surprising that on maybe the second day… time can be hard to keep track of at these events… soldiers turn up to close the event down. … Read the rest

Categories
Dance Features Live Action Movies Music

The Testament
of Ann Lee

Director – Mona Fastvold – 2025 – US, UK – Cert. 15 – 130m

****

In the mid-eighteenth century, wishing to preach her unique take on the Christian Gospel, Ann Lee crosses the Atlantic with a small party from from Manchester, England, to establish a Shaker community in America – unlikely religious musical is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 20th

This review is written after seeing this film for a second time. On my first viewing, I went in cold, knowing a great deal about both Christian history and the Quakers, but nothing about the Shakers (‘the Shaking Quakers’) around whom the historical side of this film is based. As far as I can tell, the historical portrayals of the Shakers here, and their leader Mother Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried in a career-defining role), are pretty accurate.

This is to leave aside the fact that this is also a musical, the genre in which people suddenly burst into song, and we somehow accept it. In real life, people generally don’t burst into song in the ordinary run of things. And yet, it’s a genre convention we accept, and as a genre the musical has a perfectly respectable history. That said, if you’ve been brought up within any sort of English protestant Christian church tradition, from C of E to house churches, you’ll be familiar with people singing hymns as part of their religious worship.… Read the rest