Mysterious deaths befall members of an isolated 19th-century fishing community after they choose not to aid the survivors of a shipwreckEvery film ought to have a signature image, and slow-burn supernatural chiller The Damned has a doozy: a body washed…
A Polish ex-soldier returns to his home town and takes on local gangsters in an exhausting barrage of violence in humourless action filmHere is a film from Poland that is proof that when a macho action hero has a canine sidekick, it makes him at least …
Americans are likely to encounter a torrent of rumor and conspiracy this Election Day. Here are some tricks to guard against it.
She’s worked with most of the great names of European cinema, from Godard to Haneke, and on one of Hollywood’s greatest disasters. Now she’s ready for your closeup quizzingFrance has quite a few grandes dames of cinema, with Catherine Deneuve, Juliette…
Low-budget limitations work in this French thriller’s favour, in which Earth is turned upside down At one point in this smart, low-budget French disaster movie/post-apocalyptic thriller, teenager Ben (Lucas Ebel) pees into an unplumbed toilet dumped in…
Venice film festival docudrama September 5 about TV crew that covered the 1972 Olympics crisis has lessons for the smartphone era, says its directorThe 1972 Munich Olympics were the first to be broadcast live by global satellite from continent to conti…
Cannes film festivalNoémie Merlant’s first film as a director is relentlessly silly, self-indulgent and unsuited to its themes of misogyny and sexual violenceHere to prove that “actor project” movies are always the ones with the dodgiest acting is the …
Elene Naveriani’s film tells the story of a middle-aged single woman in a remote Georgian village whose life is changed for ever after a near-death experienceHere is a marvellously tender story of loneliness and love which starts with a bigger bang tha…
Duris stars as a father protecting his son, who may or may not be mutating, in Thomas Cailley’s well-crafted thrillerThomas Cailley’s sci-fi fantasy has too much sensitivity and good taste to be the proper horror-thriller or creature feature that it al…
Nikki Amuka-Bird gives a powerful performance as a gritty deputy defending her remote sheriff’s office from armed invadersThere’s an old-timey charm about this, a (mostly) one-location action movie in the tradition of Rio Bravo, or its sort-of remake A…
Robert Hloz’s debut is a competent copy of Hollywood sci-fi, but it’s too heavily indebted to its influences to develop its own philosophyApparently the first sci-fi film from the Czech Republic in 40 years, this so-called Czech Blade Runner is actuall…
The feline octogenarian brings brooding star power and presence to Fuerteventura-set thrillerAs fans of highbrow cult TV (Deadwood), schlock but addictive TV (Lovejoy), and connoisseurs of great character portrayal will attest, Ian McShane is a superb …
Victoria Lucie is impressive as the only visible actor, connecting calls on the island of Alderney and piecing together a propulsive 60s-set dramaHere is a claustrophobic thriller that unfolds entirely inside a small telephone exchange on the island of…
Henry Kissinger, a ruthless practitioner of the art of realpolitik who had an outsize impact on global events and who won a premature Nobel Peace Prize for ending a war that kept going, has died. A cunning, erudite strategist whose transformative diplomatic efforts helped to reshape the world, Kissinger was 100. His death Wednesday was […]
Student-level production values mar this promising-sounding comedic caper about a bumbling crime gangSome none-too-bright ne’er-do-wells are trying to lie low in an out-of-the-way bungalow near Dublin, having committed a heist that has gone slightly pe…
There is gunplay aplenty in this Spanish thriller about a young renegade who can create illusions with his mind – with some neat touches amid the mayhemDirected by Daniel Benmayor, this Spanish mashup of Inception, Scanners, The Fury and The Matrix fol…
The actor doesn’t move much but brings off the Parisian copper’s air of worldly, tolerant bemusementMaybe it’s a surprise that Gérard Depardieu has not before now taken on the one fictional character of comparable French iconic status to himself: Georg…
There is something of In Bruges about this Belgium-set tale of whistleblowers in hiding, with a little bit of David BrentNeil Maskell is the charismatic British actor known for his complex, seriocomic tough-guy performances in the movies of Ben Wheatle…
