Soon to be seen as the father of Venus and Serena Williams in the Oscar-tipped King Richard, Smith has lent his everyman charm to comedies, sci-fi and even a buddy movie pairing a cop with an orcWill Smith has made many more than 20 films, but the econ…
Sweetheart review – good-natured caravan-park romance
Nell Barlow is the long-suffering gay teenager who falls for a lifeguard on holiday in Marley Morrison’s likably wistful debut The holiday romance coming-of-ager is the genre that’s given writer-director Marley Morrison her likable feature debut. And i…
The Many Saints of Newark review – Sopranos prequel keeps it in the family
Michael Gandolfini is goosebump-inducing as the young Tony Soprano, amid race riots and antagonism towards rival African American gangsMaybe it was inevitable that the greatest TV show in history should spawn a feature-length prequel that is somehow di…
Herself review – Irish abuse drama turns into home-build heartwarmer
Clare Dunne stars in and writes this self-empowering story of a battered Dublin cleaner who builds her own house, directed by The Iron Lady’s Phyllida LloydClare Dunne is the young Irish stage and screen performer who takes a commanding role in this he…
Adam Driver’s 10 best film performances – ranked!
Ahead of the release of Annette, we rank the actor’s greatest roles, from the insufferable hipster of While We’re Young to his severe missionary in SilenceThe movie might be flawed, but Driver’s performance (playing opposite the similarly excellent Alb…
The Last Bus review – a cliche-packed vehicle for Timothy Spall
A widower takes a nostalgic journey from John o’Groats to Land’s End using his free bus pass in a well-acted but overly sentimental filmTry as I might, I couldn’t make friends with this weirdly unreal and sentimental Britmovie in the last-journey-with-…
Candyman review – BLM horror reboot is superb confection of satire and scorn
Nia DaCosta’s quasi reboot develops the horror myth as an expression of rage against racism in the era of Black Lives MatterCandyman, in its first incarnation, stepped daintily out of the mirror in 1992, in writer-director Bernard Rose’s US-set version…
Boiling Point review – Stephen Graham bubbles in one-shot restaurant drama
This year’s Karlovy Vary saw the premiere of a dizzying single-take drama featuring a potent lead performance from Graham as a chef enduring a nightmarish eveningPhilip Barantini serves up a single-take headlong nightmare in this drama set in a restaur…
After the intermission: films are back in cinemas – but will the crowds return too?
Covid and the boom in streaming platforms are being touted as a huge threat to cinema-going. But so was telly. And surely we’re all desperate to leave the house and make a big social occasion of it all?So are we in or out? Is this going to be the old n…
Zola review – pulp-factual viral tweet becomes an icily slick urban thriller
Aziah ‘Zola’ Wells’s viral story of her crazily dangerous 2015 trip to Florida in search of pole-dancing money is brought to the screen with seductive comedyIn 2015, a part-time dancer from Detroit called Aziah “Zola” Wells went viral with a cheeky Tw…