What you want from a film at any given time can vary massively. A flowing and moving story filled with awards-worthy performances of course is great but sometimes you might just want to laugh, to wince, to switch your brain off or to be frozen with fear. They Will Kill You can offer a little of all of that. An absolutely gonzo blast of mayhem with only a mind to distract and to entertain. As Zazie Beetz’ Asia Reaves walks into the Virgil, a mysterious John Wick-esque quasi-ho

After being the 'film genre du jour' a few years back, it’s been a while since we’ve had a ‘lost in space’ movie. Project Hail Mary, therefore, feels surprisingly fresh. A resolutely standalone, somewhat old-fashioned family Blockbuster in a year set to be dominated by some massive tentpole releases. Based on Andy Weir’s book (who also wrote The Martian, arguably the best of that previous glut of space films) this bears some obvious similarities to that movie. It’s another co

After Serbia’s delightful Flow stole hearts and minds last year in the animation world, this year it is the turn of France with the absolutely gorgeous Arco. This could easily be the best animated movie of the year and even one of the best films full stop. A Ghibli-esque science fiction allegory about two different apocalyptic futures, and two youngsters who fatefully meet when one travels back in time. The imagery is incredibly imaginative, instantly iconic and altogether be

It’s always incredible just how different Pixar can make each film they release. Despite them suffering a little in recent times from ‘too-many-sequels-syndrome’ they can always be relied upon when they come up with an original concept. It’s also quite strange to think how little of their films are ‘animal’ based considering how prevalent it is with other animated movies. Hoppers might, bizarrely, be the most ‘Dreamworks-like’ Pixar film and is largely animal led and action b

The Secret Agent is a little bit of a misnomer and rather than any Bond-style espionage you are thrust into the sights and sounds of Brazil under authoritarian rule in the 1970’s. A place where anyone could be seen to be an enemy of the government, many in positions of power are corrupt and everyone is constantly watching their back. Much like last year’s true story I’m Still Here, The Secret Agent is a deeply immersive tale of a dark time in history but this film tells a fic

The Bride! might well remind you most of Joker: Folie à Deux, for good and for ill. Here comes an immensely well-advertised, big budget, interestingly wacky auteur-driven quasi-franchise IP that sits apart from other Blockbusters. However, it is also going to be hugely divisive, equally liked and reviled and is altogether head-scratching in every possible way. It’s punk rock but perhaps not quite as deliberately provocative as that Joker sequel but it’s hard to articulate tho

How to Make a Killing is a great film but perhaps could have been an even better mini-series. Although, considering how TV is probably the more likely route these days for studios to go down, perhaps we should celebrate this very likable and slick quasi-remake of Kind Hearts & Coronets coming to the big screen. Slick is probably the optimum word here as this is a high class, tightly made kind-of-thriller. It doesn’t really fall into conventional genre categorisation. Glen Pow

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die might well take the award for ‘film title’ of the year if such a thing were to exist. Attention-grabbing, evocative, curious and weird, it rather sums up the film itself. Gore Verbinski’s latest so plaining wants to be Everything Everywhere All At Once whilst also riffing or homaging plenty of other sci-fi and time travel movies. It doesn’t ultimately get there (what ever will?) but it has a hell of a lot of fun trying. An oddly dressed, rather

The 90-minute horror/comedy fills an important role in the film landscape. Sure, they’re rarely award winners, films to debate endlessly or even to watch more than once. But whether it’s a weekend watch with a takeaway, a date night trip to the cinema, a family watch when you have little time or a short something to switch your brain off these movies are often what we reach to. Cold Storage is another little gem to add to the list. The key is in making something feel fresh th

It takes something to bring a freshness or sense of the new to the ‘mockumentary’ format. The Moment absolutely does it. An original, polarising, surprising, brave and ‘punk’ move from Charli XCX to shut the door and start to move on from the Brat era. The best album of 2024, a new definition added to the dictionary and a cultural moment, it takes guts to mock, spoof and step away from that luminous green record in this style. The Moment is an all-too-real feeling, heightened

Surely it’s clear now that if you want to adapt a classic text in this era, it’s got to be as a divisive art piece. Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights could be another harbinger of that change if that hadn’t already been obvious. This is how to now turn a novel often only thought of as an ‘academic’ text into a modern Blockbuster. High fashion, bawdy, arty and somewhat ‘punk rock’, this will surely split audiences down the middle in all the right ways. If anything, it’s actu

Crime 101 could indeed be called ‘Crime Movie 101’ instead but should also be celebrated for being a slick, watchable and star-packed crime thriller all too often lazily thrown onto streaming services these days. There was once a time where this sort of film was Oscar bait and theatre filling and whilst this particular example does nothing new with the form, it is a thoroughly enjoyable throwback. It feels hefty at nearly two and a half hours but never dull and keeps the plot