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 f

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 articulat

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 and 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. Gl

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 plainly 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 t

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 p

Sometimes, a film will come along and, even though the premise seems all too familiar and worn, it’ll leave you beaming. Send Help is that film and has a little but of something for everyone. If you just want a bit of fun from your next cinema trip, something that'll trigger all the senses, this has to be your next watch. A film with one of the best jump scares of the year that also contains some of the most laugh-out-loud sequences of 2026, it is a constant surprise and a co

As enjoyable as a coming-of-age story is or a traditional rom-com, there seems to be an increasing amount of more adult relationship dramas being released. Bradley Cooper’s newest directorial effort, Is This Thing On?, Is a great example of the form. Whilst it contains the ‘romantic’ and ‘comedy’ elements, this drama is more nuanced, slow, deliberate and patient with its story of a divorcing couple finding a way to reconnect. Whilst loosely based on John Bishop’s story of fin

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is cinema as experience and, more specifically, cinema as panic attack. A sensory overload, tour-de-force of stress and constant pressure and anxiety, this film does everything to put you in the shoes of Rose Byrne’s Linda. An awards-worthy performance of a mother on the edge, Byrne and director Mary Bronstein ensure you’re never quite exactly sure what’s going on and what’s going to happen next. As Linda is thrown constant challenges and is being q

No Other Choice is another blazing social satire to come out of South Korea. If Parasite and Squid Game hadn’t already perfected the form, here’s another to add to the list. To balance this level of artistry, cinematography, humour, metaphor, thrills and satire is simply masterful and Park Chan-wook has created something here which stands up next to the aforementioned Parasite. That film was a Best Picture winner and No Other Choice is hard done by not to make the list for th