Film

Horizon: An American Saga is a Western directed by Kevin Costner. It also stars Kevin Costner and is co-written by Kevin Costner and has been bankrolled by Kevin Costner – so if it’s Kevin Costner you’re after, happy days. This is Chapter One, and there are three more chapters to come, so even though it’s a whopping three hours long it’s only a quarter of a film. Sienna Miller doesn’t get to do much except look golden. She deserves better, I think Now I have to say something positive about it because, you know, Costner re-mortgaged his house to fund it and everything. Sienna Miller is a positive. I liked

Jeff Nichols’s The Bikeriders is based on the book by photojournalist Danny Lyon, first published in 1968, about his years embedded with a lawless motorcycle gang in Chicago. Nichols (Take Shelter, Mud, Loving) has imposed a fictional narrative arc and while it’s bogus in some respects and the arc quite familiar to anyone acquainted with stories about male subcultures – the fatal flaw of loyalty etc – it is well-crafted, stylish, has some potent scenes and a fantastic cast. The film stars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer, who manages to wipe the floor with both of them. You may wish to look away from the violence – if

Freud’s Last Session stars Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode and is a work of speculative fiction asking what would have happened if Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis had met to debate the existence of God. What if two of the greatest minds of the 20th century had the chance to thrash it out? Thrash it out they do but, alas, they cannot thrash any life into this film. If you are planning to see it at the cinema, a few espressos beforehand may not go amiss. It is directed by Matthew Brown, who co-wrote the script with Mark St Germain, on whose play it is based. It takes place on

Richard Linklater’s Hit Man is a minor Linklater but a minor Linklater is still an event. Also, after all those contemplative, existential films (Boyhood, the Before trilogy), who can blame him for letting his hair down with a sexy rom-com thriller that’s not concerned with deep questions. Though the film doesn’t add up to much, it is ‘based on a somewhat true story’ and it is a fun ride – somewhat. The ‘somewhat true story’ is extraordinary, even if it’s only the starting point. The person it’s based on is Gary Johnson, who died in 2022, just before filming began. He was a Houston college professor (psychology) who also worked

This week, a horror film – and with it, a whole load of alien spider insanity. If you’ve been hankering after a whole load of alien spider insanity, then Sting will hit the spot. As a rule, I avoid this genre, as I still suffer from nightmares after bunking off school to see The Exorcist (aged 12), but this is playful, B-movie horror rather than horror horror. It’s 90 minutes of silly, daft fun. I think I’ll leave a shorter gap between these films in future. Maybe every 35 years rather than every 40? I think I’ll leave a shorter gap between horror films in future. Maybe every 35 years?

Action films are boring. This isn’t really an opinion, it’s just demonstrably true. Try it for yourself: put on any high-octane, orange-and-teal action movie from the last 15 years and see how long it takes before you start automatically fiddling around with your phone. I can usually make it about five minutes. This is weird. I can deal with all the incredibly sedate cinematic vegetables just fine, but as soon as there are gunfights or chases involved I get distracted. I think I know why. The real betrayal of this Mad Max sequel is that it’s full of talking Action directors know that they’re competing with the sensory equivalent of

La chimera, which, as in English, means something like ‘the unrealisable dream’, is the latest film from Italian writer/director Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro). Her films are arthouse, in the sense that if you’re in the mood for someone blowing stuff up and escaping by speedboat while enjoying flirtatious repartee with a sexy lady, this probably won’t cut it. But if you’re in the mood for something original and woozy and riotous and wonderfully special, you will be able to fill your boots. Arthur has a kind of superpower that enables him to locate buried loot just by coming over funny It is set in Italy in the

The Fall Guy, starring Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling, is a gloriously fun, screwball action film that pokes fun at action films and this, I now know, is my favourite kind of action film. I would even venture that it’s the sort of film that’s crying out to be enjoyed with a big old bucket of popcorn. Go wild with the stuff. I promise I won’t hiss or look daggers at you. This is a popcorn movie. It has that spirit – in spades. Does anyone crash backwards through a plate glass window? Of course they do! As a comedy set in the stunt world, it’s one of those Hollywood

It sounds straightforward enough: a tennis romance starring Zendaya, idol of the mid-teen demographic and last seen riding a sandworm in Dune: Part Two. She plays Tashi Duncan, a junior player tipped for greatness, who finds herself in a love triangle with two other juniors: spoilt-but-roguish Patrick (Josh O’Connor) and nice-but-needy Art (Mike Faist). You might anticipate a girl-power version of Richard Loncraine’s Wimbledon (2004), with white skirts fluttering in summer breezes, coy glances at a face in the crowd, and a dramatic climax featuring a net rally in a final-set tie-break. Despite the lengthy game sequences, it’s not a film about tennis But Challengers is a very different kettle

Sometimes I Think About Dying is one of those titles you want to shout back at – what? Only sometimes? It is co-produced by, and stars, Daisy Ridley from the Star Wars franchise who, in going from a blockbuster to an interesting independent film, is taking the opposite of the usual career trajectory. Perhaps you can only fight the Dark Lords of the Sith for so long? But it has paid off, as this is an understated little gem. It is directed by Rachel Lambert and written by Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Katy Wright-Mead and Kevin Armento. It’s hard to say what it is exactly. A dour, deadpan romantic comedy probably

Scoop is a dramatised account of the events leading up to the BBC’s 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew. The one he imagined would allow him to put Jeffrey Epstein behind him, but instead put Pizza Express (Woking) on the map, made us want to claw our own faces off with the horror of it, and led to the Queen stripping him of all his royal and military titles. (I think you know you are in trouble with Mummy when this happens.) Although billed as a ‘film’, this isn’t especially cinematic. It’s more like a bonus episode of The Crown but it is phenomenally cast (Rufus Sewell is a revelation)

Mothers’ Instinct is a psychological thriller starring Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain and it is one of those over-ripe, camp melodramas that, back in the day, would have almost certainly starred Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. Or Tippi Hedren and Kim Novak, if we are going to be Hitchcockian about it. Either way, it’s a face-off between two world-class actresses and while it throws plausibility to the winds at the end, it is a delicious ride. And I’ve saved the best news for last: it’s all done and dusted in 95 minutes. Not an ounce of fat here. It is directed by Benoît Delhomme and is a remake of Olivier

Robot Dreams is an animated film from the Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger and while it doesn’t have the production values of something by Pixar or Disney or DreamWorks, it will capture your heart. Sweet, charming, deeply moving…. Readers, I welled up! At a cartoon! This is something we need never speak of again. It is based on the graphic novel by Sara Varon and stars absolutely no one, as there are no voices to voice. There is sound but no dialogue, like Mr Bean, although the similarity ends there. It is set in the 1980s in a New York populated by anthropomorphic animals. Hail a taxi and your driver may

The Taste of Things, which is this year’s French entry for best international film at the Oscars, is a gastro-film but it is not of the ‘Angry Male Chef’ genre. It’s not Boiling Point or The Menu or The Bear. It is not stressful or adrenaline-filled. No one swears or screams ‘Yes, chef!’ Instead, it is sensuous, languorous, soothing and as rich and deep as (I now know) a consommé should be. It will also force you to reappraise vol-au-vents which, in the right, tenderly loving hands, need not be the mean little bullety things that were served here in the seventies. (My mother, I remember, bought them frozen from

Occupied City is Steve McQueen’s meditative essay on Amsterdam during Nazi occupation, with a running time of four hours and 22 minutes. There is no archive footage. There are no witness testimonies. It’s not The Sorrow and the Pity. It is not half-a-Shoah. Instead, this visits 130 addresses and details what happened there between 1940 and 1945 while showing the building or space as it is today. It should have its own power – what ghosts reside here? What was life like for the Jews who were deported from this square and perished at Auschwitz? – but I watched it from home via a link, as I had Covid, and

One Life is the story of Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins), the British stockbroker who arranged the Kindertransport that saved hundreds of children from almost certain death in the Holocaust and be warned: you will need one tissue, if not two – maybe 12. Which isn’t to say it’s a great film. It’s fine, in its workmanlike way. But the story is so inherently powerful and moving and there is so much goodness and decency at work it will set you off. Take a whole box of tissues if you want to play it safe and would rather not deploy your sleeve. Hopkins’s performance is quiet, patient, masterly and as understated

‘You cannot begin by calling me France’s most famous living artist!’ Thus Sophie Calle objected to the first line of the obituary I wrote for her, commissioned for the enormous exhibition, À toi de faire, ma mignonne (‘Over to you, sweetie’), that currently occupies the whole Musée National Picasso-Paris. But modesty aside, it is a fact that no other French artist alive today is so celebrated, loved, debated, denounced and, indeed, imitated, around the world as Calle. Having long mined her own life for her work, Calle now happily mines her death This year is the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death and that his most important museum should officially mark

Tis the season of horror, as it’s Halloween, which we celebrate in this house by turning off all the lights and pretending not to be in. (We look forward to it every year. It’s nice occasionally to go bed at around 5 p.m. and pretend not to be in.) But I thought I’d show willing by at least reviewing a horror film so it’s Doctor Jekyll, starring Eddie Izzard. It’s the latest from Hammer, which you didn’t know was still around, but is. I have a fondness for these films as they were always on TV during my teenage years, with Peter Cushing creeping around some crypt, hammy and campy