Deborah Ross

Terence Davies’s Benediction is a biopic of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon told with great feeling and tenderness. The result is quietly powerful, quietly devastating and, happily, is not afflicted by the usual clichés that afflict this genre. Sassoon never, for example, crumples what he’s just written and throws it across the room.

Downton Abbey: A New Era is the second film spin-off from the TV series and, like the first, it doesn’t have to try especially hard if at all. It could be two hours of Mrs Hughes darning socks or two hours of Mrs Patmore concocting something disgusting (kidney soufflé?) or two hours of Lady Grantham

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent stars Nicolas Cage playing a version of Nicolas Cage, in a parody of Nicolas Cage and the many, many films of Nicolas Cage. This couldn’t, you will have already surmised, be more Nicolas Cage, and if you are wondering how much Nicolas Cage is too much Nicolas Cage you

Operation Mincemeat is based on the book by Ben Macintyre, which in turn is based on what Sir Hugh Trevor-Roper called ‘the most spectacular single episode in the history of deception’. It is so spectacular that the film doesn’t have to do much aside from tell it, and that’s what it does, straightforwardly, plainly, no

Compartment No. 6 is set aboard a long train journey across Russia, a country we don’t hear much of these days (I wish!). It has won multiple awards, including the Grand Prix at Cannes, and is by the Finnish filmmaker Juho Kuosmanen, who has said of his films: ‘Basically, they are boring.’ It’s true, this

This year the Oscar for best film went to the drama Coda – ‘Child of Deaf Adults’ – but the ceremony will now probably only be remembered for Wsscrfmhw (‘Will Smith Slapping Chris Rock For Mocking His Wife’). And we thought that mix-up over envelopes was exciting! But back to the film, which beat the

The Worst Person in the World is a Norwegian film that has made a big splash. To date, its star (Renate Reinsve) has won Best Actress at Cannes and it has been nominated for two Oscars (Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film). It has also attracted rave reviews. I can now only conclude:

Phantom of the Open is a comedy-drama telling a true story that would have to be true as no one would believe it. The subject is Maurice Flitcroft, a crane operator who took up golf at 46 after seeing it on the telly and entered the British Open in 1976, achieving the highest score ever.

The latest Batman film, The Batman, may be a reboot, or even a reboot of a rebooted reboot that’s been rebooted. Hard to tell any more. Tracey Ullman once joked that her mother had served leftovers for so long that no one could recall the original dish and this feels like that. What was the

The Duke is an old-fashioned British comedy caper that is plainly lovely and a joy. Based on a true story, it’s an account of the 1961 theft of a Goya painting from the National Gallery, stars Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, and is directed by Roger Michell (of Notting Hill fame). Many films have all

Charlie Chaplin is one of the most famous movie stars ever and is certainly the most famous movie star with a little toothbrush moustache. He was around when I was growing up as his films were often on television, particularly, if I recall rightly, on Saturday mornings. My sisters and I resented that as we

As there are no stand-out films this week aside from Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile — is that the one where they all did it? Or is that the train one? — I thought I’d alert you to a film that may have slipped under your radar: After Love. It was released

The Souvenir: Part II is Joanna Hogg’s follow-up to The Souvenir (2019) but it’s not your regular sequel. It’s not Sing 2, for instance. It’s not the exploitation of a franchise. And it’s not as if the industry has run out of original ideas for autobiographical films about becoming a film-maker in London in the

Pedro Almodovar’s latest is a film about identity, secrets, lies, buried skeletons, real and metaphorical. But what you mainly need to know is: it is wonderful and delicious and blissfully styled — Almodovar doesn’t do ‘neutrals’ or Uggs — and constantly surprising. With most films you know exactly what you’ll be getting within the first

After Artemis Fowl and Murder on the Orient Express you may have had concerns about Kenneth Branagh ever helming a film again — keep away, Ken, keep away! — but Belfast is plainly a different prospect. It is an autobiographical account of his earliest years growing up in Belfast during the Troubles, and it is

The latest film from Andrea Arnold (Red Road, Fish Tank, American Honey) is a feature-length documentary about a cow, starring a cow, with almost nothing else in it, apart from this cow. It feels like a test. Can I watch a cow for 93 minutes? What does this cow do that’s so interesting? I see

Boiling Point is a single-take drama set during a busy service at a London restaurant and it has to be the most stressful film of the year. I realise it’s early days, but if a more stressful film comes along I would be most surprised. If this film were a recipe, the first instruction would

The Lost Daughter is an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel about motherhood that says, quite ferociously: it’s complicated. And: mothers aren’t necessarily motherly, and can feel ambivalence. You’d think it was unfilmable, particularly as the central character describes herself as someone even she doesn’t understand but, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal — it’s her directorial

When you first hear that a remake of West Side Story is on the cards, it’s: God, why? Why would anyone look at West Side Story, which won ten Oscars in 1961, and think: that needs doing again? Who would do that? Steven Spielberg, that’s who, and as it had garnered mostly five-star reviews before