Venice

The winner of last year’s Golden Lion for The Shape of Water, Guillermo Del Toro joked “Let me see if I can pronounce this,” before announcing to very few peoples’ surprise that Alfonso Cuarón had won Venice’s top prize for his sumptuous memoir of childhood, Roma. In his speech, he pointed out the serendipity that…

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★★★★★ We’ve already had A Star Is Born here at Venice. Now, with Brady Corbet’s latest film Vox Lux, we have A Star Is Torn – a truly unique power-pop epic starring Natalie Portman as the mononymous singer Celeste, whose rise to fame is intertwined with other tragic trajectories. Corbet originally caught our attention with the…

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★★☆☆☆ S. Craig Zahler falls between ever-widening stools with his brutal new crime drama Dragged Across Concrete, which might have been more representative of the viewing experience had it been called Dragged Slowly Across Concrete. Recently-released criminal Henry Johns (Tory Kittles) returns home to find his mother hooking to pay for drugs. Meanwhile two cops, Brett…

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★★★★☆ Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino doesn’t so much remake Dario Argento’s Suspiria as use the influential Italian horror movie as an incantation with which to weave his own brand of red-black magic. Berlin, 1977. The Wall is still up and members of the Red Army Faction are in jail. Bombs are…

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★★★☆☆ A troubled young man goes on tour with a renowned lobotomist in Rick Alverson’s wintry new work The Mountain, showing in competition at the 75th edition of the Venice International Film Festival. Andy (Tye Sheridan) lives with his father (Udo Kier) and works at the ice rink where his father teaches figure skating. He dreams…

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This Wednesday (29 August) will see the official opening of the 75th Venice Film Festival. The programme is crammed with internationally renowned directors and stars, boasting its most promising selection in years. Here are just a few of the most eagerly anticipated works on offer. First Man Damien Chazelle’s follow up to La La Land…

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★★★☆☆ Showing Out of Competition at Venice, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond goes behind the scenes on the shooting of Miloš Forman’s Man on the Moon, and reveals how Jim Carrey’s portrayal of Andy Kaufman was partly a tribute to the subject and partly flat-out insanity.Kaufman was as much a performance artist as a…

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★☆☆☆☆ Sebastiano Riso flies the Italian flag on the Lido with his new film Una Famiglia, a claustrophobic, scuzzy drama about a couple engaged in the illicit trade of selling babies. It’s a dour, monotonous, predictable and dull effort that doesn’t deserve its place in competition.We first spot Maria (Micaela Ramazzotti) and Vincenzo (French singer…

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★★★☆☆ When a factory owner is murdered by an ex-employee the guilt appears certain and the case cut and dried. However, an ambitious lawyer soon discovers that there are layers of guilt and ends up wondering who can judge who in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Third Murder.Japanese auteur and festival favourite Kore-eda has made his reputation…

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★★☆☆☆ In the black comedy Suburbicon, George Clooney takes us to the small town, white bread America that Donald Trump wants to MAGA us back to and uncovers that it wasn’t as great as all that. It joins the race for the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival.George Clooney hit the ground running…

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