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Film Review: Wasp Network
★★★☆☆ French director Olivier Assayas makes his Netflix debut with Wasp Network, a tale of spies, politics and refugees in a mid-1990s Cuba and Florida which is as undecided on its tone as it is on its politics. Rene Gonzalez (Edgar Ramirez) seems to have a perfect life. His wife Olga (Penélope Cruz) is beautiful,…
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Film Review: On the Record
★★★★☆ As the public allegations against Harvey Weinstein mounted in 2017, #MeToo became a viral campaign exposing the culture of sexual assault not just in Hollywood, but throughout the entertainment industry. In December of that year, former music mogul Drew Dixon came forward with her own allegations against music producer Russell Simmons and Sony exec…
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Film Review: The Girl with a Bracelet
★★★★☆ Despite its bland paperback title, French writer-director Stéphane Demoustier proves hasty assumptions wrong with his gripping, thoughtful third feature, courtroom drama The Girl with a Bracelet. On the night before her trial, 18-year-old Lise Bataille (Melissa Guers) stands accused of murdering her best friend, Flora. In her first role, Guers is supported by an…
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Film Review: Fanny Lye Deliver’d
★★★★★ Most filmmakers who venture into the heritage industry of an English period drama make sure the detail shines on the screen: beautiful linen collars, worsted cloaks, authentic lacework. Chuck in a restored 18th century cottage or country estate and you’re transporting audiences back in time with ease. Director Thomas Clay didn’t feel like cutting…
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Interview: Thomas Clay, dir. Fanny Lye Deliver’d
It’s been over a decade since British indie director Thomas Clay had a new film set for release. After 2008’s Soi Cowboy, Clay spent time researching the English interregnum: exploring its political and social upheavals to find an untold story buried within a less frequently mined period of history.
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Film Review: Joan of Arc
★★★☆☆ To many artists, from Morrissey to Victor Fleming, Joan of Arc has proved a rich canvas to reflect upon female suffrage. The aim, whether a song or film, is to interpolate the viewer into her story against the oppressive forces of the French and English monarchy during medieval times. Five hundred years after her…
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Film Review: Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc
★★★☆☆ A charming, if an insistently odd musical representation of Joan of Arc’s early years, Bruno Dumont’s latest offering Jeannette: The Childhood of Joan of Arc is a compelling blend of juvenile dissatisfaction and Catholic anxiety – minus the humdrum historical accuracy. Jeannette is instead a psychological portrait of the young Joan of Arc, imagined…
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Cinema’s greatest gamblers
Throughout Hollywood history, there’s been a lot of characters who love a flutter in one form or another. Whether slick professionals, hopeless addicts, or a mixture of the two, their stories can make for hard watching at times – in keeping with the visceral nature of their chosen pastime. These individuals are often highly charismatic,…
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Film Review: On a Magical Night
★★★☆☆ Magical realism is the order of the day in Christophe Honoré’s surreal, high concept sex dramedy On a Magical Night. After her husband, Richard (Benjamin Biolay), catches her cheating, Maria’s (Chiara Mastroianni) past physically manifests in the form of her old lovers, leading both Richard and Maria to reflect on the could-have-beens, never-weres and…
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The best actors to have appeared around a poker table
Poker scenes have been cropping up in movies and on TV since the industries began. The game is incredibly versatile, depicting everything from a fun evening with friends, the glamour of casinos, and heightened tension over games where the price of losing isn’t worth thinking about. It’s the secretive nature of the game, as well…
Cannes 2026