Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger review - the Archers up close

★★★★ MADE IN ENGLAND: THE FILMS OF POWELL AND PRESSBURGER Adoring tribute by Martin Scorsese to British filmmaking legends

Adoring tribute by Martin Scorsese to British filmmaking legends

This long, fascinating documentary was apparently intended as the centrepiece of last autumn’s BFI celebration of the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. But Made in England was delayed while Martin Scorsese (executive producer, presenter, and narrator) and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker (Powell’s widow, who also gets a credit as an executive producer) put the finishing touches on Killers of the Flower Moon

Best of 2023: Film

BEST OF 2023: FILM Theartsdesk's film critics cast their net wide

Kicking off the top choices of the year, theartsdesk's film critics cast their net wide

Numbers indicate if entries are listed in order of preference


Saskia Baron

Anatomy of a Fall

Broker

Fallen Leaves

Joyland

Killers of the Flower Moon

Otto Baxter: Not a F**ing Horror Story

Return to Seoul

St Omer

Scrapper

A Thousand and One

Blu-ray: After Hours

★★★★★ AFTER HOURS Martin Scorsese's excruciating but delicious black comedy returns

Martin Scorsese's excruciating but delicious black comedy returns

Not all Scorsese films are behemoths; Killers of the Flower Moon may last over three hours but After Hours, a low-budget black comedy released in 1983, packs an incredible amount into just 93 minutes.

Killers of the Flower Moon review - the Osage tragedy

★★ KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON Martin Scorsese's chilling crime thriller 

Scorsese's chilling crime thriller about the slaughter of oil-rich Native Americans

At the centre of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, closely adapted from the 2017 non-fiction book by the investigative journalist David Grann, is the true story of how the white former doughboy Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprii) was inveigled into slowly poisoning his Native American wife Mollie (Lily Gladstone) for her share of oil wealth in 1920s Oklahoma.

London Film Festival 2023 - Scorsese on Scorsese

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2023 Scorsese looks back from 'Mean Streets' to 'Flower Moon'

The master looks back from 'Mean Streets' to 'Flower Moon', live in London

Martin Scorsese walks onstage to a hero’s welcome, shoulders a little hunched, with a touch of sideways shuffle or hustle, taking acclaim in his stride at 80. He has sold out London’s 2,700-capacity Royal Festival Hall for the BFI’s biggest Screen Talk by far, and the queue for returns stretches into the street, to see a director as big as any star.

Blu-ray: Scorsese Shorts

A rewarding return to five early short films by an American master

At this year’s Oscars Bong Joon Ho brought the audience to its feet in honour of the director whose words had struck a chord with him as a film student. The comment, simple but difficult to adhere to in the cut-throat, risk-averse movie business, was that “the most personal is the most creative”. The director, Martin Scorsese.

The Irishman review - mobster masterclass

BAFTA 2020 In joint second place, with 10 nominations, ‘The Irishman’

Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci and Pacino are on top form in this sprawling gangster drama

Much has been made of Martin Scorsese’s recent dismissal of Marvel films. Putting that debate aside, there’s no escaping the fact that in an era of rapid-fire sequels, with the same ensembles trotted out year after year, there’s far more frisson to be felt when the reunion is after not one or two, but 25 years – and what the filmmakers are seeking to recreate really is movie magic. 

LFF 2019: The Irishman review - masterful, unsentimental gangster epic

★★★★★ THE IRISHMAN Scorsese's masterful, unsentimental gangster epic

The whole story of a mobster's life in Scorsese and De Niro's autumnal reunion, plus 'A Hidden Life'

Time passes slowly and remorselessly in The Irishman. Though its much remarked de-ageing technology lets us glimpse Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) executing German POWs aged 24, none of the gangsters here ever seem young. Everyone is heavy with experience, bloated with spilt blood.