Robert Redford (1936-2025)

RIP ROBERT REDFORD (1936-2025) The star more admired within the screen trade than by critics

The star was more admired within the screen trade than by the critics

Somehow both rugged and smooth, embodying American values yet often turning up his collar against them, Robert Redford – who died on 16 September, aged 89 – was one of the biggest movie stars of the post-war period, as well as a stalwart, transformative supporter of independent film.

Sorry, Baby review - the healing power of friendship in the aftermath of sexual assault

★★★ SORRY, BABY Eva Victor writes, directs and stars in their endearing debut feature

Eva Victor writes, directs and stars in their endearing debut feature

“I have a baby in me,” says Lydie (Naomi Ackie; Mickey 17). “What? Right now?” says her friend Agnes (Eva Victor), who may not be entirely thrilled at the news. “Are you going to name it Agnes?”

Bogancloch review - every frame a work of art

★★★★ BOGANCLOCH Living off grid might be the meaning of happiness

Living off grid might be the meaning of happiness

Director Ben Rivers is primarily an artist, and it shows. Every frame of Bogancloch is treated as a work of art and the viewer is given ample time to relish the beauty of the framing, lighting and composition. Many of the shots fall into traditional categories such as still life, landscape and portraiture and would work equally well as photographs.

Magic Farm review - numpties from the Nineties

A comedy about youth TV putting trends above truth

There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater” when she was growing up in the 1990s. The phrase brings the half-forgotten world of Generation X back to us from the mists of time, with its slackers and Douglas Coupland books and mumbling evasions.

theartsdesk Q&A: Indian star Radhika Apte on 'Sister Midnight'

THEARTSDESK Q&A: Indian star Radhika Apte on 'Sister Midnight'

The actor on her breakout screen performance capturing the frantic pulse of Mumbai, and living and working between London and India

Radhika Apte has been acclaimed for her ebullient performance as a reluctant bride in Sister Midnight since director Karan Kandhari’s comic horror movie was launched at Cannes last May. 

Blu-ray: Drugstore Cowboy

Gus Van Sant's non-judgmental indie classic about a gang of narcotics addicts

Rehab people will tell you there are three stages to drug abuse: fun; fun with problems; problems. There’s also a fourth phase, where there aren't any problems, because you’re dead.

Megalopolis review - magic from cinema's dawn

★★★★ MEGALOPOLIS Coppola's decades-in-making American epic is trippily, totteringly unique

Coppola's decades in the making American epic is trippily, totteringly unique

“What happens if you’ve overstepped your mandate?” aristocrat-architect Cesar Catalin (Adam Driver) is asked. “I’ll apologise,” he smirks. Francis Ford Coppola’s forty years in the making, self-financed epic is studded with such self-implicating bravado, including a wish to “escape into the ranks of the insane” rather than accept conventional thinking, as if at 85 he is not only Cesar but Kurtz, plunging chaotically upriver again, inviting career termination.

I Saw the TV Glow - electrifying allegory of gender dysphoria

★★★★★ I SAW THE TV GLOW Electrifying allegory of gender dysphoria

'Buffy'-like series changes two teens forever in fizzing Lynchian drama

There comes a point in I Saw the TV Glow when the repressed high-schooler Owen (Justice Smith) smashes his television’s screen by trying to dive into the box itself, to cross the great divide between his numbed reality and the feminine supernatural fantasy-land of his favourite series.

Crossing review - a richly human journey of discovery

★★★★★ CROSSING A masterfully observational perspective on Georgian, Turkish worlds

Levan Akin offers a masterfully observational perspective on Georgian, Turkish worlds

Crossing is a remarkable step forward for Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin. There are elements that build on his acclaimed 2019 Tbilisi drama And Then We Danced, but his new film is rich with a new complexity, as well as a redolent melancholy, a loose road-movie that speaks with considerable profundity of the overlapping worlds in which it is set.

A House in Jerusalem review - a haunted house and country

★★★★ A HOUSE IN JERUSALEM A grieving British girl gleans buried traumas in a quietly humane Middle East tale

A grieving British girl gleans buried traumas in a quietly humane Middle East tale

The Israel-Palestine conflict aptly infuses a haunted house in Muayad Alayan’s story of layered loss. The Shapiro family home in Jerusalem which grieving British-Jewish husband Michael (Johnny Harris) and daughter Rebecca (Rebecca Calder) retreat to as a sanctuary already bears the pain of past Palestinian owners, as ghost stories multiply.