Sunday, March 9, 2025

Film

German Expressionist film: A beginner’s guide

With Robert Eggers’ remake of the classic vampire horror Nosferatu taking the world by storm, now is a great time to look back at the cinematic legacy that precedes...

Cherubs Grow On Trees: Atmospheric student filmmaking

Making short films is hard. You have anything between two and 20 minutes to...

Nosferatu: From Murnau to Eggers

Over one hundred years since its first screening, F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of...

The Ultimate Picture Palace: A Profile

The Ultimate Picture Palace has been at the forefront of Oxford’s cinema scene for...

Review: Velvet Buzzsaw – “rebellion of art against the pretentious world”

Netflix’s latest thriller stars Jake Gyllenhall and Rene Russo in a tense satire on the contemporary art world

91st Academy Awards: Predictions

It’s a fascinating mixture of nominees, especially considering the variety of outcomes in precursor awards ceremonies (such as the Golden Globes and BAFTAs), but guessing what should or will win in each category is as subjective as it’s ever been – and even more difficult than ever. Jonnie Barrow offers his predictions for this year's Oscars.

The year of the underdog: will outsider nominees come out on top at this year’s Oscars?

Awards season is well and truly upon us. After last week’s BAFTAs and Grammy awards, it is inevitably time for the Oscars, the Big...

Sex Education review: exuberantly explicit

It refuses to conform to the tiring tradition of sugar-coating anything that sits outside the realm of the PG-13

The illusion of reality television

Reality television is, then, in many ways a fiction. They tell us they are depicting something akin to an authentic reality, but flatten and stabilise the randomness and contingency of actual life, while refusing to overtly acknowledge the authorial voice behind it.

Mary Queen of Scots review: ‘artistic licence breathes life into history’

Rourke brings a fresh take on the fraught relationship between two women ruling in a man’s world.

Beautiful Boy review: powerful, painful, poignant

Beautiful Boy is unlikely to have an unintentional glamorising effect. We witness the oblivion of being high before the inevitable crash down to a deeper and darker place.

Fast Film: In a Lonely Place unites noir tradition with painfully real romance

Humphrey Bogart is a man addled by loneliness in this cinematic masterclass of subtlety and allegory.

So that’s how Bandersnatch works, but did it snatch our respect?

From a design perspective, Bandersnatch falls into a lot of traps. Choices are quite infrequent and always binary, whereas it's standard for most interactive fiction games to allow you to choose almost every line of character dialogue. Isabella Welch discusses whether Bandersnatch is revolutionary or just manufactured hype on part of Netflix.

An alternative to ‘Fast Film’

Modern cinema is rubbish - it is time to rediscover some old classics to remind ourselves what it is to be truly moved by film.

Film First: a box of tissues are needed for the first film to make me cry

Director Isao Takahata tugs at the heartstrings until you're bleary-eyed

Les Misérables review: BBC adaptation soars, even without the songs

Heaps of narrative are packed into the latest adaptation, but it is a masterful work of character complexity

Is it still a wonderful life in 2018?

The film may feature angels and an alternate reality, but it is among the most realistic of Christmas films

Aquaman review: DC’s latest offering fails to marvel

Aquaman makes for pleasant viewing, but proves unable to repeat Wonder Woman’s winning formula.

Why The Nightmare Before Christmas is the most underrated Christmas film

The Nightmare Before Christmas says that it is fine to find a holiday dull, or to question the purpose of repeating it every year.

Festive flicks: the best films to watch at Christmas

Get into the Christmas spirit with a .. Harry Potter marathon

Frantz: a wrenching tale of remembrance

The French-German film Frantz, however, has gone unnoticed by many English-speaking viewers, despite being one of the most powerful films released to explore the after-effects of World War I.

Film Firsts: Nothing gets lost in translation with my first foreign film

Beyond even the sprawling shots of the Indian landscapes, Hirani’s film achieves the quality of epic.

When and why did Netflix movies get so good?

Prestige talent is coming to Netflix in moves that may revolutionise cinema as we know it

Dare to be different, or the Devil we know?

Everyone should be watching Daredevil

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