Sunday 14th June 2026

Film

Nonsense and sensibility: Adapting Austen for the screen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that not all Jane Austen adaptations are created equal.

OUFF’s ‘The Oxford Tales’: Celebrating student filmmaking at Oxford

It’s no secret that Oxford has long been an idealised location for film sets; official-looking SUVs with blacked-out windows and attendants in high vis parading up and down Catte Street and around the Rad Cam are a not-unfamiliar sight.

Oxford on-screen: Historical atmosphere and fantasy worlds

Ideally, we should strike a balance; an awareness of the reality of life at Oxford can co-exist with an appreciation of its grand architecture and historical atmosphere.

Subs, dubs, and AI flubs: Lost in film translation

How hard could it be to watch an entire film in German when I could not even introduce myself in the language? Quite hard, it turns out.

Tragic Female Friendship in The Pursuit of Love

'In everything from Little Women to My Brilliant Friend, Lady Bird to The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, women are offered a pretty clear choice: do you want to be sexy, or clever? Do you want to be stimulated, or happy? According to Mortimer, you can’t have both.'

Cannibal coming-of-age: Julia Ducournau’s Raw

'Raw is gross and disgusting, but it is also an important story about acceptance, about what makes us normal, and about our relationship with what we eat. Though the very idea of the film is sickening, disgust is central to the point it wants to make.'

The Epic Highs and Lows of Riverdale

'Riverdale is the teen drama to end all teen dramas. What started off as a fairly standard show about a teen murder mystery has evolved into essentially a parody of itself. '

WATCH3WORDS: Black Bear – Funny.Stifling.Psychodrama.

'Claustrophobic, erratic, and prickly all at once, Black Bear is an experiment in film which entangles its audience deep in its intellectual web.'

Dunkirk: the unknown soldier on screen

'The emptiness should be engulfing. Instead, when Nolan’s films work, they are spectacular.'

Seaspiracy: vegan propaganda or important warning?

Seaspiracy only offers one drastic solution: eliminate fish from our diet unless you are one of the 120 million who directly depend on it.

The Common DNA of the Snyder Cut and First Cow

To examine these films side by side would be insane. But insane ideas aren’t always bad ones, and I was curious whether Snyder might be on to something with this comparison.

WATCH3WORDS: Palm Springs – Exuberant.Poolside.Mayhem.

'By taking the well-known Groundhog Day storyline and injecting it with a healthy dose of sun, fun, and drug-fuelled nihilism, Palm Springs makes one of the dullest formats in the book suddenly enjoyable.'

Nomadland review: questioning American individualism

The ideals of rugged American individualism are a powerful national myth, so much so that when they are questioned, it can feel like an...

Donnie Darko: more than an average coming of age story

“I promise that one day everything’s going to be better for you.”

Seen and not heard: the film industry’s troubled relationship with female directors

Scarlett Colquitt responds to the claim that "women directed films have a softer tone" with an examination of role of female directors in today's film industry.

Dip your toe into Schitt’s Creek

Schitt’s Creek is a show where the main character talks to her many, many wigs. It is a show which manages to make a...

The revolutionary empathy of Sound of Metal

The legendary critic Roger Ebert described film as a machine for building empathy. No other medium has the power to allow the viewer to...

Coming of age with Beanie Feldstein

All teenagers hit that age where they are suddenly on the verge of adulthood whilst still clinging onto what is left of their childhood....

The Mandalorian, The Boys and the Battle for Second Place in the Streaming World

The pretenders are trying to beat Netflix at their own game, and will hope that The Boys and The Mandalorian respectively will bring in new, loyal subscribers

It’s a Sin: a sublime and sorrowful social history

Davies understands that tragedy is awfulness plus its antithetical counterpoint

A Recipe for the ‘Great British Sitcom’

It seems difficult to think of anything so integrally British as the phenomenon known as the ‘Great British Sitcom’. Up there with scones, Big...

Biting the hand that so rarely feeds us?: an honest review of Happiest Season

*Spoiler alert* At some point during the festive period, without fail, I curl up on the sofa and binge watch Christmas films. The usual contenders...

The Crown’s Unspoken Words

'I think, when it comes to any biopic, "real history" has to be deprioritised. If an accurate and chronological rendering of history is what you're looking for, watch a documentary!' Maebh Howell writes on the dichotomies of the biopic, asking which is to be prioritised; accurate truth-telling or entertaining story-telling.

Cherwell’s best films of 2020

Our film team have put together a list of the years best, from the stylish and disorientating, Waves, to Charlie Kaufman's mind-bending masterpiece, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and the slow-burning romance of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

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