Articles and Lists

Pixar changed the game for animated cinema when they emerged from under the shadow of Disney back in the mid-90s, and have since gone on to make a string of high-calibre films that have been defined their visual vim and thematic intelligence, achieving significant worldwide success. Nearly everyone has a favourite Pixar film, whether you grew up on the early Toy Story films, or were first introduced to Pixar via the Day-Glo world of Inside Out. These are films built...

It’s fortunate that 1993 was a great year for movies. I turned 12 that year, and was just starting to go from a kid who had an interest in films to developing the full blown obsession with movies that, eventually, led me to start writing about film and, I guess, to this series. Over the course of 2018 I’ll be spotlighting some of 1993’s best and most significant films for their 25th anniversaries. We’ll be going in release order and,...

With Contributions From: Jim Mackney, Sam Inglis, Wyndham Hackett Pain, and Mike McNulty Editor's Intro 2017 was a year to remember, although perhaps not always for the right reasons: Trump, Brexit, the threat of war with North Korea… and let us not forget the ever-present fear that we may soon be facing a significant prosecco shortage. When reflecting on the year in film, however, one’s memories are far more favourable; the shattering sadness of watching A Monster Calls on New...

2017 has blessed the viewing public with some truly outstanding films, including Moonlight and Blade Runner: 2049. The heights of both direction and cinematography have been pushed to their limits, but alas there has to be a flipside. This list is a run down of some of the worst films we’ve seen this year, all of them are terrible in their own way; some are misogynistic, some are puerile, and some are just naff. Justice League (Dir. Zack Snyder) Warner...

With Dunkirk sitting comfortably in many of this year’s top 10 best of 2017 lists, it seems fitting to revisit another great World War 2 film. Stuart Cooper’s Overlord, commissioned by the Imperial War Museum, is a quiet, elegiac tale that took the Special Jury Prize at the Berlinale upon its release in 1975. The film, failing to find distributors, quickly faded and would have disappeared into the annals of film history had it not been for its rediscovery and...

Hollywood may be slowly stumbling towards a more equal society, but the dearth in female representation both in front of and behind the camera remains plain to see. Indeed, it’s telling – and indeed quite troubling – that many end of year film lists remain almost exclusively populated by the work of leading male directors, particularly given the wealth of female filmmaking talent we’ve seen in 2017. And so it’s only right that we celebrate the female directors who broke...

In 2013, Netflix commissioned its first original series, House of Cards. Two years later the streaming platform released its first original movie, Beasts of No Nation, and has, since then, continued to release a steady stream of films that are slowly beginning to rival and compete with Hollywood and traditional theatrical releases. Here are 5 of this year’s best Netflix Originals. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) - Dir. Noah Baumbach To kick things off in fifth spot is Noah...

One always relishes the opportunity at the end of each year to stop and think about all the films I’ve watched over the past 12 months; the ones that moved me; the ones that angered me; the ones that were so evocative, I found myself still reflecting on them weeks after I saw them. Every film, no matter how nonsensical it may appear, has something to say, something to teach us… unless, arguably, it’s been directed by Michael Bay. And...

Christmas means a lot to me: family… friendship… goodwill to all men… but mainly it means cheese, wine, and movies. And though there are a number of titles with regards to the latter that I find myself drawn back to year after year – Die Hard of course, The Grinch (it’s really so much better than many people believe), and National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, to name but three – as far back as I can remember, it was The Muppets...