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Gentleness, comion and love are the keynotes of this quietly outstanding new movie from the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc. There is such simplicity and clarity here, an honest apportioning of dignity and intelligence to everyone on screen: every scene and every character portrait is unforced and unembellished. The straightforward assertion of hope through giving help and asking for help is very powerful.

My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/23/jeunes-meres-the-young-mothers-home-review-dardennes-brothers

An exuberant, garrulous self-aware movie of daddy issues and cinematic adventures in the manner of Fellini and Bergman, with a gag cheekily stolen from Woody Allen’s Another Woman. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/21/sentimental-value-review-cannes

Carla Simón’s autofictional movie project returns her to the personal themes of her debut Summer 1993. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/22/romeria-review-carla-simons-gripping-pilgrimage-tackles-aids-parents-and-the-legacy-of-secrets

Nadiv Lapid contrives a fierce confrontational satire which is still complex. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/22/yes-review-nadav-lapid-israel-gaza

An Iranian EastEnders - a melodramatic convulsion of fear and rage and grief. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/22/woman-and-child-review-rage-and-pain-in-iranian-marriage-market-saeed-roustaee

Anaemic, laborious, achingly tasteful film, in which the underpowered love story is there to be sadly ed from the past, rather than ecstatically experienced in the here and now. My Guardian review:
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/21/the-history-of-sound-review-paul-mescal-josh-oconnor-cannes

With this genial psychological mystery caper starring Jodie Foster, Rebecca Zlotowski is perhaps channelling Hitchcock or De Palma, or perhaps like so many of us, she has fallen under the comedy spell of TV’s Only Murders In The Building and fancied the idea of importing its vibe to Paris. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/21/vie-privee-a-private-life-review-jodie-foster-daniel-auteuil-cannes

Scarlett Johannson’s directing debut is well meant and sweetly acted but misjudged and naive in its Holocaust theme. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/20/eleanor-the-great-review-june-squibb-scarlett-johansson-directing-debut

Panahi’s most emotionally explicit film yet - a study of state violence and revenge with stabs of black comedy and horror-farce, like an Iranian dissident version of Weekend At Bernie’s. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/20/a-simple-accident-review-jafar-panahi-iran

This superb film had me thinking of Antonioni’s The enger, of Elmore Leonard (via Tarantino), of City Of God and Roma. It’s already a classic. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/20/the-secret-agent-review-brilliant-brazilian-drama-of-an-academic-on-the-run-in-the-murderous-1970s

Spike Lee’s Kurosawa adaptation is a brash, bold, big-city adventure that doubles as a love letter to its sports and its music. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/19/highest-2-lowest-review-spike-lee-and-denzel-washington-remake-kurosawa-in-fine-style

Strident, oppressive, incoherent and entirely pointless from first to last. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/19/alpha-review-julia-ducournaus-disted-body-horror-is-an-absolute-gamma

Dickinson makes his directorial debut with a smart, comionate picture about homelessness. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/urchin-review-harris-dickinson-homelessness-drama-is-terrific-directorial-debut

Once upon a time in Lagos. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/my-fathers-shadow-review-subtle-and-intelligent-coming-of-age-tale-set-in-1993-nigeria

Pálmason gives us a starting, amusing, vaguely frustrating movie: a portrait of a sundered marriage with a dreamy piano score, fantasy visions and quirky sequences. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/the-love-that-remains-review-tragicomic-portrait-of-a-fractured-family-hlynur-palmason

Another eccentric, elegant movie - though less visually interesting than usual. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/18/the-phoenician-scheme-review-mia-threapleton-shines-in-wes-andersons-muted-new-confection #Cannes2025 #Cannes #CannesFilmFestival2025 #CannesFilmFestival #Cannes78

Lynne Ramsay brings the Gothic-realist steam heat. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/17/die-my-love-review-jennifer-lawrence-excels-in-intensely-sensual-study-of-a-woman-in-meltdown

An impeccably submissive, tastefully cinephile period drama about Godard’s 1960 classic À Bout De Soufflé. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/17/nouvelle-vague-richard-linklater-bends-the-knee-to-breathless-and-jean-luc-godard

A bafflingly dull, self-important satire intent on telling you all sorts of things you knew before. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/16/eddington-review-ari-asters-tedious-covid-western-masks-drama-and-mutes-his-stars

A serious effort by Bono to convey a new of humility. My Guardian review: My review of Bono: Stories Of Surrender (dir. Andrew Dominik) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/16/bono-stories-of-surrender-review-megastar-tries-out-humility #Cannes2025 #Cannes #CannesFilmFestival2025 #CannesFilmFestival #Cannes78

An earnest and heartfelt piece of work. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/16/the-chronology-of-water-review-kristen-stewart-makes-a-traumatic-splash-with-directorial-debut

A heartfelt, urgent drama about youth and desire. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/enzo-review-laurent-cantet-swan-song-robin-campillo-cannes-film-festival

A mysterious and uncanny prose-poem of intergenerational German trauma. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/sound-of-falling-review-cannes-film-festival

Austerly brilliant drama about Stalinist Russia with shades of Dostoevsky and Kafka. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/two-prosecutors-review-a-petrifying-portrait-of-stalinist-insurrection

A serious, focused, docu-dramatic movie about French police brutality during the 2018 gilet-jaune demonstrations. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/15/dossier-137-review-tense-gilets-jaunes-thriller-divides-cops-loyalties-over-police-brutality

Tom once said he does his own stunts for the same reason that Gene Kelly did all his own dancing. Actually he’s more like a superhuman action version of Harold Lloyd, hanging from the clock, holding back time, in this wildly entertaining adventure. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/mission-impossible-the-final-reckoning-review-tom-cruise-wildly-entertaining-adventure

A cold, stark, austere study of the micro-processes of tyranny. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/14/two-prosecutors-review-a-petrifying-portrait-of-stalinist-insurrection

Andres Veiel’s sombre documentary tells the gripping, incrementally nauseating story of Leni Riefenstahl, the brilliant film-maker and Hitler enthusiast who became the only woman to have risen to a position of importance in the Nazi movement. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/07/riefenstahl-review-nauseating-yet-gripping-story-of-nazi-poster-woman

A visual marvel like all his work, governed by his own matchless authority and striking a steady tonal balance of warning and hope, Attenborough makes a ionate plea for the preservation of the world’s oceans. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/07/ocean-with-david-attenborough-review-a-ionate-case-against-the-ruination-of-the-seas

An absurdist psychodrama of planned parenthood that mixes Brave New World with a bit of Abigail’s Party. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/sep/08/the-assessment-review-alicia-vikander-is-future-parents-worst-nightmare

An erotic noir thriller lit mostly by bright sunshine. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/22/motel-destino-review-cannes-film-festival

Ealingesque comedy set in East 1990 with unification days away - an impoverished couple discover a depot full of abandoned soon-to-be-worthless Ostmarks (Ostmarks galore) and a very short time left to exchange it. A nice premise, but the film runs out of steam. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/28/two-to-one-review-east-berlin-cash-scam-capers-through-ruins-of-communism

Warm, gentle documentary about an English family that might have interested Nancy Mitford - or Wes Anderson. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/29/where-dragons-live-review

Interesting, sincere, over-extended tribute to John Lennon and his final decade in New York - with some B-grade anecdotage. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/30/borrowed-time-lennons-last-decade-review-reverential-reminiscence-takes-its-time

Bizarrely mixes the madcap comedy of A Hard Day’s Night, or a late period Carry On, with the brutal nastiness of Get Carter. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/30/slade-in-flame-review-midlands-glam-rockers-offer-a-hard-days-night-meets-get-carter

Floats complacently across the screen for two long hours, like an epic ad for some impossibly expensive cologne. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/22/parthenope-review-paolo-sorrentino

Proving once again that movies about internet crime can so easily unravel into interminable and implausible silliness. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/21/cloud-review-bizarre-internet-action-thriller-descends-into-hail-of-bullets

Anodyne and weirdly naive documentary that suggests saving endangered species through managed eco-habitats that can pay their way via tourism. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/21/escape-from-extinction-rewilding-review-eco-tourism

Ingenious body-horror riff on Cinderella, with twists of Cronenberg (of course) and Borowczyk. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/22/the-ugly-stepsister-review-body-horror-take-on-cinderella-is-ingenious-reworking-of-fairy-tale

A dreamily sensual-realist debut - a movie of textures and moods and murmuring voiceovers. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/23/tendaberry-review-haley-elizabeth-anderson-kota-johan

Here they are, Pink Floyd in 1971, amazingly young, amazingly thin, like four space-rock whippets standing in their hind legs in the burning Italian sun. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/24/pink-floyd-at-pompeii-mcmlxxii-review

Shootouts in this chaotic film go on for so long they feel like an extended drum roll. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/24/havoc-review-tom-hardys-gonzo-gun-mayhem-misses-the-point

Julie Keeps Quiet is a movie about power and abuse and therefore a movie of silences and absences, of dangerous terrain skirted around. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/18/julie-keeps-quiet-review-tennis-academy-leonardo-van-dijl

A deeply unsettling meditation on sexuality and transgression. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/sep/05/april-review-dea-kulumbegashvili-abortion

Beguiling docu-narrative in the manner of Somerset Maugham, in which complex sophistication co-exists with almost childlike simplicity. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/22/grand-tour-review-cannes-film-festival

Well made, politically obtuse drama about a real-life incident in the War On Terror from 2006. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/mar/28/warfare-review-alex-garlands-message-gets-lost-in-the-deafening-blizzard-of-battle

Gonzo horror-thriller mashup about vampires and more. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/10/sinners-review-ryan-cooglers-deep-south-gonzo-horror-down-at-the-crossroads

Amusing, cumulatively melancholy documentary about the poetry in the lives of ers-by. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/14/the-balcony-movie-review-funnysad-film-that-offers-a-view-into-strangers-lives

Bizarre, elusive, lugubrious psychodrama. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/14/eclipse-review-tom-conti-stars-in-intriguing-but-elusive-tale-of-a-mysterious-death

The living legend on stage is still engaging - but there’s some very redundant footage on the tour bus. My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/16/neil-young-coastal-review-music-legend-on-the-road-filmed-by-his-wife-daryl-hannah