Little White Lies

When Alexander Skarsgård was a child, his family used to spend their summers on the idyllic Baltic island of Öland. Sweden’s second largest island is coincidentally home to their royal family’s summer residence. In a manner, the Skarsgårds form a dyn

The helmets. The beards. The longships. The looting, the pillaging, the red mist of battle. The gods. The runes. The bottomless barrels of mead. Viking iconography has long since passed into cinematic cliché. But how did it get there? And does any of

Considering the sheer amount of people who work in motion pictures – the immense breadth of the talent pool – it seems strange that you’d regularly find yourself on set with the same people over and over again. Ralph Ineson, a baritone-voiced powerho

At the beginning of 2022, industry operator and LWLies contributor Josh Slater-Williams made a pithy comment on social media in response to a list of the top 30 box office earners of 2021. He noted that only four films on the list were not based on e

In all the Threads columns I’ve written over the years – from cowboy boots to sequin dresses and beyond – there are few sartorial items that can claim a history that goes back to the Stone Age. The animal pelt – taken from goat, cow, bear, or any oth

After a premiere in competition at Cannes which netted star Renate Reinsve the Best Actress trophy, and a whirlwind world tour packed with critical acclaim and a slew of glitzy award nominations, Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier reflects on t

All the lonely people. Where do they all come from? The Beatles meant this as a rhetorical question, but I have an answer: Terence Davies. His nine features and seven shorts, made across 40 years, span documentary, autofiction, literary adaptation an

Directed by TERENCE DAVIES Starring JACK LOWDEN, JEREMY IRVINE, PETER CAPALDI Released 20 MAY Terence Davies’ eighth narrative feature begins with an elegy for fallen soldiers. As a trainload of eager young recruits depart for the Western Front, flic

Directed by JOACHIM TRIER Starring RENATE REINSVE, HERBERT NORDRUM, ANDERS DANIELSEN LIE Released 25 MARCH There’s a line first coined by American writer Allen Saunders, popularised in John Lennon’s ‘Beautiful Boy’: “Life is what happens to you while

From a colonial-era New England village of 2015’s The Witch to a gusty coastal island in the 1890s as seen in 2019’s The Lighthouse, Robert Eggers is cinema’s chief excavator of the past. On his new film, The Northman, he goes farther than ever in sp

Directed by NANNI MORETTI Starring RICCARDO SCAMARCIO, MARGHERITA BUY, ALBA ROHRWACHER Released 18 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Moretti’s quality-control is usually reliable, but six years since the last feature? 3 ENJOYMENT. Soap opera complications don’t co

Directed by LAURA SAMANI Starring CELESTE CESCUTTI, ONDINA QUADRI Released 8 APRIL ANTICIPATION. Premiered in the Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar. 3 ENJOYMENT. Stunning scenery in which the distinct performances are given room to blossom. 3 IN RETROSPEC

Directed by LAURA WANDEL Starring MAYA VANDERBEQUE, GÜNTER DURET, LENA GIRARD VOSS Released 22 APRIL ANTICIPATION. It’s always interesting to see what a new director will bring to the table. 3 ENJOYMENT. Stylised agony that slowly loses its impact. 3

Directed by SEAN BAKER Starring SIMON REX, SUZANNA SON, BREE ELROD Released 11 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Sean Baker rarely misses – this guy has an amazing eye for talent. 4 ENJOYMENT. A dirty delight. Weird, smart, fantastic and very, very wrong. 4 IN RET

After winning over America with his portrait of a spirited young girl and her mother in The Florida Project, Sean Baker returns with a new exploration of small-town tensions. At its heart is Simon Rex, sometime rapper and Scary Movie actor, who deliv

Directed by JACQUES AUDIARD Starring LUCIE ZHANG, MAKITA SAMBA, NOÉMIE MERLANT Released 18 MARCH The neighbourhood from which Jacques Audiard’s ninth feature film takes its name is situated in the south of the French capital, and is home to a large p

With Paris, 13th District, director Jacques Audiard adapts three short stories by American cartoonist Adrian Tomine, merging them into a sharp, sweet portrait of sex, love and endurance in a Parisian high-rise neighbourhood. Lucie Zhang delivers a st

Directed by BLERTA BASHOLLI Starring YLLKA GASHI, ÇUN LAJÇI, AURITA AGUSHI Released 18 MARCH When her husband goes missing while fighting in the Kosovo War of 1998, Faridje (Yllka Gashi) faces division at home. She has two children and an ailing fath

Directed by RUTH PAXTON Starring SIENNA GUILLORY, JESSICA ALEXANDER, RUBY STOKES Released 11 MARCH ANTICIPATION. Filmmaker and photographer Ruth Paxton serves up her first feature. 3 ENJOYMENT. Medium-rare. 3 IN RETROSPECT. A feast for the senses and

Directed by GASPAR NOÉ Starring DARIO ARGENTO, FRANÇOISE LEBRUN, ALEX LUTZ Released 13 MAY Gaspar Noé is one of the foremost purveyors of feel bad cinema, having built a successful career off of his love of making audiences squirm. His earlier work,

Directed by MARIAMA DIALLO Starring REGINA HALL, ZOE RENEE, JULIA NIGHTINGALE Released 18 MARCH Writer/director Mariama Diallo places elite establishments under the microscope in her debut feature, Master. Blending horror with social commentary, the

Directed by GRAHAM MOORE Starring MARK RYLANCE, ZOEY DEUTCH, DYLAN O'BRIEN Released 8 APRIL ANTICIPATION. Seems like the trailer gives away a little too much of this single-location thriller. 3 ENJOYMENT. Well-constructed chamber piece and tense thro

Except for maybe RoboCop, Benedetta represents Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven’s closest attempt at fulfilling his lifelong wish of bringing the story of the historical Jesus to the screen. Based on the trial transcripts described in Judith C. Brown’s

Directed by MARIE AMIGUET, VINCENT MUNIER Released 29 APRIL Whistling winds, quiet whispers, and the longing for the perfect introduction to elusive parts of nature are core to The Velvet Queen. It’s a hypnotic lesson in watchful photojournalism, off

Directed by JUHO KUOSMANEN Starring SEIDI HAARLA, YURIY BORISOV, VALERIY NIKOLAEV Released 8 APRIL With an undercurrent of triumphant sentimentality uncharacteristic for a Wikipedia page, the entry for shimmering Eurodance jam ‘Voyage, Voyage’ by Des

Directed by ANTONETA ALAMAT KUSIJANOVIC  Starring GRACIJA FILIPOVIC, DANICA CURCIC, LEON LUCEV Released 8 APRIL A‘murina’ is another term for a Mediterranean moray eel, a delicacy which teenager Julija (a wonderful Gracija Filipović) and her father A

Directed by ARTHUR HARARI YÛYA ENDÔ, Starring KANJI TSUDA,  Released  YÛYA MATSUURA 15 APRIL Most people who have studied history know the tale of the Japanese soldier who stood guarding his post during World War Two and refused to stand down until o

From the camp antics of Adam West in ’66 to the character’s gothic reinvention in Tim Burton’s films and Batman: The Animated Series, to Nolan’s crime epics – one might think we’ve seen all there is to The Batman. But with Robert Pattinson now taking

Directed by GAKURYŪ ISHII Starring GAKURYŪ ISHII TATSUO YAMADA, MASAMITSU OHIKE, KÔJI NANJÔ Blu-ray/DVD Out NOW Gakuryū “Sōgo” Ishii started strong. His second feature Crazy Thunder Road was made as a university graduation project, but Toei Studios s

Directed by ANN HUI Starring GEORGE LAM, ANDY LAU, SEASON MA Blu-ray/DVD Released 22 MARCH “Why photograph people? They’re ugly.” Shortly after they meet, Cam Nuong (Season Ma) tells Akutagawa (George Lam), a Japanese photojournalist visiting Vietnam

Directed by MASAHIRO SHINODA Starring RYÔ IKEBE, MARIKO KAGA, TAKASHI FUJIKI Blu-ray/DVD Released 14 MARCH Having been an assistant director to Yasujirō Ozu in the 1950s, Masahiro Shinoda made a few films of his own prior to Pale Flower, but this was

Directed by JOHN MCNAUGHTON Starring MICHAEL ROOKER, TOM TOWLES, TRACY ARNOLD Blu-ray/DVD Released 18 APRIL “It’s always the same and it’s always different,” says serial killer Henry (Michael Rooker) to Otis (Tom Towles), telling his roommate turned

Directed by MURIEL BOX, MARY FIELD, SARAH ERULKAR, KAY MANDER, MARGARET THOMPSON, ET AL Blu-ray/DVD Released 28 MARCH Often referred to as the father of British documentary filmmaking, John Grierson is definitely a well known name. The same cannot ne

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Stéphanie Sergeant is a French illustrator/animator living and working in Poland. She mostly works with watercolour and animates in 2D. She likes spaghetti and the dark, long process of animation. Michael Dunbabin is an illustrator based in the north

Mark Asch is the author of ‘Close Ups: New York Movies’; a contributor to Film Comment, Reverse Shot, Nylon and various other fine publications; and an occasional adjunct instructor in the Humanities. Charles Bramesco is a freelance film and TV criti