A damning indictment (if one were still needed in 2026) of the prison industrial complex in the US, shot largely from the inside - surely that more than anything is the greatest signal that something’s truly gone wrong here. It is shocking what the guards are able to get away with unchallenged (or at least ineffectually challenged, a large number of lawsuits dismissed at great cost to the state). Fascinating to see how effective or not the strike was, and the response from the pundits more than anyone. A functioning, non-exploitative prison system is surely a necessary cornerstone of a functioning democracy.
Bleak! Has definitely set the “maybe I want kids” dial back a few years, and has introduced a number of other phobias, not least having Conan O’Brien as your therapist. Rose Byrne pulls together numerous emotional threads into a strong performance, understandably nominated. The choice to not shoot the daughter in vision at all is fascinating, and pays off well.
Watched primarily to knock off another major Oscar category nominee, and I can’t really see much to it to be honest. Kate Hudson nominated for best actress but she doesn’t really have that much to do? It’s a performance that is neither deliciously subtle nor bombastically melodramatic, it’s just… there. Other than that, by the numbers musical underdog story. Maybe I’d care more if I were a Neil Diamond fan.
The last of the best picture noms for me, so always nice to complete the set early. Intriguing the hold that Brazilian cinema has had on the Oscars the last couple of years, with I’m Still Here last time. A film that’s hard to pin down - there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’d find it hard in a vacuum to argue that it would have to be one of the nine best films of the year? Obviously laden with history and meaning, and star performances all around. The final shootout is intense, but the ending feels oddly anti-climactic. I liked it more than this is giving the impression I did, but yeah.
Still really funny watching this, the whole time knowing that it’s a Hollywood film based on John Bishop’s life. It is of no surprise that Arnett is able to balance humour and despondency, and Dern is of course exceptional as ever. But, once again, Bradley Cooper continues to quietly be a very good director! The way the stand-up scenes are shot is incredibly effective, keeping you off-kilter, focusing really tight on Arnett, capturing the odd claustrophobia of it all.
A quite disturbing view into the day to day level of propaganda in wartime. There’s a scene where the level of propaganda rises from scripted lessons for the teachers to scripted responses from the students, and you have to wonder for whose benefit any of this is. No one seems like they believe it! The kids, the teachers, no one. An astounding act of bravery from the titular Mr Nobody.
A surprising comfort rewatch, not what I imagine my mind would have gone to, but here we are. The right level of fluff and humour, and Stanley Tucci is obviously and eternally a delight. Deceptively tight, structurally.
An almost-biting satire (that occasionally loses its way) with some bravura setpieces and a stunningly presented and constructed denoument. Park Chan-Wook is a master for a reason. There’s something in the reading of things from hands that I can’t quite place. Still, ambitious and effective and gonzo and all of that. Great stuff.
Of course, of course. Perpetually enamoured by how it sets up the ground truth of the time loop, a masterclass in exposition that the audience needs to know for it to make sense.
Rewatched in memory of Catherine O’Hara. All the best bits are in the back half of the film with Fred Willard’s commentator character, but it’s fun to watch the cast run away with themselves and it spirals nicely.
Predisposed to like this based on how much I enjoyed Hermanus’ previous film (Living), and go on then, a little World War One era gay drama, why not. It’s shot beautifully, the tentative brushing of hands on bannisters early on, the waves of connection and disconnection and aching throughout. Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal, increasingly loudly becoming two of our generation’s best actors, are inevitably excellent (and my god why has no one thought to put Mescal in round glasses before,come on now).
Familial melodrama from Kate Winslet directing, I’m sure entirely coincidentally, a script written by her son. It’s broadly inoffensive, and I can’t fault the actors, but the mechanical motions fail to effectively tug the heartstrings in the telegraphed moments.
An enjoyable Britcom romp, which understandably resonated a lot then and maybe less so now? Harder to balance with the quite vocal homophobia in there, which I don’t really take offence to for a couple of reasons - the gay relationship later portrayed tenderly and, yeah, those characters would have thought that, fair enough - but I wonder if younger audiences would empathise less as a result. Does something key which more if not all films should do, which is just end at the proper end of the story and not keep limping on another 15 minutes for unnecessary resolution.
Not much to it, really. A documentary about a mother and daughter looking after a crumbling castle after the family who owned it and who employed the mother as a housekeeper… die? It’s quite a monotonous piece that never really digs into any analysis of this, in terms of classism, social mobility, familial relationships, etc. A shame.
Baffling to find out that this somewhat lightweight comedy (and, understandably controversially, the first comedy to win Best Picture since Annie Hall) was written by Tom Stoppard?! Sure, why not. It’s pretty much the first episode of Blackadder II extended to a feature length film, but with Martin Clunes playing Richard Burbage. It’s enjoyable enough, and well-made at that. So fair play to them all, but it’s probably no Saving Private Ryan, is it?
Slice-of-life in the early days of a vaccination centre in Croatia during Covid, that is oddly nostalgic in its own way, an amount of certainty and positivity in that part of the pandemic. It’s enjoyable to see the mundane reality of it all, with strangers making conversation as they wait the mandated period of time to monitor for adverse reactions, but even at 1h8 does start to drag a bit.
Oh for the times that a tech billionaire gets to form a cabinet department and it’s only the MCU. Who, by the way, I think has to shoulder some amount of the blame for Elon Musk and the mess we’re all in today. Unironically. Still a decent romp, love the high school bits, I misremembered this being the one where it’s mostly just Tom Holland and Zendaya, but I don’t know whether I care enough to rewatch that one at this point.
A classic for a reason, and my god would I love to see a 2026 version of this. Billy Wilder firing on all cylinders, Jack Lemmon incredibly funny, Marilyn Monroe just perfectly her. The farce builds impeccably to a final stretch that culminates in the perfect final line to it all. Great fun.
One or my favourite political films, in its own weird way. Very early Alexander Payne, with so much promise of things to come. I forgot how funny that first freeze-frame on Witherspoon is, proper laugh from me on that this time. The narration really does work, to be fair, in a way it often doesn’t. Provides a proper counterpoint to what’s on screen. Is there a thinkpiece to be written about this presaging the 2000 election? Probably! It is going to be written by me? Wouldn’t think so!
The Letterboxd reviews are, as ever, an exercise in people failing to possess a basic level of media literacy, but here we are. For all Wilder regretted how much the Hayes Code restrained him in not actually being able to have Richard actually go through with cheating on his wife, it actually makes the whole thing a lot more interesting. The playing with fantasy is a lot of fun, and Monroe is a treat.
Not as massive a step down as a sequel as you might expect! It’s not bringing much to the table, admittedly, but it’s fun enough and it’s enjoyable to watch it really twist the knife of just how much of a hellhole New York can be.
Young Dev Patel! Adorable. The conceit is actually a really fun means of exposition with built-in tension/stakes. The only jarring thing is Boyle’s insistence on his typical frame-skipping cinematography in a misjudged attempt at introducing kineticism to a story that has enough of it intrinsically. Have faith in your material, Danny!
A fun confection of a film, if ultimately featherweight. Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby, and Frank Sinatra all do what they do. Louis Armstrong gets to turn up in an extended cameo and be extremely meta. We get the song Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. People fall in and out of love and it all wraps up maybe 15 minutes after it should have, but it’s an amiable watch.
I could have sworn I had watched this since (checks Letterboxd) before uni?! - but apparently not. I think I liked it more this time, just clicked a bit more. It’s not as much of a vehicle for the cast to just play their personas, but Bill Murray is obviously larger than life and Rick Moranis is quietly great. Banging soundtrack too.
Not watched in some time (2017 according to Letterboxd), and obviously top of mind with Reiner’s recent tragic passing. It’s so very good. An obvious descendant of Annie Hall both in writing and directing, but leaning more on the earnestness. The line “I’ll have what she’s having” is so over-referenced now that it’s actually quite startling to remember just how effective a punchline it actually is.
Genuinely very affecting, especially towards the end. Mescal and Buckley both obviously very good (apart from, maybe, a couple of moments from Buckley in the more… overt grief moments), but Hamnet himself does a really great job. Can’t believe Jessie Buckley is going to win an Oscar for playing someone who talks all the way through a play.
Ah, the dichotomy of man. He’s an asshole! There might be mitigating factors from his childhood for his assholeness! But he’s still an asshole! It’s telling who they could and could not get to talk about him on camera. There’s a lot of time spent with Chase himself and his family, which means there’s a slight veer into hagiography towards the end, especially around the perceived SNL50 snub which is presented broadly uncritically on the part of the filmmakers.
Incredible accent work from Ben Whishaw here, amongst everything else. Always a pleasure to have a new Ira Sachs film, and this is an odd little egg. A quietly meditative film, almost a step removed from being slice of life, a recounting of a slice of life maybe. Oh how our lives expand when you stop to think about them.
The fun subtextual throughline of Cover Up is whether Seymour Hersh’s paranoia at being asked questions in this interview that he agreed to and continue to agree to is justified or not. A prickly participant in his own documentary, Hersh’s presence enlivens an otherwise solid documentary on the quite impressive array of major journalistic breaks he’s been responsible for, from war crimes in Vietnam to the abuse in Abu Ghraib.
Fun to see that Josh Safdie is the brother injecting the severe anxiety into the blood of the Safdie Brothers films. If not as much of a living panic attack as Uncut Gems, Marty Supreme is still cut from the same cloth, a frenetic film bouncing from catastrophe to catastrophe without let-up, all grounded by a compelling performance from Timothee Chalamet. What price glory indeed.
Certainly one of the films that I will have watched in 2026. I dunno, it’s a fun way to start the year. It’s all absolute hokum, of course, and it is massively skating on personality and cool visual location title cards, but the convoluted nature of the thing is fun, and Justice Smith is great in it and deserves all the roles he can get, so I’m perfectly happy with my choices here.