Guardian Film

Kentridge’s cine-musical creation, made to accompany Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony, is a marvel of puppetry, dance and humour, exploring humanity, grief and idealismThe Baku international arts festival in Azerbaijan is showcasing an amazing cine-musical creation, perhaps the most amazing animation I have ever seen. Oh to Believe in Another World is an hour-long collage animation with live-action choreography by the 71-year-old South African artist and film-maker William Kentridge. It is shown wit

For Halloween, Guardian writers have picked the most efficiently terrifying films outside of the horror genre from How to Have Sex to The Hunchback of Notre DameMinor spoilers aheadHiding in plain sight throughout Lee Chang-dong’s deliciously enigmatic Burning, in which a spirited young woman (Jeon Jong-seo) disappears, and a wealthy playboy (Steven Yeun) gives serial killer vibes, is a disaffected male rage. That’s perhaps the most commonplace horror of our times, whether on the internet or pol

Peter Berg’s handsomely made second world war drama about a football game before the battle of Okinawa is stirring but filled with eye-rolling dialogueForgive me, but it is difficult not to be a little cynical about The Mosquito Bowl, Peter Berg’s grimly serious action feature situated (and marketed during many an NFL game) at the intersection of two predominant male interests: football and the second world war. Though both are certainly rich topics for cinema, and though I have been a fan of ma

The Berlin-born performer had a gift for languages that took her to Hollywood, landing roles alongside Peter Sellers, Dick Van Dyke and Paul NewmanElke Sommer, the prolific German star of the Pink Panther film A Shot in the Dark, early 70s Agatha Christie adaptation And Then there Were None, and British sex comedy Carry on Behind, has died aged 85. Bild magazine reported that Sommer died in Los Angeles of heart failure.German-born Sommer, whose best-known film roles were in the 1960s and 70s, wa

Demi Moore’s haute-couture maven attracts the attention of a gang of contemporary Robin Hood type clothes robbers in Riley’s fashion biz satire Here is an entertaining, if very exhausting fantasy-caper about the fashion biz from Boots Riley, a madcap mile-a-minute melee of unadulterated ker-aziness. You might need a couple of ibuprofen and a lie-down afterwards. Demi Moore perhaps thought she was here getting a gamey starring role, comparable to her Oscar-nominated turn in the beauty-industry sa

Belittled for his speech and looks, and so short of cash he had to sell his dog, Stallone managed to write and star in one of the greatest boxing movies ever. How does Anthony Ippolito feel about playing his hero?Fifty years ago this December, cinema’s greatest underdog story hit the screen, a tale about a Philadelphia ham-and-egger who takes the world heavyweight boxing champ all the way to the final bell, losing the fight on a judge’s decision but winning the hearts of a nation. That film, of

The film-maker enjoyed a long and varied film and TV career, from horror movies and true-crime thrillers to Cannibal and Breaking BadPeter Medak, the British-Hungarian director of The Changeling, The Krays and Let Him Have It, has died aged 88. Medak’s family announced he died peacefully in Los Angeles on Tuesday.Medak enjoyed a long and varied career across film and TV, which included spirit-of-the-times classics A Day in the Death of Joe Egg and The Ruling Class (both from 1972), cult horror T

Charges against him are unclear after return to Iran despite being sentenced last year for ‘propaganda activities’An Iranian court has handed the award-winning film director Jafar Panahi a new prison sentence of five years and one month and ordered the seizure of all his assets.The 66-year-old, who won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year for It Was Just an Accident, was sentenced in absentia, his lawyer, Mostafa Nili, told the Iranian news outlet Emtedad. The court also imposed a two-year travel

Since 1994, Turner Classic Movies has been a haven for old film lovers. Now with Skydance’s David Ellison calling the shots, fans are panicking over its unclear futureI have made many attempts to lessen the existential disaster we call Tuesday – tacos, trivia – but lately only one thing works. Every night just before 8pm, I hide my phone under a pillow in the next room, plate up a carb-heavy dinner, and turn on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) for Sweater Weather, a series of films dedicated to the t

Immersive portrait of mountaineers Jim Morrison and Hilaree Nelson as they seek to become the first people to ski down Everest’s north faceWith some of its showings in the huge Imax format, this National Geographic-backed documentary feels like a callback to the early, glory days of large-format cinema when it was all about spectacle and scale, turning footage of natural-world wonders into an immersive experience. Those with a fear of heights or prone to vertigo may find this all a bit too immer

Backstory of modest industry veteran who started out as one half of pop duo Peter and Gordon, and went on to produce acts such as James Taylor and Linda RonstadtRock’n’roll is notorious for its tales of bad behaviour: throwing TVs out of the window, mountains of cocaine, parades of groupies … but you won’t find any of that here. Peter Asher, brother of Jane, one half of Peter and Gordon, and super-successful producer of acts such as James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, appears to be about as nerdish

US actor who often played authority figures and was admired for his film roles in Alien, Top Gun and A River Runs Through ItThe lean, rugged US actor Tom Skerritt, who has died aged 93, was described by one screenwriter as “a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body”. He took significant roles as authority figures in the films Alien, Top Gun and A River Runs Through It before landing star billing in the 1990s TV family drama Picket Fences, as a sheriff trying to keep the peace in a rural

From the ugly design to the lacklustre script, this is one parents might want to skip this half-term holidayIn 1912 in Germany, antisemitic writer Waldemar Bonsels published The Adventures of Maya the Bee, which later became a 1970s anime series in Japan called Maya the Honey Bee, and was later dubbed into English a couple of times, including for kids TV channel Nickelodeon in the 1990s and a bunch of films between 2014 and 2021. Still with us? Recurring characters from the show include Arnie an

In Prima Facie, she plays a rising-star barrister, well versed in defending men accused of sexual violence. Then she is raped by a colleague, and her world implodes. Erivo talks about the potential impact of the film – and how she is navigating her stratospheric successCynthia Erivo is contemplating her favourite crisps, the ridged American brand Ruffles, as we sit talking in a quiet corner of a west London restaurant. Dressed all in black and sporting her signature elongated nails, she is known

The levels of violence aimed at these protesters is depressing, but their aim is to save the planet: ‘If they want to destroy everything, they’ve got to go through us’‘Hated” is not putting it too strongly. The strength of feeling against Just Stop Oil, as caught by this documentary, is really disturbing. It’s filmed from inside the climate group’s protests, and as activists block roads, furious drivers hurl abuse. “Have a wash you fucking idiots!” “Middle class wankers!” It gets physical, too –

In a West End theatre, a young actor hears a disembodied voice coaching his singing. It’s the start of an icky ghost-on-human romance This ghost story set in a West End theatre is creakier than the old wooden floorboards on stage. It’s a gender reversal of Phantom of the Opera with a female phantom: wildly talented composer Eve (Amanda Jiang), who died tragically in a theatre fire. Or did she? That’s the question for earnest young actor Christian (Charlie Goddard) cast as the lead in a revival o

This profile of James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, who set up a commune in rural Massachusetts and is fighting extradition from Spain, is a brave attempt to package a complex character and storyFor a film that dispenses a lot of backstory information via intertitles, you are left with a lot of questions when the credits finally roll. For example, how in the world did Irish film-maker Sinéad O’Shea gain access to her main subject: James Cox Chambers, AKA “Fergie”, the American heir to a multimillion-dollar

The latest in our ongoing series of writers explaining their most rewatched comfort films is a journey back to the 90s for Tom Hanks’ heartfelt 60s-set music comedy“How did we get here?” That’s the question Steve Zahn’s character in That Thing You Do! asks his bandmate with bemusement right before they perform on live television.It’s a moment I have thought of many times over the past 30 years. Sometimes, it’s been a moment I’ve aspired to, and sometimes it’s a moment I’ve felt myself. When the

Maka Gogaladze’s debut feature looks at generational differences in the context of Georgia’s education system and emphasis on collectivismThe scars imprinted on impressionable young minds can never fully fade away. Aiming her lens at a rocky beach thrashed by crashing waves, Maka Gogaladze opens her intimate film with a painful anecdote from her adolescent years. Through on-screen texts against a stormy sky, the Georgian film-maker recalls the time she dumped all of her poems into the garbage. T

In Adolescence he proved himself one of the UK’s best actors. Now he has directed his first film, Animol. He reflects on the road from prison and addiction to soaring successAshley Walters seems to have lived his life on fast-forward. Before he turned 21 he had already had a No 1 hit, performed on TV and the West End stage, become a father and served seven months in prison. He has had another lifetime’s worth of incident since – including seven more children – but at the ripe old age of 44, enou