The Australian

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 23, 2026 2/5 The novel is a delicate, haunting allegory about godlessness; yet here a masterpiece of emotional complexity has been rendered flat. It is a travesty. Go to Full Review Klara and the Sun (2026) 26% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 21, 2026 3/5 What this James Watkins movie doesn’t have is tone or personality. A distinct directorial stamp. Yes, big jump scares, but middling special effects and indifferent world building; this could be any city. This is not a seamless trio of DC Universe films. Go to Full Review Clayface (2026) 77% - -

Geordie Gray The Australian Oct 15, 2026 2.5/5 There’s a lean, vicious, hour-long escape thriller lurking inside Whalefall, bogged down by a soggy family therapy session. As drama, it’s a washout. As a feat of production design and filmmaking ingenuity, it’s something to behold. Go to Full Review Whalefall (2026) 74% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 15, 2026 3.5/5 This Sense and Sensibility is for sad girls in high windows, but it doesn’t slip under the skin and grip the heart. It’s not up there with the most resonant, most tugging of the author’s adaptations, but it’s still a success – Reid has done a fine job. Go to Full Review Sense and Sensibility (2026) 78% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 15, 2026 4.5/5 Yes, there’s emotional extravagance to it all, which tips into melodrama, but this is moving art about the human condition. Go to Full Review La Bola Negra (2026) 87% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 15, 2026 3/5 Horseshoe is spiky, tender and melancholic; reminiscent of those grim, warring families in Claire Keegan and Patrick McCabe’s fiction, but like much of Keegan it opens out into the light. Go to Full Review Horseshoe (2025) - - - -

Jill Rowbotham The Australian Oct 15, 2026 3/5 Ignore the loose knitting and Mayday is OK entertainment for a lazy Sunday. Go to Full Review Mayday (2026) 83% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 9, 2026 3/5 The Social Reckoning needed another eye; someone fresh to draw out the emotion in this cold, preachy project. The first film felt exhilarating, buzzy. This one falls flat; won’t enter the culture in the same way. Go to Full Review The Social Reckoning (2026) 54% - -

Geordie Gray The Australian Oct 6, 2026 2.5/5 This is a naff, cloying and really, really silly movie. It contains some of the clunkiest dialogue ever committed to film Go to Full Review The Love Hypothesis (2026) 73% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Oct 6, 2026 4/5 The Great Arch is meticulously crafted, thoughtful and engrossing; it feels like it’s been made with love. Go to Full Review The Great Arch (2025) 89% - -

Jill Rowbotham The Australian Oct 6, 2026 3.5/5 In the same way that Murphy holds his crew together, Hawke anchors this film; living and breathing the role of a good man battered but not broken by an apparently endless succession of tough times. Go to Full Review The Weight (2026) 94% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 29, 2026 2/5 Its greatest sin? It leaves you cold. And possibly baffled. I’m not looking forward to Inarritu’s next one. Whatever it is, I know one thing. It will be gruelling, and relentless. Go to Full Review Digger (2026) 53% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 28, 2026 3/5 There are shades of Inarritu’s The Revenant in it, but it’s not nearly as searching or profound. There’s not much to the story, it’s not psychologically complex. Go to Full Review Heart of the Beast (2026) 84% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 23, 2026 4/5 It feels instantly delightful, and that charm is sustained throughout. It’s entertaining, fast-paced, moving, with a lovely energy. Go to Full Review Forgotten Island (2026) 95% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 21, 2026 3/5 This debut feature from Margherita Spampinato is slow and at times underpowered but it captures a world rapidly disappearing, a richly detailed ecosystem of meddling, beady-eyed, card-playing nonnas in a rundown Sicilian apartment block. Go to Full Review Sweetheart (2025) - - - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 21, 2026 4/5 Director Dave Green... has done a fine job with cast and cartoon to create a film that's fast, clever and, in the end, surprisingly moving. Go to Full Review Coyote vs. Acme (2026) 96% - -

Jill Rowbotham The Australian Sep 16, 2026 2.5/5 That this full-length film of 104 minutes lacks the charm those stories have in spades is a shame; it is the necessary compensatory element for the utter predictability of plot and storyline. Go to Full Review Drawn Together (2026) 36% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 14, 2026 The film’s never boring despite being tonally uneven. B-movie vibes but it’s fast and fun – and funny. Go to Full Review Runner (2026) 78% - -

Nikki Gemmell The Australian Sep 11, 2026 3/5 Fans will still be fans. They’ll be flocking and they’ll leave satisfied. But the film has none of the audacious, provocative energy of a Barbie or a Wuthering Heights; it’s not going to enter water-cooler conversations, not going to stick. Go to Full Review Practical Magic 2 (2026) 36% - -

Bianca Farmakis The Australian Sep 9, 2026 4/5 Stewart takes a bold risk, and pulls it off – it’s not a watch for everyone, but nothing has made me cry like this in a long time. Go to Full Review The Chronology of Water (2025) 91% - -