The Arts Desk

Graham Rickson The Arts Desk Oct 22, 2026 4/5 That it holds up well is remarkable given an occasionally fraught production history. Go to Full Review West Side Story (1961) 92% 82%

Sarah Kent The Arts Desk Oct 22, 2026 5/5 Film making at its most urgent and most compelling, NAZA is a warning about the use of AI to distance people -- with its amorality -- from recognising and taking responsibility for their actions. Go to Full Review NAZA (2026) 100% - -

Nick Hasted The Arts Desk Oct 22, 2026 3/5 Winter of the Crow’s heady, experiential ambience is let down by a late excess of plot twists and sub-Hollywood thriller tension... Atmosphere and Manville are still, though, worth a lot. Go to Full Review Winter of the Crow (2025) 95% - -

Helen Hawkins The Arts Desk Oct 22, 2026 5/5 This is an unsettling film, buoyed up by its riveting police-procedural moments, but nonetheless a sober elegy to ideals like free speech and justice for all. Go to Full Review Case 137 (2025) 95% - -

David Nice The Arts Desk Oct 22, 2026 5/5 A triumph of cinematic storytelling prompting total engagement with its main characters. Could there be a post-war sequel? Go to Full Review De Gaulle: Tilting Iron (2026) 100% - -

Nick Hasted The Arts Desk Oct 8, 2026 2/5 Its journalistic content and protesting intent is, though, fatally slow, lacking the frisson of One Battle After Another’s fascist round-ups of migrants just as ICE did the same – that rare sense of a film meeting its moment. Go to Full Review The Social Reckoning (2026) 54% - -

Helen Hawkins The Arts Desk Oct 8, 2026 4/5 The faces and voices of the local people we watch belong to actors, but the film honours the real ones, still waiting for more than a one-size-fits-all official statement of regret by the Bon Secours order that their children were inappropriately buried. Go to Full Review The Lost Children Of Tuam (2026) 100% - -

Graham Rickson The Arts Desk Oct 8, 2026 3/5 Though visually sumptuous and decently acted, The Yellow Tie doesn’t attain transcendence. Go to Full Review The Yellow Tie (2025) - - - -

Nick Hasted The Arts Desk Oct 5, 2026 3/5 This access’s price is the sentimental exchanges of a relatively new married couple, which it’s hard to imagine Rushdie making public previously. Go to Full Review Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie (2026) 97% - -

Adam Sweeting The Arts Desk Oct 5, 2026 4/5 This is muscular, no-frills filmmaking which keeps the tension tight and the action rolling. Pretty darn good. Go to Full Review The Weight (2026) 94% - -

James Saynor The Arts Desk Oct 5, 2026 5/5 ...Digger manages to be bouncily facetious and bleakly galling within the same unified tale. It’s a very filmic offering about a world of theatricality, a mind-stretching epic made out of a chamber piece. Go to Full Review Digger (2026) 53% - -

Adam Sweeting The Arts Desk Oct 5, 2026 2/5 It’s a bizarre, sinister and fascinating story, but sadly the same cannot be said for Janus Metz’s film. Go to Full Review Unabomber (2026) 24% - -

Saskia Baron The Arts Desk Sep 28, 2026 4/5 Boorman and the Devil concentrates on the directorial catastrophe that was The Heretic, but along the way it does provide a pretty good overview of John Boorman’s career. Go to Full Review Boorman and the Devil (2025) 98% - -

Adam Sweeting The Arts Desk Sep 22, 2026 4/5 Through it all, the relationship between man and canine evolves into what feels like a genuine emotional bond. Go to Full Review Heart of the Beast (2026) 85% - -

Nick Hasted The Arts Desk Sep 21, 2026 3/5 [Zach Cregger] tackles the video game genre with his usual verve, but it still feels like a considerable comedown. Go to Full Review Resident Evil (2026) 96% - -

Markie Robson-Scott The Arts Desk Sep 21, 2026 4/5 There’s no redemption here, no false attempt at a happy ending, only a powerfully moving portrayal of a heart-rending situation where no one has the right answers. Go to Full Review Queen at Sea (2026) 94% - -

Nick Hasted The Arts Desk Sep 14, 2026 4/5 Just an Illusion isn’t nostalgic for recent, equally fraught history, instead running on a youthful time of life’s vibrant rush, fondly remembered by its makers, and renewed with every generation. Go to Full Review Just an Illusion (2026) - - - -

India Lewis The Arts Desk Sep 14, 2026 3/5 It might have been a truly dire film, but I haven’t laughed so much in months. Go to Full Review Practical Magic 2 (2026) 36% - -

Sarah Kent The Arts Desk Sep 11, 2026 4/5 Harsh reality is leavened by glorious visuals, surreal humour and the thoughtful, anarchic and quirky personalities of the brothers. Funny and moving to watch, it also bears thinking about again and again. Go to Full Review Better Go Mad in the Wild (2025) - - - -

Justine Elias The Arts Desk Sep 11, 2026 4/5 Pressure blends Maras' effective battle scenes with enhanced historical footage: though D-Day proved an Allied triumph the first wave was slaughtered. Go to Full Review Pressure (2026) 89% - -