London Review of Books

Michael Wood London Review of Books Sep 30, 2026 What’s fascinating about the movie is the combination of Paul’s craziness and his magical belief in his own sanity. Go to Full Review The Unfaithful Wife (1968) 88% 82%

Gaby Wood London Review of Books Sep 3, 2026 Fiction or non-fiction, [Almodóvar] is at least more honest than his characters about the cost of art to others. Go to Full Review Bitter Christmas (2026) 87% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Jul 15, 2026 The film makes wise or second thoughts seem stingy. Go to Full Review Disclosure Day (2026) 79% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books May 14, 2026 None of this would work without Ozon’s restrained and unloaded direction, and, above all, Voisin’s amazing performance. Go to Full Review The Stranger (2025) 91% - -

Gaby Wood London Review of Books Apr 16, 2026 As the saturated colour footage judders into horror, its natural uncanniness is emphasised to terrifying effect. Jenkin’s films feel less made than found; this is especially apt in the case of his third feature, Rose of Nevada. Go to Full Review Rose of Nevada (2025) 92% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Mar 12, 2026 The stylistic wobbling of the film suggests that if Fennell occasionally found what she wanted, she didn’t recognise it. She left it behind or trampled on it. Go to Full Review Wuthering Heights (2026) 57% - -

Gaby Wood London Review of Books Feb 11, 2026 The film’s visual allure lies in its period colours, cars and clothes. It’s beautifully shot by Evgenia Alexandrova with vintage anamorphic lenses that nod to CinemaScope. Go to Full Review The Secret Agent (2025) 98% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Jan 14, 2026 One of the strong features of the plot of Marty Supreme is its proximity to parable and the absence of masses of money. Go to Full Review Marty Supreme (2025) 93% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Dec 2, 2025 Victor and his father are portrayed by Oscar Isaac and Charles Dance. They play, perfectly, the classic Oedipal parts of brilliant bullied child and impatient, self-admiring father. Go to Full Review Frankenstein (2025) 85% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Nov 3, 2025 Lojkine’s delicate play with our expectations is so finely handled that it’s best experienced directly rather than described. Go to Full Review Souleymane's Story (2024) 100% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Oct 3, 2025 Lee has made a quite different movie, marked by elegant allusions rather than debt. Go to Full Review Highest 2 Lowest (2025) 83% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Sep 5, 2025 The film doesn’t have much of a plot because it’s too keen on its mishaps, many of them violent. But the bit of plot there is takes us, finally, to an interesting place. Go to Full Review The Naked Gun (2025) 88% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Jul 18, 2025 Too academic as well as too sentimental perhaps, but Fiennes’s performance as the eerie doctor, creator of an intense, eccentric heart of resistance when resistance is always too late, helps to carry the day. Go to Full Review 28 Years Later (2025) 88% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Jun 6, 2025 The second part of Veiel’s film is a well-made but very straight biography. Go to Full Review Riefenstahl (2024) 97% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books May 6, 2025 Great movies can be too steady, too serene, and this film is headed in a different direction. Go to Full Review La Haine (1995) 96% 95%

Michael Wood London Review of Books Apr 9, 2025 In Mickey 17 the chance of living again is linked to a form of slavery. The film itself ends with marks on a board rather than a photographed human scene, letters and numbers offered as a visual tribute to mortal singularity. Go to Full Review Mickey 17 (2025) 77% 55%

Michael Wood London Review of Books Mar 7, 2025 The carnival effect is definitely excessive, but Salles can hardly not know this or not want it... I'm also inclined to imagine that he is presenting, for all audiences, a symptom more than an escape. Go to Full Review I'm Still Here (2024) 97% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Feb 7, 2025 The general effect may create in us a nostalgia for the edgy coherence of the first part. There is, though, a refrain that echoes through the film. Go to Full Review The Brutalist (2024) 93% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Dec 4, 2024 What’s romantic here is a shared feeling of attachment, whatever its basis, and what’s comic is the absence of any sense of what is to come. Go to Full Review Anora (2024) 93% - -

Michael Wood London Review of Books Nov 3, 2024 Much of the acting in the film stands clearly apart from the dizziness, and we need to credit both the director and the players for this. Go to Full Review Megalopolis (2024) 46% - -