Total Film

It’s all about fathers and sons this issue for me – both in the vengeful Viking offspring kicking ass and taking names in Robert Eggers’ The Northman and in Ryan Reynolds’ latest actioner, The Adam Project. I’ve talked to Reynolds numerous times over

When Jason Momoa’s Aquaman swooped in to help tackle Steppenwolf in Justice League, he took swift advantage of the opportunity to surf a ride on the Batmobile. Now, the endearing Honolulu-born beefcake might well get some hot wheels of his own as he

I mean, it’s all pretty surreal,” laughs Tom Gormican. “There’s a scene in this film where we show the making of the film you’re watching, and Nicolas Cage is watching it in the theatre. And now I’m about to watch Nic watch himself watching the movie

IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH… JAMES MARSDEN You talkin’ to me? Well, yes I am, and I’m so happy to be talking to you. Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight? I have not, I usually dance with him in the daytime. That has probably ke

When actress Ruth Wilson (The Affair) teamed up with Jude Law to option Deborah Kay Davies’ cult 2010 novel True Things About Me, the plan was to find a filmmaker to bring it to the screen. Harry Wootliff, who made her feature debut with 2018’s IVF d

I’ve always liked relationship pieces,” says Adrian Lyne. “That’s what I’ve been attracted to – the small story, rather than the large. A movie about you and me, rather than The Matrix, for example.” Lyne is chatting to Teasers ahead of the debut of

“AM I EAGER TO DO HELLBOY 3? NO, I’M 71 F***ING YEARS OLD. [BUT] WE OWE THIS TO THE FANS. SO GUILLERMO... GET THIS F***ING THING DONE” RON PERLMAN WANTS BIG RED TO RETURN (SORT OF) “You’re still making that f***ing backwards story about seven dwarfs

A Danish and Dutch family click on a Tuscan holiday, but when the Danes accept an invitation to spend the weekend at their new acquaintances’ rural home six months later, they discover a terrifying gulf between them. As one of their friends asks, “Wh

When Tiger King came out in March 2020, it captured the hearts of pandemic-weary viewers across the world. One person who wasn’t so enamoured, though, was actor/director John Cameron Mitchell. “It felt like another rubbernecking-for-roadkill series,”

01 Four years into the neo-Jurassic Age, dinosaurs and humans are co-existing not-so-peacefully across the planet. “We’re racing towards the extinction of our species,” says Bryce Dallas Howard’s Claire. 02 A herd of parasaurolophus galloping along t

A few years ago Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning writer of The Imitation Game, knew he wanted to make a film about a Savile Row tailor. There was only one problem: “We couldn’t quite get a story to put him into,” Moore tells Teasers. “And then one day

JORDAN FARLEY @JORDANFARLEY There wasn’t a better-directed film than Dune in 2021, which makes the Academy’s decision to omit Sandworm-wrangler-in-chief Denis Villeneuve – in the immortal words of Josh Brolin – “fucking totally dumb”. Consider the vi

The joint winner (with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero) of the Grand Prix in competition at Cannes last year, Compartment No. 6 is the newest film from Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, who previously made the charming real-life boxing story The Happiest Day

Six years ago, when Terence Davies was presented with the idea of making a film about Siegfried Sassoon, he jumped at it – rather blindly. “I had no idea what kind of life he had,” he says. Yet the more he read, the more he connected. “I can obviousl

With 40 credits to her name, 21-year-old Jenna Ortega is among the most prolific and accomplished young actors working today. Already this year she’s appeared in Scream and Foo Fighters horror-comedy Studio 666; still to come are school-shooting dram

Mark Wahlberg has faith in Father Stu – so much faith, in fact, that he “cut the cheque” to make a film about the eponymous priest. “This is my baby that I’ve been pushing uphill for quite some time,” he says. “I financed it myself, and I think it’s

Arecord-smashing 82m households tuned into the first season of Netflix’s Bridgerton, the conversation-starting period drama set in Regency-era London. As fans get (cor)set for S2, Teasers talks to returning favourite Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury) and ne

Adapted from Louise Candlish’s bestselling literary thriller by Simon Ashdown (co-creator of 2005’s superbly strange Funland), Our House is a suburban ordeal inspired by a real-life case of property fraud. Returning to the well-appointed south London

Nicôle Lecky is following in the footsteps of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Michaela Coel in bringing her one-woman show from the London stage to television. The six-part Mood (formerly known as Superhoe) is every bit as distinctive as Fleabag or Chewing

I have been fortunate to avoid most of the potholes,” smiles Bill Murray. Indeed, the former SNL star has a largely flawless career, from Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day to nine films with Wes Anderson, including recent literary comedy The French Disp

Set in a French primary school and sticking close to seven-year-old Nora (Maya Vanderbeque) as she witnesses the bullying of her older brother (Günter Duret), Laura Wandel’s blistering debut has been compared to concentration-camp drama Son Of Saul.

When I first thought, ‘I want to make a Viking movie,’ I knew three things,” explains writer/director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse), with the hint of a smile. “I knew it needs to take place mostly in Iceland, it needs to be a revenge stor

A one-eyed Viking prince (Kirk Douglas) and his former slave half-brother (Tony Curtis) battle over a kingdom and an English Princess (Janet Leigh). Richard Fleischer’s epic plays more comic book than authentic, but Fleischer later directed Conan The

In the mosaic that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you suspect there has always been a place for Moon Knight. The cowl-wearing crimefighter – and the alter-ego of former CIA spook Marc Spector – may be at the lesser-known end of the Marvel Comics s

When Total Film usually chats to Ryan Reynolds, he’s a fizzing, fast-talking quipster, rolling out caustic one-liners as deftly as Deadpool. But today when we catch up with him in a dark, wood-panelled hotel room, he’s introspective, heart-on-sleeve

This is your first movie – and with your hero Ryan. What was it like meeting him? At the audition he probably thought I was really weird, because I was just staring at him. At the beginning [of filming], it was very overwhelming. I was really freaked

Aretro musical, a murder-mystery, a magical threequel. What do West Side Story, Death On The Nile and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore have in common? For all those who haven’t been locked away and out of internet range in Azkaban or elsew

All good things come to those who wait. Especially if you’re a Paul Verhoeven fan. The controversial Dutch director of Showgirls and Basic Instinct was all set to bring his new film Benedetta to Cannes in 2019 until a knee operation saw him postpone

Though the shareholders of the Walt Disney Company undoubtedly had dollar signs in their eyes, The Force Awakens was worth much, much more to legions of fans – the highly anticipated December 2015 release date would tell them whether the new custodia

Nothing about Daisy Edgar-Jones’ ascent to stardom has been normal. The now 23-year-old had been steadily getting supporting work in mid-size TV shows like Cold Feet and War Of The Worlds, until the 2020 TV adaptation of Normal People came along, tra

the new film by actor-turned-writer/director Craig Roberts is at once a character study, a comedy-drama, a love story, a biopic and a sports movie unlike any you’ve ever seen. How could it be like anything that came before when it focuses on Maurice

The French call her ‘La Binoche’. Though maybe ‘Binoche The Brave’ might be better. Since her arrival in the mid-’80s, the raven-haired Parisian has gone where angels – or at least other actors – fear to tread. Few other performers would endure, for

Kicking off Krzysztof Kieślowski’s tricolore trilogy, Binoche stars as Julie, whose composer husband and child are killed in a car crash that she walks away from. How she deals with that powers an emotionally resonant performance. Binoche nabbed one

@TOTALFILM_MATTL ★★★★★ WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN ★★★★★ ALWAYS MAKES YOU SMILE ★★★★★ BLOWS HOT AND COLD ★★★★★ CROSS THE STREET TO AVOID ★★★★★ NASTY PIECE OF WORK ■

★★★★★ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS Cumbrian chancer a hit with the crowds,” trumpets a newspaper headline in Craig Roberts’ (Eternal Beauty) gentle comedy. Roberts merges crowd-pleasing material with his own sideways-on spirit for the true-life ’70s tale of

★★★★★ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS, PRIME VIDEO Writer/director Mariama Diallo’s feature debut is centred on Ancaster College, an elite liberal-arts institution that’s a stone’s throw from Salem… yet feels cursed long before any ghoulish apparitions or racis

★★★★★ OUT 11 MARCH CINEMAS Let’s just say you’re blessed,” remarks Raylee (Suzanna Son), talking about Mikey (Simon Rex), the compelling antihero at the heart of Red Rocket. A down-on-his-luck adult-movie star, Mikey Saber – to use his full porn name

★★★☆☆ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS Veteran Italian auteur Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room) adapts Eshkol Nevo’s Tel Aviv-set novel, transposing this tale of three families living in the same apartment building to Rome. Amid the ensemble, Moretti and Margherita

★★★★☆ OUT 25 MARCH CINEMAS 28 MARCH BD, DIGITAL Fans of Netflix show Archive 81 or Prano Bailey-Bond’s Censor will want to check out Jacob Gentry’s discombobulating Broadcast Signal Intrusion, in which a video archivist working in 1999 chances upon s

★★★★★ OUT 4 MARCH DISNEY+ If you’ve reached the stage of reading a review, you can’t go into Fresh with the innocent ignorance that would make the film hit its very hardest. It can’t be experienced in a vacuum, but that’s not to say it’s not worth yo

★★★★☆ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS, DIGITAL Newcomer Adam Ali commands every frame of this anxiety-soaked thriller from writer/director Haider Rashid (Tangled Up In Blue). Together they convey the immediate, visceral danger of one refugee’s plight, as Ali’s

★★★☆☆ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS Inspired by a real-life story – and shot in a village where civilians were massacred during the 1999 Kosovan war – this naturalistic debut feature from writer/director Blerta Basholli centres on Fahrije (Yilka Gashi), a wid

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Serving as a prequel to the games of the same name, this long-mooted adap sees Tom Holland step into the formerly pixelated shoes of Nathan Drake, here a skilful bartender, history nerd and occasional pickpocket who’s recruited

★★★☆☆ OUT 11 MARCH CINEMAS Mika Kaurismäki (brother of the famous Aki) injects an ambling sweetness into this gentle comedy, as Pak Hon Chu’s widowed Chinese chef tries to track down and reconnect with an old friend in a remote Finnish village. His s

★★★★☆ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS, CURZON HOME CINEMA For his ninth feature, director Jacques Audiard executes a sharp, sure about-turn from The Sisters Brothers. While Audiard visited western frontiers with a male-fronted cast in that Englishspeaking 2018

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS J. Lo’s version of Notting Hill knowingly rides well-worn romcom grooves (there’s a Pretty Woman nod five mins in), but there’s nostalgic comfort in the familiar. Leaning more than a little into Lopez’s real-life persona, it fol

★★☆☆☆ OUT 7 MARCH DVD, DIGITAL HD Writer/director Romain Quirot takes a valiant stab at philosophical mystery in this dystopian sci-fi story expanded from his own short film, albeit with not enough material to ever feel truly expansive. With an ever-

★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS That master of disaster Roland Emmerich is back to doing his thing – and as the title not-so-subtly hints, the big grey sphere in the sky is heading our way (a case of “mounting Moon terror” as one news report amusingly puts it)

★★★☆☆ OUT 7 MARCH DIGITAL 4 APRIL DVD The poster art’s ‘Olympus Has Fallen in Vatican City’ vibe couldn’t be more inappropriate; no surprise given that Abel Ferrara directs. The elusive ‘plot’ involves soldier J.J. (Ethan Hawke) on a mission in Rome,

★★★☆☆ OUT 1 APRIL CINEMAS The classic ballet is updated for a family-friendly audience, mixing live-action performances with pastel sets and somewhat questionable CGI animation. When her townspeople become enamoured with cosmetic surgeon Doctor Coppe

★★★★☆ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS Juicy poached pears drip sensuously and boeuf bourguignon sizzles, in lush gastroporn sequences that rival an M&S advert. This fond, authoritative documentary about US cookery icon Julia Child gets you salivating for her fr

★★★☆☆ OUT 11 MARCH CINEMAS A documentary about Kevin McArevey, the charismatic, Elvis-loving principal of a North Belfast boys’ primary school who seeks to change attitudes in his young pupils by teaching philosophical principles. He encourages them

★★☆☆☆ OUT 11 MARCH CINEMAS Les Dennis makes for an unlikely lead playing Stuart Pendrick, a disillusioned stage psychic whose home is invaded by two incompetent thieves in this largely crass comedy caper. Though Dennis doesn’t quite convince as the c

★★★☆☆ OUT 11 MARCH CINEMAS DIGITAL Ruth Paxton’s feature debut centres on a mother (Sienna Guillory) and daughter (Jessica Alexander) coping with the trauma of a family suicide while contending with a case of demonic possession. The term ‘elevated ho

★★★★☆ OUT 4 MARCH PRIME VIDEO It seems that everyone loves Lucy this season: following Aaron Sorkin’s garlanded drama Being The Ricardos comes director Amy Poehler’s smart and thoughtful doc on ’50s TV prime-timers Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s on-an

★★★★☆ OUT 4 MARCH CINEMAS DIRECTOR Clio Barnard STARRING Adeel Akhtar, Claire Rushbrook, Ellora Torchia, Shaun Thomas SCREENPLAY Clio Barnard DISTRIBUTOR Altitude RUNNING TIME 94 mins From Lilo & Stitch and Turner & Hooch to Robot & Frank and Stan &

★★★☆☆ OUT 14 MARCH DIGITAL 21 MARCH DVD Climbing up sheer rock faces is a hair-raising prospect in itself; throw in a bunch of murderous climbing bros and you’ve got the recipe for a true nightmare. Our hero Kelly (Britanny Ashworth) finds herself tr

★★★☆☆ OUT 1 APRIL CINEMAS Bastian Günther’s satiric stab at the American Dream is set in a tiny Texas town, where 20 hopefuls enter an endurance contest. The task is to keep one hand placed on the prize – a brand-new truck – at all times until only o

★★★★★ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS This powerful documentary follows political activist Ady Barkan who, after being diagnosed with degenerative disease ALS, campaigned across the US for healthcare reform while his own health rapidly declined. His subsequent

★★★★★ OUT 25 MARCH CINEMAS North and South Korea are reunited in this based-on-real-events thriller, as diplomats from both sides join forces to flee the Somali capital in the throes of civil war. There’s no denying writer/director Ryoo Seung-wan’s w

★★★★★ OUT NOW BD, DIGITAL If you’ve ever dreamt of seeing a Kazakh horror comedy that plays something like the son of The Hangover and Deliverance after he’s been fed through the woodchipper in Fargo, then Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It is for you. Ou

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS A young family moves in next door to grieving mum Laura (Andrea Riseborough), husband Brendan (Jonjo O’Neill) and son Tadhg (Lewis McAskie). The neighbours’ daughter, Megan (Niamh Dornan), seems spookily familiar… but truth can

★★★★★ OUT 4 MARCH CINEMAS The roots of this doc lie in a photo taken in the 1930s by scientific explorer and pioneer Brad Washburn. Inspired by the snap, a trio of American climbers, including co-directors Renan Ozturk and Freddie Wilkinson, embark o

★★★★★ OUT 25 MARCH CINEMAS British-American documentary maker Gillian Mosely (who was raised in a Zionist household) travels around Israel exploring, via archival footage, the deep-rooted causes of the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict and how citi

★★★★★ OUT 4 MARCH CINEMAS A righteous howl of rage at homophobic laws becomes much more in Sebastian Meise’s slow but rewarding drama. Franz Rogowski (Undine) plays Hans, a gay man repeatedly imprisoned in postwar Germany under the archaic Paragraph

★★★★★ OUT 18 MARCH CINEMAS Here’s a documentary that’ll flow over you like a comforting balm. Narrated by Willem Dafoe, who seems to be doing a light Morgan Freeman impression, it’s a film that both in sound and image offers an utterly gorgeous take

★★★★★ OUT NOW SKY CINEMA, NOW, DIGITAL Steven Soderbergh’s latest follows in the recent vein of Unsane (2018) and No Sudden Move (2021), both low-budget thrillers that see the Ocean’s director conjure an impressively taut, back-to-basics vibe. Same g

★★★★★ OUT 4 MARCH CINEMAS DJ, musician and filmmaker Don Letts recounts his fascinating life in William E. Badgley’s spritely documentary. Present at the birth of punk, this Rasta-loving, Brixton-raised Brit was soon hobnobbing with the Sex Pistols a

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS, DIGITAL Trans man Caz (an effortlessly moving Elz Carrad) returns to his rural home town after a decade away in Auckland, where he transitioned, to reconnect with his estranged father. As in many hometown-return dramas, old wou

★★★★★ OUT 24 MARCH SHUDDER Using rotoscope techniques to conjure a retro-fantasy vibe, Philip Gelatt and Morgan Galen King’s epic animation combines ultraviolence with soaring cosmic existentialism for an original story that transcends its clear ’80s

★★★★★ OUT NOW DIGITAL Armed with only a squeegee and a smile, Bunny (Essie Davis) ekes a meagre living cleaning windscreens at intersections in her native Auckland. Her dream is to be reunited with the two children – doting Shannon (Amelie Barnes) an

1974 ★★★★★ OUT 4 MARCH CINEMAS Violent death and innocence come closely linked in Francis Ford Coppola’s magisterial sequel to his 1972 Mafia epic. Young Vito Corleone witnesses his family slaughtered, an older Vito embraces his kid after slaughterin

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Delayed by Covid and cast controversy, Kenneth Branagh’s traditionalist whodunnit finally sails into cinemas. But you have to wonder why it didn’t dock on a streaming service earlier, where small-screen expectations might have b

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS Earnest, macho, cutesy: Channing Tatum’s comeback movie is practically trained to disarm his fanbase. In his co-directorial (with Reid Carolin) debut, Tatum’s traumatised Army Ranger Briggs drives a bitey dog cross-country to it

★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Featurette, Alt ending, Gallery Director Danishka Esterhazy and writer Suzanne Keilly’s expectation-defying remake of the slyly subversive 1982 slasher classic takes a more overtly feminist approach

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS The first Jackass since 2010’s 3D outing sees the guys (including stalwart director Jeff Tremaine) return significantly older but none the wiser. Newbies such as Jasper Dolphin and Rachel Wolfson acquit themselves well, but unfo

★★★★★ OUT NOW DVD, BD, DIGITAL EXTRAS ★★★★★ Documentary, Featurette With its anime styling and jazz-infused score, there’s a distinct whiff of the classic Lupin III cartoons to the heist and car chase that kicks off this feature outing for DC’s felin

1996 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★☆☆☆ Gallery If you’re going to do a riff on The King Of Comedy then who better to star in it than Robert De Niro? That was presumably what the much-missed Tony Scott thought when making this flashy thriller about a trou

1986 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Alt cut, Alt soundtracks, Commentaries, Featurettes, Music video, Outtakes Best remembered as the film that almost killed Jackie Chan (when a simple stunt – for him – went wrong), this uneven Indiana Jones-inspired

1982 ★★★★★ OUT 21 MARCH BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Documentaries, Featurettes, Essays Set three years on from the fall of Saigon, this searing drama by Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui examines why hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees fled their homeland aft

1936 ★★★★☆ OUT 14 MARCH BD EXTRAS ★★★★★ Commentary, Documentary, Video essays, Deleted scenes, Shorts, Booklet Charlie Chaplin’s last outing as the Little Tramp sees him navigate factory machinery, poverty and unrest during the Depression. Flustered

1989 ★★★☆☆ OUT NOW BD EXTRAS ★★★☆☆ Director’s cut, Commentary, Featurettes An unsung pioneer of the found-footage genre, this no-budget curio (written, directed, produced and shot by Dean Alioto) was denied a legit release in ’89 thanks to a distribu

2011-18 ★★★★☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS 7 MARCH DIGITAL I don’t have a big voice,” says a teenager delivering a reading in Patrick Wang’s A Bread Factory. “The voice you have will be fine,” says his mentor. Wang’s voice resonates firmly across his films: relea

1964 ★★★★☆ OUT 14 MARCH BD EXTRAS ★★☆☆☆ Selected-scene commentary, Featurette, Essay A key work of the Japanese New Wave, Masahiro Shinoda’s cool, stylish gangster movie sees yakuza hitman Muraki (Ryo Ikebe) plug back into his old life after being re

1947 ★★★★★ OUT NOW DUAL FORMAT EXTRAS ★★★☆☆ Commentaries, Documentary, Gallery More than two years later than originally scheduled, Edmund Goulding’s sardonic and fatalistic noir masterpiece hit Blu-ray just as the remake arrived in UK cinemas. The w

2005 ★★★★☆ OUT 28 MARCH BD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentaries, Book, Making of, Featurettes, Gallery, Poster The heat is on for Guy Pearce in John Hillcoat’s bleak and bloody Aussie western, which sees his captured outlaw having to track down one of his crimi

1994 ★★★★☆ OUT 28 MARCH BD, 4K UHD EXTRAS ★★★★☆ Commentary, Silent film, Documentary, Featurettes, Booklet Never knowingly understated, Kenneth Branagh brings gothic style, a highly dramatic (and impressively realised) Arctic-set bookending, impassio

OUT TBC MARCH Alas, thanks to a review embargo we can’t tell you what the film’s like… but we can show you the merch. And as you’d expect from a Disney/Pixar production, there’s plenty on offer – from panda-hooded dressing gowns to figurines to food

Even with slasher movies, it can sometimes pay not to know the rules. Consider Marco Beltrami, a Jerry Goldsmith mentee and novice movie composer when he scored Wes Craven’s Scream. Favourite scary movie? Beltrami didn’t watch scary movies, let alone