THE DAVID PARKINSON FILM BLOG

(A review of the film year) The year that culminates in cinema's 130th birthday has not been a vintage one. Even the usually reliable French film industry has had an unremarkable 12 months, while Hollywood seems stumped about what to do next because, after 50 years, the bottom finally seems to be dropping out of the blockbuster market. Indeed, 2025 ends with Paramount and Netflix competing to purchase Warner Bros. in a symbolic battle for the soul of cinema that casts doubt o

(Reviews of The Six Billion Dollar Man: Julian Assange Colossal Wreck; and the Price of Truth; and Odyssey) THE SIX BILLION DOLLAR MAN: JULIAN ASSANGE AND THE PRICE OF TRUTH. Eugene Jarecki established himself among America's finest documentarists with cannily cogent items like The Trials of Henry Kissinger (2002), Why We Fight (2005), Reagan (2011), The House I Live In (2012), and The King (2017). It's been eight years since his last outing and he returns on uncompromis

(Reviews of Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases; Baby; Animalia; and Christmas, Again) SILENT SHERLOCK: THREE CLASSIC CASES. Christmas has come early for Holmesians, as the BFI has released Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases into cinemas to launch the roll out of the 45 shorts and two features that Eille Norwood made for Stoll Pictures in the 1920s. The entire catalogue has been painstakingly restored and this 73-minute package suggests that cinema lovers have a real treat

(Reviews of Un sacco bello; and Folktales) UN SACCO BELLO. CinemaItaliaUK ends its year with something of a treat, as it screens Carlo Verdone's debut feature, Un sacco bello/Fun Is Beautiful (1980) at the Regent Street Cinema on 7 December. Co-produced by Sergio Leone and scored by Ennio Morricone, this episodic comedy earned Verdone (who has, of course, gone on to be one of Italy's finest film-makers) a special David di Donatello Award and the Nastro d'Argento for Best New

(Reviews of Pillion; Game; and Fiume o Morte!) PILLION. Adam Mars-Jones's 2020 novel, Box Hill, provides the inspiration for Harry Lighton's Pillion. However, the first-time writer-director has moved the action from the 1970s to the present day and made a few cosmetic tweaks to put an unconventional spin on the romcom. Colin Smith (Harry Melling) is a gay traffic warden in Bromley. He lives with his parents, Peggy (Lesley Sharp) and Pete (Douglas Hodge), who encourage him to

(Reviews of The Carpenter’s Son; The Session Man; and Tony Foster: Painting At the Edge) THE CARPENTER’S SON. Born in Egypt and raised in London, Lotfy Nathan made a fine start to his directing career with the Tunisia-set drama, Harka  (2022). But he takes on a more provocative topic in his sophomore outing, The Carpenter’s Son . Taking the gnostic document, The Infancy Gospel of St Thomas , as his point of departure, Nathan seeks to fill in the gaps left in the New Testament

(Reviews of Alpha; and Paternal Leave) ALPHA. Before coming to prominence with Raw (2016) and the Palme d'or-winning Titane (2021), Julia Ducournau had been exploring what one might term `body horror' issues with her short, Junior (2011), and Mange (2012), a TV-movie that she co-directed with Virgile Bramly. Dealing respectively with cannibalism and self-image, Ducournau's features have been confrontationally controversial. However, the control that made its predecessors so d

(Review of Exhibition on Screen: Caravaggio) For film folk whose touchstone on Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio is Derek Jarman's stylised 1986 biopic, co-directors David Bickerstaff and Phil Grabsky have a surprise in store in Caravaggio, the latest entry in the enduringly excellent Exhibition on Screen series, which took five years to complete. Aboard a ship sailing from Sicily to Rome in 1610, Caravaggio (Jack Bannell) rages against his fate. Once the artistic star of the

(Reviews of Dragonfly; and The Marbles) DRAGONFLY. It's hard to think that Paul Andrew Williams had been making features for two decades. His debut, London to Brighton (2006), feels like it was released yesterday, but he has since bolstered his reputation for springing surprises with The Cottage (2008), Cherry Tree Lane (2010), and Song For Marion (2012). He returned from a lengthy spell in television with the revenge thriller, Bull (2021), but changes tack completely with D

(Reviews of Palestine 36; and It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This) PARADISE 36. For some time now, Annemarie Jacir has been the most eloquent and considered voice in Palestinian cinema. Now, following on from Salt of the Sea (2007), When I Saw You (2012), and Wajib (2017), she has attempted her largest scale and most politically ambitious picture to date. Yet, for all its epic significance, Palestine 36, has an intimacy that makes it compel as a human drama, as well as impres

(Reviews of Sunlight; The House With Laughing Windows; and A Tooth Fairy Tale) SUNLIGHT. Although he directed a couple of plays for the stage, Tom Conti never got round to directing a feature film. Now, having cut her teeth with the documentary, His Master's Voice (2012), and the short, Living With Monkey (2014), ventriloquist-cum-actor daughter, Nina Conti, makes her feature bow behind the camera with Sunlight. When Roy Belvedere (Shenoah Allen) started dangling from a rope

(Reviews of Souleymane's Story; Madly; Good Boy; and Night of the Zoopocalypse) SOULEYMANE'S STORY. Following a series of documentary shorts inspired by his time in Vietnam, Boris Lojkine made his feature debut with Hope (2014), a docurealist drama about a Cameroonian boy and a Nigerian girl crossing the Sahara en route to Europe. Five years later, he produced Camille (2019), a biopic about photojournalist Camille Lepage, who was killed in 2014 while covering the civil war in

(An overview of the 69th BFI London Film Festival, 8-19 October 2025) WATCH THIS SPACE

(Reviews of Plainclothes; Urchin; and The Partisan) PLAINCLOTHES. Carmen Emmi started making films around the age of 14 and recalls...

(Reviews of Paul & Paulette Take a Bath; Better Days; Mr Blake At Your Service!; A Night Like This; Dead of Winter; and The Story of...

(Reviews of Happyend) HAPPYEND. Having captured his father's farewell performance in the deeply moving documentary, Ryuichi Sakamoto:...

(Reviews of Big Boys; Ebony & Ivory; and Dogs At the Opera) BIG BOYS. Corey Sherman has spent a decade making shorts such as Life-ish...

(Reviews of Christy; and Islands) CHRISTY. A very different Cork to the one seen in Peter Foott's The Young Offenders (2016) and its...

(Reviews of Sorry, Baby; and Row) SORRY, BABY. Encouraged by Moonlight director, Barry Jenkins, Eva Victor wrote their directorial debut...

(Reviews of Measures For a Funeral; Little Trouble Girls; and In the Nguyen Kitchen) MEASURES FOR A FUNERAL. Deragh Campbell has played...