Though he rose to prominence writing scripts for Danny Boyle hits like 28 days Later, Alex Garland has fully emerged in the past decade as a gutsy director in his own right. Specialising in dense, cerebral films that don’t skimp on elaborate CG enhanced visuals, Garland’s directorial debut Ex Machina quickly became a classic among android movies, with the acclaimed Annihilation cementing his position as a speculative fiction auteur.

Even the least frequent cinemagoers can tell you that biopics about popular musicians have represented a huge trend in moviemaking over the past few years. Though far from the first, the floodgates seemed to open with 2018’s smash hit Bohemian Rhapsody, followed in short order by Judy, Rocketman, and Elvis; all Oscars darlings. But one of the elements these films typically have in common is that their subjects are at a comfortable distance, firmly tied to decades that, at the…

There’s a reason that, despite his career dwindling for decades after his prime, Marlon Brando is still remembered as one of, if not the, greatest screen actors of all time. One of the first to bring Stella Adler’s method acting technique to cinemas, now widely known as bringing forth most memorable dramatic screen performances, Brando wasn’t just an impressive performer; he was a pioneer who fundamentally changed Hollywood. From a role defining performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar named Desire to…

There’s something irresistible about sports biopics, even if you’ve never kept up with a sport in your life (ahem). Fundamentally, it’s not about the rules of the game or being able to recognise the most players – it all hinges on watching someone rise up and attempt overcome the odds against them in true style. This setup also allows for a surprising amount of diversity, with Raging Bull on one end of the tonal spectrum and Cool Runnings on the…

It’s often said that as a generation, we don’t have movie stars in the true sense of the phrase anymore. With the timeless glamour of classic Hollywood falling out of fashion and the proliferation of social media preventing the same distance between stars and us regular folk from being maintained, it’s hard to point to a true Marilyn Monroe or Paul Newman of the 21st century. But this week’s film centres around the power of two women whose star quality…

In the canon of great Japanese directors, it feels like discussions often boil down to two essential figures: Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. Though the former is known for jidaigeki epics like Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, and the latter known for emotional domestic dramas like Tokyo Story, both directors have much more diverse filmographies than the popular conscious often gives them credit for. This also holds true for a modern director frequently promoted as Ozu’s successor, Hirokazu Kore-eda, winner of the Palme d’Or for his 2018…

It can be a little unsettling when members of acclaimed groups and duos decide to go solo. On the one hand you can luck out with post Destiny’s Child Beyonce – on the other, you might end up with the short-lived sitcom Joey. In this light, the Coen Brothers deciding to go their separate ways for assorted film projects led many to worry if the talent behind No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski lay solely with Joel…

We’ve seen some strange, larger than life films come out over the past few months, from the brain transplants and bodily experimentations of Oscars darling Poor Things to the fantastically plastic and surprisingly existential Barbie. But It’s often said that real life is stranger than fiction, and if there’s a recent release that proves this, it’s surely The Iron Claw.

However you feel about it as a representation of the life of Freddie Mercury, there’s no denying that Bohemian Rhapsody opened the floodgates for a tidal wave of biopics centred around the lives of legendary music stars. It’s hard to think of a big name (male) musician from the 20th century who hasn’t received this treatment, or who isn’t receiving it in due course – even The Beatles are getting individual biopics from Sam Mendes that tangle together at various…