Editorial
In his review of the year, Mike Williams started with David Lynch and Tilly Norwood. I skipped all this repetitive stuff. And I cannot believe that KPop Demon Hunters is Netflix's most watched film of all time. Among the films he mentions are Mickey 17, M I The Final Reckoning and House of Dynamite (Netflix again). And back to David Lynch. But this feels all too lazy.
Opening Scenes
Oh good, this is all about films to look out for in 2026 courtesy of Thomas Flew. Blockbusters include Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, only in IMAX, Dune Part 3, and "an exhausting list of sequels". Martin Scorsese's What Happened at Night stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence. From the UK comes Emerald Fennel's Wuthering Heights with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, another Sense and Sensibility, Daisy Edgar Jones in Bab Bridget and Danny Boyle's Ink.
European films include Ruben Ostland's The Entertainment System is Down and Pedro Almodóvar's Bitter Christmas. From Asia there will be new films from Asghar Fahradi and Hamaguchi Ryusuke. Horror will be represented by Jessie Buckley in The Bride and Robert Egger's Werewulf.
Nothing noteworthy in Editor's Choice or In Conversation
The Score
Sam Davies talks to punk band Idles front man Joe Talbot about their music for the forthcoming Darren Aronofsky's film Caught Stealing.
Reader's Letters
They all just seem to be people showing off their Knowledge of cinema.
The Long Take
Pamela Hutchinson talks about all the extras who were cast as the "jostling neighbours" to Jessie Buckley's Agnes Hathaway at The Globe theatre in the new film Hamnet. Pamela thinks they are "the film's final casting triumph" and that Jessie's "fellow groundlings leap off the screen". Agnes goes to the Globe to see her husband's new play Hamlet and Pamela talks about "the solidarity of shared sorrow" in the link between her own loss and that in the play. Apparently the audience at the screening Pamela attended "were floored by the moment".
Flick Lit
Nicole Flattery thinks that Lurker is one of her favourite films of the year. It's about "the hollowness of fame and the lengths some people will go to feel a fraction of notoriety". Director Alex Russell sets the film in LA where everyone wants the same thing. Nicole talks about the city's evolution, and the LA writers Joan Didion and Eve Babitz.
In Memoriam
Obituaries of those who died in 2025, starting with a full page on Terence Stamp. Of the huge number of actors who each get a small paragraph, here are Claudia Cardinale, Richard Chamberlain, Pauline Collins, Marianne Faithful, Gene Hackman, Diane Keaton, Val Kilmer, Diane Ladd., Michael Madsen, Jean Marsh, Joan Plowright, Robert Redford, Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales.
There are lists of those from animation, cinematographers, composers and musicians. Then many, many directors including David Lynch, but also editors, make up artists, producers, executives, screenwriters, set and costume designers, sound and special effects and others. A double page spread on Phyllis Dalton and her costumes for some iconic roles for which we see some of her lovely sketches.
2025: Films of the Year
I'm not sure why a number of the films here have not even been released! Some even "awaiting UK distribution". Some straight to streaming! Many more are set for release here later in the year (even as late as April) so 2026! Of the fifty films here, I have seen six! At number 48 is Wes Anderson's The Phoenician Scheme, at 20 is Blue Moon and at 18 The Ice Tower. At 15 is Park Chan-Wook's No Other Choice due on 23rd January and at 11 is Sentimental Value from director Joachim Trier at the end of this month somewhere. Molly Haskell says that after his brilliant The Worst Person in the World, Renate Reinsue plays another "unsympathetic part". Molly has two pages to tell us where "women can behave as badly as men, even worse". As for Renate, "she bears the weight of an impenetrable melancholy".
Somehow I missed Sinners at No 2, maybe it did not have a mainstream cinema release? At number one is One Battle After Another that Michael Koresky called a worthy winner. "It crashes over viewers like a series of waves".
Film and TV
When four of the first ten or either Netflix, Apple or Disney and another on Channel 4, I skipped past. And two are on iPlayer.
Discs of the Year
None
Books of the Year
If I had to choose one it might be Suddenly Something Clicked: The Languages of Film Editing and Sound Design by Walter Murch, a key figure in some big movies.
Lucile Hadzihalilovic
The director of The Ice Tower is interviewed by Peter Strickland. Eight pages including some great stills from the film. There is an interesting section about the casting of Clara Pacini as Jeanne as she was playing younger than her twenty one years. Also a nice piece about Marion Cotillard. Lucile talks about her style of working, "In our films, we have an approach of the visuals and the soundtrack being somehow more important then the plot". I nearly always like a film or tv series about the making of a film. See my post on Irma Vep. I was very glad I saw the film before reading the article.
Capital Punishment
Arjun Sajip discusses the new film No Other Choice from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook. (See my reviews of his films Stoker, Thirst and Decision to Leave). His new film is "a pitch black comedy" adapted from the novel by Donald Westlake. A kind of family drama with robots? Opens on 23rd January, hopefully somewhere near.
I Need Time For Dreamwork
Sophia Satchell-Baeza talks to Hamnet director Chloe Zhao, and especially about the ending, true to Maggie O'Farrell's book and now quite famous. And how when Zhao listened to a track sent by lead actress Jessie Buckley she "imagined a new and very different finale". The director had previously won the Oscar for best director and best film for Nomadland. (See my review). She describes Hamnet as "a dark fairy tale" and "grounded in a quiet, fought for, domesticity". The article brings in Paul Mescal (Will) and Jessie Buckley (Agnes) and their rehearsal confrontation.
A Band Apart
I just want to start with the title of this section because for the life of me, having searched and searched, I cannot find any relevance to this article. The main relevance to "A Band Apart" is the production company that included Quinten Tarantino. Here Jonathon Romney introduces and interviews director Richard Linklater about his new film Nouvelle Vague. This is an affectionate retelling of the making of Jean-Luc Goddard's A bout de souffle or Breathless (1960). That film was made through low budget, guerilla film making, handheld cameras, natural light and on location filming in Paris without permits and the use of improvised dialogue that was dubbed later. A twenty three day shoot and part of the French New Wave. Linklater then goes on to describe nine individuals and film extracts associated with the French New Wave and that old film. It's on the internet if anyone is interested.
Edgar Wright in Conversation with Stephen King
This is all because the former has directed another film adaptation of the latter's novel The Running Man. There is a long discussion between Edgar Wright and Stephen King. We hear how the book came about and how it was first published in 1982 but written a decade earlier. A little about the original film staring Arnold Swartzenegger. However, the introduction is by James Mottram so what follows is a three way conversation with the other two. Apparently the book is not just about The Running Man but includes other game shows.
REVIEWS: Films
Nouvelle Vague
Henry K Miller has done a great job to describe the background, outlie the plot and introduce multiple characters in this docudrama about the making of the Jean-Luc Goddard's 1960 film A bout de souffle. (See A Band Apart above). "What comes across is a sense of community, with a strong element of of social contact that one doubts is characteristic of many professional film making milieux today". But thank goodness director Richard Linklater "is not unduly reverent towards Goddard". Miller thought it was quite sensible to choose A bout de souffle as this was shot in only twenty days.
With his other film this year Blue Moon, Linklater has set both "in a more aesthetically pleasing past". Miller has given us a very long review, far more than we would see in the press. It opens here on 30th January so will certainly look out for it in the cinema. There is also separately, a Q & A with Richard Linklater courtesy of Ian Haydn Smith.
Hamnet
The review is preceded by a still from the movie, taken from the stage of the Globe Theatre, back in the 16th century, looking out at the audience of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the front row is Agnes, his wife, about to burst into tears. It's Nicolas Rapolo who reviews what sounds like a wonderful film. If it's anything like Maggie O'Farrell's book, it will be. She has written the screenplay along with director Chloe Zhao. The film (as did the play at Stratford) goes back to the early days of their relationship and here it is certainly a character study. We see the early days of their family as the children start to grow up. But it's the trauma of losing one of the twins that tears the marriage apart. Agnes (superbly played by Jessie Buckley) hurts so much, especially as Will takes himself off to London and the beginnings of his career. But its her experience at The Globe that is a magical, powerful climax.
Saipan
You might be forgiven for skipping the review of a film with the title of which you may never have heard. Except it was the base of the Ireland football team on the eve of the 2002 world cup in South Korea and Japan. And that notorious falling out between manager Mick McCarthy (played by Steve Coogan no less) and captain Roy Keane. Philip Concannon says "it's very entertaining, but after the climatic stand-off, the film's intensity dissipates". So not a good review. Maybe wait for it on TV.
Sentimental Value
Sophie Monks Kaufman says this is Joachim Trier's follow up to his brilliant film The Worst Person in the World. (See my review). The cast is led by Stellan Skarsgard ("giving the performance of his life " as a film director who wants his estranged daughter and talented actress (played by Renate Reinsve who also starred in that previous movie "her luminous breakout performance") for his next film. She turns him down. Sophie calls it "this gorgeous, generous meditation about inherited familial suffering". Sounds great. On at Cineworld now.
No Other Choice
This is Park Chan-wook's "latest obsessional thriller" according to Nicolas Rapolo. It's an adaptation of Donald Westlake's crime story The Ax. Man-su seems to have had the perfect life until mass redundancies take hold. Hos wife Mi-ri takes a job in a dentists to save the family and puts the house up for sale. But it's all he husband's schemes that are central to the plot. Most sound a disaster. Release here due the end of January so must look out for it.
I skipped the next six reviews until I came to:
Is This Thing On?
Mark Asch discusses Bradley Cooper's third film as director. A separating couple (Will Arnett and Laura Dern) with the former at a low point in his life, trying stand up and only just avoiding complete failure. The origin story of British comedian John Bishop when his estranged wife attends a gig and they sort of reconcile. Not sure.
H is for Hawk
There was a reason I avoided the book but cannot remember what that was. It was the three leads in the film that got me interested (Claire Foy, Brendon Gleeson and Denise Gough) but that may not be enough to get me to see it.
Lots of other reviews.
The Running Man
Kate Stables long review. (See my post). "A fast and furious Glen Powell". That's dead right. But thats was all he was, so repetitive. Although this was mainly positive review. Kate does conclude "that crammed and over-complicated last act" is "reworked into a convoluted finale". And that is being kind.
DVD and Blu-Ray
The Agatha Christie Collection.
Kate Stables again reviews this box set of Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Death on the Nile (1978) and The Mirror Crack'd (1982). She tells us about the background to these three classics.
Wider Screen
The Pordenone Silent Film Festival
Books
None of interest.
From the Archive: Light of the Day
Sight and Sound Winter 1965/66
Raoul Coutard, apparently a famous cinematographer, talks about his art. How he started of as a photographer and then all about working with Jean-Luc Goddard when he made the move to films. All in the 1960's and in black and white. He tells us about the sets, the types of film stock and lighting. Then a piece on A bout de souffle and how this was a turning point in cinema history.
When he starts using colour film with Pierrot le Fou he explains how "the cameraman is most aware of the fact that no film stock is as sensitive as the human eye". Then the use of make up or non make up.
This month in ...... 2001
On the cover of that month's magazine is Ray Winstone in Sexy Beast. Inside that edition, Jonathon Glazer discusses this film. Reviews that month included Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Almost Famous from Cameron Crowe. Two very different movies, but both excellent.
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