Four new films to see this weekSaoirse Ronan in in elaborate but conventional WWII drama Blitz, plus superior family film Paddington in Peru, static adaptation of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, and peculiar ‘Legoised’ Pharrell Williams doc Piece by PieceSun Nov 10 2024 - 04:45
Bird director Andrea Arnold on Barry Keoghan: ‘I thought he had the most incredible face. Wow. What a man’The English film-maker talks about tough shoots, her working-class background and working with Irishmen Keoghan and Robbie RyanSat Nov 09 2024 - 05:15
The Movie Quiz: What three Oscars has Meryl Streep won? Plus: What was the first film Clint Eastwood directed in which he did not act?Fri Nov 08 2024 - 05:00
‘This feels categorically mental’: Paul Mescal stunned by celebrations at Gladiator II premiereActor attends Irish premiere of Ridley Scott film at Light House Cinema in DublinThu Nov 07 2024 - 20:55
Piece by Piece review: Pharrell Williams’s life story, told through Lego. Kind of weirdThe peculiarity here is how little this documentary differs from the average pop hagiographyThu Nov 07 2024 - 05:00
The Piano Lesson review: Denzel Washington’s project is admirable, but this film can’t shake off its stage originsDanielle Deadwyler and Samuel L Jackson are outstanding in the third instalment of the star’s effort to bring August Wilson’s Pittsburgh cycle to the screenWed Nov 06 2024 - 05:00
‘It’s a joke, you c**t’: Tony Hinchcliffe, Bernard Manning and the problem with trying to hide behind humourComedian’s gag at Trump rally again showed that rendering an idea through a joke does not automatically inoculate the teller from responsibility for implied beliefsSun Nov 03 2024 - 05:00
Bill Nighy: ‘My grandmother kind of raised me. She was a proper Irish woman, a Catholic. I was to be a priest’Love Actually actor talks about running away as a teenager, begging in Paris and breaking into actingSat Nov 02 2024 - 05:30
The Movie Quiz: In what Irish town is Cillian Murphy’s Small Things Like These set?Plus: What was the only Netflix title among this year’s Oscar nominees for best picture?Fri Nov 01 2024 - 05:00
Out of Character by Alison Steadman: A lively and undemanding memoir by an actor only a monster could fail to loveThough there is grist and insight here, for the most part this is a saunter through a largely happy lifeFri Nov 01 2024 - 04:58
Anora: A stripper, Russian heavies and an oligarch’s son – what more do you need for a knockout comedy?Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner doesn’t waste a single one of its 140 minutes. No wonder it’s the favourite for the best-picture OscarThu Oct 31 2024 - 05:00
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story review - A perfectly decent doc lifted by throat-catching momentsStory of ‘hero’ actor who found new purpose as disability campaigner after catastrophic accidentWed Oct 30 2024 - 05:00
Halloween is American? Another chance to yell corrections into English earholes is always welcomeThe ancient festival has become merely the end point for a month-long orgy of horror-related consumer bingeing. At least it keeps Christmas at baySun Oct 27 2024 - 05:00
Four new films to see this weekBold trans drama/musical Emilia Pérez and Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut The Room Next Door. Plus a lyrical Senegaelse documentary and an avant-garde depiction of an avant-garde painterSun Oct 27 2024 - 05:00
Cillian Murphy: ‘You had the Kerry babies, the moving statues, no abortion, no divorce. It was like the dark ages’The Oscar winner reunites with Eileen Walsh, his Disco Pigs co-star, for Small Things Like These. For young Irish abroad, was its Ireland worth returning to?Sat Oct 26 2024 - 05:15
Dahomey director Mati Diop: ‘I felt I had the responsibility to make sure a new wave of African cinema exists’The French-Senegalese film-maker won this year’s Golden Bear in Berlin for her breathtakingly imaginative new releaseFri Oct 25 2024 - 05:00
The Movie Quiz: Which of these horrors is not of the same literary universe?Plus: For the season that’s in it, a Halloween quiz guaranteed to give you the heebie-jeebiesFri Oct 25 2024 - 05:00
Dahomey review: Mati Diop’s fascinating hybrid documentary lays out its argument in sharp fashion French-Senegalese film-maker chronicles return of 26 historically significant objects – out of many thousands – to Benin from French authoritiesThu Oct 24 2024 - 05:00
Emilia Pérez review: Bold, brassy, groundbreaking entertainmentChutzpah is in plentiful supply in Jaques Audiard’s extraordinary telenovela-shaded narco-trans musical starring Zoë Saldaña and Karla Sofía GascónWed Oct 23 2024 - 05:00
Jenna Ortega and Tim Burton take seats at Abbey in Dublin for Aidan Quinn and Steve Buscemi one-offStars take part in reading of Sam Shepard’s play Ages of the Moon for Irish national theatre’s Love at First Sight seasonSun Oct 20 2024 - 22:25
World war zed: How Gen Z's Americanisms are hijacking Hiberno-English‘Zee’ is an Americanism. So how come it seems to have been used in Ireland since Jack Lynch was taoiseach?Sun Oct 20 2024 - 05:00
‘Trump called us human scum this morning’: Apprentice stars Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan on being in the line of fireThe lead actors in a new film about Donald Trump’s early business days on why the former US president’s reaction to it is a kind of validationSat Oct 19 2024 - 05:30
Actor Kate Gilmore: ‘I look at myself – no mortgage, my car is falling apart, I have no money in the bank’Irish actor Kate Gilmore has taken on what might be her greatest challenge yet: performing alone on stage in Disco Pigs, creator Enda Walsh’s experimental new play at the Peacock Theatre in DublinSat Oct 19 2024 - 05:00
The Movie Quiz: To date, only one Mike Leigh film has been Oscar-nominated. Which one?Plus: Who comes after Brian De Palma, Stanley Kubrick, Lewis Teague and David Cronenberg?Fri Oct 18 2024 - 05:00
The Wild Robot review: This superb family film could become a classicLupita Nyong’o and Pedro Pascal star in what is the best feature cartoon from a major studio in yearsThu Oct 17 2024 - 05:00
The Apprentice film review: Ivana Trump taunts Donald for his orangeness. Then this drama’s most disturbing moment happensDonald Trump’s moments of outright villainy get extra level of unease from flatness of his portrayal elsewhere in Ali Abbasi’s filmWed Oct 16 2024 - 06:00
Toxic fandoms are increasingly out of control. Just ask Amandla Stenberg about what happened to The AcolyteDownvoting and discriminatory language have only become more vigorous in the age of franchise streaming showsSun Oct 13 2024 - 05:00
Four new films to see this weekA homage and critique of Hong Kong action cinema in elegiac Stuntman, plus evocative Irish drama King Frankie, sci-fi romcom Timestalker, and a bland return to Stephen King’s ’Salem’s LotSun Oct 13 2024 - 05:00
Find Your Eyes: ‘Oh Lord, will it be like this all the way through?’ we ask at first. But this tricky piece rewards surrenderDublin Theatre Festival 2024: In this unclassifiable performance piece, Benji Reid creates a seductive amalgam of theatre, choreography and photographyFri Oct 11 2024 - 09:04
The Movie Quiz: Who was the first former SNL regular to win an acting Oscar?Who belongs with fellow authors JG Ballard, Patrick McGrath, Stephen King and William S Burroughs?Fri Oct 11 2024 - 05:00
King Frankie: An intriguing reminder of the Celtic Tiger delusions that hung around Ireland for decadesPeter Coonan works hard at creating two believable versions of the same troubled personalityThu Oct 10 2024 - 05:00
Blitz first look: Could Saoirse Ronan be on track for a double Oscar nomination with her new film?In Steve McQueen’s movie, the Irish star plays a distraught mother during the Luftwaffe’s raids on London during the second World WarWed Oct 09 2024 - 19:30
’Salem’s Lot: An ominous foreboding precedes this Stephen King adaptation – for all the wrong reasonsFrom the perfunctory scene-setting to the dull, formless mess of generic action-horror that follows, little new is addedWed Oct 09 2024 - 05:00
‘The studios have become more intrusive. They are not letting the film-makers tell the stories’Hollywood producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, whose new movie is the family-friendly Transformers One, on film-industry pressuresMon Oct 07 2024 - 05:00
‘I want to be alone’: Greta Garbo, sure. Daniel Day-Lewis, maybe not so much after allThe unconvincing retirement has history as a promotional tool in show business. Nobody believes that’s what’s going on with Day-LewisSun Oct 06 2024 - 05:00
Four new films to see this weekTurgid Joker: Folie à Deux falls flat, despite Phoenix and Gaga. Plus singular dark comedy A Different Man, West Bank-set drama The Teacher, and deadpan horror comedy Humanist Vampire...Sun Oct 06 2024 - 05:00
Guest Host Stranger Ghost: A genuinely original high concept gets its first outing Dublin Theatre Festival 2024: This nomadic play’s use of other productions’ sets mirrors the insecure tenures so many young people are forced to put up withFri Oct 04 2024 - 10:05
The Movie Quiz: How Many James Bond films have ‘gold’ somewhere in the title? Plus: Which is not a late-era Francis Ford Coppola film?Fri Oct 04 2024 - 05:00
A Different Man: Impressively original comedy that turns ideas of beauty and ugliness on their headsSebastian Stan plays a man with a disfiguring condition alongside Adam Pearson, who actually has that same conditionThu Oct 03 2024 - 05:00
Molly Sweeney: Brian Friel revival features fine performances and elegant stagingDublin Theatre Festival 2024: Andrew Flynn’s production, with Genevieve Hulme-Beaman, Denis Conway and Manus Halligan, makes up for play’s slight staticnessWed Oct 02 2024 - 10:02
Joker: Folie à Deux review – a drab affair that never quite gets started, but it’s probably still worth itEven if this proposition didn’t work out, it would be the right sort of failureWed Oct 02 2024 - 09:00
Daniel Day-Lewis ends retirement from acting to star in son’s filmThree-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis returns to film to star in his son Ronan’s directorial debut, Anemone, which he also cowroteWed Oct 02 2024 - 06:39
Four new films to see this weekSaoirse Ronan shows new strengths as a recovering alcoholic in The Outrun. Plus sweet and sensitive My Old Ass, kindly road movie Will & Harper, and Francis Coppola’s ambitious folly MegalopolisSun Sept 29 2024 - 05:00
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi as Cathy and Heathcliff? That’s not the real story about Emerald Fennell’s new filmWas Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights a person of colour? He might just as well have been IrishSun Sept 29 2024 - 05:00
Edward Burns: ‘I think our level of celebrity was in a sane and manageable place’The actor and director talks about his debut novel, its relation to his Irish-American roots, and using family stories as inspirationSat Sept 28 2024 - 05:00
Maggie Smith, with a voice as unmistakable as Churchill’s, was a star for six decadesDame Maggie Smith, who has died in London at the age of 89, was a singular talent on stage and screenFri Sept 27 2024 - 19:11
The Movie Quiz: Which of these films wasn’t even partially shot in Ireland?Plus: Who was the first Canadian citizen to win a best actor Oscar?Fri Sept 27 2024 - 05:00
Will & Harper review: Will Ferrell reconnects with trans friend in this feel-good odyssey Road trip documentary could be seen as the anti-Top Gear special. Nicer, warmer, militantly tolerantThu Sept 26 2024 - 05:00
The Outrun: Saoirse Ronan gives a forceful performance as an alcoholic in white-knuckle recoveryThere is much to recommend this addiction dram directed by Nora Fingscheidt and co-produced by Ronan, who also excels in her first present-day film role in nearly a decadeWed Sept 25 2024 - 05:00
Fair dues to Nicole Kidman. But who the heck is watching all the telly she’s in?With so many services, nobody can absorb this much comedy, drama, reality, documentary, news, sport and movies – or even grasp what’s availableSun Sept 22 2024 - 05:00
