Peter Bradshaw

Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story – exhilarating record of game-changing photographer Brathwaite’s empowering images of African Americans in the 1960s gave a new generation a fresh template for representation, brilliantly honoured here

My review of Black Is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story (dir. Yemi Bamiro) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc... #LFF #LFF2025

Good Boy review – Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough turn nasty in Kubrickian absurdist nightmare London film festival: Jan Komasa’s bracingly wicked tale follows a couple who plan to retrain an delinquent teen with a brutal regimen

My review of Good Boy (dir. Jan Komasa) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc... #LFF #LFF2025

John Candy: I Like Me review – starry but treacly tribute to comedy legend The much loved actor has no shortage of celebrity fans, but this documentary avoids his more complex traits in favour of his sweet-natured on-screen person

My review of John Candy: I Like Me (dir. Colin Hanks) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

Tron: Ares review – even Gillian Anderson can’t slap this mind-bendingly dull sci-fi into shape Pointless threequel delivers a leaden cameo from a white-robed Jeff Bridges and an irritating turn from Jared Leto as a hipster-haired humanoid

My review of Tron: Ares (dir. Joachim Rønning) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

The Woman in Cabin 10 review – silliness of Keira Knightley megayacht thriller tips it overboard Keira Knightley is twice dunked in the briny as she tries to uncover what’s going on aboard Guy Pearce’s boat in this soggy Agatha-Christie-ish mystery

My review of The Woman In Cabin 10 (dir. Simon Stone) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

The Perfect Neighbor review – a notorious shooting through the eye of a Florida cop’s body-cam Geeta Gandbhir’s study of the Ajike Owens killing turns police footage into a devastating lens on fear, race and a nation fatally addicted to firearms

My review of The Perfect Neighbor (dir. Geeta Gandbhir) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

I Swear review – biopic of pioneering Tourette syndrome activist is funny, fierce and full of heart Kirk Jones’s moving film about of John Davidson, the man who taught Britain about Tourette, offers compassion and catharsis

My review of I Swear (dir. Kirk Jones) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

Plainclothes review – shame and anxiety in entrapment yarn about a gay cop going undercover A quietly observed New York police story explores desire, friendship and the pressures of identity – though its impact is undercut by an implausible final twist

My review of Plainclothes (dir. Carmen Emmi) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

YouTube video by Peter Bradshaw PETER BRADSHAW reviews HOW ARE YOU? IT’S ALAN (PARTRIDGE)

My vlog on How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) is up here, please click, watch, share and subscribe: youtu.be/JMgLvzdYON8?...

YouTube video by Peter Bradshaw PETER BRADSHAW reviews I SWEAR

My vlog on Kirk Jones’s I Swear is up here, please click, watch, share and subscribe: youtu.be/uSivRunLmJU?...

Really looking forward to reading from The Body In The Mobile Library next Thursday at the Cork International Short Story Festival with @paul_mc_veigh - click here for details: www.corkshortstory.net/thursday.html

Urchin review – Harris Dickinson’s homelessness drama is a terrific directorial debut The Triangle of Sadness and Babygirl actor has made a strong, singular and sometimes surreal first film behind the camera, with a superb central turn from Frank Dillane

My review of Urchin (dir. Harris Dickinson) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ma... (it premiered at Cannes in May and gets its UK release today)

The Severed Sun review – folk-horror nightmare that harks back to The Crucible A widow with an ungodly secret challenges the patriarchal abuse of an oppressive religious community in Dean Puckett’s English chiller

My review of The Severed Sun (dir. Dean Puckett) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Mr Blake at Your Service review – John Malkovich does worst French accent ever in baffling comedy misfire Gilles Legardinier’s broad dramedy set in a chateau, co-starring Fanny Ardant and Émilie Dequenne, is an ordeal to watch. Sacré bleu!

My review of Mr Blake At Your Service (dir. Gilles Legardinier) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight review – heartfelt child’s-eye view of last days of Rhodesia Embeth Davidtz stars and directs, with outstanding performances from Zikhona Bali and seven-year-old Lexi Venter as Bobo as white minority rule ends

My review of Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight (dir. Embeth Davidtz) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

The Curse of Frankenstein review – Hammer horror with Lee and Cushing shows how it should be done Terence Fisher’s crisply told 1957 classic is unencumbered with good taste and delivered with absolute conviction

My review of the re-release of The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957) (dir. Terence Fisher) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

GoldenEye review – Pierce Brosnan’s ‘sexist, misogynist dinosaur’ makes his Bond movie debut The 1995 spy adventure introduced Brosnan as 007 and Judi Dench as M – blending high-octane action with a cheeky post-Soviet self-awareness

My review of the re-release of GoldenEye (1995) (dir. Martin Campbell) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...

A House of Dynamite review – Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear endgame thriller is a terrifying, white-knuckle comeback Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson and Tracy Letts star in this immaculately constructed nightmare procedural that ticks down the minutes from an atomic bomb’s launch to its detonation

My review of A House Of Dynamite (dir. Kathryn Bigelow) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se... (it premiered at Venice this summer and gets its UK release today)

The Smashing Machine review – Dwayne Johnson only possible casting as crisis-riddled UFC champ Mark Kerr Former pro wrestler Johnson takes on the role of man-mountain Kerr who goes into meltdown when the unthinkable happens – he loses

My review of The Smashing Machine (dir. Benny Safdie) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se... (it premiered at Venice this summer and gets its UK release today)

Mars Is Heaven! | Nathaniel Rich Percival Lowell was convinced that he had found proof of life on Mars, but his real achievement was to make Americans dream of a future there.

Great piece by Nathaniel Rich in the New York Review Of Books on Percival Lowell - the eccentric astronomer who thought he’d discovered life on Mars and accidentally invented science fiction www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

How long before Tilly Norwood writes her first cosy crime novel?

Invention review – meta indie docu-fiction has a deadpan take on truth and healing A woman inherits the patent for a healing machine from her quack father in this exploration of grief, in which a number of low budget film-makers cameo

My review of Invention (dir. Courtney Stephens) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

The Dead of Winter review – Emma Thompson lights up icy Fargo country thriller Thompson turns up the accent dial to play a good-natured Minnesota widow bringing her charm – and her gun – to tackle some concentrated nastiness

My review of The Dead Of Winter (dir. Brian Kirk) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/au... (it premiered at Locarno in the summer and gets its UK release today)

Brides review – teenage girls head to Syria for IS and marriage in powerful and poignant drama Two friends leave the UK and head to Turkey on their way to marry Islamic State jihadis in this spirited drama directed by Nadia Fall

My review of Brides (dir. Nadia Fall) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Despite mobile technology, Andy Burnham should surely keep faith with our treasured political traditions by installing forty phone lines at his house

YouTube video by Peter Bradshaw PETER BRADSHAW reviews ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER feat. Leonardo DiCaprio

My vlog on Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is up here: youtu.be/3DKR_M_8Xls?... - please click, watch, share and subscribe

Claudia Cardinale had toughness, charisma and sensual allure. Yet Hollywood just couldn’t do her justice The smouldering star of Once Upon a Time in the West, 8½ and The Leopard had her best roles in Italian cinema

Some thoughts on the late Claudia Cardinale www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Trump has redefined the language of politics Coarse language now makes politicians look authentic.

Good piece by Freddie Hayward in @newstatesman.com on the new dysphemism - uglifying language in the service of political panic and clampdown www.newstatesman.com/world/americ...

I have now been a journalist for 40 years. The forces ranged against my profession have never been so powerful | George Monbiot Once, I believed that humanity’s problem was an information deficit. Now, I know you can’t speak truth to power if power controls your words, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Here’s @georgemonbiot.bsky.social on forty years of journalistic work against the mendacity and mediocrity of big-money and vested interests www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey review – Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell play the game of love Giddy romantic fantasy sends its two commitment-phobe leads on a magical road trip through their pasts that may lead them back to love

My review of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (dir. Kogonada) is up here: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...