Film review archive

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N — 399 results

• Never After Dark (2025)

  Review preview for Never After Dark

  Like all the best supernatural tales, it keeps the rules simple but still manages to wrongfoot viewers.

  A wandering medium, Airi spends her life guiding restless spirits out of the world of the living. Summoned to an isolated country house, she comes face to face with a grotesque apparition with powers that defy her experience - but the biggest danger she faces comes from the living.
• Never Goin' Back (2018)

  Review preview for Never Goin' Back

  It is a film that is sustained by the irresistible, irrepressible duo at its heart, and by the appeal of seeing the typical stoner bro movie repurposed for the female perspective.

  Jessie and Angela, high school dropout BFFs, are taking a week off to chill at the beach. Too bad their house got robbed, rent’s due, they’re about to get fired and they’re broke.
• Never Gonna Snow Again (2020)

  Review preview for Never Gonna Snow Again

  While each of these little worlds holds intrigue - as do the dreamlike cutaways to forests of the mind that Zhenia induces through hypnotism in his clients, lit and shot with care by Englert - the film never quite settles into a groove.

  A masseur from the East enters the lives of the rich residents of a bland, walled off community.
• Never Have I Ever (2024)

  Review preview for Never Have I Ever

  Heavy on ominous music from the outset, the film too often comes across like it’s trying to tell us what to feel rather than letting it happen naturally.

  Sam is having a bad day. He is battling an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, is late on a deadline for a writing gig and risks having to pay back an advance he can’t afford to. Then a chance encounter whilst drowning his sorrows sends his already bad day spinning in directions he couldn’t possibly have seen coming.
• Never Here (2017)

  Review preview for Never Here

  This is one of the most interesting entries in the noir cannon for decades.

  Disturbing events lead an artist who photographs strangers to suspect that someone out there is watching her.
• Never Let Go (2024)

  Review preview for Never Let Go

  Lines around victimhood are rarely clean. Here they're jagged and brittle, fearsome and fearful.

  A family that has been haunted by an evil spirit for years. Their safety and their surroundings come into question when one of the children questions if the evil is real.
• Never Look Away (2018)

  Review preview for Never Look Away

  The blurring of fictionalisation is just one of the layers that encourages contemplation almost deep enough to justify the film's expansive canvas.

  A tormented young German artist who has fled to the west becomes convinced he has met the love of his life.
• Never Look Away (2024)

  Review preview for Never Look Away

  A lesser documentarian might portray her as a broken person, acting out as a result of a tragic past. Lucy Lawless, though this is her first time in the director’s chair, treats her with more respect.

  New Zealand–born groundbreaking CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth risks it all to show the reality of war from inside the conflict, staring down danger and confronting those who perpetuate it.
• Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

  Review preview for Never Rarely Sometimes Always

  It is a portrait of loneliness and alienation, yes, but also of resourcefulness, resilience and unity.

  Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of local support, Autumn and her cousin Skylar embark on a brave, fraught journey across state lines to New York City.
• Newly Single (2017)

  Review preview for Newly Single

  Clark steers his course carefully both as a writer and as an actor.

  Following an unhappy break-up, film producer Astor struggles to find a new relationship, largely thanks to his own behaviour.
• News Of The World (2020)

  Review preview for News Of The World

  Zengel first came to international attention with her stunning performance in German drama System Crasher, and she's no less electric here.

  A Civil War veteran agrees to deliver a girl, taken by the Kiowa people years ago, to her aunt and uncle, against her will.
• New Beginnings (2025)

  Review preview for New Beginnings

  What feels special about New Beginnings is its emotional immediacy and unpredictability.

  A Native American Vietnam war veteran considers his life and philosophy as he heads across the US to a reunion.
• The New Gospel (2020)

  Review preview for The New Gospel

  Documentarian Milo Rau's hybrid feature is part passion play and part call for compassion.

  Hybrid documentary about the life of Jesus and the current struggles of migrant workers in Italy.
• A New Kind Of Wilderness (2024)

  Review preview for A New Kind Of Wilderness

  A heartfelt film.

  In a forest in Norway, a family lives an isolated lifestyle in an attempt to be wild and free, but a tragic event changes everything, and they are forced to adjust to modern society.
• New Life (2023)

  Review preview for New Life

  The use of sparse but spacious landscapes enhances both story and themes, with small farms and towns clinging to the earth in defiance of the elements, humble before distant mountains.

  A fixer is sent out to find a mysterious woman on the run, and the stakes of the pursuit rise to apocalyptic proportions.
• New Religion (2022)

  Review preview for New Religion

  What begins as a collection of seemingly disconnected events gradually coheres with something of the chilling quality of an early Kiyoshi Kurosawa film.

  Miyabi lost her only daughter in an accident. After her daughter's death, she got a divorce. She now works as a call girl and is living with her new boyfriend. One day, she meets a weird customer who asks her to let him take a picture of her spine.
• The New Romantic (2018)

  Review preview for The New Romantic

  Carly Stone, a first time feature director, sometimes seems as uncertain as her protagonist, but the muddled way scenes are assembled complements the central theme.

  A student becomes a sugar baby, documenting her experience in the hope of winning a journalism prize.
• The New World (2005)

  Review preview for The New World

  Epic, sprawling and inspirational.

  English nudge out natives, plunder Pocahontas and kick-start some place called America.
• New World (2013)

  Review preview for New World

  Achieving a delicate balance between the intersecting worlds of police, criminals and corporations, New World is a breath of fresh air.

  After the untimely death of Korea’s biggest crime syndicate chairman, power struggle between top lieutenants begins.
• New Year's Eve (2011)

  Review preview for New Year's Eve

  It's as though Marshall gathered together all the subplots from films that never got made or were left on the cutting-room floor and sticky-taped them together end on end to create this horror of a holiday centipede.

  Ensemble sentiment at Hogmanay.
• New York Ninja (2021)

  Review preview for New York Ninja

  Marvellously entertaining for all the wrong reasons.

  A sound technician for a news station becomes a vigilante ninja in New York City after his pregnant wife is murdered.
• The New York Ripper (1982)

  Review preview for The New York Ripper

  Lucio Fulci's audaciously sleazoid slasher is designed to provoke as much outrage as possible, but it also just about cuts it as a classically-styled giallo thriller.

  The surviving victim of a serial killer becomes embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
• A New York Winter's Tale (2014)

  Review preview for A New York Winter's Tale

  It would be difficult to exaggerate the piffling absurdity of this film

  A fantasy romance between an Irish burglar and an ill heiress with violent interruptions from Lucifer's gangster henchmen.
• Next Door (2021)

  Review preview for Next Door

  Scriptwriter Daniel Kehlmann has tailored the role to fit the star like a sharp suit.

  An actor finds his perfect life is less idyllic than he thought after he starts a conversation with a stranger in a bar.
• Next Door (2022)

  Review preview for Next Door

  Oh is a naturally gifted lead.

  Chan-woo is on his fifth attempt to get into the police academy, when his friends make him a strange offer to pay the registration fee in exchange for just one drink at the bar. The next morning, he wakes up hungover in his loud neighbour’s apartment with a corpse lying face down in a pool of blood.
• Next Exit (2022)

  Review preview for Next Exit

  Next Exit shines because of its finely crafted script and the performances of its two leads, who work wonderfully together.

  In a world where ghosts are real and front-page news, a controversial new medical procedure allows people to peacefully kill themselves. In the midst of this breakthrough, two strangers travel cross country together to end their lives, only to unexpectedly find what they’ve been missing along the way.
• Next Goal Wins (2023)

  Review preview for Next Goal Wins

  It's pleasant enough.

  A story about the American Samoa soccer team, who suffered the worst loss in World Cup history, losing to Australia 31-0 in 2001. With the 2014 World Cup approaching, the team recruits a down on his luck, maverick coach in the hope that he can turns its fortunes around.
• Next Sohee (2022)

  Review preview for Next Sohee

  There’s a real sense of fury behind this film.

  High school student Sohee starts job training at a call centre, but she faces pressure of greedy company which leads to her death. Detective Oh Yu-jin, who has something in common with Sohee, starts to follow traces to reveal the truth.
• The Next Three Days (2010)

  Review preview for The Next Three Days

  A classic case of an intriguing film concept gone to waste.

  A man tries to break his suicidal wife out of jail.
• Next Time I'll Aim For The Heart (2014)

  Review preview for Next Time I'll Aim For The Heart

  Canet is fantastic in opening up more and more of the secret chambers in this frightening man's heart.

  A notorious serial killer is also a cop tasked with his own apprehension.
• Nezouh (2022)

  Review preview for Nezouh

  If Kaadan doesn't quite get the dramatic weight to land solidly, she nevertheless has a fine eye for a poetic image.

  As a man refuses to flee war-torn Damascus, his wife and daughter face a choice.
• The Nice Guys (2016)

  Review preview for The Nice Guys

  Gosling and Crowe are wondrous sparring partners.

  An unlikely duo of detectives searches for a missing girl in 1977 Los Angeles.
• Nickel Boys (2024)

  Review preview for Nickel Boys

  Nickel Boys is a tremendously daring film.

  The tale of two Black teenagers who become wards of a barbaric juvenile reformatory.
• Nico, 1988 (2017)

  Review preview for Nico, 1988

  This is astonishing filmmaking.

  Biopic of the German singer, who sang with the Velvet Underground
• Nightbitch (2024)

  Review preview for Nightbitch

  Nightbitch is of an ilk that is off-kilter. It is unreliable and unstable. It is visceral and dark. It is taxidermy and what I think are freezer potato pancakes.

  A woman pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mother, but soon her domesticity takes a surreal turn.
• Nightborn (2026)

  Review preview for Nightborn

  Writer/director Hanna Bergholm walks the line with skill.

  In Finnish forest, Saga and her husband Jon embark on a new chapter as parents. But Saga's joy is overshadowed by a chilling suspicion about their newborn, unbeknownst to Jon, causing a rift as she alone grapples with the disturbing truth.
• Nightcrawler (2014)

  Review preview for Nightcrawler

  Although far from subtle, the metaphor of man as corporation is skillfully hidden behind black comedy, intense action and artful cinematography.

  A young journalist embraces corruption as he becomes the star of his stories.
• The Nightingale (2018)

  Review preview for The Nightingale

  A film that looks back, that gazes also into you.

  A young convict in a penal colony seeks revenge.
• Nightmare (2022)

  Review preview for Nightmare

  Beautifully acted, the film by turns charms and repulses its audience, all the way to its abrupt and shocking ending.

  After moving into a new apartment with her boyfriend, a woman is plagued by bad dreams which seem to spill over into waking life. Is she losing her mind, or finding it?
• Nightmare Alley (1947)

  Review preview for Nightmare Alley

  The real highlight of the film is Walker's turn as the femme fatale, Lilith.

  The rise and fall of a con man in one of the darkest film noirs of the American genre.
• Nightmare Alley (2021)

  Review preview for Nightmare Alley

  From its first kindlings it draws breath from your lungs as surely and as steadily as it draws your eyes.

  An ambitious carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist who may be even more dangerous than he is.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

  Review preview for The Nightmare Before Christmas

  Henry Selick directs with clever staging and infinite patience. The musical numbers are catchy, boisterous and hugely entertaining.

  3D version of Tim Burton's stop-animation film about Hallowe'en Jack's fascination with Christmas gets its annual trot around the cinema block.
• A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)

  Review preview for A Nightmare On Elm Street

  A Nightmare On Elm Street remains an atmospheric and genuinely unsettling film with a chilling, universally relatable central motif: sleep gets everyone in the end.

  A child molester killed by vigilantes seeks revenge on their children through their dreams.
• Nightmare Radio: The Night Stalker (2022)

  Review preview for Nightmare Radio: The Night Stalker

  Though she does what she can with her character, Brasca never gets the opportunity to show viewers even a fraction of what she’s capable of.

  A DJ on a late night radio show on which callers share horror stories has to deal with a stalker.
• A Nightmare Wakes (2020)

  Review preview for A Nightmare Wakes

  Though it lacks the polish of some of its predecessors, A Nightmare Wakes is a potent piece of work.

  Out by Lake Geneva, Mary Shelley conceives the idea for Frankenstein and gradually develops her novel, amid personal turmoil and increasingly disturbing visions.
• The Nightshifter (2018)

  Review preview for The Nightshifter

  Fabiula Nascimento is superb as the frustrated Odete.

  A morgue worker is used to hearing the voices of the dead but when one day he decides to use the secrets they tell him for his own ends, he brings down a terrible curse upon his family.
• Nightsiren (2022)

  Review preview for Nightsiren

  Nvotová is well versed in the language of the horror film, and some scenes echo the early work of Neil Jordan, but go much further in their hallucinatory concatenation of the forest wild and the monstrous feminine.

  A young woman returns to her native mountain village, searching for answers about her troubled childhood, but as she tries to uncover the truth, ancient superstitions lead the villagers to accuse her of witchcraft and murder.
• Night's End (2022)

  Review preview for Night's End

  Addressing the occult through online communication is a wonderful way to explore a form of horror focused on the exchange of ideas.

  An anxious man moves into a haunted apartment. Hiring a stranger to perform an exorcism takes a horrific turn.
• The Nights Still Smell Of Gunpowder (2024)

  Review preview for The Nights Still Smell Of Gunpowder

  A lot of the time, we talk about forgetting as a form of letting go, but in Inadelso Cossa’s sophomore docu-fiction feature, forgetting is a haunting, undead, presence.

  A filmmaker tries to revive his memories of the war raging in a Mozambique village through soundscape exploration and interviews with the villagers.
• Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever (2023)

  Review preview for Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever

  There’s not a great deal here that we haven’t seen before, but it’s well delivered.

  A young woman unwittingly sets off a gruesome chain of revenge.