Film review archive

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S — 1578 results

• Star Wars: Episode 4 - A New Hope (1977)

  Review preview for Star Wars: Episode 4 - A New Hope

  Few can deny the great storytelling of Lucas' true first episode of his space-opera.

  Cult space opera.
• Star Wars: Episode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

  Review preview for Star Wars: Episode 5 - The Empire Strikes Back

  It is a spectacular, brilliantly realised piece of moviemaking

  Superior sequel, to Lucas's space hit.
• Star Wars: Episode 6 - Return Of The Jedi (1983)

  Review preview for Star Wars: Episode 6 - Return Of The Jedi

  The best-looking and orchestrated space battle ever committed to film.

  Finale to the space saga.
• Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu (2026)

  Review preview for Star Wars: The Mandalorian And Grogu

  This has the feel of a serial condensed to a feature.

  Once a lone bounty hunter, Mandalorian Din Djarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure.
• Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

  Review preview for Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

  This is perhaps less a swansong than a familiar sunset

  The surviving Resistance faces the First Order once more in the final chapter of the Skywalker saga.
• State And Main (2001)

  Review preview for State And Main

  An ensemble comedy, with captivating performances and a wickedly funny script.

  The affect of a movie crew on a sleepy New England town.
• State Funeral (2019)

  Review preview for State Funeral

  What the cumulative effect of masterfully restored newsreel may lack in action, it more than makes up for with the numbing, slow-burn sensation of being drawn under the spell of state-orchestrated mass mourning.

  Documentary based on footage from March 5 - 9, 1953, when the USSR mourned and buried Joseph Stalin.
• State Of Consciousness (2022)

  Review preview for State Of Consciousness

  The best actors are capable of salvaging something even in the worst situations.

  Nightmares and reality become impossible to distinguish for a man forced to take medication for a psychological disorder he doesn't have. To regain his sanity and get back to his normal life, he sets out to escape from the institution he has been trapped in.
• A State Of Passion (2024)

  Review preview for A State Of Passion

  Whilst the film sets out to explore the psychology that drives people to do this sort of work, what emerges is more complicated.

  An account of a British-Palestinian surgeon who has become a vital witness to the devastation wreaked by Israel’s bombing of Gaza.
• State Of Play (2009)

  Review preview for State Of Play

  The producers have kept what was best about the original, added some interesting touches and resisted the temptation to pile on the contrivances and explosions.

  An investigative reporter finds his loyalties conflicted when a story involving murder, blackmail and conspiracy centres on his old friend, now an up-and-coming Congressman.
• Stationed At Home (2025)

  Review preview for Stationed At Home

  The beautiful cinematography, the bluesy jazz score and the gentle pace of the film are beguiling, but Masciari makes sure that we don’t lose sight of the ridiculous.

  On Christmas Eve a cab driver is counting down to seeing the International Space Station... but his night will hold a series of encounters with strangers first.
• The Station Agent (2003)

  Review preview for The Station Agent

  A tender, moving film, with no distractions.

  A man with dwarfism seeks solitude in rural New Jersey and develops a very unlikely friendship with a hot dog vendor and a painter.
• Stay (2005)

  Review preview for Stay

  Not so much a thriller, with an unexpected twist, as a schizophrenic character study, a portrait of the artist as a disturbed young man, still exercising his creative imagination to the very end.

  A psychiatrist tries to stop a young man committing suicide on his 21st birthday.
• Stay The Night (2022)

  Review preview for Stay The Night

  Writer-director Renuka Jeyapalan develops a vision that balances a lack of a distinctive visual voice with committed character work.

  A failed work opportunity prompts chronically single Grace to pursue a one night stand with a stranger. It turns out that he's a struggling professional athlete with a problem of his own. Maybe they can help each other.
• Steelers: The World's First Gay Rugby Club (2020)

  Review preview for Steelers: The World's First Gay Rugby Club

  A cheery little film with a subject which will be dear to the hearts of many viewers.

  In 1995, in a pub in King’s Cross, a group of friends discussed the idea of a gay rugby club. From that casual conversation, the first gay rugby team was born.
• Stella's Last Weekend (2018)

  Review preview for Stella's Last Weekend

  There's natural chemistry between the three related cast members and it carries over very effectively into the film.

  As they say farewell to their dying dog over the course of a weekend, two brothers fall for the same girl.
• Stella Does Tricks (1997)

  Review preview for Stella Does Tricks

  The fantasy sequences don’t work and the childhood flashbacks are too predictable.

  The story of a Glaswegian prostitute in London.
• The Stepford Wives (2004)

  Review preview for The Stepford Wives

  Featuring an up to scratch all-star cast, it is Close who really shines, with a cracking quirky little performance, again demonstrating her range.

  Sci-fi/comedy thriller where a seemingly perfect American suburb, with unfeasibly obedient women, raises suspicious eyebrows amongst the latest newcomers.
• Steppenwolf (2024)

  Review preview for Steppenwolf

  Starchenko is extraordinary in her ability to develop an emotionally complex character despite the state of shock that covers everything.

  Tamara searches for her missing son in a violent town. She hires a morally questionable ex-detective to find him. His methods are cruel but she is determined to find her son whatever the cost.
• Stieg Larsson - The Man Who Played With Fire (2018)

  Review preview for Stieg Larsson - The Man Who Played With Fire

  Over the course of 95 minutes, we'll come to learn that the writer was, in some ways, a canary in the coal mine of today's rise in extreme right-wing views and the way many who espouse them have latched on to populist agendas in modern politics.

  Documentary about the Millennium-trilogy author Stieg Larsson and his pioneering work of fighting right wing extremists and neo-Nazis.
• Stiff Upper Lips (1997)

  Review preview for Stiff Upper Lips

  The humour is less subtle than a fat lady in a small swimsuit.

  Satirical sideswipe at Merchant Ivory dramas.
• Stigmata (1999)

  Review preview for Stigmata

  Wainwright's style is crude... slow-motion water droplets are constantly about to hit the deck, while white doves flutter toward high windows.

  A Vatican sleuth investigates when a woman becomes possessed by the spirit of a priest.
• Stillwater (2021)

  Review preview for Stillwater

  It progresses in the same sort of manner as leading man Damon in that it's big and bulky, slow and purposeful but somehow, despite this, quite compelling.

  An American oil rig worker attempts to clear his daughter's name in France, where she is imprisoned.
• Still: A Michael J Fox Movie (2023)

  Review preview for Still: A Michael J Fox Movie

  There’s an enviable mix of the playful and the poignant.

  The improbable tale of a short kid from a Canadian army base who became the darling of 1980s Hollywood — only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease?
• Still Crazy (1998)

  Review preview for Still Crazy

  Spall skuttles about like a rodent. Connolly is wasted and Bergstrom shouts a lot.

  A group of middle-aged rockers hit the road again.
• Still Pushing Pineapples (2025)

  Review preview for Still Pushing Pineapples

  Full of engaging material yet sometimes stretched a little too thin, the film is less pop biopic, more a meditation on ageing, and over time it takes on an increasingly melancholic tone.

  The story of the former singer of pop band Black Lace and his journey on the road with his ageing mother and his partner, as he aims for a comeback.
• The Sting (1973)

  Review preview for The Sting

  The characters are outrageous and entertaining.

  Paul Newman and Robert Redford are itinerant con men during The Depression.
• Sting (2024)

  Review preview for Sting

  Sting is not the most original, but it features some good performances and if you’re an arachnophobe, it should provide you will all the terror you could want.

  Having raising an unusual spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte must face the facts about her pet - and fight for her family's survival - when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster.
• Stinker (2025)

  Review preview for Stinker

  What if a lost alien were found not by a sweet little boy but by an ageing alcoholic drifter?

  In a remote corner of Kazakhstan, three unlikely characters cross paths: a despairing old man, a grouchy shopkeeper, and an alien just trying to get home. With the gentle help of a curious granddaughter, walls begin to break down, but with a government motorcade soon to arrive - and a bumbling cop hot on their tails - can this misfit group somehow hold together?
• Stoker Hills (2020)

  Review preview for Stoker Hills

  “I can’t watch this anymore,” says a police officer, turning away from the found footage film, and you will sympathise.

  Three college students filming a horror movie find themselves trapped in their own worst nightmare. Their only hope for survival is two detectives who find the camera they left behind.
• Stolen (2023)

  Review preview for Stolen

  A difficult watch but compelling nonetheless, and an important contribution to the record.

  An investigation of the horrific discovery of the bodies of 796 mothers and babies in Tuam, seeking to establish exactly what happened and why.
• Stolen (2023)

  Review preview for Stolen

  Tejpal’s debut may be uneven but it's certainly not short of momentum.

  Two brothers try to rescue a baby that has been stolen from its mother.
• Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped By Boko Haram (2018)

  Review preview for Stolen Daughters: Kidnapped By Boko Haram

  Atwal approaches the matter with sensitivity and restraint.

  The story of the freed female hostages of Boko Haram, detailing their lives in captivity and since their release.
• Stolen Kingdom (2025)

  Review preview for Stolen Kingdom

  There’s an incredibly rich supply of material here.

  A documentary following the history of misdeeds and debauchery at Walt Disney World Resort over 30 years.
• Stoner (1974)

  Review preview for Stoner

  Stoner has all the pieces in place for a really fun Hong Kong action flick.

  Two cops acting outside their jurisdictions team up to bust a drug lord.
• Stone Bros (2009)

  Review preview for Stone Bros

  Stone Bros is perhaps the first Australian film to take the rapidly shifting body politic of the nation's race relations and to roll it into fresh, full-flavoured comedy.

  Two cousins embark on a road trip fuelled by spliffs.
• Stone Turtle (2022)

  Review preview for Stone Turtle

  Power slips from one character to another with disconcerting ease, and as the story progresses, what might seem confounding, a product of myth or dream or hallucination, takes on an abject clarity.

  A time-traveling tale of a woman living in the Peninsular Malaysian east coast who gets entangled with a man in a dangerous dance of duplicity and deception.
• Stopmotion (2023)

  Review preview for Stopmotion

  Stopmotion is not a film that strives to keep secrets or deliver surprises. It wants us to understand what’s happening, at least to an extent, and still be helpless to prevent it.

  About a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother.
• Stopped On Track (2011)

  Review preview for Stopped On Track

  Peschel delivers a superb physical performance.

  A raw, compelling study what happens to a ordinary family when a husband and father becomes terminally ill.
• Stop-Zemlia (2021)

  Review preview for Stop-Zemlia

  Gornostai avoids obvious narrative arcs in favour of just letting us hang out and observe the everyday challenges and small dramas that pepper the lives of these 16-year-olds.

  Drama follows a shy teenager and her friend as they navigate their 16th year.
• Stop! That! Train! (2026)

  Review preview for Stop! That! Train!

  Perhaps most complex typographically.

  Two train stewardess BFFs switch from a dull railway to the luxurious Glamazonian Express. During a massive storm, they must work with snooty first-class crew and President Gagwell to prevent disaster in Los Angeles.
• Stories From The Chestnut Woods (2019)

  Review preview for Stories From The Chestnut Woods

  Jan Vysocy’s soundscape is huge, overwhelming. It reminds us of the smallness of the human characters.

  In a decaying forest on the Yugoslav-Italian border in the years after World War II, a stingy, old carpenter and a lonely, young chestnut seller share imaginative memories of the past.
• Stormhouse (2011)

  Review preview for Stormhouse

  Won't set the box office alight but has plenty of atmosphere and imagination to commend it.

  UK horror on a military base.
• A Storm Foretold (2023)

  Review preview for A Storm Foretold

  It’s a relationship based on mutual exploitation, Guldbrandsen says, and “it’s complicated.”

  With Trump's political godfather, Roger Stone, as the film's central character, this documentary looks at how Trump's presidential period had to find its logical end point in The Storm at the Capitol.
• Storm Rider: Legend Of Hammerhead (2026)

  Review preview for Storm Rider: Legend Of Hammerhead

  Its biggest problem is that its main protagonist and his love interest are never fleshed out and could basically be boiled down to all too known Hero With a Thousand Faces tropes

  A young hero must harness the powers of the long forgotten Hammerhead and the Element in order to protect his loved ones.
• The Story Of Film: A New Generation (2021)

  Review preview for The Story Of Film: A New Generation

  Cousins' observations are, by their very nature, particular and personal - but that is part of the joy of this sort of essay film.

  Mark Cousins returns with another journey across the landscape of film, examining what changes the 21st century has brought.
• The Story Of Plastic (2019)

  Review preview for The Story Of Plastic

  This is a well-constructed film, featuring not just strong talking head material, from experts and those bearing the impact of the industry across the globe, but also smart animations that crystallise the issues.

  Considering the cost of the plastics industry.
• Story Of Ricky (1991)

  Review preview for Story Of Ricky

  Love it or hate it, a non-committal response to Story Of Ricky is out of the question.

  Ultra-gory comic book adaptation set in a futuristic prison.
• The Story Of Southern Islet (2020)

  Review preview for The Story Of Southern Islet

  Although The Story Of Southern Islet undoubtedly attracts with its remarkable aesthetics, especially beautiful slow shots, emphasising the magical, mysterious atmosphere, it is an hermetic film.

  A woman who is travelling to see a shaman to seek help for her ailing husband endures strange encounters and unearthly experiences.
• Stéphane (2022)

  Review preview for Stéphane

  One of the year’s most delightful hidden gems.

  Timothée meets an almost unbelievable character while shooting a short film. As time goes on their jovial and eccentric talks become something far more sinister.