Film review archive

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W — 687 results

• Who You Think I Am (2019)

  Review preview for Who You Think I Am

  Nebbou judges the mood of the moment to perfection.

  A divorced teacher creates a fake Facebook page of a much younger woman and finds herself embarked on an impossible online love affair.
• Why Don't You Just Die (2018)

  Review preview for Why Don't You Just Die

  The characters are beautifully drawn and the performances finely balanced in a film with a lot more going on upstairs than its preoccupation with violence might suggest.

  A dark action comedy about a group of people brought together in the apartment of police detective Andrei: his resentful daughter, an angry thug and a cheated cop. Each one of them have a reason to want revenge.
• Why Do I See You In Everything? (2026)

  Review preview for Why Do I See You In Everything?

  The ethic is visible here. It is wary, careful, never neutral, and when violence becomes overwhelming it turns toward time, toward breathing, toward gestures of care rather than spectacle.

  Two friends drift through dreams and memories, searching for tenderness amid unending cycles of violence.
• Wicked (2024)

  Review preview for Wicked

  For fans of the musical, this will give them more of what they already like, perhaps even too much. For those not yet fans I'm not sure this will give them enough.

  Elphaba, a misunderstood young woman because of her green skin, and Glinda, a popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. After an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads.
• Wicked: For Good (2025)

  Review preview for Wicked: For Good

  Part of the frustration with Wicked: For Good is that, as with its other half, its quality in so many places highlights its weaknesses in others.

  Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West and her relationship with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North. The second part of a two-part feature film adaptation of the Broadway musical.
• Wicked Little Letters (2023)

  Review preview for Wicked Little Letters

  A curious case of real-life poison pen letters is given an oddly cosy retelling in this well-polished if tonally uneven drama.

  When people in Littlehampton start receiving scandalous and obscene letters, suspicion immediately falls on fiery Rose, who might lose the custody of her daughter. A group of women set out to solve the mystery.
• The Wicker Man (1973)

  Review preview for The Wicker Man

  Truly a milestone in British cinema.

  A policeman gets more than he bargained for on a remote Scottish isle.
• The Wicker Man (2006)

  Review preview for The Wicker Man

  This remake is so clearly aimed at US audiences, it almost constitutes an international incident.

  A detective searches for a missing child in a mysterious Pagan community.
• The Wicker Tree (2010)

  Review preview for The Wicker Tree

  Although this is a flawed film, it certainly isn't the disaster many had feared, and it will provide viewers with much to think about.

  A Texas gospel singer and her boyfriend find themselves caught up in a bizarre ceremony of pagan rites.
• Widows (2018)

  Review preview for Widows

  Recent Hollywood heist films - typified by the Ocean's franchise - have been largely concerned with shiny surfaces, gloss and froth but British director Steve McQueen is much more interested in what lies beneath.

  Women left in debt by their dead husbands' crimes conspire to pull off a heist.
• Widow Clicquot (2023)

  Review preview for Widow Clicquot

  Despite its many grand visual flourishes, this is a film which succeeds because of its attention to detail, especially in the performances.

  The story behind the Veuve Clicquot champagne family and business that began in the late 18th century.
• The Wife (2017)

  Review preview for The Wife

  Björn Runge is in no hurry to reveal his characters' faults or their history, letting his camera linger on Close and Pryce, so we can see the thoughts that swim on after the words die away.

  A wife questions her life choices as she travels to Stockholm, where her husband is to receive an award.
• Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself (2002)

  Review preview for Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself

  Reality takes a back seat in this oddball comedy.

  A suicide addict, a bookish brother and a single mother emotionally interact in Glasgow.
• Wildcat (2022)

  Review preview for Wildcat

  The jungle photography is particularly good, not exoticising it but instead letting us explore a piece of terrain which gradually becomes familiar, and inviting us to pick out hidden details as the cats are taught to look for prey.

  Back from war in Afghanistan, a young British soldier struggling with depression and PTSD finds a second chance in the Amazon rainforest when he meets an American scientist, and together they foster two orphaned baby ocelots.
• Wildhood (2021)

  Review preview for Wildhood

  Trust in strangers is a big theme in this sweet-natured film.

  Link does his best to protect his younger half-brother Travis from their father’s violent rages. But one night he discovers a dark family secret and realises that he must leave his father, who symbolises the violent cultural evisceration of European colonisation.
• Wildland (2020)

  Review preview for Wildland

  Well realised and engaging, with impressive production design.

  After her mother’s death, Ida moves in with her aunt and cousins... whose ethics are dubious.
• Wildlife (2018)

  Review preview for Wildlife

  Landscape and music and everyday objects are used to splendid effect.

  A portrait of a family in crisis.
• Wild About Harry (2009)

  Review preview for Wild About Harry

  The beautiful light in the area enhances the visual impression made by the film, making it feel airy and full of possibility.

  A bereaved teenage girl moves to Cape Cod in 1973, and realises that he father is in a relationship with another man.
• Wild At Heart (1990)

  Review preview for Wild At Heart

  The meandering pace can get tedious at times, but cinematically it's a masterpiece.

  Sailor and Lula go on the run, after Lula's mum bids to kill her daughter's beau.
• Wild Bill (2011)

  Review preview for Wild Bill

  The steady - but never sluggish - pace allows the characters to live and breathe.

  A fresh-out-of-jail ex-con, finds himself landed with taking care of his kids... whether they like it or not.
• The Wild Blue Yonder (2005)

  Review preview for The Wild Blue Yonder

  The tale he has to tell is a fascinating one, and it is illustrated by some truly remarkable images.

  In a deserted town we meet a man who tells us he is from Andromeda and proceeds to reveal CIA secrets about space exploration.
• The Wild Bunch (1969)

  Review preview for The Wild Bunch

  A revolutionary film, in every sense of the word.

  A group of ageing outlaws plan one last big score in the dying days of the American West.
• Wild Foxes (2025)

  Review preview for Wild Foxes

  The Belgian filmmaker quickly proves to be a director who is quite nimble with a feint in his own terms, so that when his punches come they often hit in unexpected places.

  At a sports boarding school, talented young boxer Camille is knocked back by an accident that starts to make him question his place inside the ring.
• Wild Horse Nine (2026)

  Review preview for Wild Horse Nine

  Malkovich and Rockwell are magnetic.

  Shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup, CIA agents Chris and Lee are dispatched from Santiago to Rapa Nui.
• Wild Indian (2021)

  Review preview for Wild Indian

  Corbine gets caught up trying to cover the narrative ground, to set up both characters in twin time periods and explore their motivations and relationship.

  Two men are inextricably bound together after covering up the savage murder of a schoolmate. After years of separation following wildly divergent paths, they must finally confront how their traumatic secret has irrevocably shaped their lives.
• Wild Men (2021)

  Review preview for Wild Men

  Underscoring this film are potent themes about masculinity, identity and self-expression. There is also a fair bit of action, and not just of the mountain adventure variety.

  A man in the throes of a mid-life crisis who has decided to try to live like his Viking ancestors unwittingly befriends a robber on the run.
• Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

  Review preview for Wild Mountain Thyme

  It's often the most slender plots that make for the best scripts because they force writers to work harder, but there's no indication of anything resembling work having gone into this.

  A pair of star-crossed lovers in Ireland get caught up in their family's land dispute.
• Wild Relatives (2017)

  Review preview for Wild Relatives

  There's not just information being imparted but a sense of Manna's artistic eye for interconnections, as these two very different worlds are brought together by images of nature and the weather.

  The connection between a Norwegian seed vault and farmers in Lebanon trying to replicate seeds lost to war.
• The Wild Robot (2024)

  Review preview for The Wild Robot

  The film mines a lot of clichés but manages to do something a little different with them, blending traditional elements of children’s fiction with a distinctly 21st Century sensibility.

  A robot designed to assist humans finds herself stranded on an island populated only by animals.
• Wild Rose (2018)

  Review preview for Wild Rose

  Nicole Taylor's quickfire script provides great material for the actors to work with .

  A Glasgwegian single mum tries to make it in the world of country music.
• Wild Roses (2017)

  Review preview for Wild Roses

  Low key and unfussy, Wild Roses gradually builds up tension through small observations and the skilled performances of its two female leads.

  A young woman returns from a hospital stay to find rumours circulating in her village.
• Wild Strawberries (2025)

  Review preview for Wild Strawberries

  Pandurska’s control over tone and atmosphere is assured, and nature itself becomes the quiet guide of Daphne’s internal transformation.

  When a New York architect visits Bulgaria to settle the estate of the grandmother she never met and finds herself being wooed by her heritage.
• Wild Wild West (1999)

  Review preview for Wild Wild West

  Essentially a retro sci-fi spoof, everything is too much.

  Two Wild West guns for hire unite to save the president of the Not Really United States.
• William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet (1996)

  Review preview for William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet

  Danes deftly avoids making her character appear at all weak or insipid, instead showing us a young woman of great courage and agency, in spite of how little control Juliet seems to have over her life.

  Star crossed teenage lovers in Hawaiian shirts, under neon lights.
• William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill (2023)

  Review preview for William Shatner: You Can Call Me Bill

  The phrase “there’s no room for ego,” is used again and again as the filmmaker struggles to find a route past what Shatner wants us to see, past the masks which he openly admits to wearing.

  A portrait of William Shatner's personal journey over nine decades on Earth.
• William Tell (2024)

  Review preview for William Tell

  An ostensibly rousing speech is aiming for Braveheart but has all the grip one would expect from an address to an adhesive sales conference.

  William Tell has returned home weary after fighting with the Knights Templar in the Holy Land. Now he is called upon to help a farmer who is seeking revenge against the villains of the Hapsburg court.
• Willow (1988)

  Review preview for Willow

  Lucas and Howard's often-dark adventure is still an enjoyable sword-and-sorcery tale.

  A would-be sorceror enlists the help of a warrior to take an abandoned baby to safety.
• Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971)

  Review preview for Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory

  A few scenes are likely to genuinely terrify younger viewers, but Wonka would be the first to point out that children ought to be terrified now and then.

  A little boy wins a golden ticket to visit the secret workings of a chocolate factory.
• Will & Harper (2024)

  Review preview for Will & Harper

  Greenbaum pinpoints the tension between the hate eating away at parts of US society and the tremendous potential that the country still has.

  When Will Ferrell finds out his close friend of 30 years is coming out as a trans woman, the two decide to embark on a cross-country road trip to process this new stage of their relationship in an intimate portrait of friendship, transition, and America.
• The Wind (2018)

  Review preview for The Wind

  Teresa Sutherland's script finds Gothic tensions in a landscape where the imaginary has as much power to harm as the real.

  On the Western frontier of the United States of America in the late 1800s, a plains-woman is driven mad by the harshness and isolation of the untamed land.
• Wind, Talk To Me (2025)

  Review preview for Wind, Talk To Me

  Wistfully intimate, but also has honesty and courage in dealing with grief and acceptance of the inevitable in the final moments of one's life.

  After hitting a stray dog with his car, a young filmmaker takes care of the dog while trying to finish the film he was making with his late mother.
• The Wind & The Reckoning (2022)

  Review preview for The Wind & The Reckoning

  An epic tale weighted with meaning for Hawaiian viewers.

  As an outbreak of leprosy engulfs 19th-century colonial Hawai'i, a small group of infected Native Hawaiians resist government-mandated exile, taking a courageous stand against the provisional government. Inspired by real life events.
• The Wind Will Carry Us (1999)

  Review preview for The Wind Will Carry Us

  After almost two hours, you still don't know what the man from Tehran is doing in a village 450 miles away.

  Man from Tehran travels to distant village to check out a dying old lady, whom he does not meet.
• Winona (2019)

  Review preview for Winona

  Though there is a strong idea here, Voulgaris never quite succeeds in teasing out its potential.

  Four young women gambol on a beach. A day of play for close friends, it seems, but there's a reason they’re here.
• The Winslow Boy (1999)

  Review preview for The Winslow Boy

  David Mamet's adaptation is short on surprises.

  After his son is expelled from school for stealing, his father risks everything to restore his good name.
• Winter Boy (2022)

  Review preview for Winter Boy

  Young star Paul Kircher puts in an impressively sensitive and emotionally raw peformance.

  Set over the course of one winter, a 17-year-old high school student struggles with grief.
• Winter Brothers (2017)

  Review preview for Winter Brothers

  Palmason accentuates the tedium by holding almost every shot far longer than necessary or shooting scenes in pitch black mines or against stark landscapes white with lime dust.

  Two brothers embark on a violent feud with another family.
• Winter Flies (2018)

  Review preview for Winter Flies

  There's a refreshing lack of sentimentality in the way Omerzu captures his duo of protagonists.

  Mischievously self-assured Mára and somewhat eccentric Heduš set out into the frozen wastes in search of adventure – by car, naturally. After all, Mára's turning 15 soon.
• Winter Of The Crow (2025)

  Review preview for Winter Of The Crow

  As a director Adamik is good when it is close up and claustrophobic.

  A psychiatry professor gets caught up in Poland's instigation of martial law during a trip to Warsaw and ends up in a cat-and-mouse chase to escape.
• Winter Sleepers (1997)

  Review preview for Winter Sleepers

  Director Tom Tykwer's technique is so gripping, it takes time to realise how shallow these people are.

  Revenge and relationships up in the mountains.