Skip to main content

Search: Starring Alia Shawkat

  • 20th Century Women (2016)
    Review preview for 20th Century Women

    Annette Bening gives a glorious, all-encompassing performance.

    Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
    The story of three women in 1979 southern California.
  • Atropia (2024)
    Review preview for Atropia

    While Gates has found an intriguing setting for her war satire, it’s less clear what she wants to say with it.

    Jeremy Mathews · 2.5 out of 5
    When an aspiring actress in a military role-playing facility falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent, their unsimulated emotions threaten to derail the performance.
  • Amreeka (2009)
    Review preview for Amreeka

    Dabis is certainly to be praised for her lightness of touch, filling many of her scenes with a humour often lacking from films addressing issues of migration.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    When a divorced Palestinian woman and her teenage son move to rural Illinois at the outset of the Iraq war, they find their new lives full of challenges
  • Bart Got A Room (2008)
    Review preview for Bart Got A Room

    Easily the best comedy I saw in 2008 and the first I can remember in years that I’ve wanted to immediately watch again.

    Amber Wilkinson · 5 out of 5
    It's tick-tock, tick-tock for Danny as the prom approaches, and he still doesn't have a date...
  • Being The Ricardos (2021)
    Review preview for Being The Ricardos

    Not only does she get the tone of Ball right, Kidman also captures the comedy star's forthright energy, an essential fearlessness and truthfulness about herself that Sorkin also evidently admires.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    Lucille Ball biopic set across a single week of crisis.
  • Damsels In Distress (2011)
    Review preview for Damsels In Distress

    A disorienting, surreal blend of sophisticated verbal wit and inconsequential inanity.

    Anton Bitel · 3.5 out of 5
    A trio of girls aim to revolutionise a stuffy, former all-male university.
  • Drift (2023)
    Review preview for Drift

    Anthony Chen's slow-burn character study is essentially a showcase for its star Cynthia Erivo

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    Refugee Jacqueline, alone and penniless on a Greek island embarks on a friendship with a tour guide.
  • Deck The Halls (2006)
    Review preview for Deck The Halls

    This is no classic, it's formulaic stuff, but the quality performers prevent things getting to saccharine and preachy.

    Martin Gray · 3 out of 5
    Two neighbours fall out over who is the local king of Christmas in forgettable but fun seasonal family comedy.
  • First Cow (2019)
    Review preview for First Cow

    The simplest of pleasures bring the greatest moments of joy in Reichardt’s latest film.

    Matthew Anderson · 4.5 out of 5
    A cook with a group of fur trappers strikes up a connection with a Chinese emigre in the Old West.
  • Green Room (2015)
    Review preview for Green Room

    Less psychological and more formulaic than his previous feature, this is still relentlessly entertaining.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    A young punk band is trapped in a secluded venue after stumbling on a murder committed by neo-Nazis.
  • Life After Beth (2014)
    Review preview for Life After Beth

    Feels less experimental and alternative than, well, the zombie genre demands.

    Andrew Robertson · 3 out of 5
    Beth dying makes life hard. Beth coming back makes it harder.
  • The Letter Room (2020)
    Review preview for The Letter Room

    Oscar Isaac’s poignant performance pulls us in from the get-go.

    Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
    Corrections officer Richard starts in a new position as director of prisoner communications and finds his world opening up in unexpected ways.
  • Nasty Baby (2015)
    Review preview for Nasty Baby

    It either, depending on how open you are to it, completely goes off the rails in the final 20 minutes and destroys its credibility, or instead delivers a provocative moral twist

    Owen Van Spall · 3 out of 5
    A gay couple try to have a baby with the help of their best friend... but trouble lies ahead.
  • Night Moves (2013)
    Review preview for Night Moves

    Reichardt observes the game coolly, yet provides more than enough detail to show the contradictions in her players' gambits.

    Anton Bitel · 3.5 out of 5
    Three people plot an act of eco-terrorism.
  • The Runaways (2010)
    Review preview for The Runaways

    There's a wham, bam, thank you, man, quality to this music biopic that makes it a pleasurable rock rush that's easy on the eye, even if it fails to do much more than skate the surface of the band of its title.

    Amber Wilkinson · 3.5 out of 5
    Rock biopic.

News and features

Paul Rowley on moving to New York, the Pulse massacre, and Gays Against Guns

Cash on delivery Ben McKenzie on economics, belief, cryptocurrency and Everyone Is Lying To You For Money

Going ape Antonin Niclass on character creation, empathy and animated short Into The Forest

Freeform Will Niava on grief, new immigrant experiences and Jazz Infernal

In silence Emir Kumova on child marriage in Türkiye, moral challenges and making The Witness

Taking a ride into liminal spaces Katharine Round on making documentary Ghost Town

Flying blind Michael Woloson and Scott Tinkham on improvisation, experimental writing and Littermates

More news and features

Festival coverage

Festivals
Cannes festival coverage, 2026

We're bringing you all the latest news and reviews from the Cheltenham International Film Festival, the Leeds International Film Festival, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Tallinn Black Nights.



We're looking forward to the French Film Festival and DOC NYC.



We've recently brought you coverage of the Belfast Film Festival, Halloween Frightfest, the Scottish Queer International Film Festival, Newfest, the London Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and Grimmfest.



Read our full for more.


Visit our festivals section.