Reviews by Amber Wilkinson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  The Electric Kiss (2026)

  Review preview for The Electric Kiss

  The chemistry between Demoustier and Marmaï is at least one Van de Graaff’s worth and Lellouche’s Armand has a playful ambivalence that works well.

  A grieving artist tries to reconnect with his dead wife via a clairvoyant, who is in fact a penniless performer who has cooked up a ruse.
• 
  Ghost Town (2026)

  Review preview for Ghost Town

  More poetic than narrative, its disparate stories connecting as a sort of shared elegy to what and whom has been lost.

  Documentary takes a ride in a series of taxis in a Japanese city that was devastated by a 2011 tsunami.
• 
  Heat (2026)

  Review preview for Heat

  Zünd’s film comes at extreme climate change from a human perspective, showing its impact on those who live in the region.

  After envisioning a near future in which climate change disrupts lives and relationships in Don’t Let the Sun, Zünd seeks out that same dystopia in the real world.
• 
  The Illusion Of A Quiet Night (2026)

  Review preview for The Illusion Of A Quiet Night

  The strength of The Illusion Of A Quiet Night lies in the huge range of perspectives it contains.

  Filmed during one night in July 2025 by forty filmmakers and hundreds of citizens, The Illusion of a Quiet Night paints a vast collective portrait of war-torn Ukraine.
• 
  Walud (2025)

  Review preview for Walud

  This may be a short film but co-writers and co-directors Daood Alabdulaa and Louise Zenker take their time to build the world.

  When an ISIS fighter brings home a second wife, his first wife's life is thrown into turmoil.
• 
  Tulips (2025)

  Review preview for Tulips

  Straightforward in drama terms, Tulips blossoms emotionally thanks to the touching performance from Shaw Parker.

  Student filmmaker Sophie accompanies her parents to document her grandfather’s last day in his home before being relocated due to dementia.
• 
  Bugboy (2026)

  Review preview for Bugboy

  A film all about connections, what begins as a tale of bug and boy itself metamorphoses into a tender consideration of a father and son relationship.

  George, a shy teenager with an eye disorder, struggles to connect with others after his parents’ divorce and finds refuge in the world of insects.
• 
  Tirrenica (2026)

  Review preview for Tirrenica

  Has its moments in terms of the characters who are observed but suffers from a lack of cohesive editing and, most crucially, a map to help orient non-Italian viewers.

  Documentary observing the lives and the history of a highway connecting Italy's south and north.
• 
  Mariinka (2026)

  Review preview for Mariinka

  Its jagged edges serve to illustrate the unpredictability of living – and in his case, working – in a warzone.

  Documentary focused on young adult residents of a town on the frontline of the Russian/Ukraine conflict, shot over a decade.
• 
  Ask E. Jean (2026)

  Review preview for Ask E. Jean

  Her experience could be Exhibit A for anyone trying to articulate the reasons survivors stay silent through fear of blowing up their own lives rather than their attackers’

  Charting E. Jean Carroll's life, including her court case showdown with Donald Trump.
• 
  Chimney Town: Frozen In Time (2026)

  Review preview for Chimney Town: Frozen In Time

  The animation is a constant delight even if the balance between the stories is uneven.

  Young chimney sweep Lubicchi finds himself in a mysterious realm where he is drafted in to help restart a stuck clock in order to return home.
• 
  Candidates Of Death (2026)

  Review preview for Candidates Of Death

  Candidates Of Death becomes a quiet celebration of all the positive things that can come from creative endeavour besides the end product itself.

  A father goes on holiday with his son and two of his friends, during which time they make an amateur horror film together. As the years pass, they continue to shoot scenes for their “handcrafted,” carefree, imaginative horror project, with even more passion, dutiful consistency, and unwavering commitment: the documentary chronicles a decade of this adventure.
• 
  Around Paradise (2026)

  Review preview for Around Paradise

  The observational style means the film stops short of being truly illuminating.

  In Caazapá, the “city of magic and legends”, two Paraguayan students are searching for happiness, gold and a magic bird. Their European dropout neighbours are hoping for freedom, healing and salvation from Armageddon. Everything has its price.
• 
  Dua Ji (2026)

  Review preview for Dua Ji

  Full of delicate emotion and attention to detail.

  Tensions rise in a family as siblings gather for their mother's funeral.
• 
  Eructation (2026)

  Review preview for Eructation

  Trow's approach has a pleasing Wes Anderson vibe

  Documentary about a woman's attempts to break the world record for the loudest burp.
• 
  The Alabama Solution (2025)

  Review preview for The Alabama Solution

  No other Oscar nominee will make you feel angrier this year.

  Clandestine phone footage and interviews reveals the shocking conditions inside Alabama's prison system.
• 
  The Perfect Neighbor (2024)

  Review preview for The Perfect Neighbor

  The film is a triumph of editing by Viridiana Lieberman, in terms of storytelling

  A seemingly minor neighbourhood dispute in Florida escalates into deadly violence. Police bodycam footage and investigative interviews expose the consequences of Florida’s 'stand your ground' laws.
• 
  Filipiñana (2026)

  Review preview for Filipiñana

  Sociopolitics spritzes delicately, like the water from the club's sprinklers, over the whole affair.

  Tee girl Isabel feels strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club where she works. However, after piecing together a violent picture of what lies beneath the club’s pristine surface, she realizes that what began as an innocent infatuation is actually rooted in a sinister shared history.
• 
  Wolfram (2025)

  Review preview for Wolfram

  Thornton demands a certain level of patience from the audience as the narratives mosey along, but his control of mood is a major asset.

  A couple of kids try to find their mother in a land full of colonial outlaws and danger.
• 
  Árru (2026)

  Review preview for Árru

  Gaup Beaska is an accomplished yoiker, so perfectly cast as Maia, the primal pull of this often ululating music matched by lyrics that speak of her character's connection to her Sámi culture.

  Sámi reindeer herder Maia fights to protect her ancestral lands from a looming mining project.
• 
  Trial Of Hein (2026)

  Review preview for Trial Of Hein

  What gives Stänicke’s film the edge is the clever way he shifts the focus so that the narrative becomes less about the community than Hein himself.

  A man returns to his island village after 14 years and finds himself facing a trial to decide if he is really who he claims to be.
• 
  Papaya (2025)

  Review preview for Papaya

  Told entirely without dialogue but with an upbeat, summery score from Talita Del Collado, it has an eco-conscious vibe.

  Papaya, a tiny seed in the Amazon rainforest who is passionate about flying, must keep moving to avoid taking root. But when she discovers the power of her roots, it triggers a revolution that transforms her world and fulfils her dreams in an unexpected way.
• 
  Pillion (2025)

  Review preview for Pillion

  The constant contrast is the trick, which later extends to the emotional stakes.

  A man is taken on as a motorbike club's leader's submissive but begins to question that role.
• 
  Frank & Louis (2026)

  Review preview for Frank & Louis

  If both stars aren’t mentioned in awards talk next year, it will be a travesty.

  Frank, serving a life sentence, takes a prison job caring for ageing inmates with Alzheimer’s and dementia. What begins as a self-interested bid for parole becomes a profound, transformative bond with fellow inmate Louis, offering Frank a glimpse of redemption in an unforgiving place.
• 
  Neil Armstrong And The Langholmites (2025)

  Review preview for Neil Armstrong And The Langholmites

  The recollections are delightful and affectionate, while also emphasising the everyday self-deprecating loveliness you’ll generally find in Britain if you make it your business to chat to a stranger.

  Documentary considering the day Neil Armstrong became a Freeman of Langholm in Scotland.
• 
  Nuisance Bear (2026)

  Review preview for Nuisance Bear

  By viewing the situation, at least initially, mostly from the perspective of the bears, the directors ask us to consider who exactly is trespassing on whose turf.

  A polar bear is forced to navigate a human world of tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as its ancient migration collides with modern life. When a sacred predator is branded a nuisance, it becomes unclear who truly belongs in this shared landscape.
• 
  Josephine (2026)

  Review preview for Josephine

  De Araújo is particularly good at evoking the emotional turmoil Jo feels.

  After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety while adults are helpless to console her.
• 
  Hot Water (2026)

  Review preview for Hot Water

  It’s not that the journey is unpleasant but the stakes are very low and the lack of tension leads it to feel overstretched as a result.

  After he’s kicked out of his Indiana high school, an American kid and his Lebanese mom hit the road west.
• 
  Without Kelly (2025)

  Review preview for Without Kelly

  Cinematographer Christine Leuhusen also skillfully employs light, so the action moves from a warm shared bathtime to the much starker vibe of Kelly’s dad’s apartment, which matches the mood.

  A young woman tries to cope after dropping her daughter off with her ex.
• 
  Train Dreams (2025)

  Review preview for Train Dreams

  There are no doubt those who would argue this magic-hour drenched vision of America through the 1900s is a bit too chocolate-boxy for their liking but the weight of tradition can exert an impressive pull and does so here.

  Robert Grainier is a day laborer building America’s railroads at the start of the 20th century as he experiences profound love, shocking defeat, and a world irrevocably transforming before his very eyes.
• 
  Orwell: 2+2=5 (2025)

  Review preview for Orwell: 2+2=5

  Offers food for thought in the realm of a slightly ungainly and sprawling all-you-can-eat buffet rather than a satisfying sit-down feast.

  Delves deep into Orwell’s final months and visionary works to explore the roots of the vital and troubling concepts he revealed to the world in his dystopian masterpiece… Doublethink, Thoughtcrime, Newspeak, the omnipresent spectre of Big Brother… disturbing socio-political truths which resonate ever-more powerfully today.
• 
  Baab (2025)

  Review preview for Baab

  Al Kahja takes a confident but slow-burn approach.

  A woman's life begins to unravel as she tries to discover the truth behind her sister's death.
• 
  I Saw The Face Of God In The Jet Wash (2025)

  Review preview for I Saw The Face Of God In The Jet Wash

  As a ramble through ephemera, it won’t be for everyone but there’s a beguiling quality to many of the moments.

  An experimental collage of ephemera and memory from the filmmaker's travels.
• 
  Happy Birthday (2025)

  Review preview for Happy Birthday

  While bringing home the injustice of life for Toha, Goher treads a careful line so as not to turn the adults into cartoonish 'bad guys', which makes the situation all the more upsetting.

  An eight-year-old maid gradually discovers her place in the pecking order on the day of her friend's birthday.
• 
  Think Of England (2025)

  Review preview for Think Of England

  This is about war being fought in a moral maze as Hawkins considers the invasion of space owned by others and the way that borders, both physical and ethical, can be redrawn from a very corporeal perspective.

  During the Second World War group of six people is delivered to an uninhabited island with a secret mission – to make some pornographic films which in the government’s opinion should boost the fighting morale of the boys at the front.
• 
  Days Of Wonder (2025)

  Review preview for Days Of Wonder

  Pennanen’s approach is eclectic, which matches her subject.

  When Finnish director Karin Pennanen’s uncle Markku died after decades of isolation, she entered his house for the first time in 34 years and uncovered a world no one had seen: an immense archive of paintings, compositions, writings, audio diaries, videotapes, and even notes on how a film should be constructed.
• 
  The Good Daughter (2025)

  Review preview for The Good Daughter

  Director Júlia De Paz Solvas shows the effect a violent and manipulative father can have on others without giving him the centrestage attention he would crave – notably we never even hear his name.

  A teenager finds herself being manipulated by her violent father after her parents divorce.
• 
  Anemone (2025)

  Review preview for Anemone

  Day-Lewis Jr pays attention to his actors and frames them in ways that make monologues count but there’s a lot of unnecessary brooding about in between times.

  Estranged brothers reunite in a remote cabin and are forced to confront their painful past.
• 
  China Sea (2025)

  Review preview for China Sea

  Lithuanian director Jurgis Matulevičius, inspired by the true tragic story of an MMA fighter who was ‘cancelled... gives a tale of being washed-up a bleakly hard boiled and distinctive eastern European tang.

  A 'cancelled' MMA fighter finds refuge in a Taiwanese family’s restaurant but struggles to change his path.
• 
  Flophouse America (2025)

  Review preview for Flophouse America

  Strømdahl keeps us within the apartment for virtually the whole film, watching as Mikal tries to negotiate the unpredictability of Tonya and Jason or retreats into a world of video games.

  Documentary following a boy living in a motel with parents who struggle with alcohol abuse.
• 
  Because Today Is Saturday (2025)

  Review preview for Because Today Is Saturday

  Guimarães engaging and flowing style offers a sort of stream-of-consciousness guide to the woman's day.

  Animation shows a mother struggling to find personal space within the grind of family life.
• 
  The Marbles (2025)

  Review preview for The Marbles

  Heartfelt and thorough

  The story of the Parthenon marbles and the controversy surrounding their potential return.
• 
  Belén (2025)

  Review preview for Belén

  A largely straightforward drama that is a bit too structurally loose for its own good, Argentina’s Oscar nominee is buoyed considerably by Fonzi’s own central performance.

  An innocent woman jailed for self-inducing an abortion fights for her freedom.
• 
  Goodbye Sisters (2025)

  Review preview for Goodbye Sisters

  While the sisters are unguarded around the camera and often caught in close conversation, Murphy also knows when to hang back so that we get a picture of them in their environment, which emphasises the majesty of the Himalayas but which also captures a sense of their smallness against the world.

  Twenty-one-year-old Jamuna accompanies her younger sister on what could be their last trip to the mountains to join their family harvesting yarsagumba, a rare and valuable fungus.
• 
  Cotton Queen (2025)

  Review preview for Cotton Queen

  A beguiling mix of magic-realist fable, coming-of-age drama & post-colonial critique.

  In Sudan, Nafisa picks cotton and learns from her grandmother. The arrival of a young businessman, threatens to change their way of life.
• 
  Milk Teeth (2025)

  Review preview for Milk Teeth

  Mincan – who grew up in the period depicted himself – doesn’t need to make the politics or shifting social structures overt, they are just baked in.

  During the last days of Nicolae Ceausescu’s reign, a 10-year-old girl witnesses her sister’s disappearance.
• 
  Mare's Nest (2025)

  Review preview for Mare's Nest

  Rivers' dreamlike approach has the quality of memory in places, full of figments and fragments, although that inevitably means some episodes are more engaging than others.

  A child's adventures in an adult-free world.
• 
  Kenny Dalglish (2025)

  Review preview for Kenny Dalglish

  Fans will be familiar with most of what is presented here but it’s the voiceover from Dalglish and others that elevates this to a must-see for them.

  Documentary charting Dalglish's rise at Celtic and time at Anfield.
• 
  Depeche Mode: M (2025)

  Review preview for Depeche Mode: M

  Although chiefly a concert film, Frias also includes more experimental segments in which Mexico’s relationship with death is considered.

  Captures the band's 2023 Mexico City shows, blending concert footage with interstitial elements, exploring music, mortality, and Mexican culture's relationship with death.
• 
  The Smashing Machine (2025)

  Review preview for The Smashing Machine

  Repetition also works against Safdie, with matches towards the end of the film feeling as though he is labouring the point.

  The story of legendary mixed martial arts and UFC fighter Mark Kerr.