Reviews by Jennie Kermode

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  10,000 BC (2008)

  Review preview for 10,000 BC

  Entirely constructed from flaws, it's in a class with Ultraviolet.

  When the woman he loves is taken by slavers, a young mammoth hunter sets out to try and save her.
• 
  1000 Voices (2009)

  Review preview for 1000 Voices

  With such powerful subject matter it would be difficult to make a film that didn't leave an impression.

  Dark animation which gathers together voices of detained asylum seekers.
• 
  100 Bloody Acres (2012)

  Review preview for 100 Bloody Acres

  Herriman is perfect in the lead.

  Two enterprising brothers from the Australian boondocks launch a rickety business selling organic fertiliser - with a secret ingredient.
• 
  100 Candles (2020)

  Review preview for 100 Candles

  It's a crying shame that this good work has been so clumsily packaged.

  A group of friends reunite to play a game. Each one of them expects to get something out of it - but there could be a deadly price.
• 
  100 Nights Of Hero (2025)

  Review preview for 100 Nights Of Hero

  Where the film succeeds is in the visual design of its world.

  A fairy tale about a maid who concocts a plan to help her mistress.
• 
  100 years (2016)

  Review preview for 100 years

  Although this film lacks polish and doesn't have the dynamism one might hope for with a subject of this type, Cobell herself is a strong presence, and its historic importance is considerable.

  The story of Elouise Cobell, who took the US government to court over its mishandling of Native American money.
• 
  10 Rillington Place (1971)

  Review preview for 10 Rillington Place

  Richard Fleischer's 1971 film attempts to reconstruct events and, in the process, delivers one of the most genuinely chilling entries in the serial killer canon.

  The story of London serial killer John Christie.
• 
  12:08, East of Bucharest (2006)

  Review preview for 12:08, East of Bucharest

  This is a delightful, multi-layered film which has much more to say than is apparent on the surface.

  Three men search for the truth about the Romanian Revolution - and has anything really changed?
• 
  12.12: The Day (2023)

  Review preview for 12.12: The Day

  Much of the drama takes place in isolated rooms and corridors, with Kim demonstrating a masterful ability to command viewer attention.

  Following the assassination of South Korea's President Park in 1979, various military factions wrestle for control during a violent coup.
• 
  The 12 Day Tale Of The Monster That Died In 8 (2020)

  Review preview for The 12 Day Tale Of The Monster That Died In 8

  Putting Covid-19 in a monster movie context is psychologically significant: it gives us the power to imagine its defeat.

  An actor buys capsule monsters online to defeat Covid-19.
• 
  12 Hour Shift (2020)

  Review preview for 12 Hour Shift

  A splatter-happy romp through one night in the organ trade.

  Nurse Mandy is just trying to make it through her double shift alive, but her nasty drug addiction, annoying coworkers, needy patients, and devious cousin are making it pretty tough, not to mention organ-stealing criminals and an injured convict.
• 
  12 Years A Slave (2013)

  Review preview for 12 Years A Slave

  One of this year's must-see films, this is not simply a worthy tribute of a subject too often ignored by Hollywood; it's also a remarkable piece of cinema in its own right.

  A free black man is abducted and sold into slavery.
• 
  13 Assassins (2010)

  Review preview for 13 Assassins

  With lines like 'We will turn this quiet little town into a town of death,' what's not to love?

  A retired samurai has to assemble a squad of assassins and set a town-sized trap.
• 
  13 Sins (2014)

  Review preview for 13 Sins

  It's a challenging genre to take on - one in which it's difficult to deliver surprises or present complex characters - but Stamm has acquitted himself well.

  A down-on-his-luck man is offered the chance to win a fortune by completing 13 challenges.
• 
  14 Cameras (2018)

  Review preview for 14 Cameras

  14 cameras is at its strongest when depicting the conflicts that Gerald's behaviour, which quickly extends to stealing from his tenants and messing with their stuff, provokes between them.

  The owner of a holiday rental home uses hidden cameras to spy on his guests and stream their activities to the dark web.
• 
  15 Summers Later (2011)

  Review preview for 15 Summers Later

  It could be the set-up for a disturbing thriller. Instead, 15 Summers Later plays out as a delicately balanced observational comedy.

  A woman visiting a lonely beach with her boyfriend bumps into a high school friend, with bittersweet comic consequences.
• 
  16 Years Till Summer (2015)

  Review preview for 16 Years Till Summer

  16 Years Till Summer shows what can be done on a low budget with patience, insight and attention to detail.

  A convicted criminal returns home to nurse his father, bringing a dangerous mix of troubled past and big ambition into the lives of those that love him.
• 
  18½ (2021)

  Review preview for 18½

  Plays out with the same mixture of import and absurdity which marked the scandal as a whole.

  In 1974, a White House transcriber is thrust into the Watergate scandal when she obtains the only copy of the infamous 18½ minute gap in Nixon's tapes.
• 
  1-800-Hot-Nite (2022)

  Review preview for 1-800-Hot-Nite

  Young makes a spirited lead, effortlessly conveying the emotional tumult of his character whilst giving him a sufficiently strong core that viewers of all ages will be able to relate to him.

  When 13-year-old Tommy loses his father to a drug raid, he embarks on an urban odyssey guided by a phone sex operator and with the help of his two best friends.
• 
  18 To Party (2019)

  Review preview for 18 To Party

  Roda is interested in the little things that make up the stuff of life at that age.

  It's 1984 and outside a small-town nightclub, a group of young teenagers gather, grappling with a spate of recent suicides, UFO sightings, their absentee parents, and each other.
• 
  1915 (2015)

  Review preview for 1915

  1915 does an impressive job of balancing different perspectives and concerns around the issue of remembrance.

  Exactly 100 years after the Armenian Genocide, a theatre director stages a play to bring the ghosts of the past back to life.
• 
  1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture (2022)

  Review preview for 1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture

  This isn’t a plea for people to swap one source of authority for another. The focus is on encouraging us to think for ourselves.

  The mystery of how theology, history, culture, and politics led to a Biblical mistranslation, the man who tried to stop it, and the impassioned academic crusade of the LGBTQIA+ Christian community driven to discover the truth.
• 
  1985 (2018)

  Review preview for 1985

  What is not said is every bit as important as what is, and we are invited to observe the numerous ways in which the characters communicate without words.

  A closeted gay man spends Christmas with his strict Christian family.
• 
  1985 (2016)

  Review preview for 1985

  A poignant remembrance for those who were lost, this film also highlights the way in which individual deaths impacted wider communities.

  A dying man seeks out a beauty consultant to hide his symptoms.
• 
  1BR (2019)

  Review preview for 1BR

  Marmor resists the temptation to over-explain, yet every time you think you see a way out, some new confounding factor will emerge.

  Terror in an apartment complex.
• 
  1 Girl Infinite (2025)

  Review preview for 1 Girl Infinite

  A beautifully played, character-driven story, 1 Girl Infinite explores feelings that have grown up in the absence of analysis, without any social framework through which to make sense of them.

  In Changsha, Yin Jia and Tong Tong have carved out a life together, but when Tong Tong begins a relationship with a drug dealer, the devoted Yin Jia is prepared to sacrifice all that she has.
• 
  20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1954)

  Review preview for 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

  Nemo may prefer a diet of marine delicacies but there's never any danger that his vessel will run short of ham.

  A professor and two sailors find themselves prisoners aboard rogue submarine the Nautilus.
• 
  20,000 Species Of Bees (2023)

  Review preview for 20,000 Species Of Bees

  Otero, who is in almost every scene, carries the film with her fresh and naturalistic performance, which is perfectly complemented by Solaguren’s impressionistic style.

  An eight-year-old explores her identity over a summer in the Basque country.
• 
  2012 (2009)

  Review preview for 2012

  Never fear, the requisite monuments duly get what's coming to them.

  Solar activity brings about the end of the world as we know it, but a handful of people are determined to survive.
• 
  20th Century Boys (2008)

  Review preview for 20th Century Boys

  A bit like a Kevin Smith version of Cloverfield, but in a good way.

  A former rock star now working in a convenience store discovers that his childhood stories have inspired a megalomaniac with apocalyptic visions.
• 
  21 (2008)

  Review preview for 21

  Kevin Spacey is really the highlight of the film. Every scene he's in springs to life, his laid back performance blowing the younger cast out of the water.

  A group of card counting college kids try to take the dealers of Vegas for a ride.
• 
  25th Hour (2002)

  Review preview for 25th Hour

  No filmmaker since Woody Allen has loved New York like this, but Lee is prepared to show it in all its stark ugliness.

  A drug dealer Edward Norton has 24 hours to make amends with his high school buddies.
• 
  27 (2023)

  Review preview for 27

  Although Buda makes use of comedy here, it’s always underlined with a recognition of the strain of being unable to be one’s whole self.

  Alice lives at her parents' place at the age of 27 with no private life or a relationship. It takes a bicycle accident and a short coma to make her realize that it's time to move out.
• 
  28 Days Later (2002)

  Review preview for 28 Days Later

  Zombies stand in for the plants in what is otherwise a fairly straightforward adaptation of Day of the Triffids.

  Survivors run from infected killers after apocalyptic rage virus devastates Britain.
• 
  2-Headed Shark Attack (2012)

  Review preview for 2-Headed Shark Attack

  There are a lot of bad shark movies out there but this is one of the weakest.

  A group of young people is forced to abandon a holed ship for an unstable island as a mutant shark attacks.
• 
  The 2nd Repatriation (2022)

  Review preview for The 2nd Repatriation

  Kim’s film is patiently, sensitively constructed, allowing plenty of room for his subjects to speak for themselves.

  A documentary about long term political prisoners who, though they ‘converted’ through coercion, still hope for repatriation to North Korea.
• 
  3 (2010)

  Review preview for 3

  A film that is both intellectually stimulating and visually satisfying.

  Things become complicated when two halves of a couple separately develop illicit interests in the same man.
• 
  300 (2006)

  Review preview for 300

  This is, from start to finish, a damn fine mindless action romp.

  An adaptation of the Frank Miller comic about the real life struggle of 300 Spartan soldiers to hold a pass against the full might of the Persian army.
• 
  31 (2016)

  Review preview for 31

  It's exploitation cinema but it's made with care.

  A group of carnival performers are kidnapped and forced to fight for their lives in a deadly maze.
• 
  31 North 62 East (2009)

  Review preview for 31 North 62 East

  Underneath the film's problems, an edgy little thriller is struggling to get out.

  A lone survivor causes problems for the political conspirators who sacrificed her army unit.
• 
  32 Sounds (2022)

  Review preview for 32 Sounds

  If you listen closely to what this film has to say, you won’t listen to the world the same way afterwards.

  A meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.
• 
  3-Headed Shark Attack (2015)

  Review preview for 3-Headed Shark Attack

  Although you'll have to wait a long time to see our squaline hero mess with the wrong Mexican, when the moment comes, it makes it all worthwhile.

  Ocean pollution leads to the development of a three headed shark with a hunger for human flesh.
• 
  3-Iron (2004)

  Review preview for 3-Iron

  This isn't the sort of golfing film most fans of the sport are used to...

  The silent love affair between a battered wife and a respectful intruder.
• 
  3 Days To Kill (2014)

  Review preview for 3 Days To Kill

  The comedy and thriller aspects of the film don't always gel but the character work is generally strong enough to carry us through it.

  A retired secret agent facing terminal brain cancer is persuaded to take on one last job, but has to try and look after his estranged teenage daughter at the same time.
• 
  3 Days With Dad (2019)

  Review preview for 3 Days With Dad

  Clarke puts a lot of trust in his actors, allowing room for personalities to emerge naturally.

  A man who reluctantly returns to his hometown to see his dying father is confronted with news that changes his whole perspective on life.
• 
  3 Years In Pakistan: The Erik Audé Story (2018)

  Review preview for 3 Years In Pakistan: The Erik Audé Story

  Erik's story is not in itself an extraordinary one, but it's his determination to share it and to tell the stories of the people he met, to talk about both suffering and the generosity he encountered, that marks the film out.

  A documentary about a stuntman arrested for drug smuggling and imprisoned in Pakistan.
• 
  4000 Days (2026)

  Review preview for 4000 Days

  An important contribution to a still pertinent debate.

  A documentary about a group of parents determined to change the law after their children died during college fraternity hazing rituals.
• 
  4.1 Miles (2016)

  Review preview for 4.1 Miles

  The suffering on display here is relentless, but it's the form of the film, not just its content, that gives it its power.

  A documentary about a coastguard captain whose life changes when boats full of refugees begin arriving in the waters around his small Greek island.
• 
  42nd Street (2025)

  Review preview for 42nd Street

  Like its subject, the film is a fusion of styles.

  On a vibrant Dominican street, dancers and artists chase stardom while battling police oppression. Their raw expression and rebellious spirit create an electrifying clash of culture, authority, and artistic freedom.
• 
  42 Seconds Of Happiness (2016)

  Review preview for 42 Seconds Of Happiness

  This is a film possessed of a rare emotional intelligence.

  Tensions reach boiling point among a group of friends gathered for a wedding as a cyclone threatens the area.