THREE AND A HALF STARS Jerry doesn't believe the government belongs in his life or that of his son, an idea that leads them nowhere good. DRAMA US English #SOVEREIGN Starring Nick Offerman, Jacob Tremblay Writer-director Christian Swegal’s debut feature SOVEREIGN is an ambitious, deeply unsettling mirror held up to our fracturing society. It’s a bloody, brooding, occasionally brilliant study of idealised fatherhood and ideological decay — a small-town action thriller with th

THREE STARS It's time for another, perhaps final, spin around The Estate with the Crawley family. PERIOD DRAMA UK English #DOWNTONABBEY Starring Michelle Dockery, Hugh Bonneville After more than a decade of silver service, romantic entanglements and polite scandal, DOWNTON ABBEY : THE GRAND FINALE arrives like a well-polished silver tray bearing one last cup of tea. Julian Fellowes’ farewell to the Crawley family doesn’t reinvent the wheel - nor does it try to - but it’s a w

TWO AND A HALF STARS Carey is shocked that his best friends have an open relationship. He decides to join them - what could go wrong? COMEDY USA English #SPLITSVILLE Starring Kyle Marvin, Michael Covino SPLITSVILLE begins with a bold promise, to tease a sharp, unconventional look at love, marriage and the messy, unspoken rules of friendship. The premise - one open marriage upending two couples - is ripe for provocation, handled with stylish compositions, witty banter and a w

TWO STARS When Elizabeth dies, both her wife and son are visited by her ghost. She's not in a good mood. DRAMA NZ English #WENTUPTHEHILL Starring Vicky Krieps, Dacre Montgomery WENT UP THE HILL opens when Jack meets Jill (yeah) at a funeral for a woman who isn’t ready to leave. Samuel Van Grinsven’s feature, starring Vicky Krieps (CORSAGE) and Dacre Montgomery ( Stranger Things) , wants to be a ghost story, a trauma drama, and a psychosexual provocation. What it mostly is, h

THREE STARS Following an incident, Agnes is struggling to let go and reconnect with her life. DRAMA USA English #SORRYBABY Starring Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie At their best, movies can give voice to feelings we can’t quite put into words. That’s the territory writer/director Eva Victor aims for in her debut SORRY, BABY - a tender, messy and droll exploration of personal trauma. Victor also takes acting duty as Agnes, a late-twenties academic who’s stayed put in the sleepy colle

THREE AND A HALF STARS A warm, witty tribute to one of the Antipode's warmest and wittiest satirists, John Clarke. DOCUMENTARY AUSTRALIA English #BUTALSOJOHNCLARKE Starring John Clarke, Sam Neill There’s a moment in BUT ALSO JOHN CLARKE when Clarke pauses mid-sentence, eyes twinkling, as if he’s found a thought too good to rush. It’s a reminder of why he was so loved – the sharp mind, the deliberate pace, and the effortless knack for exposing absurdity without ever raising h

ONE AND A HALF STARS A warring couple fail at therapy, at marriage and are struggling to stay alive. COMEDY USA English #THEROSES Starring Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch The movie treads a dangerous line. There are times when its ferocity threatens to break through the boundaries of comedy to become so unremitting we find we cannot laugh”.  That was the late Roger Ebert talking about Danny DeVito’s THE WAR OF THE ROSES (1989). What would he make of Jay Roach’s remake as

THREE AND A HALF STARS A defence lawyer is convinced his client is innocent. And he might be right. DRAMA FRANCE French #THETHREAD Starring Daniel Auteuil, Grégory Gadebois THE THREAD takes the true crime formula and turns the volume way down. This isn’t a lurid, procedural bloodbath. Instead the violence of murder stays implied and, apart from one photo, offscreen with director-star Daniel Auteuil guiding the pace like a Sunday afternoon stroll. The title could refer to the

THREE AND A HALF STARS Thanks largely to PH Burton, Richard Jenkins would become one of the 20th century's most celebrated actors. PERIOD DRAMA UK English #MRBURTON Starring Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey Richard Burton’s career is as well documented as his marriages but less well known is the boy behind the man behind the legend. Marc Evans’ MR BURTON takes us back to the beginning, to Port Talbot in the 1940s, when the Welsh miner’s son was still Richard Jenkins. This is no stra

THREE AND A HALF STARS A valuable painting, long thought lost to history, is found hanging on the wall of a young man who wants nothing to do with it. DRAMA FRANCE French #THESTOLENPAINTING Starring Alex Lutz, Léa Drucker THE STOLEN PAINTING plays out like a smartly cut thriller, but what really lingers isn’t the mystery — it’s the slow, satisfying excavation of character. Beneath its Parisian gloss, this is a study in how money can corrode almost anything it touches, even t