Film
The great pretender
In the past Werner Herzog has given us a man pushing a ship up a mountain, a 16th-century conquistador going…
Going through the motions
Resistance stars Jesse Eisenberg and tells the true story of how mime artist Marcel Marceau helped orphaned Jewish children to…
Black lives didn’t matter
Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods is about four African-American vets who return to Vietnam to locate the body of their…
The lost boys
The roots of incel subculture – and its magnificent memes – stretch back to Goethe’s Werther and beyond, says Nina Power
Allen key
A Rainy Day in New York is Woody Allen’s 49th film and it’s not been without its troubles. When accusations…
Catastrophe
At the outset of lockdown I gave you my list of top mustn’t-watch films — that is, the ones that…
There’s something about dairy
You may be asking yourself: have I reached that point in lockdown where I’m watching Icelandic dramas about the price…
Macbeth at the movies
The world’s greatest playwright ought to be dynamite at the movies. But it’s notoriously hard to turn a profit from…
Who can still make a Sunday joint last a week?
Sunday lunch was always roast beef and, in the traditional way, the Yorkshire pudding was served first with gravy, supposedly…
The Heckler: Why does anyone still rate Vertigo?
Here’s something that may interest you. Or not. (Could go either way.) I was looking over Sight & Sound’s ‘100…
Doggie style
This week I’d like to point you in the direction of the British Film Institute and its free online archive…
Antique dildos
Danny Brocklehurst, the scriptwriter for Sky One’s Brassic, used to work for Shameless in its glory days — although if…
Nerd mentality
How do you tell a great story? According to Craig Mazin, you have to be a sadist. ‘As a writer,…
Deborah Ross
First, the latest digital film release: The Assistant, starring Julia Garner in a slowly, slowly, catchy, catchy tale that won’t…
On the contrary
The Spectator arts and books pages have spent 10,000 issues identifying the dominant cultural phenomena of the day and being difficult about them, says Richard Bratby
View from the back end
From Enoch Powell to Danny La Rue: Hilary Spurling looks back on her time in charge of the arts and books pages in the 1960s
French fancies
The selection of a film for family viewing is a precise and delicate art, particularly with us all now confined…
Captive audience
This film contains flying children, time travel and a sand monster that lives under a beach — yet the most…
Foreign language TV is without the political correctness spoiling English drama
Every cloud has a silver lining. Never again are you likely to have a better opportunity to catch up with…
Georgia on my mind
The film you want to see this week that you mightn’t have seen if you weren’t stuck at home is…
Untruthful
To tell you the truth about The Truth, even though it stars Catherine Deneuve at her most Catherine Deneuve-ish (i.e.…
Difficult women
The director of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, talks to Sarah Ditum about her new biopic of Marie Curie, exile from Iran and her fears for the future of democracy
When perving was the norm
Misbehaviour is a film about the 1970 Miss World contest that was disrupted by ‘bloody women’s libbers’ — that’s what…
What a scorcher
Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire is set on a remote, windswept Brittany island in the late 18th…
Lost in translation
You won’t find much Jane Austen in the myriad adaptations of her novels, says Claire Harman
