Tomato 3/5 |
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (2006) |
"An informative and unashamedly apocalyptic documentary about the world’s obsession with oil that makes An Inconvenient Truth look positively chipper." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 5/5 |
A Prophet (2009) |
"Audiard reaches a new level with this impeccably modulated prison drama. This is exhilarating filmmaking, a movie which instantly takes its place alongside the greats of the crime movie genre." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
A Scanner Darkly (2006) |
"It's one hell of a trip, but a bit of a comedown." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Accident |
"It’s a story of overheated sexual jealousy, colliding male egos and long boozy days full of spite and point-scoring. It’s brilliantly cruel and only slightly dated." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 5/5 |
Adventureland (2009) |
"The whole enterprise is infused with a quality of feeling, an integrity, that is rare in such a commercial film." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 4/5 |
The Aerial (2007) |
"This wonderfully original little film is filled with tacit menace and ominous symbolism; it’s a work of curious and unsettling beauty." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Afghan Star (2009) |
"But the documentary reveals that tribalism is only one of the problems. “She should be killed,” says a young man of a female contestant who dared to dance on stage." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3.5/5 |
Afro Saxons (2008) |
"Big hair and bigger egos make for an entertaining and frequently amusing documentary." |
Sam Jordison |
Tomato 4/5 |
Afterschool (2009) |
"If there is one distinctive and promising voice to come out of the info-bite aesthetic of the YouTube generation it is Antonio Campos, whose debut feature Afterschool puts an intriguing spin on the high-school tragedy." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
The Agent (2009) |
"The Agent never really transcends its roots as a two-hander for the stage, but the director Lesley Manning does a good job of keeping things moving and production values are top notch." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 3/5 |
Alexandra (2008) |
"Apart from a thoroughly irritating background track of schmaltzy classical music, this is Sokurov at his shortest and most digestible." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
All About Eve (1950) |
"A total joy." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Alpha Dog (2007) |
"True, Alpha Dog is a film with no manners. But it has great nerve. What’s truly impressive is how the splintered story is buried by individual performances." |
|
Tomato 4/5 |
American Gangster (2007) |
"A cocksure upstart that has swaggered onto the scene, confident that it can take its place at the table with the big boys." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
American Teen (2008) |
" The documentary curriculum is sex, gossip and self-pity. Not exactly original, but disturbingly true." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
An American Werewolf in London (1981) |
"But in a “comedy horror” picture, the “horror” bits aren’t supposed to be this scary. He would have been better off dispensing with the comedy altogether." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 5/5 |
An Education (2009) |
"This is a wonderful, life-affirming picture that deserves all the prizes it will undoubtedly win. I can’t call it the best British film of the year because it’s still only October. But I’d be amazed if a better one comes along." |
Toby Young |
Tomato 3/5 |
Angel (2007) |
"The film bristles with contemporary subtext and takes swipes at mediocre artists who believe their own press, and the culture of celebrity." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Anna M. (2007) |
"Writer-director Michel Spinosa, harnessing a powerhouse central performance from Carré, has managed to hit the ground between giddy Hollywood thriller and brooding arthouse character piece." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Año Uña (2008) |
"The way that thoughts and images slip and slide over each other is inspired. If only the characters were slightly less emotionally monosyllabic." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Antichrist (2009) |
"We can scoff and dismiss it as the last gasp ravings of a deranged opportunist. Or we can look, unflinchingly, at Von Trier’s fantastically painful mirror and acknowledge the Id within us all. Now that is scary." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 5/5 |
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009) |
"Anvil! The Story of Anvil has to be one of the most engaging, big-hearted music movies yet made." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Appaloosa (2008) |
"This is no revisionist western designed to shock life into an unfashionable genre, rather a film that respects the conventions of the traditional western." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Ashes of Time Redux (1994) |
"Wong’s elliptical, enigmatic storytelling is lent a real lyricism by the stunning photography. It’s visually rich, drawn in a colour palette that includes searing acid yellows and scorched ambers and reliant on reflected light and layered images." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) |
"Andrew Dominik’s sensational film debags a cherished idol. Tyrone Power, Robert Wagner and Roy Rogers famously played Jesse James like Robin Hood. Brad Pitt plays him like a poisonous Mr Hyde." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Atonement (2007) |
"Starry, sexy and unmistakably British, Atonement is the kind of film that comes along all too rarely." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 4/5 |
Australia (2008) |
"If it sounds shallow and predictable, Australia is, in fact, anything but." |
Anne Barrowclough |
Tomato 3/5 |
Australia (2008) |
"Australia is an epic love story, and a quite extraordinary piece of kitsch. Everything about the film is wildly over the top." |
James Christopher |
Tomato 3/5 |
Avatar (2009) |
"Avatar, essentially, is a film we’ve seen before, boldly made to look like nothing we’ve seen before. It is truly the Star Wars of our age." |
Kevin Maher |
Tomato 4/5 |
Avatar (2009) |
"Avatar is an overwhelming, immersive spectacle. The state-of-the-art 3D technology draws us in, but it is the vivid weirdness of Cameron’s luridly imagined tropical otherworld that keeps us fascinated." |
Wendy Ide |
Tomato 3/5 |
Awaydays (2009) |
"All around him the movie drips with atmosphere. The evocative sense of place is overwhelming, and perhaps the real star. Birkenhead in 1979 may not have been like this. But it is now." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Across the Universe (2007) |
"The more this musical tried to look relevant, the more dated it felt." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Adam (2009) |
"It’s blandly inoffensive but also rather disingenuous, sidestepping the realities of Adam’s condition by investing him with a convenient idiot savant gift for astrophysics and the eyes of a puppy." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Afro Saxons (2008) |
"It’s an unpolished and slightly chaotic film that whisks the viewer breathlessly from salon to salon, without stopping to get to know any of the key characters in real depth." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat |
Against the Ropes (2003) |
"Meg Ryan is busily torpedoing any respect she might have accrued" |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Air Guitar Nation (2007) |
"Despite the film’s admirable brevity it’s still hard to maintain a wry ironic grin for a full 81 minutes." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat |
Alfie (2004) |
"Jude Law plays the limousine taxi driver like a sex-mad Alan Whicker, whisking us around the hot spots of Manhattan with a sardonic eye on the best places to pick up chicks" |
James Christopher |
Splat 1/5 |
Aliens in the Attic (2009) |
"Gremlins meets Goonies meets something stultifyingly inept in a sci-fi adventure for the very young." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 1/5 |
Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) |
"A mindless distraction." |
James Christopher |
Splat 1/5 |
Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007) |
"It’s the kind of family entertainment that makes you reach for the shotgun." |
James Christopher |
Splat 2/5 |
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009) |
"The Squeakquel is painfully high-pitched. It reaches frequencies that could make bats plummet from the sky, clutching at their little ears in agony. It’s as if a mosquito equipped with a power tool is attempting to drill its way through your eardrum." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Am I Black Enough For You |
"It all boils down to a complete lack of focus on the part of the film-makers. Not only do they fail to get their questions answered, they also run out of material so disastrously." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 1/5 |
Amelia (2009) |
"Hilary Swank is forced to deliver dialogue that sounds as if it was written in Chinese and then translated into English by a computer." |
Toby Young |
Splat 2/5 |
Angels & Demons (2009) |
"This graceless and overwrought piece of storytelling will probably earn a Pope’s ransom at the box office, despite its many flaws." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008) |
"Has a craven need to please." |
Kevin Maher |
Splat 2/5 |
Antichrist (2009) |
"Von Trier has mutilated his own film, turning it into a crazy, hysterical work that alienates the audience with its infantile shock tactics and tedious transgressions." |
Cosmo Landesman |
Splat 1/5 |
Antichrist (2009) |
"Given how desperate to shock the film is, it’s surprising that long swathes of it are so turgidly dull." |
Wendy Ide |
Splat |
Anything Else (2003) |
"Woody Allen tries to extend the shelf-life of his screen persona by hiring a younger, more marketable actor" |
Wendy Ide |
Splat 2/5 |
Anything for Her (2008) |
"Heavy-handed teases do very little for the overcooked melodrama." |
James Christopher |
Splat 1/5 |
Are We Done Yet? (2007) |
"The only thing in Steve Carr’s fatuous movie that earns a few giggles is John C McGinley’s silliness as a new-age builder." |
Edward Porter |
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