Saturday 29th November 2025

Film

Can movie violence ever be fun?

“Because it's so much fun, Jan!” This was Quentin Tarantino’s answer when an interviewer asked him to justify on-screen violence. Few would disagree. From the thousands who flocked to...

One of the most urgent films of the year: ‘Urchin’ review

There are few films which have the power to change how you interact day-to-day...

The performance of watching: Cinema in the Letterboxd age

While watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) a few weeks ago,...

Film festivals should be more pretentious, actually!

Film festivals often get a bad rep. We’ve all heard the stereotype before: they...

The Epic Highs and Lows of Riverdale

'Riverdale is the teen drama to end all teen dramas. What started off as a fairly standard show about a teen murder mystery has evolved into essentially a parody of itself. '

WATCH3WORDS: Black Bear – Funny.Stifling.Psychodrama.

'Claustrophobic, erratic, and prickly all at once, Black Bear is an experiment in film which entangles its audience deep in its intellectual web.'

Dunkirk: the unknown soldier on screen

'The emptiness should be engulfing. Instead, when Nolan’s films work, they are spectacular.'

Seaspiracy: vegan propaganda or important warning?

Seaspiracy only offers one drastic solution: eliminate fish from our diet unless you are one of the 120 million who directly depend on it.

The Common DNA of the Snyder Cut and First Cow

To examine these films side by side would be insane. But insane ideas aren’t always bad ones, and I was curious whether Snyder might be on to something with this comparison.

WATCH3WORDS: Palm Springs – Exuberant.Poolside.Mayhem.

'By taking the well-known Groundhog Day storyline and injecting it with a healthy dose of sun, fun, and drug-fuelled nihilism, Palm Springs makes one of the dullest formats in the book suddenly enjoyable.'

Nomadland review: questioning American individualism

The ideals of rugged American individualism are a powerful national myth, so much so that when they are questioned, it can feel like an...

Donnie Darko: more than an average coming of age story

“I promise that one day everything’s going to be better for you.”

Seen and not heard: the film industry’s troubled relationship with female directors

Scarlett Colquitt responds to the claim that "women directed films have a softer tone" with an examination of role of female directors in today's film industry.

Dip your toe into Schitt’s Creek

Schitt’s Creek is a show where the main character talks to her many, many wigs. It is a show which manages to make a...

The revolutionary empathy of Sound of Metal

The legendary critic Roger Ebert described film as a machine for building empathy. No other medium has the power to allow the viewer to...

Coming of age with Beanie Feldstein

All teenagers hit that age where they are suddenly on the verge of adulthood whilst still clinging onto what is left of their childhood....

The Mandalorian, The Boys and the Battle for Second Place in the Streaming World

The pretenders are trying to beat Netflix at their own game, and will hope that The Boys and The Mandalorian respectively will bring in new, loyal subscribers

It’s a Sin: a sublime and sorrowful social history

Davies understands that tragedy is awfulness plus its antithetical counterpoint

A Recipe for the ‘Great British Sitcom’

It seems difficult to think of anything so integrally British as the phenomenon known as the ‘Great British Sitcom’. Up there with scones, Big...

Biting the hand that so rarely feeds us?: an honest review of Happiest Season

*Spoiler alert* At some point during the festive period, without fail, I curl up on the sofa and binge watch Christmas films. The usual contenders...

The Crown’s Unspoken Words

'I think, when it comes to any biopic, "real history" has to be deprioritised. If an accurate and chronological rendering of history is what you're looking for, watch a documentary!' Maebh Howell writes on the dichotomies of the biopic, asking which is to be prioritised; accurate truth-telling or entertaining story-telling.

Cherwell’s best films of 2020

Our film team have put together a list of the years best, from the stylish and disorientating, Waves, to Charlie Kaufman's mind-bending masterpiece, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, and the slow-burning romance of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Revisiting Godard’s ‘Breathless’ 60 years on

'Godard gives us a film that shows the white knight as the charlatan we always knew him to be and offers us the anti-hero instead. And after decades of excessively moralistic cinema, this breath of fresh air was thoroughly needed.'

Is Love Actually actually sexist?

Disclaimer: before I massacre the entirety of its script, Love Actually is one of my favourite films. I watch it every year without fail....

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