Philip Bell

What a disaster - high school ‘satire’. Pointless and pedestrian.Cameraperson blind, director mute. Go to the pub instead.

This movie is an aesthetic and 'philosophical' mess. Incoherent, verbose, overstated, repetitive and unengaging. It's neither "magical" nor "realist" and seems to have been made to show off the special effects of the McCaw (aka a sentimental Grim Reaper's emissary). Hard to give it even one star. Good cinema is not illustrated literature.

Gianni Amelio has a record of directing and writing deeply affecting films over half a century. "Holding Hands" engages with the issues that have preoccupied him in much of his oeuvre. It is confronting, but not despairing, teh work of an older director, but one that never descends to sentimentality.

Engaging, tight filmaking in the social-realist tradition. Ending too abrupt, but this does not detract from the moving portrait of an "normal" young woman's struggle and resilience. The bleak scenario is saved by moments of incidental grace, by the brilliant performance of its principal and its accomplished direction that sustains a close dark mood without melodramatics.

A masterpiece that draws the audience into the intimate affections and awkward ambiguities of families celebrating and grieving the life of one of its members. Moving without sentimentality, rigorous but never pretentiousness. A humane film in which women and children sit on the toilet and have innocently philosophical conversations about things that matter to families, indeed to all of us. What a brilliant achievement.

Timeless, joyful, sophisticated fun. Hollywood at its best. See it if you haven't already (many times).

Great doco about Simon as a musician, continually developing and experimenting with new forms. Settle in for a few hours and be generously rewarded.

Romantic Francophilia with style. No-one should like this old-fashioned self indulgence, but the direction and Juliette Binoche overcome even the most cynical viewer's feminist misgivings.

Wonderfully realised version of Highsmith's novel. Stylishly Cinematic, cold and heartless; a film noir rendered in the most beautiful monochrome. HItchcockian editing, including a Macguffan or two. Highsmith's way of implicating the viewer in Ripley's psychopathy is fully captured by the director who manages the temporal structure brilliantly. Then there's Caravaggio not to mention a series of unsettling inquisatorial hotel staff. The cinematography may be pure white, but the humour pitch black.

Nostalgic Englishness knows no limits. This movie is a turkey , though some of the swearing is rather engaging. And the acting is over-the-top-amusing