Reviews on the Best UK Movies of All Time
Top British Films
Director: Peter Jackson 15 | 1h 39min | Documentary , History , War | 16 October 2018 (UK) RATING: ★★★☆☆ On the centenary of the First World War, Academy Award-winner and Lord of the Rings maestro Peter Jackson finally presents his long-gestating project made in collaboration with both 14-18 Now and the Imperial War Museum: […]
Director: David Lowery PG-13 | 1h 33min | Comedy , Crime , Drama | 7 December 2018 (UK) Playing London Film Festival 2018 RATING: ★★★★☆ I don’t know if actor Robert Redford had told director David Lowery he was retiring from acting before signing on to The Old Man and Gun, but this charming, graceful […]
Director: James Ivory 15 | 2h 20min | Drama, Romance | 18 September 1987 (USA) RATING: ★★★★☆ Merchant Ivory’s award-winning adaptation of E.M. Forster’s autobiographical novel, will open at BFI Southbank and selected cinemas UK-wide from 27 July 2018. This handsome-looking Merchant Ivory British drama is getting a 4K digital re-release this August courtesy of […]
Director: Kevin Brownlow PG | 1h 33min | Drama, Fantasy, War | 12 May 1966 (UK) Screening at the BFI 23 July and out now on remastered bluray This week the Smoke Screen caught a special BFI re-release of the chilling and provocative counterfactual WWII Brit thriller It Happened Here, the work of director Kevin […]
The Smoke Screen is often out and about soaking up film knowledge through Q&As and pre-film lectures, so the Lexi’s Cinema’s ‘Film School’ series of screenings preceded by prominent film speakers is right up the proverbial alley. Last week The Lexi’s LSF screening was a milestone in the documentary genre: Grey Gardens. Directed by the quartet […]
The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have sparked an industry wide conversation and actions in response to widespread harassment and abuse of power. Not a bad time for the BFI to be hosting a summit titled “Woman with a Movie Camera” then. The Smoke Screen dipped into one of the panel discussions – “Before and After […]
Courtesy of a preview screening at Curzon Mayfair, attended by the Ida and My Summer of Love director himself, the Smoke Screen can bring you an advance look at Pawel Pawlikowski’s new drama Cold War, hot from a Best Director prize win at Cannes. The film hits UK cinemas and digital VOD 31 August. Director: Pawel […]
Director: G.W.Pabst Germany 1929| 129m| U RATING: ★★★★★ Find out more about the reissue at the BFI website. Here we have a sumptuously shot and deliriously melodramatic Weimar-era silent film from G.W. Pabst, that is a superb showcase for the luminous 22-year old star Louise Brooks, who plays a call girl and chanteuse called Lulu […]
Picturehouse Central 31 May-3 June. See Picturehouse Central Sundance website for details
Prisoner Pair Tacita Dean 2008Courtesy the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris National Portait Gallery and National Gallery to 28 May. National Portrait Gallery details National Gallery details RATING: ★★★★★ Thanks to a collaboration between the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy, each of these esteem institutions […]