The warmly (read: ridiculously hotly) anticipated Incredibles 2 may have already dropped stateside, but here in the U.K. we finally get to catch up with the Parr family at the end of this week. To mark the occasion, I recruited a group of fellow film fanatics to present you with this: a detailed, definitely definitive ranking of every other Pixar film so far. That's Toy Story right through to Coco. We all scored the films out of ten, forged an average (which you can see next to every title on this list), and the rest is clear. Does little Nemo swim his way to the top spot? Do Carl ..read more

There's nothing more exciting than the reinvigoration and golden age of a genre. What with Arrival and Interstellar and The Last Jedi and Blade Runner 2049 (which I did eventually come around on), it's exactly what's happening to science fiction right now. While these are all terrific films, what each of them lack is ambiguity - despite the complicated shenanigans going on, everything is ultimately explained on screen. A big part of me has been longing for a film to bring back the unavoidably alien enigma and mystery of, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey (the defining science fi ..read more

I figured it was high time I updated this list. We'll dive straight into this one as it's bound to get rather long. I've limited it to one episode per show, for obvious reasons, and beware - there are spoilers... 20. "Modern Warfare" Community (2010) I wasn't a huge lover of Community as a show. In fact I gave up with it around the midpoint of its second season, but even the show's biggest naysayers would struggle to deny the ingeniousness of season one peak "Modern Warfare". Spoof episodes are a tough beast to crack, but Community made it look easy - everything plays out with a h ..read more

There's something to be said for a film as dedicated to its intentions as Francis Lawrence's Red Sparrow. It's precisely the kind of film that knows in microscopic detail what sort of tone it wants to hit, what form of story it wants to tell. It's unafraid of its potential controversy, willing to indulge itself in dark, sinister moments. It assembles an all star cast and travels around the world, setting scene after scene in stunning, picturesque environments. So, I ask, why does it never leap off the screen? Red Sparrow is more of a spy film than a thriller one, which may not quite be ..read more

I'm just diving straight into this one: this is strongest Best Picture lineup in a very long time. I think you'd have to go back to the 83rd Academy Awards in 2011 to find a lineup as relentlessly good as the one we have here. This year's roster includes a film with more bullets than words, a film about some posters, a film involving the sexualisation of fruit, a film about small spotted insects, a film about dresses, a film about newspapers and a film about a woman falling in love with a fish. I might be under selling them a bit, most of them really are great. I promise. Let's take a look a ..read more

How do you write a film that is based on cliches but have it still feel entirely new? The answer is to write it so well, so touchingly and emotionally, that the cliches become more than just that. They become character defining, they feel personal to both character and auteur. Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut Lady Bird is the perfect example of such film making. The number of cliches and conventions her coming of age film lands on couldn't be counted on two hands, and yet Gerwig writes them with a deft of touch - in just her first solo-penned script she displays an elegancy and a h ..read more

The time is upon us once again! That's right, it's Oscar night. Tomorrow. We have a terrific lineup of films this year, but as per usual there's the wide variety of disappointing misses: The Last Jedi probably should've crept its way into Cinematography and Production Design too; Twilight alumni Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart both should've made the Best Actor/Actress cut for their work in Good Time and Personal Shopper, respectively; maybe the tenth Best Picture slot could've been occupied by Mudbound or Blade Runner 2049, multi-nominees this year that both lack any bi ..read more

A trend I have in my reviews is that when a once great director has made a really, seriously poor film, I'll draw attention to their earlier work write at the start of the review. See: Tomas Alfredson's The Snowman from last year. That time has come once again. Duncan Jones once directed Source Code. Let's just pause for a moment and let that sink in. And we're off. I don't like opening reviews with hyperbole but if I see a worse film in 2018 than Mute I'll quite frankly be impressed. Not only is this just a monumental misfire in terms of science fiction cinema, it's perhaps more ..read more

My original Blade Runner 2049 review can be found here. When I first watched Dennis Villeneuve's sequel to the 1982 cult classic, I found it overlong, aimless and dull. I wasn't a fan of Ridley Scott's original, which perhaps tempered my ultimate disappointment in Villeneuve's 2049 - something I didn't want to feel, as Villeneuve is one of my favourite directors working today. Yet, even with the lack of connection I felt towards 2049, I've found myself thinking about it a lot lately. Hearing the soundtrack and catching the odd clip here and there, I realised I wanted to give the film a ..read more

After the disappointment of the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, Marvel settled into a bit of a groove. Spider-man: Homecoming served up a new take on both the origin story and Spider-man as a character himself, while the excellent Thor: Ragnarok found the multi-billion dollar studio at their most playful and experimental, handing the reins over to indie director Taika Waititi and allowing him to improvise a whole bunch of the film - a risk not many huge studios would take. Next up in the MCU's offerings is Black Panther, the first full length feature for the character since hi ..read more