Reviews & features: Woody Allen

Five of the best cinematic unhappy endings

This Valentine's Day, enjoy some movies where the two leads don't live happily ever after

WARNING: This list contains major spoilers.

Opinion: What do we think of Roman Polanski's films now?

How we appreciate the work of controversial artists

With two of his most important films, 1965’s Repulsion and 1974’s Chinatown, heading for re-release, the question looms: how do we feel about the films of Roman Polanski now? The same as we would have had he not, a few years after making Chinatown, pled…

To Rome with Love

Woody Allen's latest is a joyfully silly tribute to the Italian capital

With his previous features Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen proved himself adroit at translating an American tourist’s view of the most beautiful (and undoubtedly clichéd) aspects of European culture to the big screen. Whereas…

Woody Allen: A Documentary

A funny and occasionally insightful overview of the American filmmaker

As a filmmaker Woody Allen is anything but showy; his films focus on characters, conversations and the absurd comedy of life, and whilst they are often beautifully photographed, Allen’s pictures, turned out at a steady rate of one a year, are defined by…

Woody Allen's To Rome with Love - trailer

The director delivers another Europe-set ensemble piece, with Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page and more

Woody Allen looks set to continue his love affair with Europe (following on from Midnight in Paris and Vicky Cristina Barcelona) with his latest release, To Rome With Love. The Eternal City forms a backdrop to various intersecting comedic tales…

Oscars 2012 - live blog

The List's lead film critic Hannah McGill delivers a play-by-play account of the big night

11.35pm The red carpet is underway. People nominated in obscure categories are meandering needily past the photographers, while publicists strop about holding signs that say things like ‘THIS PERSON HAS BEEN NOMINATED IN AN OBSCURE CATEGORY, PLEASE ACT…

Oscars 2012 - predictions

Some of The List's film critics give their predictions on who'll win what at the Oscars

Best Picture. The Artist; simplicity is the reason that is soars above the other Oscar bait. The Artist probably will win, as it has won pretty much everything else going. It deserves it - when was the last time a film came along that made everyone fall…

Midnight in Paris

Another warm and witty all-star comedy from Woody Allen

(12A) 94min Midnight in Paris is one of the warmest and wittiest Woody Allen films in recent memory. The jaunty manner and literary bent are reminiscent of Vicky Cristina Barcelona as Allen invests what could be a New Yorker short story with a…

Top five: Actors who steal the show from the animated characters they voice

In tribute to Johnny Depp's compelling performance in Rango

Johnny Depp is usually famed for his leading roles in Hollywood blockbusters, his ageless face always strikingly present on the promotional canvases. However, there is talk buzzing about his brilliance in his latest film Rango, where he plays…an…

You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger

Woody Allen's London-set comedy lacks vitality

(12A) 98min Sally (Naomi Watts) is frustrated with her marriage to failed writer Roy (Josh Brolin) and is struggling to understand her mother Helena (Gemma Jones) who has turned to a fortune teller to guide her through her break up with husband Alfie…

Whatever Works

(12A) 92min For comedy purists, and particularly aficionados of Jewish humour, there’s something quite delicious about the idea a Woody Allen and Larry David smack down. The director of Annie Hall and Manhattan meets the creator/star of Curb Your…

Synecdoche, New York: Crisis of faith

‘How many roads must a man walk down / before you call him a man?’ Is Bob Dylan’s most famous protest song really a surrealist riddle? What’s the road made out of, and will it hurt the tender soles of my feet? That’s the thing about the Jewish…

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

COMEDY/ROMANCE Another year, another execrable Woody Allen film. Our bankrupt Icelandic friends have a proverb for this kind of thing – ‘mediocrity is climbing molehills without sweating.’ Young Americans Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina…

Woody Allen - Cassandra's Dream

Glasgow Film Festival

With those thick-rimmed glasses, that wisp of brown hair and the deeply cut grooves in his forehead, Woody Allen owns one of the most iconic faces in American cinema. These days, at 72, it’s a little more wizened and walnut-like – presumably from all…

Mere Anarchy

COMIC TALES Back in the day, the artist formerly known as Allan Konigsberg appeared hell-bent on making one classic comedy movie after another. He also seemed to find time to knock up a trio of books with silly stories, philosophically daft musings…

Manhattan

(12A) 95min

In 1979 at the age of 44 years old Woody Allen made his one true masterpiece. Wonderfully enjoyable films - Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Love and Death and Annie Hall were behind him and there was much to follow. But in Manhattan Allen briefly…