Showroom Cinema

• 2019
• US
• 2h 2min
• 12A

• Directed by: James Gray
• Cast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland

In the near future, Roy McBride (Pitt) is an astronaut searching for his father Clifford (Jones), himself a pioneering space explorer. But Roy’s classified mission turns deadly. Gray’s stellar third film is a huge step up, mixing horror and action with deeper themes and anchored by a dazzling turn from Pitt, who has never been better.

• 77%
• 81%

• read review
• more info & trailer

• 2019
• UK
• 1h 29min
• 15

• Directed by: Mark Jenkin
• Cast: Edward Rowe, Isaac Woodvine, Mary Woodvine, Simon Shepherd

Martin (Rowe) is a boat-less Cornish fisherman trying to restore his family fortunes by catching fish any way he can. Jenkin uses silent cinema techniques to turn the tensions in a fishing village into riveting drama, shooting in black and white on a clockwork Bolex. A pertinent, leftfield take on class warfare.

• 78%
• 84%

• read review
• more info

• 2019
• UK
• 2h 2min
• PG

• Directed by: Michael Engler
• Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Laura Carmichael, Michelle Dockery, Joanne Froggatt, Elizabeth McGovern, Maggie Smith

A big screen outing for Downton Abbey and its inhabitants.

• 78%
• 60%

• read review
• more info & trailer

• 2019
• UK
• 1h 35min

• Directed by: Waad Al-Khateab, Edward Watts

A documentary on life in Aleppo, filmed by al-Kateab over five years, as she and her husband Hamza set up a volunteer-run hospital. A powerful testament to the resilient people of Aleppo, with tragedy and heartbreak but also camaraderie and occasional resigned levity: urgent filmmaking at its finest.

• 86%
• 91%

• read review
• more info

• 1935

• more info

• 1996
• US
• 1h 38min
• PG

• Directed by: Danny DeVito
• Written by: Nicholas Kazan, Robin Swicord
• Cast: Mara Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Embeth Davidtz, Pam Ferris

Capturing the delicious wickedness of Roald Dahl's writing, director De Vito fully exploits exaggeration and playful camera work to tell the tale of a gifted child who uses her super brain to outwit her neglectful parents. Offsetting the loveable Matilda against a series of horribly inflated bad characters, the film's empowering message for children will appeal to the mischevious kid in everyone.

• 69%
• 72%
• 90%

• more info

• 2019
• UK
• 1h 31min

• Directed by: Adrian Noble
• Cast: Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Spall, Wendy Morgan

LS Lowry (Spall) is a meek Salford rent collector dominated by his bedridden mother Elizabeth (Redgrave), but his secret passion for painting is about to bring him success. Hesford’s clichéd script feels more like a stage or radio play but Spall and Redgrave manage to bring substance to the bickering; still, it’s glum, downcast and lacking insight.

• 67%
• 39%

• more info

• 2019
• US / UK
• 2h 45min

• Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
• Cast: James Marsden, Margot Robbie, Leonardo DiCaprio

Past-his-peak actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stuntman and buddy Cliff Booth (Pitt) are living in Hollywood in 1969; then Sharon Tate (Robbie) and her husband Roman Polanski move in next door. Compelling and provocative, but uneven; for all the fine performances, black comedy and savage violence, Tarantino may have bitten off more than he can chew.

• 80%
• 83%

• read review
• more info

• 2019
• Spain
• 1h 53min

• Directed by: Pedro Almodovar
• Cast: Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz, Leonardo Sbaraglia

Retired director Salvador (Banderas) reflects on his life while one of his older movies is being restored. This is Almodóvar on subdued, melancholic form, and while the film’s standoffish tone prevents us from feeling fully involved, the director’s sense of cinema remains undiminished.

• 77%
• 82%

• read review
• more info

• 2014
• Germany
• 1h 38min
• 12A

• Directed by: Christian Petzold
• Cast: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf

Berlin, 1945: Nelly (Hoss), a camp survivor and burns victim, returns home to find that her husband (Zehrfeld) fails to recognise her, believing her to be a stranger who resembles his dead wife. Despite compelling performances, remarkable design and authentic historical anguish, the basic premise is so implausible that the film can't quite recover.

• 73%
• 89%
• 98%

• read review
• more info & trailer

• 2019
• UK
• 2h
• 15

• Directed by: Joanna Hogg
• Cast: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton, Richard Ayoade

Julie (Swinton Byrne) is an unworldly filmmaking student, balancing her work with a fraught relationship with Foreign Office worker Anthony (Burke). Swinton Byrne gives a fine, unaffected performance (with her own mother Swinton as Julie’s stiff but loving mother) and Hogg provides a brilliant, unsparing portrait of her own creative evolution.

• 66%
• 92%

• read review
• more info