★★★★ - THE POST - A surfing doco where understated storytelling meets beyond-spectacular visuals - Nazaré is a town of around 15,000 people on the Western coast of Portugal. During the summer, Nazaré's long golden beach is packed with tourists, as you would expect. But during the winter months,…

★★★★½ - THE POST - One of 2024’s most crowd-pleasing and uplifting cinematic experiences - Danny Markowitz (Fred Hechinger) and his beloved grandma Thelma Post (June Squibb) have always been close, but especially since her husband died two years ago. While he helps her adjust to new technologies,…

★★★★ - THE POST - We Were Dangerous: Young Kiwi stars shine in Heavenly-esque drama - Thirty years after Heavenly Creatures marked out Peter Jackson as film-maker to watch and introduced the world to the twin talents of Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet, another Christchurch-set and shot 1950s…

★★★★ - THE POST - Huppert c’est formidable in harrowing French whistleblower biopic - Covering similar ground to her 2017 Oscar-nominated performance in Elle, Isabelle Huppert’s latest drama is a riveting and rage-inducing biopic of France’s answer to Karen Silkwood. Originally hired to teach…

★★★★ - STUFF - Fede puts the fright back into the beloved sci-fi franchise - In 1986, it was the movie every self-respecting 12-year-old Kiwi boy wanted to see. When not playing Bubble Bobble at the local arcade or thrashing Madonna’s True Blue, we were plotting how we could see James Cameron’s A…

★★★★½ - NZ LISTENER Ghostlight is the kind of wonderful low-budget, high-talent indie movie that makes you wonder why everybody doesn’t make films like this. It’s the story of a working-class American family combusting in the wake of personal tragedy. Construction worker dad Dan (Keith Kupferer)…

★★★★ - THE POST - Doria Tillier is irrepressible as The Edge of the Blade’s Marie-Rose Astié de Valsayre. - With the Paris Olympics happening this week, it feels right to be watching a French film that starts with a demonstration of fencing. But, what is supposed to be a "demonstration of skills"…

★★★★ - EMPIRE - Despite a few early narrative bumps, it’s hard to imagine what more you could want from a movie with this pairing. Marvel has found its mojo again. - A word of warning: if you’re a deep-cut Marvel fan, you may want to arrive at Deadpool & Wolverine with several changes of underwear…