Jean Renoir is one of a few artists who can easily lay claim to being one of the finest filmmakers of any generation – his work stretched across the decades, and saw the director tackle every conceivable side of society through his elegant, fascinating works. One of his most interesting qualities was his ability to…

As they say, there’s no business like showbusiness – and no one will remind you of this fact faster than those working within the entertainment industry, whether for better or worse. Hollywood has had a preoccupation with telling stories about itself on numerous occasions, almost from the time it came into being – and over…

When it comes to looking at a film about important issues, we have to make a difficult decision in our adjudication – can subpar writing be redeemed through good intentions? This is a question we often have to ask, with the general consensus depending on both how effective the supposedly poorer writing is in contrast…

Ikiru (Japanese: 生きる) isn’t a film so much as it is a deeply moving voyage to the heart of the human condition, told through a fervent form of compassion rarely found in even the most empathetic works of cinema. Praising Akira Kurosawa for being a gifted filmmaker is the same as calling Mozart a talented…

Paddy Considine is one of those actors who many of us recognize, and whose presence we often appreciate, even if he’s not someone whose name we immediately can recall. However, he has proven himself to be a very gifted artist on countless occasions, to the point where his first attempt at stepping behind the camera…

The reappraisal of Ryūsuke Hamaguchi as not only one of the most interesting directors working in his native Japan, but one of the most important artists of the current generation on a global scale has been wonderful. He has been working steadily for over a decade, but has only recently managed to achieve a level…

Age has always been a fascinating theme when it comes to art, with the dynamic between those of different generations being the source of many interesting stories, several of them being quite touching. The problem with these stories is that not only do they sometimes veer towards controversy (especially when some of them dare to…

Many critics and viewers consider the peak of Yasujirō Ozu’s career to be Tokyo Story, an opinion that is difficult to go against, with the general consensus being that not only is this one of the prolific Japanese master’s finest works, but it is also one of the greatest films ever made. However, Ozu was…

One of the facts that we all have to accept at some point is that life just sometimes isn’t fair – and few stories portray this more vividly than that of Sandra Massart, the 7-year-old Belgian girl who was diagnosed with an extremely rare condition called metachromatic leukodystrophy (also known as MLD), a brain condition…

Without any hesitation or sense of hyperbole, I can boldly proclaim that Vittorio de Sica made what I consider to be the greatest film of all time, the absolutely stunning and deeply captivating Bicycle Thieves, a cinematic marvel that never fails to make an impact when I revisit it and see how the director managed…