The Last Front review – old fashioned first world war drama fights familiar battle
Iain Glen is a sturdy presence leading a Belgian village’s resistance to the German advance, but there are limp scenes and soggy cliches aplenty
September 2024
First look review
Without Blood review – Angelina Jolie’s lacklustre war drama is another misfire
The actor and activist again struggles to convince as a film-maker with a well-meaning yet unconvincing adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s novel
August 2024
Campo di Battaglia review – medicos face off in stately first world war hospital drama
Mark Kermode on film
Mark Kermode on… Martin Scorsese’s love of British cinema
July 2024
Three review – Yugoslavian trilogy of tales tracks the horrors of the second world war
Mark Kermode on film
Mark Kermode on… Kathryn Bigelow, a stylish ruffler of feathers
June 2024
Donald Sutherland: a life in pictures
Donald Sutherland, Don’t Look Now and Hunger Games actor, dies aged 88
May 2024
The Boy in the Woods review – boys’ own tale of Holocaust fugitive forced to fend for himself
True story of Jewish boy in flight from the Nazis and hiding in the forest is told here with a fair amount of sentiment
Rome, Open City review – Rossellini’s blazingly urgent masterpiece from a city in ruins
Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 neorealist drama is unsparing in its depiction of the heavy price of both resistance and collaboration with the Nazi occupation
Land of Bad review – Russell Crowe marches on in explosive action thriller
Crowe plays an irascible army veteran opposite Liam Hemsworth’s rippling rookie field agent – but stunts overshadow suspense
April 2024
Wendy Ide's film of the week
Civil War review – Alex Garland’s chilling dystopian thriller of journalists in a conflict-riven US
Before Dawn review – Anzac drama needed a bigger budget or a better script
March 2024
Yodha review – bone-crunching patriotism on display in adrenaline-fuelled thriller
First look review
Civil War review – Alex Garland’s immersive yet dispassionate war film
The Shamrock Spitfire review – Irish flying ace takes stage in nostalgic wartime weepie
From the Guardian archive
The Deer Hunter reviewed: ‘more a romantic melodrama than a realist document’ – archive, 1979
February 2024
Fortunes of War review – up-and-at-em spirit in tale of Brits on the run from the Wehrmacht
A bit of directorial zest, a serviceable lead and some Dirty Dozen energy are the only weapons in the arsenal of this otherwise plotless movie
January 2024
Fighter review – India’s pizazz-free Top Gun weighed down by patriotic propaganda
Liberation review – moral dilemma of uneasy last days of Nazi occupation in Denmark
