On Cinema
Reel hell of the Western Front
The director wanted to show things as they were – badly-led, no one wanting to fight or knowing what they were fighting for, says Christopher Silvester
Untrue story of the Kelly Gang
For a folk hero this Ned has zero contact with the ordinary Irish folk who will supposedly come to love him, says Christopher Silvester
The toughest role
The most successful modern actor-director, Clint Eastwood, rejects “the auteur crap”
Right-on cue
As usual, the Academy flagellates itself over insufficient African American Oscar contenders
Charlie’s cardboard feminists fall flat
Bad jokes, no chemisty, lame action: the snoozathon that’s not woke enough
Longing for more
Some of the greatest movies ever made were incredibly long. But is a film lasting 13 hours just too much?
The gang master
Martin Scorcese’s new Mafia movie is the culmination of a great career
The problem with petty scandals
They distract us from state failure and institutional decay
Reaping a bitter harvest
Labour are struggling to justify their own policies
The age of reason, sliced and diced
No historian wields Ockham’s razor more effectively than J.C.D. Clark
Two cheers for pedestrianisation
Pedestrianisation cannot solve all of Oxford Street’s problems
Power and authority
The development of British towns in the 17th and 18th centuries
BoJo’s Life of Johnson
Exclusive extracts of perhaps the best autobiography by a former Conservative prime minister called Boris
A house divided
American partisan divisions are the result of social atomisation
Some picture-perfect restorations
What we were seeing looked as good as it would have at its premiere
Paved with gold?
Why towns were a magnet for aspirational Englishmen
The Bar should say “bye” to EDI
Barristers should not have to follow ever more extensive equality standards
Is “progressive realism” either?
Weighing up the rights and wrongs of the Lammy Doctrine
