On Cinema
Women directors screened out
Christopher Silvester on Mark Cousins’s latest documentary
Do mention the war
The Deer Hunter remains the most affecting of Vietnam movies, Christopher Silvester writes
The mobster and the Method
Al Capone’s relationship with the movies goes back a long way, writes Christopher Silvester
Lockdown Cinema
Staying frosty in plague times
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?
Most Read
The lonely death of Henry Nowak
We must draw lessons from a horrendous and disgraceful case
A failed war on fags
The black market has taken over the tobacco trade Down Under
Thank God for Brexit
The EU is a bureaucratic monster and Britain is better off out
I don’t trust the British state
British institutions simply are not functioning in the interests of the people they are meant to serve
American strategy in Iran is wiser than it seems
President Trump’s intervention will leave the world safer than it was
Lost in translation
Attempting to understand the lives and thought of our ancestors can teach us about ourselves
Unreadable red bile
This anti-capitalist screed is profoundly and irredeemably fatuous
What on Earth is the point of the Lib Dems?
With neither power nor principles, the party is an absolute waste of space
Trump: the imprudent king
The President has so far achieved the opposite of what he promised
An anti-gambling bonanza
Don’t expect a lot of objective and thorough research from a new “gambling harms” organisation
The screaming spires
Oxford University must clarify where it stands on academic freedom
Zurbarán on Freud’s couch
An acclaimed new exhibition is full of overwrought symbolism and compositional failures
Dining in a different world
Transported by a restored institution
All the single ladies
Instead of trying to persuade reluctant women into motherhood, policymakers should focus on helping enthusiastic parents have larger families
Britain’s next moral panic
Half a century after abandoning state-backed “treatments” for homosexuality, Britain risks replacing one coercive system with another
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill is a masterclass in self-defeat
Labour’s tobacco crackdown will fuel crime, hurt retailers, and push smokers towards worse habits