My favourite films of 2019

2019 has been a funny old year as far as my film ratings have gone. There have been a whole bunch of solidly good films, but there’s been nothing which has really taken my breath away or stopped me in my tracks in the manner that, say, Moonlight did a couple of years ago. But …

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

There is so much going on in this film I actually don't know where to start. Perhaps by saying that I liked it, though I didn't love it. Then, I'm not generally one for animations so it must have been doing something good. I liked the way that it acknowledged what even peripheral audiences know …

Avengers: Infinity War

Well, folks, it's all been building up to this point. 18 films and how many years down the line, Thanos finally closes in on the complete gauntlet and it's all hands on deck to try to stop him. And obviously, all these hands squished into one film mean there's a lot going on. On the one hand, …

Black Panther

Hail King T’Challa! The Black Panther character was an exciting addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Captain America: Civil War and his appearance headlining his own story does not disappoint. The opening scene beautifully sets out the story of Wakanda with some gorgeously crafted imagery to aid the story-telling. Wakanda is a beautiful country. …

My favourite films of 2017

Compiling this list of 2017 films has been an interesting task. There are usually a couple of films which miss the previous year's deadline due to UK release dates, but it's not often that so many of them make my 'best of' list. This year, some of my favourite films on this list may seem …

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Yay! As I was waiting for the lights to dim in the cinema, I remarked to my cinema companion that I hoped this film "didn't go all Guardians of the Galaxy". I've seen previous films by director Taika Waititi and, while I enjoy his humour a lot, I didn't want Thor and his surroundings to descend to …

Spider-Man: Homecoming

No doubting from this that Tom Holland is an excellent casting choice for Peter Parker/Spidey. He has youthful enthusiasm and radiates a genuine desire to just do good things for his neighbourhood. Yes, he's dazzled by the possibility of becoming an Avenger but at heart he's just a teenager struggling with the usual high-school stuff …

Logan

A film about ageing, ailing and family; this is not your usual superhero movie. In many ways. We've perhaps become accustomed to these cinematic universes being filled with lots of characters, either helping each other out or beating each other up. Here, we get a small unit, almost a family, who mostly end up in …

My favourite films of 2016

Being very strict with myself this year and definitely sticking to a top 10. It hasn't been easy, and you can see a ranking of my 2016 film viewing here. The top 12 and bottom 5 are in order, but the stuff in between is more of a general reflection than anything precise. One note - …

Doctor Strange

Woah. So many things in this film seemed incredibly familiar, which is strange (sorry) since I went into this with zero knowledge of the character and having only seen the teaser trailer. Eschewing a training montage in favour of letting the audience work out that time had passed and skills had been acquired was actually …