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Jonathan Romney

Tomatometer-approved critic

Reviews

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Rosebush Pruning (2026) 35% EDIT “It’s also lusciously styled -- there are few directors as creative with colour as Aïnouz. But it’s a bloodless affair, its shock tactics utterly mechanical. ” – Screen International Feb 19, 2026 Full Review At the Sea (2026) 38% EDIT “This is the kind of film in which characters express their agonies with bursts of interpretative dancing. It could almost have been cooked up by a big Hollywood studio expressly to discredit the very idea of arthouse cinema.” – Observer (UK) Feb 19, 2026 Full Review The Blood Countess (2026) EDIT “Mischievously but lovingly sending up vampire lore, as well as Huppert’s lofty image, it’s a slight but highly marketable treat.” – New Statesman Feb 19, 2026 Full Review We Are All Strangers (2026) EDIT “This involving, if slightly over-extended, drama isn’t afraid to tug the heartstrings... But it is an intelligent film in a mode of Asian domestic drama thematically adjacent to such auteurs as Hirokazu Kore-eda and Edward Yang.” – Screen International Feb 19, 2026 Full Review Rose (2026) 100% EDIT “On one level, it’s a manifesto for self-invention and for gender equality, with Rose as a sort of domestic Joan of Arc fighting the established order. It’s also a meticulously mounted historical study, and a starkly beautiful one.” – Screen International Feb 19, 2026 Full Review Everybody Digs Bill Evans (2026) 100% EDIT “This is a bold film about a protagonist who barely speaks while everyone talks around him. Lie’s nuanced, mumbling reserve is astonishing; Laurie Metcalf and a bullishly affable Bill Pullman are terrific as his folks.” – New Statesman Feb 19, 2026 Full Review The Red Hangar (2026) EDIT “Scripted by Luis Emilio Guzmán, the film succinctly and with intense control conveys a sense of events happening in a nightmare rush in a world that has changed literally overnight. ” – Screen International Feb 19, 2026 Full Review Nina Roza (2026) EDIT “There's a lot at stake thematically -- both in terms of heritage and identity, and of more specific art-market questions. But the film's ruminative tone and self-consciously moody stylistics make for an overall solemnity that is hard to engage with.” – Screen International Feb 17, 2026 Full Review Queen at Sea (2026) 91% EDIT “More than holding its own alongside other prominent dramas about the ravages of age, Queen at Sea tackles its themes fearlessly, thanks to rigorous execution and a quartet of superb performances.” – Screen International Feb 17, 2026 Full Review Dao (2026) EDIT “Dao’s sheer capaciousness will either pull viewers in completely or deter them, but anyone willing to immerse themselves in its teasing drift between realism and experiment will find it a compelling proposition.” – Screen International Feb 14, 2026 Full Review Only Rebels Win (2026) EDIT “Most successful overall is the interplay between Benrachid and Abbass. He has a warm, gentle demeanour, affectingly portraying an easy-going, tender-hearted but fallible young man, while Abbass gives a characteristically authoritative performance. ” – Screen International Feb 14, 2026 Full Review Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (2025) 97% 3/5 EDIT “There are themes of cultural conflict that the film raises, but is too delicate to fully confront, and the gratingly twinkly score doesn’t help. Still, there is undeniably beauty here — if you can handle it all being a bit watery. ” – Financial Times Feb 12, 2026 Full Review Crime 101 (2026) 87% 4/5 EDIT “The film is manifestly aware of its ancestors, among them the Michael Mann canon, Walter Hill’s The Driver and the Steve McQueen titles that are prominently namechecked. That’s some calibre; Crime 101 pretty compellingly measures up to it. ” – Financial Times Feb 11, 2026 Full Review The Chronology of Water (2025) 90% 3/5 EDIT “The film isn’t entirely compelling — its relentlessness may distance you as much as draw you in... But you have to applaud Stewart and Poots for climbing on to a high board and diving in fearlessly.” – Financial Times Feb 6, 2026 Full Review My Father's Shadow (2025) 98% 4/5 EDIT “The casting is inspired... And Dìrísù’s tender, thoughtful, strong presence — his face often framed in the tightest of close-ups — evokes Folarin’s virtues as a father and a man, as well as his imperfections. ” – Financial Times Feb 6, 2026 Full Review 100 Nights of Hero (2025) 68% 3/5 EDIT “...overall, Jackman contrives to balance message, mischief and idiosyncratic jewel-box elegance. ” – Financial Times Feb 6, 2026 Full Review Rabbit Trap (2025) 47% 4/5 EDIT “The script occasionally lapses into awkward passages of mystico-poetic rhetoric; otherwise, Rabbit Trap creates an insidious imagistic poetry of its own.” – Financial Times Jan 29, 2026 Full Review Saipan (2025) 92% 3/5 EDIT “...Saipan may not always be transparent to non-initiates, but it astutely balances the episode’s resonance — rooting it in Irish national self-confidence at that period — with droll touches of humdrum domesticity. ” – Financial Times Jan 23, 2026 Full Review Mercy (2026) 24% 2/5 EDIT “...Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) makes Mercy...a brain-frying mess of noisy agitation.” – Financial Times Jan 23, 2026 Full Review People We Meet on Vacation (2026) 76% 1/5 EDIT “As it happens, neither the film nor its couple is terribly interested in anyone they meet on vacation, they’re so smugly absorbed in each other...” – Financial Times Jan 9, 2026 Full Review Giant (2025) 61% 3/5 EDIT “Giant is solid, energetic, at times visibly somewhat cut-price. It’s also more than a little schematic, but in terms of its going back to the simple lessons of the tarnished-triumph sports drama, you can see why Stallone would want to be involved ” – Financial Times Jan 8, 2026 Full Review Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (2023) 100% 4/5 EDIT “The subject matter may be cooked, but Wiseman serves it fresh and ungarnished.” – Financial Times Jan 2, 2026 Full Review The Fall Guy (2024) 82% EDIT “They all bring characterful flesh-and- blood mischief to what could otherwise have been a calculated mirror game of reality and illusion.” – Sight & Sound Dec 31, 2025 Full Review David Bowie: The Final Act (2025) 70% 2/5 EDIT “Stiasny’s account feels scrappy and unfocused, though it contains occasional grist.” – Financial Times Dec 30, 2025 Full Review The Housemaid (2025) 74% 2/5 EDIT “Everything is twisty — except the clichés, which come at us dead straight.” – Financial Times Dec 30, 2025 Full Review
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