Five star - Latest 5 Star Film Reviews from the Guardian

Three Colours: Red review – Kieślowski’s absorbing exploration of the lives of others
In what was to be his last film, the final chapter of the director’s trilogy considers our incurious habits by brooding on coincidence and fate - Peter Bradshaw
Godland review – beauty and terror in magnificent study of church-building priest
Hlynur Pálmason’s fictional account of a Danish pastor sent to Iceland in the 19th century is superb in its compositions and nuanced depictions of hostility - Peter Bradshaw
Superman review – Christopher Reeve’s superhero origin movie still looks swell
Richard Donner’s 1978 event movie brought Hollywood grandeur, a great John Williams score and a gentlemanly hero quite unlike any other - Peter Bradshaw
Three Colours: White review – Kieślowski’s expert black comedy of gangster capitalism
The middle film in the Colours trilogy features Julie Delpy as it takes a dagger to both France and Poland’s conception of equality and meritocracy - Peter Bradshaw
Top Hat review – stylishly madcap dance film with Astaire and Rogers cheek to cheek
This madcap musical from 1935 about an American dance star visiting London swirls effortlessly back into cinemas, with classic songs from Irving Berlin - Peter Bradshaw
Three Colours: Blue review – Binoche as charismatic as ever in Kieślowski masterwork
Krzysztof Kieślowski’s meditation on love and fate is the first in the trilogy to be rereleased 30 years on - Peter Bradshaw
The Beasts review – breathtakingly tense Galician thriller
A French couple’s dreams of the good life in rural northern Spain descend into all-out war with the locals in Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s superbly acted drama - Wendy Ide
A Compassionate Spy review – love story of scientist who tried to stop nuclear war
Steve James’s engrossing documentary tells the story of Ted Hall, a young physicist who leaked nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in order to protect the future of mankind - Phil Hoad
Big Boys review – an achingly brilliant queer coming-of-age classic
Isaac Krasner delivers a sublime breakout performance as a lovestruck teen in Corey Sherman’s restrained but magical debut - Ryan Gilbey
The Age of Innocence review – Scorsese’s brilliant tragedy of New York society manners
Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer are powerfully matched as guilty lovers in an Edith Wharton adaptation that bears comparison with Hollywood’s golden age classics - Peter Bradshaw
Reality review – word-for-word replay of FBI interrogation is uncannily brilliant
Using the transcript of the arrest of whisteblower Reality Winner, Tina Satter’s superb piece of verbatim cinema asks questions about how power is wielded in real life - Peter Bradshaw
Blue Jean review – Rosy McEwen is riveting in powerful section 28 drama
McEwan plays a teacher leading a double life in homophobic Thatcherite Britain in Georgia Oakley’s terrific debut feature - Wendy Ide
Women Talking review – a stellar ensemble energises Sarah Polley’s timeless parable
The Canadian director’s finely balanced drama about the abuse, secrets and shame of an isolated religious community boasts wonderfully nuanced performances, yet the real action lies in its knotty central argument - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Saint Omer review – witchcraft and baby killing in extraordinary real-life courtroom drama
Alice Diop’s unnerving fiction feature is based on the true case of a Senegalese immigrant accused in the French court of murdering her 15-month-old daughter - Peter Bradshaw
The Fabelmans review – Spielberg’s beguiling ode to a life made by movies will leave you on a high
The director’s 1950s-set semi-memoir brilliantly examines how we edit our own life stories, and the repercussions - Peter Bradshaw
Enys Men review – Mark Jenkin’s Cornish psychodrama will sweep you away
A lone wildlife volunteer on an island off the coast of Cornwall is haunted by the past and the landscape in the writer-director’s spellbinding follow-up to Bait - Mark Kermode
Tár review – Cate Blanchett dazzles as monstrous maestro
Todd Field’s film echoes the slippery genius of its protagonist, a brilliant conductor-composer who toys with her admirers - Wendy Ide
Tár review – Cate Blanchett is perfect lead in delirious, sensual drama
As the maestro heading into crisis in Todd Field’s outrageous tale, Blanchett’s performance pierces like a conductor’s baton through the heart - Peter Bradshaw
The Last Stage review – cinema’s first look at the horror of Auschwitz
This 1948 feature film by Wanda Jakubowska, a Polish survivor of the death camp, is both forthright and nightmarish, and invented the cinematic language with which to make the Holocaust thinkable - Peter Bradshaw
The Queen of Spades review – thrillingly addictive tale of gambling and sin
Thorold Dickinson’s 1949 Pushkin adaptation is a glorious melodrama about an ambitious Russian military officer and a countess who sold her soul to the devil in exchange for the secrets of a card game - Peter Bradshaw
White Noise review – Don DeLillo adaptation is a blackly comic blast
DeLillo’s novel of campus larks and eco dread has long been ogled by Hollywood. Now it gets an elegant, droll treatment from Noah Baumbach, starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig - Peter Bradshaw
Fanny and Alexander review – Ingmar Bergman’s dark fusion of Shakespeare and Dickens
In a three-hour, 40th anniversary rerelease, this Swedish family saga unfolds with emotional power, wonder and brilliant acting - Peter Bradshaw
Three Minutes: A Lengthening review – fragments of a Jewish town destroyed by war
The forensic analysis of home-movie footage shot in a small community in 1938 Poland is the subject of Bianca Stigter’s arresting documentary - Peter Bradshaw
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio review – a superbly strange stop-motion animation
The director of the Oscar-winning The Shape of Water has turned the timeless fable into a magical Mussolini-era parable - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Bones and All review – an elegant lovers-on-the-run road movie, with cannibals
Luca Guadagnino has surpassed himself with this poetic horror balancing threat, humour and emotional weight - Wendy Ide
Julia Holter: The Passion of Joan of Arc review – strikingly contemporary, piercingly loud live score
The mercurial composer’s brilliant score perfectly captures the raging agony and beatific ecstasy of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent movie masterpiece - Dave Simpson
Casque d’Or review – Jacques Becker’s gripping tragic drama of Parisian lowlife
Simone Signoret stars in a dark tale of love in the belle époque underworld that is a unmissable classic with a pitilessly grim finale - Peter Bradshaw
Aftersun review – luminous father-daughter drama starring Paul Mescal
Charlotte Wells’s debut feature is a stylistically daring, emotionally piercing and beautifully understated tale of love and loss - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Aftersun review – beach holiday with Paul Mescal and daughter is a sunny delight
This effortlessly relaxed debut by Charlotte Wells is a subtle and complex investigation of post-divorce parenthood, with a brilliant performance by young Francesca Corio - Peter Bradshaw
The Draughtsman’s Contract review – Peter Greenaway’s cerebral intrigue still beguiles
Greenaway’s arch tale of sexual and political manipulation has not lost its power to bewilder and compel - Peter Bradshaw
The Driver review – Ryan O’Neal gets away with it in rock’n’roll car-chase thriller
O’Neal is the cherub-faced, ultra-cool getaway driver in this re-release of Walter Hill’s thrillingly cynical LA pulp noir - Peter Bradshaw
Is That Black Enough for You?!? review – tremendous study of black American cinema
Elvis Mitchell delivers a vivid history of African American cinema, ranging from the unsung heroes of Hollywood’s golden age to the thrills of Blaxploitation - Peter Bradshaw
Nil By Mouth review – Gary Oldman’s overwhelming study of family violence
It’s unsurprising the actor has yet to direct another film after giving so much to this blistering debut, acted at full tilt by a remarkable cast - Peter Bradshaw
Living review – Bill Nighy tackles life and death in exquisitely sad drama
A gentle and poignant Kazuo Ishiguro-scripted remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru about a man dealing with a terminal diagnosis - Peter Bradshaw
Lyra review – brilliant life and tragic death of Northern Ireland’s fearless young reporter
Lyra McKee, killed by the New IRA in 2019, is shown here as an inspirational LGBTQ journalist, bravely addressing the lingering damage of the Troubles - Peter Bradshaw
The Banshees of Inisherin review – flawless tragicomedy of male friendship gone sour
Three Billboards and In Bruges writer-director Martin McDonagh reunites Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in this deliciously melancholy tale set in remotest 1920s Ireland - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Decision to Leave review – Park Chan-wook at his playful, slinky best
A married detective contemplates infidelity in the Korean director’s seductive, multilayered crime drama - Wendy Ide
Poltergeist review – out-of-the-box 80s scarer can still knock the furniture over
Fright master Tobe Hooper’s 1982 movie has Steven Spielberg’s fingerprints all over it, but has a disturbing, satirical edge that’s all its own - Peter Bradshaw
My Neighbour Totoro review – dazzling staging of the Studio Ghibli classic
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production has astonishing puppetry, magical music and huge emotional impact - Arifa Akbar
All Quiet on the Western Front review – extraordinarily potent German first world war drama
Edward Berger depicts the horrors of war through the eyes of a young solider in this stunning indictment of wasted lives - Wendy Ide
Ningla-A’na review – Australia’s greatest ever protest movie
The electric documentary from the frontlines of the first Aboriginal Tent Embassy is restored, rereleased and still unmissable 50 years on - Luke Buckmaster
Salt for Svanetia review – poetic, dreamlike Soviet documentary of forgotten world
Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1930s film gives a fascinating account of a medieval-style society about the supposed blessings of the USSR’s modernising impact - Peter Bradshaw
You Won’t Be Alone review – a spellbinding horror movie from a great new talent
Director Goran Stolevski casts a different light on witch stories in his debut, which follows a shapeshifter in a 19th-century village - Luke Buckmaster
Moonage Daydream review – cosmic Bowie doc is a mind-blowing labour of love
American director Brett Morgen’s kaleidoscopic collage of David Bowie’s life is a dazzling mashup of elegy, celebration and intimate portrait - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Jackie Brown review – Tarantino’s most romantic film is a stone-cold classic
Pam Grier and Samuel L Jackson are explosively good in this stylish crime thriller, with superb supporting turns from Robert Forster, Robert De Niro and Bridget Fonda - Peter Bradshaw
Immortality review – an irresistible plunge into a Hollywood mystery
Her Story creator Sam Barlow surpasses himself with this stunning interactive movie thriller in which you play detective, film editor and eavesdropper - Simon Parkin
Pearl review – Mia Goth and Ti West scare up a storm in extraordinary pandemic horror
This brilliant prequel to Goth and West’s previous collaboration, X, is a cine-fever dream set in the dying days of Spanish flu - Peter Bradshaw
Bones and All review – cannibal romance is a heartbreaking banquet of brilliance
Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell dazzle in Luca Guadagnino’s blood-soaked parable of poverty and rebellion - Peter Bradshaw
The March on Rome review – Mark Cousins dissects Mussolini and the grisly founding myth of fascism
In his trademark subjective style Cousins uses archive and contemporary footage to show the dictator’s dishonesty and brutality - Peter Bradshaw
The Stranger review – Joel Edgerton is at his brooding best in this sophisticated crime drama
Thomas M Wright’s unconventional, captivating film sees Edgerton as an undercover cop trying to identify a child murderer, opposite the brilliant Sean Harris - Luke Buckmaster
The Harder They Come review – Jimmy Cliff falls hard in visceral revenge western
Fifty years on, this crime drama of a headstrong singer shooting for his chance of success is as raw and energetic as its reggae soundtrack - Peter Bradshaw
Hit the Road review – all of Iranian life on four wheels
Panah Panahi juggles joy, heartbreak and surreal humour in a road movie his imprisoned father would be proud of - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Paris, Texas review – Harry Dean Stanton unforgettable in haunting classic
Wim Wenders’ iconic vision of American alienation, starring Stanton as a weatherbeaten drifter, has held its mystery for 40 years - Peter Bradshaw
Hit the Road review – irrepressible defiance in beautifully composed debut feature
Directed by Panah Panahi, the son of jailed Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, this tense family drama is drenched in a subtle but urgent political meaning - Peter Bradshaw
The Big City review – Satyajit Ray’s miraculous look at a new world of possibility
The struggles and triumphs of a 1950s Kolkata family whose highest earner is a woman is told with marvellous lucidity in an optimistic masterpiece - Peter Bradshaw
The Railway Children review – kids’ adventure has lost none of its limpid charm
Rereleased as a curtain-raiser for a sequel, Jenny Agutter, Bernard Cribbins and co continue to exert their grip over the national imagination - Peter Bradshaw
Elvis review – blistering, turbocharged chronicle of the King
With electrifying performances from Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as Colonel Parker, Baz Luhrmann’s whirlwind biopic is cinematic dynamite - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
Wings of Desire review – Wim Wenders’ elegiac hymn to a broken cold-war Berlin
Shot when the city seemed forever divided by the wall, this intensely romantic story of an angel who longs for human love is unlike any other - Peter Bradshaw
Nude Tuesday review – this New Zealand orgy comedy told in gibberish is delightful
Hilariously subtitled by comedian Julia Davis, this film sees an unhappy couple go to a horny guru – played by Jemaine Clement – to fix their marriage - Michael Sun
The Plains review – a three-hour film set almost entirely in a car – and it is extraordinary
In this amazing work of art, we sit behind a middle-aged lawyer on his commute as he calls his family, listens to radio and gives a lift to a colleague - Luke Buckmaster
Goya’s horrific Black Paintings are brought to life – La Quinta del Sordo review
Philippe Parreno’s filmic re-creation of Goya’s late murals, full of his bleakest visions, is like a time machine that lets us see this ghostly space through the artist’s eyes - Adrian Searle
Pickpocket review – existential thrills in Robert Bresson’s study of a thief’s progress
Bresson’s 1959 film about a misfit who dreams of rising above conventional morals is a brilliant example of the cinema of ideas - Peter Bradshaw
Psycho review – well worth getting scared in the shower all over again
The rereleased, uncut version highlights the calculation and skill that went into making a genre-defining horror classic - Peter Bradshaw
Get Carter review – Michael Caine delivers in stone-cold crime classic
Mike Hodges’ Brit-crime magnum opus from 1971, which gave Caine the role of a lifetime as gangland enforcer Jack Carter, can be savoured again on re-release - Peter Bradshaw
Moonage Daydream review – glorious, shapeshifting eulogy to David Bowie
Brett Morgen’s intimate montage of the uniquely influential artist celebrates his career, creativity and unfailing charm - Peter Bradshaw
Funny Pages review – a deliciously dark coming-of-age comedy
Owen Kline fuses teen innocence with adult sexuality in a bad-taste debut film that recalls American Splendor and Crumb - Peter Bradshaw
Decision to Leave review – Tang Wei stuns in Park Chan-wook black-widow noir
Park’s tale of a married detective torn between infidelity and moral duty keeps the viewer off-balance at every turn - Peter Bradshaw
RoboCop review – thrilling, subversive 80s masterpiece from Paul Verhoeven
Paul Verhoeven’s sophisticated sci-fi fable is rereleased in its original director’s cut, with the gruesome violence and black-comic queasiness restored - Peter Bradshaw
The Innocents review – icily brilliant tale of kids with supernatural powers is future classic
Young actors steal the show in this scary movie set on a Norwegian housing estate, where grownups are unaware of the children’s abilities - Peter Bradshaw
Vampyr review – Dreyer’s hallucinatory undead classic comes back from the grave
Re-released for its 90th anniversary, Carl Theodor Dreyer’s film established some of the staples of the genre with a female, rather than male, vampire - Peter Bradshaw
The Quiet Girl review – exquisite debut drama set in rural Ireland
A young girl sent to live with relatives for the summer blossoms in Colm Bairéad’s beguiling first feature - Wendy Ide
Vortex review – Gaspar Noé’s stunning split-screen descent into dementia
A retired psychiatrist suffers a stroke, while her film-maker husband potters about their Paris apartment in denial in this brutally insightful film - Peter Bradshaw
The Quiet Girl review – deeply moving tale of rural Ireland already feels like a classic
A silent child is sent away to live with foster parents on a farm in this gem of a film from first-time feature director Colm Bairéad - Peter Bradshaw
Cabaret review – Liza Minnelli musical still divinely decadent and chillingly relevant
Minnelli brings the razzle dazzle to a Berlin determined to ignore the gathering storm in this cinematic masterpiece - Peter Bradshaw
Lost in La Mancha review – landmark doc of Terry Gilliam’s cinematic nightmare
Gilliam’s epic travails filming Don Quixote are well worth seeing again – and should be on the syllabus at every film school - Peter Bradshaw
The Northman review – Robert Eggers’ brutal vision of vengeance and violence
Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Björk and Anya Taylor-Joy feature in a mesmerisingly outrageous take on the Norse myth that inspired Hamlet - Peter Bradshaw
Prayers for the Stolen – extraordinary tale of fear and friendship in Mexican drug country
Tatiana Huezo’s haunting film captures the desperate lives of a remote rural community at the mercy of marauding cartels - Wendy Ide
Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts review – brilliant and bewitching
An exhibition paying homage to Walt Disney’s love of French art is playful and spellbinding, revealing how rococo clocks, paintings and tea sets were drawn into his most famous films - Laura Cumming
The Novice review – stunning debut passes the university challenge
Lauren Hadaway’s intriguing film plays with the texture of sound as it follows an ambitious student trying out for the college rowing team - Wendy Ide
Cries and Whispers review – Ingmar Bergman’s diabolically inspired claustrophobic horror
Bergman’s 1972 film is rereleased, the story of sisters waiting for one to die, and it shocks and disturbs in equal measure - Peter Bradshaw
Apollo 10½ review – Richard Linklater’s sensational coming-of-ager heads for the stars
Richard Linklater combines his affinities for rotoscoping and depicting the quiet magic of childhood in a wonderful paean to late-60s idealism - Peter Bradshaw
The Worst Person in the World review – Nordic romcom is an instant classic
Renate Reinsve is sublime as a young woman veering between lovers in a film that reminds us of the genre’s life-affirming potential - Peter Bradshaw
Chopper review – Eric Bana’s star-making turn reeking with lairy charm and charisma
Director Andrew Dominik’s funny, violent film about Australian criminal Mark ‘Chopper’ Read from 2000 contains a never-bettered performance from Bana - Peter Bradshaw
A League of Their Own review – feelgood baseball drama still knocks it out the park
Sprinkled with Tom Hanks stardust, and Geena Davis leading the line, this heartwarming tale of a women’s wartime baseball league stands the test of time - Peter Bradshaw
The Godfather review – a brutal sweep of magnificent storytelling
Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in the series is still an epic, full of hypnotic acting, which reinvented mafia criminals as players in a dynastic psychodrama - Peter Bradshaw
The Beatles: Get Back – The Rooftop Concert review – a towering time capsule
Nonplussed coppers, 60s London panoramas and the fab four very much alive … Peter Jackson’s film is moving and unmissable - Peter Bradshaw
Flee review – fantastically moving story of a refugee’s life-saving secret
This extraordinary tale of the desperate lengths a gay Afghan man was forced to go to in order to escape persecution is a powerful testament to human endurance - Peter Bradshaw
The Souvenir Part II – Joanna Hogg’s soul-searching sequel is a triumph
Part two of Hogg’s semi-autobiographical drama, in which a young film-maker finds her creative path after a doomed love affair, is the director’s most accessible work to date - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
The Souvenir Part II review – a flood of austere sunlight in Joanna Hogg’s superb sequel
Hogg’s double-Swinton, highly autobiographical study of a young film-maker is less detached, more emotionally engaging, as we enter Julie’s world for a second time - Peter Bradshaw
Jules et Jim review – Truffaut’s love triangle is a whirlwind masterpiece
The French New Wave classic chronicles the lives of two men and the dangerous object of their affections - Peter Bradshaw
Parallel Mothers review – Almodóvar delivers an emotional bundle of joy
Pedro Almodóvar’s poetic conviction and creative fluidity flow through this moving baby-swap drama about two single mothers and buried secrets from the Spanish civil war - Peter Bradshaw
Nightmare Alley review – a neo-noir knockout from Guillermo del Toro
Bradley Cooper plays a carnival conman drawn into a dark underworld in this dazzling drama from the Mexican director - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
You Won’t Be Alone review – spellbinding tale of a body-switching witch
A witch discovers life, love and death via the bodies of others in a beautifully made and moving treatise on what it it means to be human - Benjamin Lee
Belfast review – Kenneth Branagh’s euphoric eulogy to his home city
Nightmarishness meets nostalgia as Jamie Dornan and Judi Dench star in a scintillating Troubles-era coming-of-age tale - Peter Bradshaw
The 400 Blows review – François Truffaut’s coming-of-age masterwork
Jean-Pierre Léaud dazzles at the heart of an autobiographical opus that invites new waves of adulation with each viewing - Peter Bradshaw
The Tragedy of Macbeth review – Denzel Washington delivers a noirish nightmare
Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand hit top form in Joel Coen’s austere reimagining of Shakespeare’s Scottish bloodbath - Peter Bradshaw
West Side Story review – Spielberg’s triumphantly hyperreal remake
Stunning recreations of the original film’s New York retain the songs and the dancing in a re-telling that will leave you gasping - Peter Bradshaw
The Shop Around the Corner review – Lubitsch romcom still a Christmas delight
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan’s love-hate romance, which spawned many later meet-cutes, is more eccentric than you might remember - Peter Bradshaw
Life Between Islands review: displaying the power and passion of Caribbean-British art
Resistance and defiance and celebrations, arrivals, departures and returns: from photographs of protests to a Union Black flag, this timely show is an unmissable testament to creativity - Adrian Searle
Petite Maman review – Céline Sciamma’s heartbreakingly hopeful fairytale for all ages
The acclaimed French director has created another gem with this magical story of a young girl coming to terms with her grandmother’s death - Mark Kermode, Observer film critic