Mark Kermode
The Guardian
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Past articles by Mark:
After 10 years, I’m stepping down as the Observer’s film critic. Here are my top films from the decade
As I leave the post, I look back on how cinema has changed since 2013 and, below, pick a favourite movie from each year of my tenure – as well as a turkey → Read More
Past Lives review – a spine-tingling romance of lost chances
Korean-Canadian writer-director Celine Song’s tremendous feature debut tells the poignant tale of childhood sweethearts separated by fate and thousands of miles → Read More
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One review – Tom Cruise is still taking our breath away
With star turns from Vanessa Kirby and Hayley Atwell, plus a zeitgeisty AI plot, this seventh MI outing is one of the most exhilarating yet → Read More
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review – Harrison Ford does the heavy lifting in lightweight sequel
The octogenarian star gives it his all in James Mangold’s fun but formulaic action adventure co-starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge and a scenery-sucking Mads Mikkelsen → Read More
Asteroid City review – smug Wes Anderson comedy falls to earth
The writer-director’s knowing meta-tale set in a space-obsessed 1950s desert town has a starry cast and meticulous attention to detail, but its studied quirkiness is often more irritating than amusing → Read More
Pretty Red Dress review – toe-tapping London tale of desire and identity
Natey Jones and Alexandra Burke play a couple tussling with dreams and secret shame in Dionne Edwards’s defiant yet uplifting drama with music at its core → Read More
Chevalier review – entertainingly soapy portrait of a Black 18th-century maestro
Kelvin Harrison Jr commands the screen in Stephen Williams’s brashly anachronistic drama about the French composer, violin virtuoso and champion fencer Joseph Bologne → Read More
Reality review – palm-sweatingly tense whistleblower drama
Tina Satter’s verbatim film about the FBI’s interrogation of US intelligence leaker Reality Winner is a stranger-than-fiction reflection of our precarious times → Read More
Hypnotic review – preposterous tosh from start to finish starring Ben Affleck
Affleck is in full frowny mode as a haunted cop on the tail of a criminal mastermind in a thriller that seems to revel in its absurdity → Read More
The Little Mermaid review – bland but good-natured Disney remake
It doesn’t have the magic of the original, but Halle Bailey gives a winning performance, backed by a strong supporting cast → Read More
Beau Is Afraid review – Ari Aster’s patience-testing shaggy dog story
Joaquin Phoenix plays a hapless middle-aged man on a tortuous journey to see his mum in the Midsommar director’s three-hour black comedy of Oedipal angst → Read More
Fast X review – more overcranked nonsense with Vin Diesel and co
Fasten your seatbelts as everything smashes into everything else in this not-quite finale to the Fast and Furious franchise → Read More
Still: A Michael J Fox Movie review – an intimate, uplifting star portrait
Self-effacing and wryly defiant, the Hollywood actor, diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 29, reflects on a life of two halves in this revealing documentary → Read More
Return to Seoul review – Park Ji-min lights up mesmerising tale of identity and alienation
An adopted woman travels from France to South Korea in search of her roots in Davy Chou’s star-making second film → Read More
Little Richard: I Am Everything review – thrilling documentary about the rock’n’roll pioneer
Lisa Cortés’s richly enjoyable film examines the alter egos and queer theories surrounding a conflicted star who was way ahead of his time → Read More
One Fine Morning review – Mia Hansen-Løve’s moving tale of love and loss
In the role of a lifetime, Léa Seydoux plays a widowed single mum caught between new romance and the failing mind of her father in the French director’s deeply personal Cannes prize winner → Read More
Godland review – a priest’s soul-shaking journey across Iceland
On a perilous quest to build a church in the wilds of Iceland, a zealous young Danish priest’s faith starts to crack in this striking historical epic → Read More
Law of Tehran review – gritty Iranian crime thriller takes no prisoners
Saeed Roustayi’s tense policier about a cop hunting a drug kingpin deftly mixes brutality and gallows farce → Read More
Infinity Pool review – Mia Goth electrifies in a nightmarish thriller
The actor’s live-wire performance in Brandon Cronenberg’s outlandish satire about super-rich tourists being cloned on a holiday from hell is worth the admission price alone → Read More
Close review – achingly poignant tale of the end of a childhood friendship
Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s Oscar-nominated drama about two inseparable boys tragically driven apart is a low-key treat → Read More