These are the movies that have stayed with me most over the last decade. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011) Terrence Malick captures the way we actually remember childhood – not in coherent episodes but in intensely apprehended moments, like Jessica Chastain...
Hustlers (2019) – This is a textbook example of how a female point of view can transform even very familiar stories. The narrative strategies that writer and director Lorene Scafaria employs – the story’s events recounted to a journalist in flashbacks, the old...
Crazy Rich Asians (2018) – A blow for representation this may be, but the central relationship is on the messed-up Jane Eyre/Rebecca model, where the heroine (Constance Wu) has to make all the adjustments to win over her rich, impassive boyfriend (Henry Golding) –...
Annihilation (2018) – With its obvious debts to Aliens (a military expedition picked off one by one) and Avatar (the purple – in both senses – prettiness of the alien environment), this adheres to Hollywood formula more than Ex Machina, but inflects it in interesting...
Black Panther (2018) – In outline – a superhero from a hermetic culture must decide how to engage with the wider world – this is very similar to Wonder Woman, last year’s blow for comic book diversity, but this is much better executed. Partly it’s the way...
Blade Runner 2049 (2017) – The design here – post-apocalyptic environments where colour is almost completely excluded, or luxurious digs bathed in yellow – is certainly striking, if a little monotonous. (It’s a little mystifying that Jared Leto and Harrison Ford...
