Deborah Ross

The Two Popes stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce — that’s two reasons to buy a ticket, right there — as Pope Benedict XVI and his successor Pope Francis I, and it is wildly entertaining, so now you have a third reason too. True, it does, as others have noted, shy away from directly tackling

Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story is a drama about the breakdown of a marriage and it is, at times, devastatingly painful. ‘Divorce,’ says a lawyer at one point, ‘is like a death without a body.’ It’s certainly not the most fun you’ll ever have at the cinema — although it is witty and there are some

The Irishman is Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic — a mobster-a-thon, you could say — starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and a light sprinkling of Harvey Keitel (he’s only in a couple of scenes). It’s based on the true, late-life confession of Mafia hitman Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran and, while gangster flicks can

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil is the sequel to the 2014 film Maleficent, and it will certainly come as a relief to all those who, in the interim, have been worried that Disney might let a potential franchise go unexploited. Did that keep you awake at night, as it did me? Well, now we can all

The Day Shall Come is a second feature from British satirist Chris Morris and like the first, Four Lions, it is a ‘comedy of terrors’, you could say. But this time, rather than a group of hapless home-grown Muslim suicide bombers we’ve decamped to America and it’s the FBI that will do anything to get

Judy is in cinemas this week and so is Joker and if you have to choose between the two, then it’s Judy every time. I would even add: step away from Joker. Step away, and step away now, if you know what’s good for you. It may be a masterpiece or it may be irresponsible

The Goldfinch is an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Donna Tartt that centres on a great work of art, unlike this film, which isn’t. A great work of art, that is. This is more a flat, forgettable, colour-by-numbers job, plus it is long (150 minutes, for the love of God) and drags so

The Farewell is a quiet film that builds and builds and builds into a wonderful exploration of belonging, loss, family love, crab vs lobster, and hiding feelings, even though it may be tough to hide yours and you’ll shed a tear or two. I know I did. It is written and directed by Lulu Wang,

The much-anticipated film version of Downton Abbey has arrived and I suppose you could describe it as the Avengers Assemble of period drama, where everyone turns up and just does it all over again, but minus the throat kicks in this particular instance. Also, it’s critic-proof and the fans will race to see it even

Scarborough is a small British film but it will give you a very big headache. Its subject is teachers who have relationships with pupils and it’s well directed and well performed — Jodhi May is always worth the price of a ticket whatever — but I’m still trying to work out what it has to

Joanna Hogg’s films are the antithesis of popcorn entertainment so if it’s not the antithesis of popcorn entertainment that you seek, you may be better off going elsewhere. Her latest, The Souvenir, is about a young woman finding herself and her own voice, and is semi-improvised and I know someone who hates her films —

Pedro Almodovar can sometimes be overly flamboyant if not out-and-out nuts — let us never talk about I’m So Excited! ever again — but his latest film, Pain and Glory, is wonderfully restrained and all the better for it. Partly autobiographical, it’s about ageing, and the reckoning that always comes with that — when you