Charlie Kaufman: ‘It’s puppets having sex. They will start to laugh and then stop’The scriptwriter on his new stop-motion film that took six months to shoot just one sex sceneFri Mar 11 2016 - 06:00
The Witch review: masterful old-school dread stalks the New WorldEvery beast and plant takes on threatening form in a slippery, intelligent menace-filled film by first-time director Robert EggersThu Mar 10 2016 - 23:18
Allegiant review: There's so much to dislike, it’s hard to know where to startFeaturing the drippiest couple in popular culture since the Care Bears, the latest Divergent movie could hardly be worse if it triedThu Mar 10 2016 - 13:13
Traders review: Bankers fight to the death in this impressive, blood-soaked debutKillian Scott and John Bradley stand out in this Irish thriller about two down-on-their-luck share dealers who decide to go for brokeWed Mar 09 2016 - 15:17
John Bradley: from Game of Thrones to Dublin death matchThe Manchester-Irish actor is best known as the nicest man in Westeros, Samwell Tarly. So how will he get on as a nasty piece of work in Dublin thriller Traders?Wed Mar 09 2016 - 06:00
Boyzlife: the kind of music even your parents complain isn’t strange enoughBoyzone and Westlife are merging into a supergroup. Pipe down, rock snobsSat Mar 05 2016 - 07:00
Hail, Caesar! review: the Coen brothers let loose in la-la landJoel and Ethan go full Hollywood screwball in a beautifully shot all-star farce that never quite adds up to more than the sum of its partsThu Mar 03 2016 - 16:30
Hitchcock/Truffaut review: essential viewing for fans of the masterMartin Scorsese, David Fincher and Richard Linklater are among the talking heads that pop up in Kent Jones’s exemplary film about the meeting of the two auteursThu Mar 03 2016 - 12:00
Donald Clarke: A cynical European at the Oscars – well, near the OscarsCultural differences transpire when I say that I intend to walk to the ceremony, and when I sigh at the uptight security arrangements. Still, one does one’s best to fit inTue Mar 01 2016 - 17:00
Ahead of Oscars, Room takes two prizes at Spirit awardsWins for one of the Irish films vying for best picture at tonight’s Academy AwardsSun Feb 28 2016 - 09:59
Donald Clarke on the eve of the ‘most Irish’ OscarsSaoirse Ronan, Lenny Abrahamson and Emma Donoghue talk academy fantasiesSat Feb 27 2016 - 12:00
Dear United States. Don’t elect Donald Trump. With love, the planetHaving him in the White House would be like having an orang-utan piloting your planeSat Feb 27 2016 - 05:45
Donald Clarke’s Oscars: Who will win? And who should?‘The Revenant’ or ‘Room’? Leonardo DiCaprio or Michael Fassbender? Brie Larson or Saoirse Ronan? It’s the most unpredictable best-picture race in decadesFri Feb 26 2016 - 06:00
Oscars: Saoirse Ronan feels love as hopefuls arriveAhead of 88th Academy Awards, the Irish film industry decamps to HollywoodFri Feb 26 2016 - 01:00
Secret in Their Eyes review: not quite peculiar enough to be interestingChiwetel Ejiofor and Julia Roberts ably deliver in a detective film with a dark twist, but the whiff of compromise (and Nicole Kidman's face) hangs heavy over this remakeThu Feb 25 2016 - 16:00
The Forest review: would be hard-pressed to frighten even the frailest infantEvery cliché of contemporary or vintage horror is ready to leap out and not scare Natalie Dormer in this by-the-numbers ghost flickThu Feb 25 2016 - 14:00
Grimsby review: Sacha Baron Cohen makes the switch from sharp wit to halfwitThe laughs are few and far between as once-unassailable Baron Cohen hits a new low in this mean-spirited and very unfunny spy caperThu Feb 25 2016 - 12:51
Oscars 2016: Donald Clarke ranks the best picture nominationsMainstream entertainments such as Mad Max: Fury Road and The Revenant jostle with independents including Brooklyn and RoomThu Feb 25 2016 - 06:00
Benjamin Cleary: ‘I keep thinking I’ll wake up and discover this isn’t real’In any other year, Oscar nominee Benjamin Cleary would be the name on everyone’s lips – but he’s delighted to be in the race with Room and BrooklynThu Feb 25 2016 - 06:00
Natalie Dormer: ‘I'm the one carrying King’s Crisps and Lyons leaving Dublin’Between ‘The Tudors’ and ‘Game of Thrones’, Dormer has become the go-to star for cool, unflappable TV royaltyThu Feb 25 2016 - 06:00
From Bram to Brooklyn: 10 great films adapted from Irish literatureLenny Abrahamson’s Room and John Crowley’s Brooklyn vie for the best picture Oscar this weekend. They are part of a grand traditionWed Feb 24 2016 - 06:00
ADiff review: The Misplaced World plays like a chewy soap operaWhat was director Margarethe Von Trotta striving for?Mon Feb 22 2016 - 18:08
ADiff review: Drag acts and dusty glamour in Paddy Breathnach’s VivaA beautiful, funny drama filmed in Havana that surges with rough humanityMon Feb 22 2016 - 17:48
ADiff review: Victoria is a breathlessly exciting German dramaThe ‘continuous shot’ gimmick fits seamlessly into a hurtling storyMon Feb 22 2016 - 17:33
Where did it all go right? The secret of Irish cinema’s successGlobal acclaim and a fistful of Oscar nominations: we ask four industry heavy hitters what is going onMon Feb 22 2016 - 06:00
Donald Clarke: Wittering recreational outrage is bad for the digestion‘In 2016, a vast mob of the easily annoyed prowls the digital outlands in search of bile generators. You need a hobby, I suppose’Sat Feb 20 2016 - 07:00
Chiwetel Ejiofor: ‘Weapons and tactics are a way of entering a guy psychologically’The actor has done plenty of serious roles. Will anyone begrudge him a crime caper?Sat Feb 20 2016 - 05:45
Chronic review: unfolds like the most elegant of jigsaw puzzlesMichel Franco’s latest is problematic, but features the finest performance in many years from Tim Roth, an actor who's often tempted to nibble at the sceneryThu Feb 18 2016 - 23:31
How To Be Single review: a film that dearly needs a good, stern talking toThe lewd Wilson and the faltering Johnson form a gorgeous complementary partnership that causes one to long for them to be cast in a better movieThu Feb 18 2016 - 23:27
Triple 9 review: bursting at the seams with criminal intentDirector John Hillcoat is a master of macho posture, and with the help of Kate Winslet, he lays it on thick in this indecently thrilling, star-studded heist movieThu Feb 18 2016 - 22:39
ADiff review: Portrait of a charismatic eccentric in We Are MovingClaire Dix’s study of Joan Denise Moriarty, founder of Irish Theatre Ballet, is a touching, lucid workThu Feb 18 2016 - 18:20
ADiff review: John Carney brings the musical magic in Sing StreetThe director even manages to sell an absurdly romantic endingWed Feb 17 2016 - 16:37
ADiff review: ‘Brothers’ is the home movie to end them allThis Norwegian documentary presents a tender portrayal of boyhoodWed Feb 17 2016 - 16:26
ADiff review: Further Beyond explores the life of Ambrose O’HigginsA discursive meditation on the Sligo man who became captain general of Chile in the 18th centuryWed Feb 17 2016 - 16:25
Brooklyn celebrates Bafta win but Saoirse loses out to BrieBest film goes to The Revenant – tale of survival from 19th century US frontierSun Feb 14 2016 - 23:03
Ennio Morricone, Sergio Leone and the elusive OscarEnnio Morricone revolutionised cinema music but has never won an Oscar for one of his scores. He’s up again, for ‘The Hateful Eight’. Does he care? Just a littleSat Feb 13 2016 - 05:00
Jeremy Corbyn is Margaret Thatcher’s successor. In a wayThe Iron Lady was the closest the UK will ever get to its own Lenin or Atatürk. The new Labour leader is similarly at home to ideologySat Feb 13 2016 - 05:00
Concussion review: often drab and occasionally useless true-life dramaBrain-damage whistleblower Will Smith comes across as a naive, holy fool, while the overall vibe is less The Insider and more Quincy METhu Feb 11 2016 - 17:17
Martin McCann “You learn how to look for trespassers, how to start a fire”Martin McCann survived The Pacific, Ripper Street and ‘71 and Shadow Dancer, and has really been put through the ringer for his latest The SurvivalistThu Feb 11 2016 - 14:00
Deadpool review: cheap, exploitative, unreconstructed rubbishThe endless ironic nods and winks do little to soften the squalor and misogyny of this latest contribution to the sweary, 16-cert po-mo superhero genreThu Feb 11 2016 - 13:06
A Bigger Splash review: hugely attractive, frustratingly evasiveDeriLuca Guadagnino’s four-hander is awash with cultural recycling - but unhinged enthusiasm from Ralph Fiennes outdoes almost everything else on displayWed Feb 10 2016 - 18:00
Jem and the Holograms review: truly outrageous that this even got madeJuliette Lewis and Molly Ringwald (we feel your pain) turn up as the elder generation in this horrendous reboot of a 1980s cartoonWed Feb 10 2016 - 15:54
Ten great movie bromancesButch and Sundance, Spock and Kirk, Woodward and Bernstein . . . Movie bromance has been around for a lot longer than the word that has come to describe the genreWed Feb 10 2016 - 06:00
Donald Clarke: ‘The Donald’ is ruining a good namePushing Donald Trump as the deified avatar of Donaldishness is unfair on the restSat Feb 06 2016 - 01:01
Toby Jones: 'My job depends on being a citizen’Few actors bring more character to a role than Toby Jones. It’s all in the subtlety and the everyday actions, he tells Donald ClarkeFri Feb 05 2016 - 06:00
Rams review: The horns of a family dilemmaHere is a most unusual comic drama from Iceland that plays some very clever games with toneThu Feb 04 2016 - 19:00
Trumbo review: from pedestrian to ludicrous to indecently entertainingBryan Cranston has fun as the lead, but the silly fizz of mid-century Hollywood eventually steals the show - and not in a good wayThu Feb 04 2016 - 15:18
Janis: Little Girl Blue review - Drawing a line under an unfinished lifeAmy Berg film on Janis Joplin tells the story of a raw, explosive talent that couldn’t escape her ultimately fatal addiction to heroinWed Feb 03 2016 - 15:19
Donald Clarke: ‘Dad’s Army’ wins war of the starsThe British sitcom has such durability there is no wonder it has been made into a filmSat Jan 30 2016 - 01:00
Bryan Cranston: from ‘Breaking Bad’ to playing ‘Trumbo’Fame came late for the actor, now up for an Oscar – and he’s happy it didFri Jan 29 2016 - 06:00
