Nosferatu ★★★☆☆
Directed by Robert Eggers. Starring Lily-Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe. 16 cert, gen release, 133 min
Eggers offers – after Werner Herzog’s 1970s version – a second remake of FW Murnau’s 1922 variation on Dracula. Depp is the haunted heroine, a newlywed plagued by a dark encounter in her past and distressed by the departure of her ambitious husband (Hoult). He sets sail from their native Hamburg to Romania, where maggoty Gypsies and the mysterious Count Orlok (Skarsgård) await. The first half of the film is spellbinding; Eggers and his cinematographer brilliantly redeploy the grammar of German expressionism to make Dracula (or thereabouts) scary again. The second half is disappointingly conventional. TB. Read our full review
Nickel Boys ★★★★☆
Directed by RaMell Ross. Starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. 12A cert, gen release, 140 min
Moving, impressively imaginative take – shot entirely in first person – on Colson Whitehead’s novel about black inmates of a reformatory in the 1960s. Writer-director Ross takes an unprecedented gamble with his debut drama feature, using a gimmick better (yet not ideally) suited to gumshoes and assassins. But the formal pizzazz proves less important than the film’s emotional impact, as Elwood realises what happens to the boys “out back”. The faces around the ring at a rigged boxing match and the moment when Elwood’s grandma hugs Turner in his stead are as heartbreaking as they are unforgettable. TB. Read our full review,
Ireland weather: Warnings ‘likely’ to be upgraded while temperatures could fall to -8 degrees
Dublin is Europe’s third most congested city after London and Paris
Dublin couple fear their home will fall into Camac river after wall collapses
A money-saving guide to make you richer (or less poor) in 2025
We Live in Time ★★★☆☆
Directed by John Crowley. Starring Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Aoife Hinds, Adam James, Douglas Hodge, Amy Morgan, Niamh Cusack. 15A cert, gen release, 107 min
Crowley follows up The Goldfinch with a partially successful weepie with Garfield and Pugh as a perfect couple facing up to potential tragedy. We Live in Time is unquestionably a quality release. It looks beautiful. The music swirls evocatively. One must admit that it makes a sincere effort to contemplate mortality and, unlike the similar 1970 smash Love Story, to detail the specific challenges of grave illness. Many will be won over by the emotional surge of the closing moments. Others will wonder if there is a word for a manipulative drama that fails to satisfactorily manipulate. DC. Read our full review.
Beezel ★★★☆☆
Directed by Aaron Fradkin. Starring Bob Gallagher, Victoria Fratz Fradkin, LeJohn Woods, Nicolas Robin, Caroline Quigley. DVD, digital download, 82 min
Successive inhabitants of a remote house face up to a witch in the basement. One can detect a weight of influence in this fine, queasy horror set across five decades in an impressively creepy Massachusetts house. Beezel is not, strictly speaking, a found-footage horror – not just that, anyway – but it riffs on the tropes established by that genre over the past 25 years. It has fun with variations on fetid, squelchy notions of how a witch might age if she were left in a basement for a century too long. No classic, but properly eerie. DC. Read our full review.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
