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Xan Brooks

Xan Brooks is a freelance writer and broadcaster specialising in cinema

3 November 2024

  • A woman and a boy on a London Underground platform in 1940.

    Blitz review – Saoirse Ronan stars in Steve McQueen’s sturdy wartime London drama

    A boy and his mother search for each other as German bombs rain down in the Oscar-winning director’s straightforward period drama
  • Christopher Reeve as Superman in 1978, one arm raised, the new york skyline behind him

    Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story review – respectful documentary gives the full picture

    From his breakthrough roles to his life-changing accident, this rounded film portrays the courage and resilience of the late film star

    • Juror #2 review – you want far-fetched? Try Clint Eastwood’s 12 Angry Men remake

    • Heretic review – Hugh Grant’s move to the dark side is a triumph

    • Anora review – Sean Baker’s screwball Cinderella tale vaults him towards greatness

2 November 2024

  • Undated film still from Small Things Like These. Pictured: Zara Devin as Sarah Raymond and Cillian Murphy as Bill Furlong . See PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Reviews. WARNING: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Reviews. PA Photo. Picture credit should read: Lionsgate/Enda Bowe. All Rights Reserved. NOTE TO EDITORS: This picture must only be used to accompany PA Feature SHOWBIZ Film Reviews.

    Small Things Like These review – Cillian Murphy shines as quiet hero in powerful 80s Ireland morality tale

    Claire Keegan’s acclaimed Magdalene laundries novella reaches the big screen in director Tim Mielant’s atmospheric adaptation

October 2024

  • Mark Rylance in Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.

    ‘It’s going to be much darker’: inside the deadly return of TV masterpiece Wolf Hall

    The Tudor epic about a tyrant king and his vengeful, backstabbing entourage is back for its final instalment – and it’s more brutal than ever. We go on set to talk to the Mirror and the Light team about death, dictatorship … and ostriches
  • Robbie Ryan and Andrea Arnold at the Cannes film festival in May.

    ‘Chaos is great. This time it went over the top’: Andrea Arnold and Robbie Ryan on 21 years of film and friendship

    The director and cinematographer talk collaboration, health and safety on their new film, Bird – and the perils of DJing at your daughter’s birthday party
  • Sony Music Archive for Saturday Magazine Culture

    ‘Every recording carries the air of a seance’: remembering my father the music archivist

    Researching a novel about forgotten blues musicians led me to revisit the life’s work of my late dad: disinterring decades of dusty recordings that will outlive us all

September 2024

  • Underwater view of reef

    Book of the day
    Playground by Richard Powers review – the wonder of the oceans

  • Closing Ceremony - 81st Venice Film Festival<br>epa11592227 Spanish director and screenwriter Pedro Almodovar holds the Golden Lion award for his movie 'The Room Next Door' during the closing ceremony of the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 07 September 2024. EPA/ETTORE FERRARI

    Venice 2024: Almodóvar’s first major festival win is richly deserved – and epically overdue

    Xan Brooks
  • ‘No one is going to fund us’ … Stephen (left) and Timothy Quay, with the set for their short film This Unnameable Little Broom.

    ‘We never went down the Aardman route’: how the Brothers Quay rocked the animation world

  • Julianne Moore, right, and Tilda Swinton in The Room Next Door, directed by Pedro Almodóvar.

    The Room Next Door review – Almodóvar spins a gorgeous, fragile tale of life and death

  • Wolfs review – Pitt and Clooney are job-sharing loners in Spidey-meme of a thriller

  • I’m Still Here review – loving family negotiates the horror of Brazil’s military rule

  • From Darkness to Light review – Jerry Lewis’ infamous Holocaust film rescued from oblivion

August 2024

  • Campo di Battaglia film still Venice film festival

    Campo di Battaglia review – medicos face off in stately first world war hospital drama

  • And Their Children After Them film still Venice film festival

    And Their Children After Them review – racism and revenge festers in smalltown France

  • Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in Babygirl.

    Babygirl review – Nicole Kidman overwhelmed by lust as CEO having torrid and toxic affair

  • John Lennon and Yoko Ono from One to One: John &amp; Yoko.

    One to One: John & Yoko review – fun, fierce, full-blooded portrait of Lennon and Ono

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