Alan Mak

Related Reviews/Features

Everybody Loves Jeanne review – thoroughly modern fable of grief, romantic confusion, and climate anxiety

Celine Deveaux's French-Portuguese debut can be too quirky for its own good, but a fantastically written lead character keeps it afloat

Barbie review – Ryan Gosling steals the show in Greta Gerwig’s hilarious and profoundly pink spin on the iconic toy

Packed with enough jokes and visual inventiveness to get around the corporate feel, this follow-up to Little Women is a vibrant treat

A Rifle and a Bag review – a surprisingly gentle look at the lives of former Maoist insurgents in India

Though slow, this doc about the Naxalite movement and India's bureaucratic state offers great insight into an unexplored world

20 Best Films of 2023 (So Far)

With the year at the halfway point, our writers choose their favourite films, from daring documentaries to box office bombs

The Damned Don’t Cry review – a mature Moroccan drama that lacks light and shade

British-Moroccan director Fyzal Boulifa's second film tips its hat to the grand Hollywood tradition, but this mother-son tale feels slight

Mother and Son review – an intimate family epic that feels beautifully real

Leonor Serraille's gorgeous new film, about an Ivorian family in France, balances a grounded tale with splashes of the surreal

Blood for Dust review – action-crime thriller gives us a career-best Kit Harington

The Game of Thrones actor stars opposite Scoot McNairy in this twisty tale of drug smuggling, set in the American Midwest

Hairspray review – John Waters’ musical finds just the right balance of kitsch and sincerity

The cult director's 1988 film brings his trademark subversiveness into the mainstream through its deft exploration of music history

Leonie, Actress and Spy review – frustratingly indirect doc wastes a fascinating life story

With its haphazard structure and dull framing device, Annette Apon's biography of Leonie Brandt is made unnecessarily confusing

Amanda review – hints of Lanthimos in sharply funny Italian debut

Carolina Cavalli's film about a friendless young woman brilliantly captures the anxiety and social ineptitude of the post-COVID youth