Peter Bradshaw

157Films

150This year

1Following

513Followers

Chief film critic, The Guardian

Favorite films

  • Kind Hearts and Coronets
  • Raging Bull
  • Vagabond
  • In the Mood for Love

All
  • Dragonfly

    ★★★★

  • Dangerous Animals

    ★★

  • The Encampments

    ★★★

  • Führer and Seducer

    ★★★★

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Dragonfly

2025

★★★★ Watched

Paul Andrew Williams has made a haunted, social-realist drama with elements of Mike Leigh but also moments of thriller and even horror. Williams isn’t shy of stabbing us with an old-fashioned jump scare towards the end — which in fact challenges the audiences with its refusal of categorisation. There are two superb lead performances from Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn and an outstanding ing turn from Jason Watkins.

My Guardian review: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/jun/07/dragonfly-review-andrea-riseborough-brenda-blethyn-tribeca-festival

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Mountainhead

2025

★★★★ 2

Jesse Armstrong has returned with what feels like a horribly addictive feature-length spinoff episode of the extended Succession Cinematic Universe - though without Succession cast - set in a luxurious Utah megalodge which starts to look like a version of the Dr Strangelove War Room, mixed with the apartment from Hitchcock’s Rope. This is a super-satirical chamber piece about the deranged, cynical and facetious mindset of the uber-wealthy, the kind of people who think about Ancient Rome every day, though not about Nero and his violin. My Guardian review:

www.theguardian.com/film/2025/may/23/mountainhead-review-tech-bros-face-off-in-jesse-armstrongs-post-succession-uber-wealth-satire

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