Punishing rape-revenge drama Irréversible has been recut – but why?
Gaspar Noé’s grim provocation is returning to select US cinemas but the ‘straight cut’ is a supplementary curio at best
December 2022
Best films US 2022
The 50 best movies of 2022 in the US
Best films UK 2022
The 50 best films of 2022 in the UK
June 2022
Best culture of 2022 so far
The best films of 2022 so far
Tilda Swinton aces Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s dreamy fable, director Clio Barnard’s forbidden affair and Catherine Clinch in The Quiet Girl rank in the pick of this year’s films
May 2022
Cultural prescription
Enjoy your trip: books, music, films and more for an out-of-body experience
From Gaspar Noé’s death-dream to Elgar’s emotionally charged choral composition, our critics recommend culture to take you into another dimension
Vortex review – Gaspar Noé’s punishing portrait of dementia
The director abandons his showy style in this brutally matter-of-fact tale of a couple at the end of their lives in a Paris apartment
Vortex review – Gaspar Noé’s stunning split-screen descent into dementia
Dobermann review – Vincent Cassel’s brutal pulp thriller still bites
Gaspar Noé: ‘As soon as people see a penis in the UK, they think they’ve seen the devil’
July 2021
Vortex review – Gaspar Noé’s latest goes gentle, for once, into the night
The provocateur has shocked Cannes with a change of pace: an extraordinary midnight movie that follows an elderly couple’s pained last steps in their Paris apartment
July 2019
Ad Astra and Joker to premiere at Venice film festival
Hollywood heavyweights line up to launch their awards runs at Venice, which is courting criticism for also including Roman Polanski’s new film in competition
May 2019
Lux Æterna review – self-parodic silliness from Gaspar Noé
Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to have world premiere at Cannes
November 2018
Kicking and screaming: how dance became cinema's biggest boogieman
Suspiria leads a crop of new films that track a dance troupe along a path of mounting horror. It’s no surprise – dance has age-old links to dread, delusion and death
September 2018
Mark Kermode's film of the week
Climax review – bad trip at the danse macabre
A troupe of young dancers is sucked into an LSD-induced hell in Gaspar Noé’s latest grand guignol vision
August 2018
Autumn arts preview 2018
Heroes, villains and rebels: the biggest films of autumn 2018
There are heists aplenty, scores to settle, Lady Gaga becomes a star, farewells to Sam Shepard and Harry Dean Stanton, and democracy meets its Peterloo
May 2018
Gaspar Noé: 'Six people walked out of Climax? No! I usually have 25%'
Climax review – Gaspar Noé's satanic dance-troupe freak-out of sex and despair
April 2016
Evolution director Lucile Hadžihalilović: ‘The starfish was the one worry’
The enigmatic French film-maker is one of cinema’s few authentic visionaries. Her unsettling new film about maternity, boys and echinoderms makes it clear why hers has not been the easiest career to pursue
March 2016
French film classification system to be overhauled after rightwing attacks
Culture minister Audrey Azoulay plans to make it less easy for censorship campaigners to appeal, following high-profile interventions by pressure groups
