This Is England

Apr 23, 2007 — Louis Malle’s documentary work adopts certain tenets of cinéma direct—improvisation, minimal crew, the refusal to organize reality—and applies them to a consistently class-conscious, outsider perspective.

May 20, 2019 — While a few find the family drama heavy-handed, most critics are enthusiastically cheering on Loach’s latest competition entry.

Nov 21, 2017 — Terry Gilliam plunges into the filth and absurdity of medieval England with this grim fairy-tale comedy.

Aug 18, 2017 — In this unsparing drama, Mike Leigh captures the grim mood of Thatcher’s England through the frustrations of a working-class London family.

Nov 24, 2015 — In Dont Look Back, legendary documentary filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker employs his revolutionary new camera and Direct Cinema style to capture the multiple essences and contradictions of a young Bob Dylan making his way across England in 1965.

Aug 23, 2016 — Tony Richardson’s era-defining exploration of sexuality, race, and working-class life brought a uniquely female perspective to England’s Free Cinema movement.

John Pym, who edited sixteen annual editions of the Time Out Film Guide, is the author of a monograph on Preston Sturges’s The Palm Beach Story and two books on the Merchant Ivory partnership. He was educated in England and...

Nov 18, 2022 — Nikyatu Jusu, Douglas Sirk, Mike De Leon, Donald Sutherland, and Sam Raimi are on our minds this week.

Jun 25, 2022 — This week sees new issues of film and literary journals as well as great writing on Stanley Kwan, Hong Sangsoo, and Claire Denis.

Mar 6, 2026 — Jonathan Rosenbaum returns to the Reader, there’s a new Cineaste, plus: Hiroshi Shimizu, John Akomfrah, and Robert Vas.