I PLAY ROCKY***** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 Surprise Film

Sly Stallone's ROCKY is hands down one of the best films of all time. It's a boxing movie, yes, but it's also an underdog story, about a poor kid who speaks funny and just wants a chance to compete, and won't give up, even when he's getting pummelled.  It's a story about working class people with grit. And finding love, even when you don't look conventionally pretty or have nice clothes. It's a story about community, and learning to believe in yourself, and sometimes saying sorry to the people who are trying to help you.  Man, I love that film. It's also a film with an iconic score, not least its fanfare, with several iconic training montages.  It's a film that gave us the first landmark use of the steady-cam. And it's a film that showed us contemporary Philly in all its grit and glory.  It's also a film that scored a LOT of Oscar nominations, not least the double-crown of a Best Acting and Best Screenplay nod for its creator, Sly Stallone. This was the first time someone had achieved that double-nom since Orson Welles for CITIZEN KANE. 

So, if you haven't already gathered, I am the PERFECT audience for this new "making of" film, directed by Peter Farrelly (GREEN BOOK) and based on a screenplay by Peter Gamble. It stars Anthony Ippolito as Stallone in what is sure to be a star-making part.  We follow a young Stallone struggle to get taken seriously as an actor, his passion. So much so that his girlfriend, later wife, tells him to write a leading role so that they have to cast him in it.  And it turns out, he really can write! He has a voice! So much so that two famous Hollywood producers tell him to give up on the acting and just focus on the lucrative work of selling screenplays. So much so that Tracy Letts' studio boss is willing to pay Stallone so much money for the script he can buy a house if he will only let them cast someone else.  But no, Stallone insists, "I play Rocky."  

The resulting film is unabashedly feel-good. I bounced out of the cinema singing the Rocky fanfare and buzzing.  Ippolito is a knock-out (pun intended) but the supporting performances, particularly from P.J. Byrne and Toby Kebbell as the producers, are stunning.  I loved all the cinephile in-jokes, not least Tracy Letts' studio boss being paranoid about Paramount, at a time when we are all suspicious of David Ellison.  And I loved all the debate about what kind of film Rocky is.  

But as we left the screening I turned to my 23-year old cousin who had never actually seen ROCKY and asked him if he was still able to enjoy the film.  The answer was a resounding yes! He loved every minute and spent his long late-night train home watching the original. So, success, all round!

I PLAY ROCKY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 128 minutes. It played Toronto and London 2026. It goes on release in the USA on November 13th and in the UK on November 20th.

MINOTAUR**** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Day 10

Andrey Zvyagintsev (LEVIATHAN) returns to our screens with another profound and scabrous of the holistic corruption of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Every level of life, from federal to local government, corporate, personal has been twisted and tainted until nothing remains but hollow, performative, nihilism. God is dead, what Putin wants is permitted. 

As the film opens, Russia has just invaded Ukraine and working age men are fleeing the country.  Dmitriy Mazurov plays Gleb, a wealthy and successful businessman in an anonymous Russian town.  The local Mayor asks him to name the workers he is willing to send to fight in Ukraine. Is Gleb a good guy or not? He won't send his men (good?) so randomly employs a bunch of other men so he can send them off instead (bad?).  Meanwhile, Gleb suspects that his wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) is having an affair.  She can barely look at him let alone touch him. 

The first hour of the film is achingly slow, deliberately slow, and I didn't forgive the film for that, even when I realised that it was laying the foundations for an explosion of action and a second two-thirds that would try and work through the consequences of that act. It plays like a personal morality tale and a mirror to the wider corruption in Russian society. The final scene, that sees a resolution and accommodation of sorts, is chilling.  It speaks to complicity and enablement and acceptance. 

Overall, this is a handsomely made and beautifully acted film. I know why the first hour needed to be slow, but I still didn't like it. Other than that, this is essential viewing.

MINOTAUR has a running time of 2hrs 15m and is rated 15. It played Cannes, Toronto and Telluride. It goes on release in the USA on November 20th and in the UK on November 27th.

KLARA AND THE SUN**** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Day 10

I have read so many negative reviews of KLARA AND THE SUN and I just want to say that those reviewers are all heartless bastards!  Maybe they were all expecting a hard-boiled sci-fi film about some kind of BLADERUNNER style dystopian future that asks profound questions about the nature of consciousness and whether androids can be human too.  But neither Kazuo Ishiguro's stunning novel, nor Taika Waititi's adaptation are about that. They are both beautiful and deeply moving fables about grief and the lengths parents will go to to "never let me go".  And in doing so, both works of art ask us profound questions about selfishness, and the limit between humanity and inhumanity.  In other words, when and how do good people do bad things for seemingly good reasons.

Looked at through this lens, it becomes clear that KLARA AND THE SUN is neither about Jenna Ortega's AI-driven robot companion Klara, nor is it about the chronically ill human, Josie (Dahvi Waller), that she has been bought to accompany.  In fact, this is a movie about Josie's mother Chrissy (Amy Adams).  When we meet Chrissy, she is portrayed as a deeply controlling, vaguely sinister, working, single-mother. But as the movie unfolds we realise that Chrissy is already grieving the death of Josie's younger sister, and is now clinging on to Josie with all her emotional strength, no matter the cost. Meanwhile Josie is both struggling with grief and going through a kind of teenage rebellion. And all the time, we have Klara as a naïve observer, struggling to do good and to make everyone happy, even when they have competing claims.

I loved all three performances and really believed in the emotional stakes.  I didn't love all of Waititi's directorial choices though. I might have cooled down some of the more fairy-tale, grotesque costuming and production design - especially in the mean kids' party scene - because I feel it takes away from the profound emotional core of the story. And I think we lose something by not seeing what happened to Josie's father and the people who choose to live outside of the system that Chrissy is eager to compete in. That said, this is still a satisfying and moving film to watch and well worth your time.

KLARA AND THE SUN is rated 12A and has a running time of 1hr 56m. It will be released in the UK and USA on October 23rd.

FJORD***** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Day 11

FJORD is a stunning piece of provocative film-making from Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu. It makes for uncomfortable viewing because it forces us to confront our own prejudices and to educate ourselves about our own countries. 

The action begins in a remote Norwegian town where a new family is welcomed warmly with woollen mittens and apple cakes. The father is Romanian, the mother is Norwegian, they have five kids including a nursing infant, and they are evangelical Christians.  Their differing religious and cultural norms soon bring them up against the profoundly progressive liberal norms of the town.  

The teachers call in social services because the daughter has some bruising.  Is it from wrestling, or tumbling down the stairs in a fight with her brother? No matter, because pretty soon the father and mother are being accused of child abuse because the father admits to scolding his children with light slaps across the bottom and on their hands. (Something that would be legal in the U.K..) He admits to not realising that this is illegal and frowned upon in Norway.  He says he is sorry - he just wants his kids back.  We see the civil court case play out, and his case is taken up by Christian right social media.

So many questions arise from this.  Why did the lovely progressive liberal teachers not bother investigating the fact that the headmaster's daughter Noora is slitting her wrists but jump into action when the immigrant girl has bruising?  Are they angry at the potential child abuse OR because the daughter Elia has the temerity to say that she doesn't agree that kids can be gay.  How far does the state have the right to intervene in how parents parent their children?  When is a light slap physical abuse? Where is the line?  How far is progressive liberal Norway really welcoming of immigrants? Or do they just want people to conform? Does freedom of religion really exist if you have to conform to views on LGBTQ?

I love that this film creates so much discussion and also that the director allows us to answer those questions for ourselves. It's a film that poses a problem of co-living and integration and allows us to try to answer it.  But Mungiu does put his hands on the scale in interesting and subtle ways.  The Norwegians subtly mispronouncing Elia's name.  The police case that is conducted in questionable ways.  The prosecuting lawyer resorting to Romanian idiom to make his case.  And going the other way, the fact that in the final very moving scene it becomes clear that Noora is gay.  

Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve are very strong in the lead roles of the two religious parents.  The cast in general is strong, and the cinematography stunning.  We get so many still frames and long scenes that when we get deliberate visual action it's all the more powerful. An avalanche comes down the mountain toward the small town.  And so over Europe more broadly.

FJORD has a running time of 2hrs 26m and is rated 15. It won the Palme D'Or at Cannes and also played Telluride and Toronto. It is on release in the USA and will be released in the UK on November 13th.

YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER***** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Day 11

YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER is an absolutely fantastic film. It's hilarious, the action choreography is thrilling, it's genuinely moving, and it takes us into a world and a community few of us will know.  Writer-director Bassam Tariq (MOGUL MOWGLI) is really doing something as unique and authentic and purposeful as when Tarantino first came to our screens. 

The film is set in contemporary Houston, where community comes from religious groups.  Mahershala Ali plays a hitman called Latif, whose beloved wife has just died leaving him with three kids to take care of.  The fact that he got the call about his wife amidst murder clean-up AND the fact that his infant needs breast-milk become the twin MacGuffins that propel the action of the film. 

First off, because his boss Mike needed to clean-up the murder, Latif now owes him, and Mike wants him to pay that debt by assassinating an evangelical Christian cult-leader called Pastor Hwan (John Cho) that's going for Mike's nephew Hatty.  Second, Latif needs to find a nursing mother that can provide his hungry infant Zizi with food.  

All of which speaks to a gonzo cast of characters and a richness of world-building that echoes early Tarantino and comes complete with some rather sweet Mormons and a vibrant mosque community.  

What I love about this film is that it shows how the younger generations intermix and riff on each other's cultural language and tropes. It also dares to speak openly and honestly about faith, loss of faith, and balancing the desire to be pious with the desire to have a boyfriend or the need to provide for your kids. 

It was amazing to me how in one moment we would be laughing at Hatty's mogul stylings and then listening to him opine about his faith in moving terms. Or how we could see Latif's elder daughter Fatiha have to contend with being a mother stand-in and try to be pious, but then also be a normal teenage girl with a crush on Elder Wade.

I also loved how despite it's hilarious dialogue and exaggerated settings and crazy fight-scenes this was a movie that kept me guessing and laid some profundity on me in its final moments.  John Cho plays Pastor Hwan for laughs, as he should, but his character speaks to the profound issue of the rise of Christian nationalism.  And Latif is on a long journey of realising that while he can never replace the children's mother, he can be the best father he can.

So kudos to all involved. This is some of Ali's best stunt and acting work in a storied career. I would argue that it's a career best performance from John Cho.  But it's Adia as Fatiha who is the heart and soul of the film and most clearly shows how Tariq's script allows its characters a fully realised spectrum of emotions and responses.

YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER is rated R and has a running time of 1hr 51m. It played Toronto and was released in the USA last month. It will be released in the UK on November 20th.

CLUB KID*** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Day 11

CLUB KID is the debut feature from writer-director-actor Jordan Firstman (I Love LA).  A gay club promoter, drug-dealer, addict the inevitable move-cliche "heart of gold" discovers he has a ten-year old kid and has to take over parenting when the kid's mum dies.  I really wanted to love this film. It has an authenticity rooted in the contemporary queer clubbing scene and Firstman writes and performs superb comedy.  Everyone is adorable.  But that's the problem.  Everyone is too adorable, the spikiness and darkness is tamped down, and the plot is as predictable and tropey as any of those films from GREEN CARD to KRAMER VS KRAMER.

First off, the dad, Peter, seems to be able to magically give up drugs despite having been a seriously heavy user for over a decade and still hanging out with users. We see one relapse. But no therapy, no NA, no AA, and he's just fine. We don't even really see withdrawal.  Then there's the kid, Arlo, who seems remarkably kind, sweet, open and undamaged despite the fact he grew up with a violent and abusive father, a drug-addict mother, and is still grieving. We don't see any of that in how he interacts with all the new people he meets or being around drug use.  Then there's the fact that Peter starts dating Arlo's psychiatrist (Diego Calva). We see enough of the psychiatrist to think he takes his job seriously and would not breach this boundary.

So this is a really funny, really heart-warming film that's beautifully shot and acted, but that is fatally flawed.  I just didn't believe any of it.  And it just felt super-cliched and sanitised and obvious in ways that I found problematic.

CLUB KID is rated R and has a running time of 2hrs 2m. It played Cannes, Telluride and Toronto. It opens in the USA on November 6th.