The James Marsh film review archive

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  • Sinister

    Ethan Hawke stars as a struggling true crime writer who moves his family to a new town in order to investigate a series of horrific family murders. You can read… Read More

  • REVIEW: Sinister

    I was a big fan of Sinister when it screened at FrightFest in London last August, where I found it to be the scariest film of the weekend. At a… Read More

  • Sudden Death

    From Peter Hyams, the director of Outland, 2010 and the Van Damme actioner Timecop, this is essentially a low-rent Die Hard knock-off set in and around an ice rink, during… Read More

  • The Man With The Iron Fists

    Wu-Tang Clan frontman and self-confessed Shaw Brothers fanboy RZA makes his directorial debut in this loving but messy homage to the martial arts classics of yesteryear, which he also wrote… Read More

  • REVIEW: The Man With The Iron Fists

    Rapper-turned-filmmaker RZA writes, directs and stars as the titular hero of this passionate love letter to old school Chinese martial arts movies. It is widely known that the founder of… Read More

  • Prince of Darkness

    John Carpenter had a fantastic run of form, from his debut Dark Star in 1974, up until They Live in 1988. Just before that sci-fi action classic he made this… Read More

  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 2

    The second part of Jay Oliva’s animated adaptation of Frank Miller’s landmark comic continues on apace, introducing a number of familiar characters from the DC Universe, including The Joker, Superman… Read More

  • Searching For Sugar Man

    The favourite to win Best Documentary at the Oscars later this month is a fantastic piece of investigative journalism into what became of the folk singer Rodriguez. A Mexican-born Detroit… Read More

  • REVIEW: Searching For Sugar Man

    I had put off watching this much-lauded documentary for most of 2012 for one reason or another, but after finally catching it today I don’t know why I waited so… Read More

  • Seven Psychopaths

    Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh follows up his hugely entertaining debut, In Bruges, by moving to Hollywood and attempting a larger, more ambitiously plotted tale of hit men, dog ‘nappers and… Read More

  • The Searchers

    First watched this as a teenager and failed to get too much from it beyond the spectacle of Monument Valley. The new HD restoration makes the film worth re-watching for… Read More

  • The Bay

    Barry Levinson, the Oscar-winning director of Rain Man and Bugsy, re-emerges with his first film in what feels like a decade, and it’s a found-footage style horror movie about a… Read More

  • The Hidden

    One of those movies that always caught my eye in the video store, but for one reason or another I never got around to actually watching. Michael Nouri plays the… Read More

  • Contact

    Robert Zemeckis follows up his Forrest Gump Oscar success with this ambitious attempt to reconcile the age-old debate between Science and Religion. Jodie Foster stands on the side of Science… Read More

  • Goon

    Seann William Scott delivers what is perhaps the best performance of his career as the slow-witted yet lovable Doug Glatt, who finds himself swept up into the Canadian ice hockey… Read More

  • Trollhunter

    Witty, exciting and utterly original, Andre Ovredal’s found footage film succeeds by playing it dead straight, where others may have been tempted to play the film for laughs. A student… Read More

  • Hellraiser

    Clive Barker’s 1987 directorial debut sees Clare Higgins graduate from philandering wife and stepmother to serial murderer, when she discovers the reanimated corpse of her former lover hiding out in… Read More

  • Looper

    I caught Rian Johnson’s much-loved indie time-travel thriller when it opened here in Hong Kong, but I had only just landed after a mammoth 48-hour trek from Texas to London… Read More