Letterboxd — Your life in film

One of the films of the year, Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave, is available to stream on MUBI from today and we wanted to highlight another MUBI exclusive, his early-career short JUDGEMENT.

Zhao Tao is a force of nature as the wronged moll in Jia Zhangke’s exhilarating gangster epic; a sprawling, chromatically-charged thriller set at the dawn of China’s capitalist rush.

We champion a master of contemporary noir for our final Noirvember pick, with Christian Petzold’s atmospheric post-war mystery PHOENIX. 

Dennis Hooper stars as villainous con-artist Tom Ripley in Wim Wender’s transnational neo-noir THE AMERICAN FRIEND.

We head to the streets of New York for our next #noirvember pick with the seminal THE NAKED CITY from master noir craftsman Jules Dassin. 

We’re dedicating this month’s Friday Night Film picks to Noirvember and as we’re just coming out of the spooky season, we start off with the late-70s chiller WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, a fascinating blend of home invasion terror and gritty noir. 

Rob Zombie’s Halloween remakes have proven to be divisive for deviating so drastically from John Carpenter’s brooding slasher classic. Every inch of Zombie’s films oozes with grit and grain. They’re bloody, brutal affairs that don’t leave much to the imagination with a trailer park aesthetic that is an acquired taste.

This week’s Friday Night Film pick is quite possibly the greatest contemporary horror film you’ve never seen and is a part of the BFI’s In Dreams are Monsters, a UK-wide season of horror films that focuses on the creatures that have haunted our screens and dreams for over a century.

With Park Chan-wook’s noir-tinged thriller Decision to Leave hitting UK cinemas this weekend, we champion his brilliantly twisted vampire-romance THIRST for this week’s Friday Night Film. 

A Korean immigrant falsely accused of murder in 70s San Francisco is the subject of Julia Ha & Eugene Yi’s heart-breaking true crime documentary FREE CHOL SOO LEE.

The reaction to this week’s release of Andrew Dominik’s fictionalized Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde has been one of vitriol and disgust from both audiences and critics, a backlash reminiscent of the negativity towards one of Hollywood’s most notorious NC-17 movies, Paul Verhoeven’s SHOWGIRLS. 

In 2013 arthouse icon Claire Denis added one of her most disturbed works to her eclectic oeuvre with the pitch-black revenge tale BASTARDS.

With Blondie blasting from the stereo of his convertible Mercedes, sex symbol Richard Gere leads as the narcissistic male escort in Paul Schrader's cold neo-noir AMERICAN GIGOLO.

Matthew Modine and Dennis Hooper star in Abel Ferrara’s dark character study of guilt and addiction with his underappreciated nineties gem THE BLACKOUT

In anticipation of next week's UK release of Crimes of the Future, David Cronenberg's return to his body-horror roots, we champion his bold take on William S. Burroughs's drug-fuelled semi-autobiographical novel NAKED LUNCH. 

Back in 1989, a legendary filmmaking career was born when renowned television personality and eccentric comedian Takeshi Kitano went behind the camera for the first time with his explosive Yakuza thriller VIOLENT COP.

This week’s Friday Night Film pick is a slice of modern-day grindhouse cinema with Joe Begos’s blood-soaked, drug-fuelled horror film BLISS.

THE KILLING OF TWO LOVERS opens with the disturbing image of a distressed man pointing a gun at his wife and her lover as they lay asleep. He doesn’t follow through with the act but the threat of violence permeates through writer-director Richard Machioan’s bleak, tension-filled indie thriller.

Neil Maskell gives a terrifying performance in this week’s Friday Night Film pick, the ultra-violent revenge thriller BULL. 

Summertime in late seventies Paris is the setting for this week’s Friday Night Film pick KNIFE + HEART, Yann Gonzalez’s heavily stylized, giallo-inspired queer thriller. 

Just a quick one for you this week.

The Hong Kong Film Awards returns this Sunday with its 40th edition and with the impact of the global pandemic hitting Hong Kong harder than most, it’s the first in-person version of the event since 2019. This week’s Friday Night Film pick is one of those leading the race for honors in Jun Li’s bleak drama DRIFTING. Nominated for 11 awards, the film is considered one of the frontrunners for Best Film along with Soi Cheang’s crime thriller Limbo, which…

The Prince Charles Cinema in London is hosting a retrospective on the prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To with a rare opportunity to see three of his films on the big screen. The mini-event kicked off last night with the screening of To’s slow-burn thriller LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE.

With today being Canada Day we wanted to mark the occasion with a piece of contemporary Canadian cinema from one of the country's true auteurs for this week's Friday Night Film pick. Atom Egoyan’s powerful drama THE SWEET HEREAFTER - winner of the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes in 1997 and an Academy Award nominee - is recognized as one of Canada’s most critically acclaimed films.

Our mini-series of Pride-inspired Friday Night Film picks concludes with Peter Strickland’s kinky melodrama THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY.

We're pleased to announce that we will be providing coverage of the forthcoming Making Waves: Navigators of Hong Kong Cinema event. This celebration of Hong Kong cinema comes to London 8-10 July, bringing an exciting selection of new films and restored classics to the big screen.

We continue our mini-series of Friday Night Film picks that champion British queer cinema in celebration of Pride Month with Ron Peck’s 1978 film NIGHTHAWKS.

As Odyssey comes to a close, we've decided to highlight five films from the festival's online offering that grabbed our attention, ranging from their Chinese Regional Cinema and Women Through the Lens programmes, to the festival's surprise film. 

In celebration of Pride month, our Friday Night Film picks for the rest of June will be dedicated to British queer cinema. We kick-off this mini-series with VICTIM, the boundary-pushing neo-noir from filmmaker Basil Dearden, which acted as a protest against Britain's draconian laws that forbode homosexuality, a law that stood until 1967. 

The appeal of a viewing experience which simply details the daily life of a dairy cow may not seem obvious but Andrea Arnold's unflinching documentary is surprisingly absorbing and emotionally potent. The power here is in its objectivity. This isn't a film wrought with activist intentions akin to something like Dominion or Earthlings, it doesn't combine clips of the vilest aspects of dairy farming for maximum shock factor, it simply depicts an ordinary life of a dairy cow but it…

"An Exploration" is Odyssey's short film programme dedicated to showcasing the range of different genres, themes, and aesthetics of 21st-century Chinese cinema, ranging from atmospheric shorts to incisive documentaries. Take a look at our top picks from the programme.

As this year's Cannes comes to a close the buzz surrounding Park Chan-wook’s latest film is cause for serious anticipation. Due for distribution via MUBI in the coming months, Decision to Leave is a noir-tinged murder mystery that sees Chan-wook swaps his trademark visceral thrills for an elegantly paced and playful crime romance that is augmented by a star turn from Chinese actress Tang Wei as the seductive widow Seo-rae who becomes the prime suspect in a detective’s investigation of…

Unquestionably one of the most anticipated films at this year’s Cannes film festival will be the premiere of David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart, the film is in competition for this year’s headline prize, the Palme d’Or, and sees Cronenberg return to his visceral and violent roots.

Provocative director Gaspar Noé’s Vortex, released in cinemas today, is a story of old age and the descent of dementia. Noe’s career to date has been synonymous with films of a brutal and disturbing nature and his latest work, while a harrowing experience in its own way, is more restrained and a departure from the extremities that precede his reputation. This week’s Friday Night Film pick champions a film by Noe’s wife and frequent collaborator, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, the surreal fantasy…

We are excited to announce that Bookhouse will be attending Odyssey: a Chinese cinema season, a month long film festival dedicated to championing the latest in outstanding independent Chinese cinema. The festival, presented by UK-China Film Collab, runs from 10th May - 10th June across venues in London and Edinburgh as well as online.