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Wendy Ide

Wendy Ide is the Observer's chief film critic

9 February 2025

  • L-r: Christopher Abbott, Barry Keoghan and Nora-Jane Noone in Bring Them Down.

    Bring Them Down review – Barry Keoghan stars in a bruising Irish tale of rural blood feuds

    Christopher Andrews’s visceral feature debut also boasts US actor Christopher Abbott speaking in Irish and a terrifying turn from Motherland’s Paul Ready
  • Dog Man (Peter Hastings) in DreamWorks Animation’s Dog Man

    Dog Man review – the beloved comic book character makes a gloriously funny big screen debut

    D​av Pilkey’s half-dog, half-cop Captain Underpants spin-off is now a ​s​uperb animation with cross-generational appeal

    • Love Hurts review – dire Valentine-themed action movie

    • The Fire Inside review – Olympic boxing biopic is a knockout

    • The Seed of the Sacred Fig review – Mohammad Rasoulof’s fearless drama is a damning indictment of the Iranian regime

8 February 2025

  • Peter Sarsgaard as Roone Arledge, Ben Chaplin as Marvin Bader and John Magaro as Geoff Mason in September 5.

    September 5 review – terrific, edge-of-the-seat newsroom drama about 1972 Olympics terror attack

    Tim Fehlbaum’s taut real-life thriller mixes in archive footage to gripping effect as it relives ABC’s coverage of an unfolding hostage crisis

2 February 2025

  • An anime teenage girl clasps her hands to her face in a treescape shimmering with unusual colours

    The Colours Within review – enchanting synaesthesia anime

    Japanese animator Naoko Yamada’s tale of teenage friendship shimmers with the hues her heroine experience of feeling colours
  • Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon in You’re Cordially Invited.

    You’re Cordially Invited review – Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon are the draw in wildly uneven wedding comedy

    Two weddings, one double booking and a series of cliches are the order of the day in Nicholas Stoller’s Bride Wars-lite comedy

    • By the Stream review – gentle college comedy of manners from Hong Sang-soo

    • Companion review – country house tech horror presses the button marked fun

    • Wendy Ide's film of the week
      Hard Truths review – Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s blistering performance is the angry heart of Mike Leigh’s drama

1 February 2025

  • John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd tussle as Gabriel LaBelle and Gilda Radner look on shocked in Saturday Night.

    Saturday Night review – frenetic if safe comedy dramatisation of the US TV show’s first episode

    Reliving the chaotic 90 minutes running up to launch of Saturday Night Live in 1975, Jason Reitman’s film delivers infectious energy minus the requisite edge

26 January 2025

  • Mark Wahlberg in pilot's headphones in a cockpit looking reassuring in the direction of Michelle Dockery, whose face is turned away from the camera

    Flight Risk review – Mel Gibson’s airborne thriller is a B-movie blast

    Mark Wahlberg’s hilariously overblown pilot saves Michelle Dockery’s day in director Gibson’s bumpy plane-peril escapade
  • A man wearing a protective vest aims a pistol using a two-handed grip.

    Sunray: Fallen Soldier review – brutal, bloated British action movie falls flat

    An ex-Marine tracks down his daughter’s killers in this preposterous revenge tale
  • Adrien Brody as fictional architect László Tóth in The Brutalist

    Wendy Ide's film of the week
    The Brutalist review – Brady Corbet’s audacious architecture drama is a monumental achievement

    The director’s Adrien Brody-starring tale of a Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor building a new future in the US moves him into the big league

25 January 2025

  • Lucy Liu standing by a window in Presence

    Presence review – the ghost’s behind the camera in Soderbergh’s teasing haunted house thriller

    A suburban family, headed by Lucy Liu’s pitbull mum, are stalked by a malign spirit – and the director’s spectral camerawork

19 January 2025

  • Julia Garner in a check shirt holding the arm of scar-faced Christopher Abbott looking intense in Wolf Man.

    Wolf Man review – Julia Garner-starring backwoods horror lacks bite

  • an AI-modified Tom Hanks and Robin Wright looking younger than they really are

    Here review – a de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright grow old together in mawkish tear-jerker

  • Claes Bang riding a horse with a bow and arrow in his role as William Tell.

    William Tell review – Claes Bang misses the target in action-packed portrayal of the Swiss folk hero

  • Will Sharpe and Noémie Merlant in Emmanuelle.

    Emmanuelle review – dismal remake of 1974 French erotic film

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