“While every other week a new chorus of auteurs and old-timers seems to be announcing the death of cinema, Iranian director Jafar Panahi knows its worth” IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT review ✍️ Ciarán O’Rourke 🍿 in cinemas Friday headstuff.org/entertainmen...

“While every other week a new chorus of auteurs and old-timers seems to be announcing the death of cinema, Iranian director Jafar Panahi knows its worth” IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT review ✍️ Ciarán O’Rourke 🍿 in cinemas Friday headstuff.org/entertainmen...

And that's a wrap on IFI French Film Festival 2025! It's been an unbelievable 12 days of French cinema, and we're so grateful to our audiences who came out in such numbers to be a part of this milestone festival, with record-breaking sales and our biggest ever attendance! #IFIFFF25 #FrenchCinema

We watched Fritz Lang's THE BLUE GARDENIA (1953) last night -- a tight, fun little thriller, with a charming cameo from Nat King Cole no less! Alas, not among my top Blues (Velvet, Betty, Brothers, Three Colours, Sunshine). The journey continues. 💙

"Two tickets for Itchy The Killer please"

Favourite first-time watches of November 2025: • Lady Terminator (1988) • The Curse of the Cat People (1944) • The Ambulance (1990) • The Ice Tower (2025) • Hedgehog in the Fog (1975)

Congrats to Myrid Carten and the team behind A WANT IN HER, which took home Best Feature Documentary, the Raindance Maverick Award and Best Debut Director - Feature Documentary at the BIFAs last night. 👏🏆👏🏆👏🏆👏 www.screenireland.ie/news/myrid-c...

ICYMI, I interviewed Shih-Ching Tsou, writer-director of LEFT-HANDED GIRL. One of 2025’s little gems, it’s on Netflix now. My interview for @loudandclearrvs.bsky.social: loudandclearreviews.com/left-handed-...

Favourite first-time watches of November 2025: • Lady Terminator (1988) • The Curse of the Cat People (1944) • The Ambulance (1990) • The Ice Tower (2025) • Hedgehog in the Fog (1975)

I would like to thank our contributing writers at HeadStuff’s Film section for all their hard work this week. A great deal of coverage to dive into. Your weekly recap ⬇️

I am once again thinking about Cher’s author bio.

Interview with Irish director Seán Treacy, whose new short film, SAVE ME FROM HEAVEN, is premiering Nov 30th at the Foyle Film Festival. ✍️ Jonathon Boylan headstuff.org/entertainmen...

HAMNET (Chloé Zhao, 2025)

I'm teaching a course at the Irish Writers' Centre this spring where we will start out working on basic ideas and try to move them forward to script stage, it was a lot of fun when we did it last year, very happy they have asked me back: irishwriterscentre.ie/courses/grow...

The council is pushing forward with a plan for 20 new artist studios and a revived theatre on Merchant’s Quay. If it gets planning permission for the €9.5 million project on schedule, construction could start next September, according to a council official.

Ahead of the Dublin International Comedy Film Festival this weekend, @creagh.bsky.social chats with Director and Founder Mo O’Connell to talk about movies, mayhem and the important role humour plays in telling stories. headstuff.org/entertainmen...

David Michôd’s new film, starring Sydney Sweeney, is “less a movie about boxing than it is a survivor’s story — hard to watch, but worth the effort” our CHRISTY review ✍️ Ciarán O’Rourke 🍿 in cinemas Nov 28 headstuff.org/entertainmen...

David Michôd’s new film, starring Sydney Sweeney, is “less a movie about boxing than it is a survivor’s story — hard to watch, but worth the effort” our CHRISTY review ✍️ Ciarán O’Rourke 🍿 in cinemas Nov 28 headstuff.org/entertainmen...

Finally. My big 2800 word essay about One Battle After Another and its black women characters is live. www.vulture.com/article/blac...

“Josh O’Connor steals the show” WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY review ✍️ Jonathon Boylan 🍿 in cinemas Nov 26 📺 on Netflix Dec 12 headstuff.org/entertainmen...

Reading The Last Action Heroes and amidst all the great stories about the tough guy lunkheads it off-handedly mentions Jason Alexander wearing a cardigan to the premiere of Cliffhanger. You better believe I looked that cardigan up and it didn't disappoint

“…we have the sense of witnessing not only a character brought to life, but an actor coming into his full maturity and power.” our TRAIN DREAMS review ✍️ Ciarán O’Rourke 📺 Streaming on Netflix headstuff.org/entertainmen...

Spotted DOLORES CLAIBORNE in an Irish Times listicle on King adaptations and realised that it’s been on my watchlist for far too long. Worked a treat for a late Sunday matinee. Full of melancholy, melodrama and a frazzled Christopher Plummer serving up three square meals of bitchery.

I didn’t get a ticket for MBV tonight, but I did come across this potentially equally soul-enriching experience. Will report back.

👇👀 our writers have been busy 👀👇 "The gory edges that previously defined the franchise are softened: the action is mostly weightless CGI gooey-ness, while the Predators lose any of the mystique they once held." our PREDATORS:BADLANDS review ✍️ Thomas Caffrey 🍿 Out now headstuff.org/entertainmen...

Awful news… Only started listening to (and loving!) 2XM’s Click Clack several months ago, and was sooo impressed by its wonderfully curated playlists and news on local gigs (went to BIG BRAVE at Whelan’s after hearing them on the show). Legacy media continues to collapse. Support independent doers!

TESTIMONY is in cinemas today. Read our review linked below, among Ciarán’s best. “When the tendency from successive Irish governments seems to favour slow progress at best, films like this keep the possibility of justice alive.”

📣 Today at 13:00 @irishfilminstitute.bsky.social headstuff.org/entertainmen...

Most post-screening Q&As are excruciating, but this was fun! @irishfilminstitute.bsky.social

"The chronicle offered here is fuelled by empathy and coloured by pain" our TESTIMONY review ✍️ Ciarán O'Rourke 🍿 in cinemas from Friday headstuff.org/entertainmen...

Despite one of their own commissions finding Israel guilty of genocide literally 2 months ago, the UN takes the keys of Gaza from Netanyahu to hand to Trump. After all the cruelty visited on Palestinians in the last 2 (read: 80) years they still let the oppressors decide the fate of the oppressed

One Battle After Another (2025) / Hereditary (2018) / Past Lives (2023)

This huge new book on Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray looks gorgeous. Honoured to have made a small contribution www.editionsdeloeil.com/product-page...

It's Yaphet Kotto's birthday so as usual I will share his spoken word blues/funk release, because it is very good indeed: youtu.be/hvugAn0nwEU?...

THE AMBULANCE (1990) • A lesser actor would’ve been upstaged by such a full-bodied mullet. Not Roberts, he’s going full tilt here and ain’t nothing holding him back.

Summer days of plastering yourself in suncream are long gone ☔️ Why not escape the rain with a hot drink in one of our cosy screens!

Glen Powell is a star, but THE RUNNING MAN is an insufficient vehicle for his charisma. Edgar Wright pulls practically every punch. Far too reminiscent of the remakes of Robocop and Total Recall (ugh). My review: headstuff.org/entertainmen...

ACT OF VIOLENCE (1948) • Two broken toy soldiers stumbling in circles through dingy bars and empty streets, blinded by grief, guilt and looking for someone to pin it on. All 82mins seen through Van Heflin’s bug eyes and carried atop Robert Ryan’s ludicrously broad shoulders.

What, Letterboxd is down?! But how will people know the extend to which I think Russian Ark slaps and/or is fire (no cap)??

This is a disastrous move. RTE's documentary-makers in both radio and TV are held in very high esteem all over the globe, and to shutter the in-house TV unit is as stupid as it is short-sighted.

Hey Belfast - tomorrow I will be conducting a Q&A with Ben Wheatley after the Irish premiere of his ramshackle, handmade, brain-twisting, zero-budget new movie BULK. Ben may also have copies of the fanzine he created about BULK if you're lucky. belfastfilmfestival2025.eventive.org/schedule/bul...

Few films feel like velvet. This is one of them. Dark and deep. I held on to it, crawled into it and will be wrapped up in it till spring.

I wonder if Jeff Lieberman had any clue that his goofy 1988 sci-fi REMOTE CONTROL would someday become a tearjerker for those of us old enough to remember the thrill of discovery and discussion that came with stepping into a video store …

Here’s the cover for LIKE A CAT LOVES A BIRD: THE NINE LIVES OF MURIEL SPARK, out 16 April with @sceptrebooks.bsky.social Preorder here: lnk.to/LikeaCatLove... Please share! The book doing well means I can write another (and fulfil my dream of owning a pizza oven), so it’s pretty serious 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛

We watched LADY TERMINATOR (1988) over Halloween, and just to give you some insight into Lady Terminator’s meticulous work ethic: at one point, she blasts away a military officer with a heavy-duty machine gun, stands over his broken body, continues to riddle it with bullets (beautiful squib work) …

Favourite first-time watches of October 2025: • Stuck (2007) • The Mastermind (2025) • Dirty Weekend (1993) • High Spirits (1988)

Time to shine a light on our film writers this week, putting out a stream of enthusiastic reviews and thoughtful anniversary pieces.👏👏 Recap below 👇

Gonna be a good’un

Horrorthon 2025 may be over, but our coverage continues! ✍️ ✍️