Clarisse Loughrey

Chief film critic@clarisselou

Clarisse Loughrey is the chief film critic for The Independent. She also acts as a regular stand-in for Mark Kermode on BBC Radio 5 Live’s ‘Kermode and Mayo’ and runs That Darn Movie Show, a weekly review channel on YouTube.

Film reviews

Dakota Johnson is woefully miscast in the mortifying Persuasion

At no point during Carrie Cracknell’s directorial debut do you ever get the sense that anyone’s actually read ‘Persuasion’

Thor: Love and Thunder remembers that Marvel’s main audience are kids

Nitram asks the necessary questions about gun violence

Minions: The Rise of Gru isn’t as annoying as you might imagine

Features

To mediocrity and beyond: Does Lightyear speak to a Pixar in crisis?

Why feel-good favourite Coda was the right Best Picture Oscar winner

The cast and creators of Pixar’s coming-of-age fantasy Turning Red

Guillermo del Toro: ‘We can’t go through 150 emotions a day sanely’

Film reviews

Vortex refuses to be gentle, and that’s why it’s so mesmerising

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a total mess

Downton Abbey 2 is like a party guest that won’t shut up and go home

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a Nicolas Cage fever dream

The Northman is a Viking epic of thick, blood-red brutality

We’re All Going to the World’s Fair makes the internet even scarier

Michael Bay’s Ambulance looks like it’s been edited mid-panic attack

Deep Water is stubbornly and knowingly unsexy

Fresh proves that a clever metaphor isn’t automatically satisfying

Two Ryan Reynoldses are too many Ryan Reynoldses in The Adam Project

Grifters and porn stars collide in the Trump-era drama Red Rocket

Robert Pattinson gives us ‘emo Dark Knight’ in Matt Reeves’ The Batman

Lucy and Desi is an antidote to the failures of Being the Ricardos

Cyrano is too lavish and swoon-worthy to just be crushed by The Batman

Parallel Mothers brings new depth to Pedro Almodóvar’s fearless women

Sing 2 frames U2 as the key to humanity’s salvation

Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley unfurls languidly if hypnotically

Belfast review: A film not so much about The Troubles at all

Metatextual as ever, Scream now takes a stab at toxic fanboys

Andrea Arnold’s Cow is surprisingly confrontational

Jessica Chastain shoves her way through the slick but mediocre 355

Stephen Graham is a chef on the edge in one-shot drama Boiling Point

Swan Song is a sci-fi drama that doesn’t seem interested in our future

George Clooney tells a placid but intimate story in The Tender Bar

The villains collide in nostalgic crossover Spider-Man: No Way Home

Spielberg’s West Side Story is far from a radical revisionist triumph

Being the Ricardos’ Lucille Ball is inescapably Nicole Kidman

Jennifer Lawrence is back to business in punchy satire Don’t Look Up

Joaquin Phoenix is at his career best in C’mon C’mon

Silent Night is a comic Christmas tale hiding a nasty surprise

Fewer Love Actually references might have improved romcom Boxing Day

House of Gucci is proof that tackiness can be art

Encanto is one of the best Disney films of the modern era

A Boy Called Christmas is a cynical, but sincere Santa origin story

Robin Robin is rich and satisfying, with truly exquisite details

Ghostbusters: Afterlife is an ethically dubious nostalgia trip

Will Smith is a true movie star in King Richard

Netflix’s Tick, Tick... Boom! is the ultimate defence of theatre kids

The problem isn’t that Home Sweet Home Alone’s a remake, it’s just bad

Sex and grief are mingled in the inconclusive Mothering Sunday

Chloé Zhao meets far too much CGI in Marvel’s Eternals

Red Notice is built for the Netflix algorithm and nothing more

Oscar Isaac is bereft of his seductive allure in The Card Counter

Passing is a rich, deeply feminine directorial debut by Rebecca Hall