Films, TV & Radio

In this week's Culture Tuesday on Radio Maria England, Helena returns from her Easter break with a rich and reflective review of the new science fiction film Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, starring Ryan Gosling and based on the novel by Andy Weir. Blending cinema, faith and personal reflection, Project Hail Mary follows Ryland Grace, a reluctant astronaut who wak... Read More

Directed by Brian Cox in his directorial debut, Glenroathan is a heartwarming film about forgiveness and reconciliation set in highlands of Scotland. The film centres on the relationship of two brothers - Sandy Nairn played by Brian Cox and his younger brother, Donal, played with impish glee by Alan Cumming, who have been estranged for 40 years. The family owns a small but well respected whisky di... Read More

A crucial moment in the Haitian director Raoul Peck's new film Orwell: 2+2=5 has a clip of St Joan perishing in the flames from Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 classic The Passion of Joan of Arc.She was burned for heresy - because she 'refused to outrage her conscience'. The words are Orwell's own. And then comes the exhortation, 'Dare to be a Daniel', that is: speak truth to power, hold fast to truth ... Read More

'Wild Rose' is being screened at the Tim Hetherington Film Club at Farm Street Jesuit Centre, this Thursday. David Hurst writes: "Was I prescient in my choice of film for this month?! As the wonderful Irish actress, Jessie Buckley, won the Best Actress award for her performance in 'Hamnet' at both the OSCARS and the BAFTA awards, we will follow her zeitgeist and show the film that convinced me jus... Read More

Ahmet (Arif Jakup) - a 15 year old boy from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia copes with a dignity beyond his years in an oppressive situation in the opening scenes of this delightful debut feature film from writer/director Georgi M Unkovski. Ahmet's over-strict father has taken him out of school to look after the family sheep. He is also caring for his little brother Naim (Agush Agushev) ... Read More

'A fresh, big-hearted comedy' The Wall Street Journal - The Ballad of Wallis Island is this month's movie at the Tim Hetherington Film Club in the Arrupe Hall of at Farm Street Jesuit Centre this Thursday 26 February 2026 6.30 for 7pm This tells the story of an eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island where he tries to make his fantasy come true by getting his favourite folk duo... Read More

The Oscar-winning Palestinian director of 'No Other Land' says his family has been attacked again by illegal Israeli settlers, leaving his brother hospitalised and four members of his family arrested by the Israeli army. Hamdan Ballal says the violence began on Sunday when Israeli settlers attacked his family's home in the village of Susya in the occupied West Bank. Ballal says the settlers' raid ... Read More

While it is an obvious thing to say, every reader of Emily Bronte's 1847 novel brings their own imagination to her evocative words. And, imaginations are subjective, creating location images, creating the look and sound characters, heightening the action the more we become involved as we read. The Internet Movie Database indicates that there have been 15 versions of Wuthering Heights since 1920. H... Read More

Never have I been so conscious of how the world view I bring with me to a film affects how I understand it. Rose of Nevada begins with a succession of beautiful, lingering, colourful, close-up shots of decay - rocks and wood covered in lichen, metal chains eaten away by rust, a fishing harbour that has seen better times. Then two crossed pieces of wave-worn wood leap out at me like an abandoned cr... Read More

Helena Judd, from Radio Maria, reviews Hamnet, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Chloé Zhao. The film has already won the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) People's Choice Award, highlighting its critical acclaim and audience impact. O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the ... Read More

'Life is Beautiful' is the ironic title of this 1997 period masterpiece that was an overwhelming critical and commercial success with critics praising its story, performances, direction and, in particular, its 'union of comedy and drama'. The story tells of a Jewish bookshop owner who uses his imagination to shield his young son from the horrors of internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The film... Read More

H is for Hawk is a biographical drama produced by Film4 and based on the 2014 memoir written by Cambridge academic Helen McDonald. The film, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe, deals with the awful depression Helen (Clare Foy) falls into following the sudden death of her beloved father, played by the supremely engaging and roguish Brendan Gleeson. As a way of hanging onto to the memory of her father, ... Read More

This five week course with Father Stuart Jesson SJ, at the London Jesuit Centre, 114 Mount Street, London W1K 3 AH, starting on Wednesday, 14 January, explores the way that films depict human life, and the hope of salvation, and what this might teach us: from Wim Wender's meditative Wings of Desire to the melodrama of Fellini's La Strada. For more information and to book see: https://londonjesuitc... Read More

What's your favourite Christmas carol? On Boxing Day, student reporters from St John Bosco College in Battersea, (who also publish a magazine: Faith Matters) will reveal the favourite Christmas carol of twelve people, including actress Dame Joanna Lumley, singer Barbara Dickson, rugby star Jonny Wilkinson, Maureen Devereux MBE, Father Patrick van der Vorst, precentor at Westminster Cathedral and f... Read More