Popular reviews

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  Review by k(arst)en ★½

  there’s a scene in here that’s just a wide where the kid goes, “daddy are we gonna have to leave belfast?” the dad pauses, and then they immediately cut out of that scene. scenes and moments like this are littered throughout this film, all captured in a wide angle lens that makes the memories of branagh’s memoir feel cartoonishly distant from us. in this scene, he’s showing us an idea — that this kid is childishly unaware of the world that surrounds him and the dad doesn’t know how to communicate the reality to him —nothing more. we don’t watch the dad struggle to find the right words, we don’t see the kid discovering his father’s vulnerabilities, the scene feels…

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  Review by demi adejuyigbe 14

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  put this on when Cheyenne said she wanted to watch something this evening that didn’t have any death in it. as soon as the grandpa got up and started dancing i said “okay I’m very sorry but that man is going to die.” if an old guy dances in a movie, it’s cause you’re supposed to be sad when he dies. supposed to go “oh noooo, i loved that guy. he danced”

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  Review by James (Schaffrillas) ★½ 63

  "We had a neural network watch 100 Best Picture nominees and then asked it to create its own"

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  Review by Luke ★★ 25

  A good movie if you’ve only seen 4 or 5 movies

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  Review by stevie ★★½ 6

  Kinda like a movie version of those framed quotes your grandma has hanging in her kitchen

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  Review by john ★★★½ 2

  I don’t care if it’s Oscar bait, it was cute and almost made me cry like four times.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★½ 23

  25

  Kenneth Branagh tries his hand at Social Realism and ends up with a movie that's all about a family that eavesdrops on each other. This doesn't feel any different from the trailer, in all honesty. You can watch that instead and you seriously won't miss a thing. Earnest fluff that, thanks to the baffling editing and flat b&w images, got on my nerves very quickly.
  

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  Review by Logan Kenny ★ 34

  Kenneth Branagh managed to make a movie about The Troubles without a political ideology, a movie about his childhood without any tangible specificity and a movie about Northern Ireland that felt like it could have been shot anywhere on the planet. he is a failure of a filmmaker. it is utterly maddening to me that he made a movie from the perspective of a family who just don't like the neighbourhood being in disarray, instead of being about the victims of the Troubles or the cruelties caused by the British government in response. sickening, soulless stuff. by the fifth time the ugly black and white photography captured B-roll of Belfast soundtracked by Van Morrison, I realised that Branagh was never going to say anything at all with his work. he never could.

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  Review by Will Steele ★★ 1

  It’s all fun and games until you realise the kid grows up to break Emma Thompson’s heart

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  Review by Evan ★★★★ 4

  You: “This is Oscar bait fluff”

  Me, as an intellectual: This is a very good film with passion seeping through it from start to finish. 

  All joking aside, I really did enjoy this.

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  Review by Lucy ★★ 2

  gilderoy lockhart‘s career has taken an interesting turn ever since he lost his memory

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  Review by Sydney🚀 ★★★★ 22

  Ya, this is my shit. I adored Belfast.

  I find myself drawing a lot of parallels with this film - the Irish Brady Bunch dynamic of My Left Foot, the coming-of-age-in-a-war-zone story of Jojo Rabbit, or the strained working class relationship we see in something like Minari. This is because nothing in Belfast is entirely new, but what makes it feel so special is Kenneth Branagh’s heart and clear personal connection to what he’s putting on the screen. It’s a love letter to family, those who struggled in Ireland in the 60s, and his experience with film told through the lens of a child. The latter was especially impactful for me, as the films and plays they see are the…