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Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel in Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth.

Sex on the beach: A brief history of Cannes and erotic cinema

Since the 1960s there has always been plenty of flesh at Cannes. As the red carpet is rolled out, Peter Bradshaw awards his own Palme Phwoar.

Flying high: Michael Keaton and Edward Norton in the showbiz comedy ‘Birdman’.

Birdman: A delirious, crazy showbiz comedy takes flight

Michael Keaton is tremendous as the superhero movie star trying to reinvent himself as a serious actor in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ‘Birdman’.

Star power: Cate Blanchett is haughtily arrogant in Blue Jasmine.

Allen’s Jasmine is the cinephile’s perfume

Peter Bradshaw reviews Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine.

Modern problems: Leila Hatami and Peyman Moaadi star in A Separation.
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Degrees of separation

In A Separation, Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi takes a scalpel to his bourgeois homeland.

Careworn: Daniel Craig stars in Skyfall.
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Skyfall: Bond blond versus blond

The 50th anniversary of the big-screen Bond is the right time to pull off something big.

Just like old times: Victor Frankenstein and his dog
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It’s a dog’s life (again)

Frankenweenie, Tim Burton’s new movie, is a feature-length treatment of a 1984 short originally rejected by Disney for being too "dark".

Poetic: Hal Wilson as Sixto Rodriguez in Searching for Sugar Man.

Movie of the week: Searching for Sugarman

This mockumentary about Rodriguez is an interesting footnote to a denied cultural history: the history of South Africa’s white liberal class.

Three for dinner: Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis in Ted.

Movie of the week: Ted

Seth MacFarlane, the creator of TV’s Family Guy, has co-written and directed a stoner fantasy-comedy that is cynical and lethargic, sour and dour.

Benjamin Walker in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Movie of the week: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

It’s a joke that some will find in sacrilegious bad taste. For others, the self-aware craziness is the whole point.

Channing Tatum leads a pack of male strippers in Magic Mike
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Movie of the week: Magic Mike

Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Magic Mike’ somehow looks like a much darker and more challenging movie than is actually the case.

New star: Andrew Garfield togs up as The Amazing Spider-Man
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Movie of the week: The Amazing Spider-Man

Five years after the ropey Spider-Man III crawled out of the multiplex plughole, starring a jaded Tobey Maguire, the reset button has been pressed.

General Aladeen

Movie of the week: The Dictator

The Dictator is set to make Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau a model of subtlety and sensitivity.

Director Andrea Arnold and cinematographer Robbie Ryan strip Emily Brontë’s only novel down to its bare essentials: pain

Movie of the week: Wuthering Heights

Director Andrea Arnold and cinematographer Robbie Ryan strip Emily Bront’s only novel down to its bare essentials: pain, anger and love.

Banned filmmaker’s most powerful statement

Banned filmmaker’s most powerful statement

In 2010 Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof were sentenced to six years in prison for alleged crimes against national security.

Blood on the sofa

Blood on the sofa

At its best, <em>Carnage </em>is a spiky satire on contemporary bourgeois correctness; at its worst, it;s a strained piece of upscale dinner theatre.

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Gloriously funny and achingly tender

<i>The Artist</i> has to be the first film that has left <b>Peter Bradshaw</b> weeping tears of joy.

Good cop

Good cop, bad cop

<em>Rampart</em> is a gripping movie, and a great addition to the Ellroy canon.

Ironed out
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Ironed out

Poor Margaret Thatcher: her transformation into biopic drag queen is now complete.

Mother of the beast
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Mother of the beast

Can bad children happen to good parents, or do they reveal their parents’ flaws? This is the question raised in <i>We Need to Talk about Kevin</i>.

Mysterious skin
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Mysterious skin

Sexuality and the prison house of the self are the themes of <em>The Skin I Live In,</em> Pedro Almodóvar’s fantastically twisted new film.