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Phil Hoad

Phil Hoad's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
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Reviews

Movies TV Shows
All You Need Is Kill (2025) 83% 2/5 EDIT “It might work if Rita was a more appealing protagonist, capable of wringing out gallows humour or personal tragedy from her predicament. Apart from an unconvincingly dumped backstory about parental abuse, though, she is largely a vehement-looking blank.” – Guardian Feb 24, 2026 Full Review Else (2024) 4/5 EDIT “Generally surrealistic and elliptical with dialogue, Else shows a heartening faith in the affective power of imagery over talk. A digital-age kindred spirit of the likes of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, this is the midnight movie real deal.” – Guardian Feb 24, 2026 Full Review Cold Storage (2026) 78% 3/5 EDIT “It finally serves up sloppy zomcom; just about enough for a Friday night but not much else.” – Guardian Feb 24, 2026 Full Review Redux Redux (2025) 97% 3/5 EDIT “If it’s not quite devious enough overall, Redux Redux still opens up a punchy murder-revenge side alley for the genre.” – Guardian Feb 19, 2026 Full Review Night King (2026) 2/5 EDIT “The film juggles a number of plotlines without satisfactorily closing any. ” – Guardian Feb 19, 2026 Full Review Gangsterism (2025) 3/5 EDIT “It’s dense stuff, and staged at an ironic, if not quite playful, remove. ” – Guardian Feb 19, 2026 Full Review What We Hide (2025) 75% 2/5 EDIT “The girls’ sisterly rapport is undeniably touching, but film is a bit too facile to dig deep into the American soul.” – Guardian Feb 10, 2026 Full Review Back to the Past (2025) 40% 2/5 EDIT “There are some passable sequences, such as a cart-borne escape down a hillside tea plantation. But the fight choreography is rote gun-fu -- surprisingly, as it's overseen by old master Sammo Hung -- and often chopped into restrictive closeups.” – Guardian Jan 29, 2026 Full Review Grizzly Night (2026) 47% 2/5 EDIT “Doeren clearly has a feel for the bear necessities, but the human interest hardly gets its boots on.” – Guardian Jan 27, 2026 Full Review Heavyweight (2025) 3/5 EDIT “A shrewd probing of the pressure-cooker environment of modern combat sports.” – Guardian Jan 21, 2026 Full Review Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (2023) 100% 3/5 EDIT “There is always another new flavour for the chef to try, another beautiful framing for the director to make... But the main frustration is that the only bite we get of the many marvels concocted here is with the eye.” – Guardian Jan 2, 2026 Full Review The Great Flood (2025) 58% 3/5 EDIT “The suggestion is that emotional responses to this relooping drama can be somehow calibrated. It feels like an apologia, complete with cut-and-paste disaster imagery, for algorithmic entertainment.” – Guardian Dec 15, 2025 Full Review Troll 2 (2025) 58% 2/5 EDIT “The characterisation is token, and the quip embellishment is weak. Norse mythology is an atypical starting point for monster movies, but deploying it as rotely as this, the film has little chance of standing out from the mockbuster wallpaper.” – Guardian Dec 1, 2025 Full Review Measures for a Funeral (2025) 4/5 EDIT “Fully committed to a radical irresolution, this simultaneously alienating and beautiful film bears repeat viewing.” – Guardian Nov 26, 2025 Full Review Valley of the Shadow of Death (2024) 3/5 EDIT “If nothing else Valley of the Shadow of Death makes the descent into an impossible moral quandary look fabulously attractive.” – Guardian Nov 10, 2025 Full Review Winter in Sokcho (2024) 3/5 EDIT “The three focused performances at the centre give Winter in Sokcho its solid centre, and if Kamura can’t quite thematically corral the wary faceoff between hotelier and guest, he is always on his toes emotionally speaking.” – Guardian Nov 3, 2025 Full Review The Last Sacrifice (2024) 5/5 EDIT “It is a sophisticated analysis, clued in to how real life and fiction combine to stir up the silt of the imagination in ways propitious to manifesting the supernatural. ” – Guardian Oct 29, 2025 Full Review Diablo (2025) 71% 2/5 EDIT “If the Cormac McCarthy rip-off wasn’t enough, Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s ponderous thriller also gives El Corvo a couple of scenes lifted from The Terminator, and the villain from Enter the Dragon’s blade-hand for good measure.” – Guardian Oct 21, 2025 Full Review Sunlight (2024) 91% 4/5 EDIT “Conti manages the feat of being funny, emotionally astute and kinda sexy throughout.” – Guardian Oct 14, 2025 Full Review Souleymane's Story (2024) 100% 4/5 EDIT “The issues are fundamentally the same: the enforced invisibility of a class of economic migrants who are now so numerous that many game the system, doubling their exploitation. Sangaré’s exemplary, unfeigned performance helps them speak.” – Guardian Oct 13, 2025 Full Review London Calling (2025) 47% 2/5 EDIT “This underworld knockabout has its moments, but sharper writing could have lifted it way higher.” – Guardian Oct 6, 2025 Full Review Killing Faith (2025) 76% 4/5 EDIT “If not quite in the top tier of 21st-century westerns, this supernatural oater from director Ned Crowley has a distinctive silhouette.” – Guardian Sep 29, 2025 Full Review Scurry (2024) 2/5 EDIT “One thing you have to admit is that the film is paced nicely for the experience of two people trapped in a tunnel; it’s both somehow agonisingly underwritten and, with the antic camera and incessant score, strangely overblown. ” – Guardian Sep 29, 2025 Full Review Detective Conan: One-Eyed Flashback (2025) 3/5 EDIT “Somehow this blend of hardcore procedural and Scooby-Doo amateur sleuthing gets by on sheer energy alone.” – Guardian Sep 23, 2025 Full Review Tape (2024) 3/5 EDIT “Even though this revival doesn’t fully capture the present moment, the ferocious source material still has an innate grip.” – Guardian Sep 16, 2025 Full Review
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