Roofman in Sight & Sound

The story is crazy but true. In the late 1990s, Jeffrey Manchester robbed dozens of McDonald’s stores across America, earning the sobriquet Roofman for his tactic of entering the stores by breaking a hole in the roof. Having received a 45-year sentence for his crimewave, Manchester broke out of jail and spent months hiding in a branch of Toys “R” Us while waiting for the manhunt to die down.

There are couple of ways a film adaptation of this story could go. It could be a broad comedy in the vein of Big (1988) about a man living every child’s dream – being locked in a toy store all night – or it could be the sad tale of a career criminal living in cramped isolation, cut off from his family and subsiding on M&Ms and baby food, while the net of justice closes in. In the hands of Roofman director Derek Cianfrance, we get a mixture of both approaches. The turn towards comedy is a surprising change of pace for Cianfrance, following the occasionally heavy-handed romantic dramas Blue Valentine (2010), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) and The Light Between Oceans (2016), but he directs with a disarming lightness of touch here.

Read the rest of my review at Sight & Sound

Cinema Expanded: The Films of Frederick Wiseman

As someone who has long believed Frederick Wiseman is one of cinema's best and most important filmmakers, I am very excited to be part of this forthcoming BFI blu-ray collection. The set contains new restorations of five films from the start of Wiseman's long career, and I have written a new essay on his 1975 masterpiece Welfare, which is one of the great films of its era. It's so good to see Wiseman's films finally reaching a wider audience and these are essential works from an American master.

Cinema Expanded: The Films of Frederick Wiseman is released on January 26th, and you can pre-order it here.

Description

With a groundbreaking career spanning seven decades, Frederick Wiseman is one of the great American storytellers. His documentaries, shot vérité-style, are meticulously edited narratives chronicling life’s complexities through rich portraits of social and cultural institutions. Wiseman’s themes are expansive: democracy, power, inequality and community, to name a few; but his focus is compellingly specific and humane. Whether revealing shortcomings in social support or celebrating culinary excellence, he has a unique eye – and ear – for detail.

Representing their first release in the UK, this 3-disc / 5-film collection features a selection of Wiseman’s work made between 1967 and 1975, including Titicut Follies, High School and Juvenile Court.

The Films:

Titicut Follies (1967, 84 m)

High School (1968, 75m)

Hospital (1970, 84m)

Juvenile Court (1973, 144m)

Welfare (1975, 167m)

Extras:

Newly restored in 4K by Zipporah Films and presented in High Definition

Newly commissioned video essay by Ian Mantgani on the films of Frederick Wiseman

Frederick Wiseman: A Discussion (2025): filmmaker Andrea Luka Zimmerman and curator Matthew Barrington discuss Frederick Wiseman’s aesthetics and approach to filmmaking. Recorded at BFI Southbank, London.

Limited edition including a perfect-bound book featuring essays by David Jenkins, Eric Marsh, Stephen Mamber, Philip Concannon and Shawn Glinis and Arlin Golden, hosts of the long-running Wiseman Podcast. Also includes a 1986 interview with William Brayne (cinematographer on Hospital and Juvenile Court) and a 1974 essay from Sight & Sound by Thomas Atkins

Newly created English descriptive subtitles on all five films

All My Sons on Blu-ray

Adapted from Arthur Miller's breakthrough play, All My Sons is a powerful drama that seems to have been largely forgotten but deserves to be rediscovered. It boasts one of Edward G. Robinson's best roles as Joe Keller, the businessman whose underhand profiteering during the war resulted in the deaths of 21 pilots, and a young Burt Lancaster showed his range after a series of crime films with his performance as Joe's son.

I was delighted to have the opportunity to write about this film and its release against the backdrop of McCarthyism, for a new blu-ray edition. The disc will be available to buy on January 26th 2026, and you can read more about the release here.

Urchin in Sight & Sound

In the opening scenes of his directorial debut Urchin, Harris Dickinson keeps us at a distance from his protagonist Michael (Frank Dillane). We watch from across the street as he trudges up to uninterested pedestrians in search of loose change, gathers with other rough sleepers at a soup kitchen, or seeks a relatively dry and safe space to lay down his cardboard and get some sleep. This distance is apt for a film about homelessness, a problem that many of us choose to ignore as we walk past it every day, but Dickinson gradually brings us closer to Michael, allowing us to see the insecurities and contradictions of someone trapped in a cycle that he cannot break.

Read the rest of my review at Sight & Sound

Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema, 1945-1960

I was recently invited to contribute an essay to the book Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema, 1945-1960, which was produced in conjunction with an extraordinary retrospective at the Locarno Film Festival. I jumped at the opportunity, particularly because I was asked to write about Basil Dearden, whose socially conscious films provide a vivid snapshot of the changing face of Britain as it emerged from the war, and whose work in general is severely underrated. I received my copy of the book this week and it is wonderful to be included in such a beautifully produced edition alongside so many writers I admire. The book contains essays on over thirty filmmakers plus overviews of the British film industry in this era, and it should provide an invaluable watchlist for anyone looking to explore this fascinating era of cinema.

The book is available to purchase here.