Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 140: Wed May 20

Lust, Caution (Lee, 2007): Prince Charles Cinema, 2.30pm

Time Out review:
There’s a superb and important early scene in Ang Lee’s absorbing spy romance, set on a stylised (studio-shot) Hong Kong tram in 1939, as a young troupe of Chinese actors board, flushed with the rousing success of that night’s patriotic play. (The Japanese have already occupied their homeland, British-run Hong Kong is soon to fall.) The exhilarated lead character Wong Chia Chi (a remarkable, film-dominating debut performance by newcomer Wei Tang) thrusts her head out the window to taste the rain, as if to make physical and personal the night’s small triumph. You see in that moment how the innocent young actress may be persuaded, in patriotic duty, to adopt an alias, spy on and seduce, in order to kill Tony Leung’s collaborationist chief of police. You could call Lee’s Chinese-language version of Eileen Chang’s novella a revisionist wartime thriller. Its sub-Brechtian moments are muted, but it is more than happy to pay self-conscious attention to the period setting, design and clothes to highlight, in echo of David Hare’s ‘Plenty’, the seductive role of dress as disguise and mask. Like Hare (with his OAS volunteer, Kate Nelligan), Lee is interested in applying an emotional and psychological realism to his heroine’s incredible bravery. It seems, in wartime, some are able to assume grave responsibilties, but – as Lee’s film quietly and provocatively suggests – the actions of those that do make mockery of conventional, sex-based, notions of what constitutes courage, honour, love or even patriotism itself. In this sense, the real battlefield, the genuine theatre of truth, in ‘Lust, Caution’ is the bed – the sex – in the arranged flat three years later in Shanghai, something of a last tango wherein Leung’s previously almost obsequiously mannered ‘traitor’ shows his true colours, and Miss Wong, under her alias Mrs Mak, is transformed by the ever-present knowledge that discovery is death. It’s not a companionable film – Lee’s directorial discipline, objectivity and lack of expressionist touch in the use of either Rodrigo Prieto’s camerawork or Alexandre Desplat’s score can push the viewer close to outsider-dom or voyeurism – but its dark romanticism lingers in the mind.
Wally Hammond

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 139: Tue May 19

The Bounty (Donladson, 1984): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6pm

The 'Reece Shearsmith presents' choices at BFI Southbank have been excellent and this is no exception. The actor will introduce the film.

Chicago Reader review:
Roger Donaldson’s film of the classic tale of discipline and revolt in the British navy (1984) is far better than its predecessors, despite the dim wattage of Anthony Hopkins (as Captain Bligh) and Mel Gibson (as Mister Christian). Robert Bolt’s screenplay was originally prepared for David Lean, and it contains a lot of Bolt-ish/Lean-ish disquisition on the question of civilization versus savagery. But Donaldson brings it alive by applying the agonizing rhythm of tension and release, suppression and explosion, that governed his superb New Zealand film Smash Palace. Hardly another filmmaker in the 80s could leap from smooth classicism to dynamic modernism with such agility and expressiveness. The appalling electronic score, by Chariots of Fire‘s Vangelis, is the film’s only grating flaw.
Dave Kehr 

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 138: Mon May 18

White Men Can't Jump (Shelton, 1992): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.55pm

This is a £1 for members screening at the Prince Charles Cinema.

Time Out review:
America's homeboy comedy of the year is about basketball only in the sense that writer-director Ron Shelton's Bull Durham was about baseball. It's a truly terrific piece of entertainment propelled by the magic and dynamism of its stars. Sidney Deane (Wesley Snipes) meets Billy Hoyle (Woody Harrelson) on a public court where the game is played as a mix of macho combat, stand-up comedy and con-artistry. The jokes and banter are wonderful. But this is also a most unlikely buddy movie, where the black/white pair team up as hustlers floating around the rougher areas of Los Angeles, turn on each other, and finally bury the hatchet to get Billy out of hock to some surprisingly obliging hoods. Sadly, in doing so, the duo alienate Billy's long-suffering Hispanic girlfriend (Rosie Perez), who dreams of the straight life and spends her time memorising trivia in hopes of a TV game show break. Snipes and Harrelson bounce off the screen like Michael Jordan, while Shelton and cinematographer Russell Boyd perfectly capture the agile thrills of the game itself. A double-whammy slam-dunker of a movie.
Steve Grant

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 137: Sun May 17

Never Let Go (Guillermin, 1960): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 12.20pm

The screening of Never Let Go on Friday 29 May will be introduced by season curator Ehsan Khoshbakt. This is part of the excellent British Post-War Cinema season at BFI. Details here.

BFI introduction:
This first-class thriller follows a salesman, brilliantly played by Todd, whose quest to recover his stolen car leads him into the hands of a brutal London gang, led by a cast-against-type Sellers. Guillermin’s brassy precision, revealing his fascination with characters driven by obsession and psychopathy, is heightened by John Barry’s score and Ralph Sheldon’s fast, riotous editing.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 136: Sat May 16

Theatre of Blood (Hickox, 1973): Phoenix Cinema, 7pm

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with League of Gentleman actor Steve Pemberton.

Chicago Reader review:
A British black comedy/horror film (1973) about a demented Shakespearean actor (Vincent Price) having his revenge in the most macabre ways on eight critics: Ian Hendry, Robert Morley, Robert Coote, Harry Andrews, Jack Hawkins, Michael Hordern, Arthur Lowe, and Coral Browne. Gory, imaginative, wildly melodramatic—good fun. With Diana Rigg as Price's helpful daughter.
Dan Druker

Here (and above) are the gorgeous opening credits.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 135: Fri May 15

The Stepford Wives (Forbes, 1975): Rio Cinema, 11.30pm

Rio Cinema introduction: The second screening of Category H horror film club’s Rio Forever/Rio Never Ever season is Ladies Night, a double bill of THE STEPFORD WIVES X TEETH. Dedicated to women in horror taking charge of the narrative and fighting back against the corrupt men who surround them, we present two controversial feminist horror films. Join us this 15th May, 23:30, for a night of misandry to remember and a Ladies Night like no other. Kicking off the evening is the rarely screened THE STEPFORD WIVES (1975). Inspiration to Jordan Peele, THE STEPFORD WIVES is a searing satire of the American aspirational middle class. After being persuaded to move to a suburban town by her husband, Joanna begins to notice that there is something uncanny about the other women of Stepford. They don’t talk about anything other than their households, their facial expressions are moulded in a sinister smile, there’s just something not right about them. Aided by her one ally, fellow Stepford wife outcast Bobbie, she attempts to get to the bottom of the conspiracy at the heart of the suburbs and falls into a labyrinth of power she might never be able to escape from. Afterwards, settle in for the 00s sleepover classic, a film whispered about in school corridors as the “one where she’s got teeth in her vagina”, the infamous TEETH (2007). President of her school's abstinence club, Dawn’s world is turned upside down when the proud virgin discovers her body can bite! She harnesses her newfound jaws in a refreshing horror comedy in which women bite back, literally. Category H is excited to give TEETH the big screen treatment it deserves, showing this modern classic at the Rio Cinema for the first time. 

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2026 — Day 134: Thu May 14

Gattaca (Niccol, 1997): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm

This is a 'Members Picks' screening (at just £8 for BFI patrons).

Time Out review:
In the future, geneticists will design test-tube babies to be disease-free. Physical perfection will become the norm, and those flawed specimens born the old-fashioned way will form the new underclass - the 'in-valids'. Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), an in-valid with a heart defect, is only taken seriously in the powerful Gattaca space programme when he assumes the identity of Jerome (Jude Law), a 'valid' who supplies blood, tissue and urine samples in return for shelter (he himself having been crippled in a car accident). The subterfuge is successful - until a murder draws unwelcome scrutiny from the authorities. Self-consciously at a remove from the trashy B-movie sensibilities which have dominated science-fantasy movies in recent times, this harks back to the vacuum-packed, classically alienated dystopia of Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. Chilly, elegant, and a little bloodless.
Tom Charity

Here (and above) is the trailer.