The new Netflix produced “Rebbeca” is a film haunted by the very present ghost of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 Oscar-winning namesake, also adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 gothic novel.

Armie Hammer, who is carving out an interesting career for himself and who can be great, is much too wooden in his portrayal of the dashing and wealthy heir Maxim de Winter.

In “Darkest hour,” what Gary Oldman’s Churchill has to contend with in a time of war reminded me of what a newspaper editor does: tense negotiations, the reworking of sentences, an overarching need to get the message out, loudly and clearly. The real context of the story, the history, is, evidently, a very different one from this. In the early forties European countries were falling like dominoes as Hitler’s panzer division closed in

Nicolas Winding Refn's intent for his new film, shown in competition this morning, is difficult to discern. Is "Only God Forgives" a send-off to his previous film “Bronson” with a (sustained) nod at David Lynch and liner notes from Eastern philosophies? It would be distasteful to call a film a styling exercise. Filmmakers get our admiration because they invest more into filmmaking than you or I can ever imagine. Moviemaking

Kristin Scott-Thomas plays a journalist by the name of Julia Jarmond. During the writing of an article about the roundup she becomes consumed with the story of a young girl caught in the French police sweep. Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) is arrested and was supposed to have been shipped off along with her family to Auschwitz and thousands of other French Jews. But something’s amiss. The girl and her brother do not appear on the concentration camp’s lists. Jarmond decides to investigate their fate.

Directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. Starring Kristin Scott Thomas and Niels [...]