A one-line spoiler-free review of everything I watched in the cinema in July 2025

I’ve ditched the old blurb about “not being a movies person, but anyway…” because since I started going to the cinema regularly in 2022 I’ve turned into the kind of guy who downloads the London Film Festival brochure and meticulously plans what to see. You can find all my one-line spoiler-free reviews here.

Superman (2025), James Gunn – My 12-year-old son described this as pretty “mid” and a 6.5/10, so who am I to argue with that? Great dog, though.

Exotica (1994), Atom Egoyan – Enjoyably batshit but dear lord the programme notes about this need to make it clearer that you will come out feeling like a nonce after watching a plot that entirely revolves around a stripper in school uniform. It was different times etc etc …

[Mia Kirshner. Blimey]

Harvest (2024), Athina Rachel Tsangari – My learned colleague Peter Bradshaw seems to have really hated this, and nothing much happens in this hard-bitten late-18th[?] century farming village, except for everything gradually getting much worse for everybody involved at every turn, but I found it gripping despite the long run-time.

Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), Matt Shakman – I’ve never been that fussed about superhero movies, and having seen two in quick succession I feel I can safely stick to that opinion. They are all the same basically aren’t they? The superhero is great, oh no here is a massive threat they can’t deal with, the people turn against the superhero, the superhero nearly saves the day with a daring plan that doesn’t quite work despite new-found unpopularity leading to an all-time low moment for them at the end of act two, then they have another plan and win the day, YAY! and then the next film in the series is briefly teased. It killed two hours on a Friday morning though, I guess.

Hot Milk (2025), Rebecca Lenkiewicz – This was very slow-burning and about halfway through I’d almost given up, but glad I didn’t because it has a quite astonishing final couple of minutes. I’m not entirely sure it worked though?

[A horse, Vicky Krieps and Emma Mackey in Hot Milk]

Read more of my one-line spoiler-free reviews of everything I’ve watched in the cinema.