One-line spoiler-free movie reviews for July 2026

This month featuring: animated Minion slapstick, the profound sadness of Blue Heron, bleak Welsh decision-making and a Soviet drag-crone Baba Yaga (among others).

Minions & Monsters (2026), Pierre Coffin and Patrick Delage – Perfectly cromulent non-stop action and slapstick that never lets up, doesn’t overstay its welcome, and includes some really lovely homages to early Hollywood moments.

Blue Heron (2025), Sophy Romvari – I went through an arc of being slightly bored, to then being somewhat puzzled by the storytelling trick, to being moved and in tears about the profound sadness that eventually seeps through every frame of this. I thought it was especially good at portraying how the noise and clutter of children and family life can be incredibly destabilising to adult relationships in ways that the kids themselves can’t possibly perceive at the time.

Effi o Blaenau (2026), Marc Evans – 100 minutes spent numbly watching young people with bleak prospects making terrible life decisions. Would recommend.

The Last Viking (2025), Anders Thomas Jensen – A Danish One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest with some very funny laugh-out-loud moments but a really dark violent underbelly.

Vasilisa the Beautiful (1940), Aleksandr Rou – A Soviet-era fairy tale with a class-conscious morality message and Georgy Millyar putting in quite the turn as a blacked-up wizened old drag crone version of Baba Yaga. Some quite stilted performances in places, but also some impressive production design and effects for the time, it swashbuckled along, aided by the supporting cast including a bloke in a bear suit and a couple of puzzled-looking performing bears.

The Harder They Come (1972), Perry Henzell – Bar Trash at Beer Merchant’s Tap, Hackney Wick – Rightly lauded for being a kickstarter for the Jamaican film industry, and having a couple of banging tunes in it, it does lag a little bit in the middle. Also struck me as being structurally very similar to any number of Elvis movies – underdog with talent hits big city, gets the girl, has to fight vested interests to make it etc etc – although Elvis movies very rarely ended the way this did.

Bar Trash, run by Token Homo, presents “Queer cult & curious cinema” in relaxed screenings with alcohol, a raffle, a quiz and usually lots of laughs, but this was the day after the Berlin Pride van and knife rampage and joy was in short supply. Find out more about what is on next at tokenhomo.com/bar-trash.

Read more of my one-line spoiler-free reviews of everything I’ve watched in the cinema in the monthly archive. Last time out I wrote about spooky basements, the queerest of sci-fi cartoons (pictured below) and plenty of John Waters and Divine filth.

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