Phil Hoad
@phlode.bsky.social
Reporter, features writer and critic based in Montpellier, France.
Pinned
Phil Hoad
@phlode.bsky.social
· Oct 8
Beef: Schwarzenegger v Stallone: chapter breakdown
The guts of my anatomy of a rivalry.
www.schwarzeneggervstallone.com
From an exchange of floral fire at the 1977 Golden Globes to burger'n'fries detente at Planet Hollywood in 1991: the chapter breakdown of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE. bit.ly/4nB21Bn
(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)
(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)
What a gulf that it's close to a decade without a new film from Lars von Trier
January 22, 2026 at 5:17 PM
What a gulf that it's close to a decade without a new film from Lars von Trier
A piece of Lynchphernalia for the great man's birthday, which I wrote a few years ago: how his Jimmy-Stewart-from-Mars sensibility went mainstream www.theguardian.com/film/2023/ja...
Deviant obsessions: how David Lynch predicted our fragmented times
His work is freaky and frightening, yet today the Twin Peaks director cuts an almost cosy figure. As he turns 77 – a number of significance – we explore how real life caught up with his dark visions
www.theguardian.com
January 20, 2026 at 9:56 AM
A piece of Lynchphernalia for the great man's birthday, which I wrote a few years ago: how his Jimmy-Stewart-from-Mars sensibility went mainstream www.theguardian.com/film/2023/ja...
Reposted by Phil Hoad
Average running time hasn’t increased significantly since the 1960s. What has changed is the amount of the box-office pie taken by longer movies. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough short movies. It’s that audiences prefer long ones.
January 19, 2026 at 2:04 PM
Average running time hasn’t increased significantly since the 1960s. What has changed is the amount of the box-office pie taken by longer movies. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough short movies. It’s that audiences prefer long ones.
A reminder from Marseille - cf. the Rue d'Aubagne house collapses - that people power matters www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/j...
Theatre of catastrophe: the hard-hitting play about France’s Grenfell moment
Mathilde Aurier’s 65 Rue d’Aubagne looks at the 2018 house collapse in Marseille and how the city healed itself through ‘love and solidarity’
www.theguardian.com
January 15, 2026 at 9:24 AM
A reminder from Marseille - cf. the Rue d'Aubagne house collapses - that people power matters www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/j...
My two cents' worth on how Trump may have been getting foreign policy tips from Mssrs Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme bit.ly/4qJUfq6
With Venezuela, Trump has achieved his dream of making his own 80s action movie
Given his rise during the ego joyride of the 1980s, it’s no shock that Trump’s foreign policy is to emulate that decade’s belligerent cinema
bit.ly
January 8, 2026 at 12:00 PM
My two cents' worth on how Trump may have been getting foreign policy tips from Mssrs Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme bit.ly/4qJUfq6
Reposted by Phil Hoad
Nice article in The Guardian about the story behind Prince of Persia's first making in 1989! 💾 A treat for me to see Broderbund co-founder Doug Carlston interviewed here- he's a great guy and was one of my first mentors.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
‘I wanted that Raiders of the Lost Ark excitement – you could die any minute’: how we made hit video game Prince of Persia
‘There was no animation software in those days. So I videotaped my brother David running, jumping and climbing in a car park’
www.theguardian.com
January 5, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Nice article in The Guardian about the story behind Prince of Persia's first making in 1989! 💾 A treat for me to see Broderbund co-founder Doug Carlston interviewed here- he's a great guy and was one of my first mentors.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
I spoke to Jordan Mechner (who's also a fellow Montpellier boy) about his wondrous and beautiful videogame classic PRINCE OF PERSIA bit.ly/3NtCEUM
‘I wanted that Raiders of the Lost Ark excitement – you could die any minute’: how we made hit video game Prince of Persia
‘There was no animation software in those days. So I videotaped my brother David running, jumping and climbing in a car park’
bit.ly
January 5, 2026 at 3:55 PM
I spoke to Jordan Mechner (who's also a fellow Montpellier boy) about his wondrous and beautiful videogame classic PRINCE OF PERSIA bit.ly/3NtCEUM
Great stuff from @bilgeebiri.bsky.social - though I believe Wes Anderson is just as influential
"What distinguishes Malick’s work," Bilge Ebiri writes, "emerges from the harmony between a film’s images and its sensibility." yalereview.org/article/bilg...
Bilge Ebiri: “Why Terrence Malick Is the Most Influential Director”
Bilge Ebiri explores filmmaker Terrence Malick’s vision of grace and his far-ranging influence on American cinema.
yalereview.org
December 28, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Great stuff from @bilgeebiri.bsky.social - though I believe Wes Anderson is just as influential
More than ever, I'm struck by how varying this year's Best Of film lists are. The consensus is gone, our tastes are completely fractured.
So many disparate small films, a lot of which I haven't seen (though I'm often distracted by covering the streaming tier)
So many disparate small films, a lot of which I haven't seen (though I'm often distracted by covering the streaming tier)
December 17, 2025 at 9:55 AM
More than ever, I'm struck by how varying this year's Best Of film lists are. The consensus is gone, our tastes are completely fractured.
So many disparate small films, a lot of which I haven't seen (though I'm often distracted by covering the streaming tier)
So many disparate small films, a lot of which I haven't seen (though I'm often distracted by covering the streaming tier)
I was beguiled when I saw Lucile Hadžihalilović’s INNOCENCE back in 2004, and she had me enthralled with this year's THE ICE TOWER www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
Best films of 2025 in the UK: No 4 – The Ice Tower
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s kaleidoscopic fable, starring Marion Cotillard as a haughty, damaged diva, is a cautionary tale about the perils of fantasy
www.theguardian.com
December 16, 2025 at 8:45 PM
I was beguiled when I saw Lucile Hadžihalilović’s INNOCENCE back in 2004, and she had me enthralled with this year's THE ICE TOWER www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...
Reposted by Phil Hoad
One hundred percent here for Josh O'Connor in a new Spielberg aliens joint. You know in your bones he's right for this. You know it.
December 16, 2025 at 5:26 PM
One hundred percent here for Josh O'Connor in a new Spielberg aliens joint. You know in your bones he's right for this. You know it.
It's been a year filled for me with so much arbitrary deterioration and death that I found SIRAT's notching up of casualties did a number on my head. And I definitely identify with its metaphysical urge to reach the other side
December 3, 2025 at 1:53 PM
It's been a year filled for me with so much arbitrary deterioration and death that I found SIRAT's notching up of casualties did a number on my head. And I definitely identify with its metaphysical urge to reach the other side
Reposted by Phil Hoad
"There was a period, in the decade after World War II, when British films achieved without fanfare a broad viewership among Americans." Geoffrey O'Brien on the terrific Locarno retrospective of postwar British cinema in @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
Magic from Elsewhere | Geoffrey O’Brien
The best of British postwar cinema portrays a country in the aftermath of catastrophe and uncertain about its future.
www.nybooks.com
December 3, 2025 at 9:29 AM
"There was a period, in the decade after World War II, when British films achieved without fanfare a broad viewership among Americans." Geoffrey O'Brien on the terrific Locarno retrospective of postwar British cinema in @nybooks.com www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
One enduring modern mystery is movies not from the 1990s appearing in both Netflix and Amazon's 90s categories. I assume this is deliberate - but why? Or is that some process of algorithmic divination has sniffed out ineffable 90s qualities in them?
November 25, 2025 at 3:21 PM
One enduring modern mystery is movies not from the 1990s appearing in both Netflix and Amazon's 90s categories. I assume this is deliberate - but why? Or is that some process of algorithmic divination has sniffed out ineffable 90s qualities in them?
My obituary of Tatsuya Nakadai, who started off dirt-poor in the postwar wreckage of Tokyo, but became the country's deputy head movie samurai (behind Toshiro Mifune) bit.ly/4ricZOC
Tatsuya Nakadai obituary
One of the greatest actors of Japanese cinema best known for Ran, the 1985 film adaptation of King Lear
bit.ly
November 21, 2025 at 10:00 AM
My obituary of Tatsuya Nakadai, who started off dirt-poor in the postwar wreckage of Tokyo, but became the country's deputy head movie samurai (behind Toshiro Mifune) bit.ly/4ricZOC
I'm not sure about post-Booker attempts to zeitgeist FLESH as "about" masculinity. Seems to me that, if it is, it's only inadvertently so - because the protagonist is a man. Materiality, the physical world, feels more like its principal theme
November 17, 2025 at 9:30 AM
I'm not sure about post-Booker attempts to zeitgeist FLESH as "about" masculinity. Seems to me that, if it is, it's only inadvertently so - because the protagonist is a man. Materiality, the physical world, feels more like its principal theme
Can't believe how good the Fassbender-Cotillard-Kurzel MACBETH is. Flew by like a 90-minute thriller – even though some of the speaking is hard to make out
November 9, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Can't believe how good the Fassbender-Cotillard-Kurzel MACBETH is. Flew by like a 90-minute thriller – even though some of the speaking is hard to make out
I wish I'd known this when I did my Netflix investigation
This is because Netflix has a specific list of approved digital cameras and a specific production pipeline that ends up making everything look extremely same-y. Nothing else looks like a Netflix show, but every Netflix show looks like a Netflix show.
www.vice.com/en/article/w...
www.vice.com/en/article/w...
November 7, 2025 at 7:59 AM
I wish I'd known this when I did my Netflix investigation
Not to knock his performance, but Idris Elba's casting was a false step for A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE. Felt over-familiar and unhelpfully reassuring for a drama supposedly dragging us into the unknown
November 4, 2025 at 9:27 AM
Not to knock his performance, but Idris Elba's casting was a false step for A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE. Felt over-familiar and unhelpfully reassuring for a drama supposedly dragging us into the unknown
My second five-starrer in a year – getting soft in my old age (but anything uniting pitchfork murders and the Teletubbies stands a good chance with me) www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...
The Last Sacrifice review – how a gruesome rural murder embedded folk-horror in the British psyche
Rupert Russell’s fascinating documentary is a sophisticated analysis of how real life and fiction merged in post-empire Britain in the 1960s and 70s
www.theguardian.com
October 23, 2025 at 12:24 PM
My second five-starrer in a year – getting soft in my old age (but anything uniting pitchfork murders and the Teletubbies stands a good chance with me) www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc...
Reposted by Phil Hoad
Netflix has 12 pre-1980 films in October. They had as many as 21 in July.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is now their oldest American film.
List in alt text. #FilmSky #Streaming
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is now their oldest American film.
List in alt text. #FilmSky #Streaming
October 10, 2025 at 3:57 AM
Netflix has 12 pre-1980 films in October. They had as many as 21 in July.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is now their oldest American film.
List in alt text. #FilmSky #Streaming
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is now their oldest American film.
List in alt text. #FilmSky #Streaming
From an exchange of floral fire at the 1977 Golden Globes to burger'n'fries detente at Planet Hollywood in 1991: the chapter breakdown of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE. bit.ly/4nB21Bn
(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)
(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)
Beef: Schwarzenegger v Stallone: chapter breakdown
The guts of my anatomy of a rivalry.
www.schwarzeneggervstallone.com
October 8, 2025 at 3:00 PM
From an exchange of floral fire at the 1977 Golden Globes to burger'n'fries detente at Planet Hollywood in 1991: the chapter breakdown of my book project BEEF: SCHWARZENEGGER V STALLONE. bit.ly/4nB21Bn
(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)
(Pls subscribe if you have any interest in either man, the 80s, or longform feuding or writing.)
Caught a bit of EASY RIDER, which I've not seen in years, on TV last night. For a movie from the smoked-out depths of Dennis Hopper's mind, the first 15 minutes are incredibly bold, lucid and largely non-verbal storytelling www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqvI...
Easy Rider - Airport dealer
YouTube video by Diablo GAGA
www.youtube.com
October 8, 2025 at 10:06 AM
Caught a bit of EASY RIDER, which I've not seen in years, on TV last night. For a movie from the smoked-out depths of Dennis Hopper's mind, the first 15 minutes are incredibly bold, lucid and largely non-verbal storytelling www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqvI...
Reposted by Phil Hoad
We tend to think we have advanced and that progress is ever upward but the fact is, in the 1910s, the westerns were gritty, women wrote half the movies (and were the predominant action-adventure stars) and American films were extremely anti-aristocracy/kinda socialist.
October 3, 2025 at 12:13 AM
We tend to think we have advanced and that progress is ever upward but the fact is, in the 1910s, the westerns were gritty, women wrote half the movies (and were the predominant action-adventure stars) and American films were extremely anti-aristocracy/kinda socialist.
Excellent piece
Rory Kiberd looks back at an implacable and unforgiving film that has only become more relevant over the last two decades... plus The Act Of Killing, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and The Zone Of Interest
The Impossibility of Forgetting: Haneke’s Caché at 20
buff.ly/n39DY3H
The Impossibility of Forgetting: Haneke’s Caché at 20
buff.ly/n39DY3H
October 3, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Excellent piece