Matt Goddard

The new DC Universe is warming up as a concerted effort to transfer DC’s decades of comic book storytelling to movie theaters, TV, games, and more.
Of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) stands in front of DC like Galactus. Marvel’s decade-plus experience of creating a shared universe on screen may not always please everyone, but it’s undoubtedly the most successful Hollywood franchise in history.
When Iron Man’s armor was being welded and oiled in 2008, few could have foreseen the sp...

Independent cinemas used to be a premier hang-out for students. But with multiplexes pushing smaller venues out of picture, Matt Goddard asks whether it's curtains for the art-house cinema.

It's been a long time coming, but the world finally has its Toxic Avenger back—surely just the tonic comic book movies need.
Macon Blair steers Legendary Entertainment's attempt to bring Troma's superpowered poster boy screaming and ripping into the 21st century, along with an impressive cast and an ‘unrated' stamp. But while the noxious results will get whoops in the cinemas, it‘s hard to miss the smoking remains of a wasted opportunity...

Night and cinema heat up in Ryan Coogler’s impressive horror fusion.
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have produced some incredible work together. The biographical debut Fruitvale Station; the tragic Marvel wallop of Black Panther; and effortlessly fusing the past and future in the drama of Creed...
It’s saying something, but Sinners is easily their most successful collaboration yet.
The Smokestack twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan), slick Stack and pragmatic Smoke...

Fantastic Four: First Steps is determined to sell the idea of heroes a world can get behind, and Marvel hopes that audiences can too. An opening ‘television recap' gives us a brief refresher on the Fantastic Four's origin, and then bombards us with their heroic successes. Classic villains get cameos in a medley that gives us a real sense of the team, the family, and the force for good. In short, things are fantastic, but the universe won't let things stay that way.

Casting a light on the relationship between two famous figures is irresistible, especially when they are, on paper, chalk and cheese. Moss & Freud is a rather formally titled film that recounts the meeting of supermodel Kate Moss and figurative painter Lucien Freud and how, against the odds, they became friends despite their age gap and lifestyles. ...

Shown as part of the Dare strand at the London Film Festival, Alpha is an audacious and astonishing film that reaches deep into the human condition as much as it responds to recent world events.
This Belgian and French film finds the world gripped by a fatal disease that turns the infected to marble. When troubled-teen Alpha ill-advisedly gets a tattoo of the letter ‘A' on her arm, it triggers a prolonged period where her doctor mother fears she has contracted the incurable disease...

As any Seinfeld fan will know, a New York City apartment is the perfect place for nothing to happen. And nothing always means something.
In December 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) invites her photographer friend Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) over to her apartment on 94th Street to record his recollections of the day before. But while Hujar's pinpoint remembrances and reflections capture the minutiae of the day as morning turns to night and the sun sets over the Hudson...

Materialists sits in the grand line of cinematic New York romances, but that doesn't mean the course of Celine Song's latest film runs smooth. Drawing on the rich history of love, or more accurately, the transactional parts of what's lifted humans up where they belong for tens of thousands of years, this unconventional film undermines romcoms as much as it updates them. In other hands, it might have spiralled off the rails. But somehow, Materialists pulls a romantic miracle out of the bag.
Ma...

There are many types of writer's block, but few beat the one experienced by Will Mercer in Blockhead. Years after the breakout success of his first novel, Mercer's life is unravelling. His relationship is breaking down, and his agent is chasing him to secure a publishing slot, but he just can't capture his old magic...

The movie trailers of 2022 posed some of the biggest questions moviedom has seen for years, like why is Mario’s butt so flat? The Super Mario Bros. Movie was just one of the surprisingly good teasers released in 2022 when cinema started to find its feet again after the upheaval of the last two years...

This intriguing French thriller establishes its killer botanical concept early on. It's the morning after the night before, and Jules (Constantin Vidal), Sam (Jimony Ekila) and Victor (Paul Deby) wake up following an outdoor party with more than a hangover. Tied to a woodland floor, bar manager Jules has something digging in his back, and as the panic between the three rises, Eve (Audrey Pirault) appears with some bad news and a simple question.
Having met the trio at the previous night's par...

Gods have always walked among us. Just as Zeus would adopt sneaky disguises to lurk among mortals in Greek legend, so writers have continued to bring the divine to Earth, from Small Gods and American Gods to Percy Jackson & the Olympians and KAOS.
In the early 1940s, Belgian fantasy writer Jean Ray wrote a fascinating exploration of the concept in Malpertuis. Perhaps a prime example of an unfilmable novel which inspired an impossible film? Well, now Harry Kümel's director's vision of his 1971...

The Ritual is a good old-fashioned slow-burner. It lets its characters do the talking, and when its subject matter is the ritual of exorcism, you'd reasonably expect the talking to fall on two sides of the equation of good and evil...

Joe Begos, the director, star, and all-around carnage wrangler of Jimmy and Stiggs, introduced his film at its FrightFest UK premiere as a “cocaine fuelled descent into extraterrestrial Hell.” Add in “in one night” and you've got the logline for this impressively high-octane and virtuoso display of indie filmmaking...