Film critic | Peter Howell Night Vision

Game, set and match for Will Smith in tennis biopic "King Richard"

It's not your average sports biopic, but it's a potential Oscar winner.

Mighty menace: the four-star triumph of Campion's "The Power of the Dog"

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in a gothic western of repression and deliverance.

Kenneth Branagh hopes to charm Oscar with vanity project "Belfast"

Crowd-pleasing memory piece entertains more than enlightens.

Kristen Stewart is a brilliantly haunted Princess Di in biofable "Spencer"

The humans of "The Crown" become the undead of "Spencer."

Dreadfully dull "Eternals" all dressed up with not much to do

Can we just go back to the usual brightly coloured inanity?

"Passing" is a mesmerizing story about friends leading false lives

Rebecca Hall's Sundance hit examines identity and desire on multiple levels.

"Last Night in Soho" can't quite make it through the evening

One film genre tribute too many by Edgar Wright.

"Dune" climbs the sci-fi mountain as a film ripe for modern times

Denis Villeneuve creates a blockbuster for the eye, the mind and the now.

All icing and no cake in Wes Anderson's "The French Dispatch"

A film anthology that's too much of everything and not enough of anything.

The Velvet Underground on pink bananas, Jimi Hendrix and denying the influence

Taking the temperature of the coolest band ever.

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Movies I can't live without

Toronto Star movie critic Peter Howell has written a book about his 25 favourite movies, with highly personal reviews from Apocalypse Now to The Wizard of Oz.

Here's a sample of his review of 2001: A Space Odyssey, his all-time favourite film:

"It was billed as The Ultimate Trip and the hyperbole was justified, then as now.

Stanley Kubrick's space opus still seems like the future, 52 years after its release and 19 years after its significant title year. It never gets old and I never tire of seeing it, even after 50-plus viewings..."