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Nick James

@filmnickjames

Writer, former Editor of Sight and Sound magazine. A rock singer last century. A choir member now.

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10.11.2024
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Latest posts by Nick James @filmnickjames

I’ve taken all other social media apps off my smartphone and I happen to be in Japan without my laptop, so I’d just like to say Fred Wiseman, what a admirable career. RIP.

17.02.2026 00:55 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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RIP Béla Tarr. His collaborations with László Krasznahorkai and directing partner Agnes Hranitsky – for instance, Sátántangó, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Turin Horse – are impeccable monuments to a European sensibility of melancholic endurance. He was also a lovely, passionate man to talk to.

06.01.2026 12:59 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Below the Clouds review: Shadows over Naples Vesuvius tremors, tomb raiders and patient Neapolitan Fire Brigade workers all have a part to play in Gianfranco Rosi’s poetic meditation on the fragile nature of Naples.

www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so... Here is my Sight and Sound review of Gianfranco Rosi’s BELOW THE CLOUDS.

24.10.2025 14:16 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

when she had her job at msnbc i was always frustrated because i could see her biting her tongue and then finally boiling over and they could not contain her, now that she is free and easy she is a lot more fun to watch. and i am "spicy" AF 🤍☪️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

15.09.2025 17:45 👍 8 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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9/3/93: Kieslowski's astonishing Blue, w/Juliette Binoche
Our feature on Blue, the 3 Colors & Mr. K via @cineastemagazine.bsky.social: midcenturycinema.org/wp-content/u...
More
@filmnickjames.bsky.social: www.criterion.com/current/post...
@davidehrlich.bsky.social: www.indiewire.com/features/gen...

03.09.2025 15:38 👍 23 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 1
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How Nicolas Roeg Broke Movies—and Rebuilt Them in His Own Image At their best, the director’s masterpieces like ‘Walkabout’ and ‘Don’t Look Now’ added up not to a complete picture but a kind of Rorschach test

BOTD Nicolas Roeg!! MCCT5: 5)Walkabout 4)Performance 3)Bad Timing 2)Man Who Fell to Earth 1)Don't Look Now
More:
@filmnickjames.bsky.social: www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...
Jason Wood: mubi.com/en/notebook/...
@brofromanother.bsky.social: www.theringer.com/2018/11/26/m...

15.08.2025 18:44 👍 18 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 2
A head and shoulders shot of a white-haired lightly bearded man in a light coloured shirt and open dark blue jacket. His hands are open as if he's holding something and he's sat to one side of a window in daytime.

A head and shoulders shot of a white-haired lightly bearded man in a light coloured shirt and open dark blue jacket. His hands are open as if he's holding something and he's sat to one side of a window in daytime.

David Stratton, Australia’s star TV critic of films, was already white-haired and grandfatherly when I met him in the 1990s. I broke bread with him often and he was great, encouraging, supportive company, full of tales of festivals in the 1960s laced with wicked humour. I already miss him. RIP

14.08.2025 19:45 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Peter Yates, 1929-2011 Nick James on the transatlantic genre specialist, from Summer Holiday to Bullitt and The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

BOTD Peter Yates!! D key 60s/70s films incl Robbery, Bullitt, Friends of Eddie Coyle, more.
From us: "On Location in the New Hollywood": drive.google.com/file/d/1OHuj...
More:
@peterhartlaub.bsky.social: www.sfgate.com/movies/artic...
@filmnickjames.bsky.social: www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

24.07.2025 14:34 👍 10 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 2
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F1 the Movie review: maximum thrills, minimal story Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, a veteran racer and former gambling addict who is lured back to the track for one last Grand Prix season in this high-octane, logo-strewn blockbuster-advert for Formula...

Here's my slightly belated review of F1 The Movie for @sightsoundmag.bsky.social . www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-so...

10.07.2025 22:18 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
Book cover for Nick James's book on Michael Mann's film Heat. A coffee cup in the foreground against a blue backdrop with a second image in the steam coming off. It's of Robert De Niro in silhouette looking out of a window

Book cover for Nick James's book on Michael Mann's film Heat. A coffee cup in the foreground against a blue backdrop with a second image in the steam coming off. It's of Robert De Niro in silhouette looking out of a window

Today my book on Michael Mann's film Heat is published. Anyone who loves it will find plenty to enjoy and argue with in this quick hit of a read. It's not just a fan's appreciation, but a probing critical study. My thanks to @rebbarden.bsky.social and the @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social team.

12.06.2025 10:08 👍 11 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Marcel Ophuls obituary: veteran documentary-maker behind the monumental The Sorrow and the Pity Ophuls’ most notorious documentary is his four-hour epic The Sorrow and the Pity, which controversially unpicked the reality of France’s history under Nazi occupation.

Here’s my BFI tribute to the great documentarian Marcel Ophuls www.bfi.org.uk/features/mar...

27.05.2025 13:32 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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This second edition of my BFI book on Heat is published 12th June is proofread and edited to a higher standard than the first; the stills are better quality and in an afterword I ponder changes in film reviewing fashions, Heat's continuing influence, the Heat 2 novel Mann is hoping to film and more.

03.05.2025 11:37 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The oil industry buys off Congress. No action on climate.

The NRA buys off Congress. No action on guns.

Insurance companies buy off Congress. No action on health care.

The list goes on and on.

Money in politics is the root of our dysfunction.

22.04.2025 23:37 👍 47270 🔁 13017 💬 1583 📌 763

Why is there a ‘but’ in this sentence?

19.04.2025 12:41 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Thankfully, he’s alive and released now.

25.03.2025 14:42 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I’m hearing that he’s ’probably dead’. I hope not.

25.03.2025 14:31 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Sign the Petition Global Filmmakers call for the release of Hamdan Ballal

Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal may be just one of tens of thousands of victims of Israeli state violence but his symbolic importance is huge. Please sign this petition. www.change.org/p/global-fil...

25.03.2025 12:22 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 0
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Can you spare a minute to help this campaign? Global Filmmakers call for the release of Hamdan Ballal

Will @theacademyusa.bsky.social use its worldwide prominence to speak up for an Oscar-winning director? Hamdan Ballal was attacked and seriously injured—and the IDF arrested HIM while he was in the ambulance. No charges, no sign of him since. Where are you, AMPAS? chng.it/dzMJYfSbqM

25.03.2025 12:01 👍 118 🔁 69 💬 0 📌 1
A magnificent tiger seen in a head-on view at London Zoo lying on a raised up wooden palisade in the sun and gazing back at the photographer.

A magnificent tiger seen in a head-on view at London Zoo lying on a raised up wooden palisade in the sun and gazing back at the photographer.

I was lucky to get this image on my iPhone yesterday while visiting @londonzoo.bsky.social with my granddaughter Alba.

08.03.2025 07:54 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This splendid edition also contains my review of Walter Salles's excellent film I'm Still Here, starring the phenomenal Fernanda Torres.

10.02.2025 00:16 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
09.02.2025 14:18 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

When I joined this platform 2 months ago I anticipated some of the political pain Americans would go through (and yes, some is coming the UK’s way soon, I’m sure) but the flow of alarm and numb despair at so much wilful destruction here is truly hard to witness. I wish you all strength.

06.02.2025 00:40 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Londoners and visitors, please sign the petition.

28.01.2025 12:53 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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This new 'bookazine' from @sightsoundmag.bsky.social is an unmissable goldmine for Akerman fans. Among many treats it contains my 2001 interview with her for La Captive, in which she was on brilliant, incisive form.

28.01.2025 10:00 👍 12 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Chamath Palihapitiya

@chamath
·
2h
Wikipedia lies. 

Mainstream media lies. 

They will contort the truth to make you believe in a bogeyman. In falling for it, you’re giving up your God given ability to think for yourself.

Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath · 2h Wikipedia lies. Mainstream media lies. They will contort the truth to make you believe in a bogeyman. In falling for it, you’re giving up your God given ability to think for yourself.

Shaun Maguire
@shaunmmaguire
Wikipedia has been ideologically captured for years

It's important that this is finally coming to light

The most extreme bias is probably against Israel

Foundation AI models are being trained on this biased data as if it's ground truth

Shaun Maguire @shaunmmaguire Wikipedia has been ideologically captured for years It's important that this is finally coming to light The most extreme bias is probably against Israel Foundation AI models are being trained on this biased data as if it's ground truth

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
·
3h
Defund Wikipedia until balance is restored!

Elon Musk @elonmusk · 3h Defund Wikipedia until balance is restored!

Elon Musk

@elonmusk
·
3h
Since legacy media propaganda is considered a “valid” source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!

Elon Musk @elonmusk · 3h Since legacy media propaganda is considered a “valid” source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!

having succeeded in purchasing positions of influence inside the White House, the billionaires and tech VCs have now set their sights back on Wikipedia

21.01.2025 20:52 👍 4491 🔁 1552 💬 238 📌 315
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Thank the lord for Private Eye

22.01.2025 09:31 👍 15691 🔁 2468 💬 206 📌 123
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Jane Ogborn obituary Other lives: Teacher committed to making English literature accessible to all

This obituary is for someone very dear to me, my wife Kate Ogborn’s mother Jane, a wise literary intellect who eventually accepted me into the most impressive and beloved clan it has been my honour to know. My thanks to Kate’s brother Miles for a fine summation. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

18.01.2025 00:20 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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The irreplaceable David Lynch has gone. RIP 💔

16.01.2025 18:42 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Shallow thought: if I finish the 33 books I’m half way through it could seem like I will have read a hell of a lot this year. Except that, with some of them, not picked up for more than a year, I might have to start again.

06.01.2025 16:17 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0