Photo of Wendy Ide
Wendy Ide

Chief Film Critic

Wendy is a film critic and film industry expert with more than twenty-five years experience. She joined The Observer in 2015 and was appointed Chief Film Critic in 2023. She is also a critic for Screen International. Previously her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Times, Prospect and Sight and Sound. She has served as a programme advisor for film festivals including the BFI London Film Festival.

Photo of Wendy Ide

Wendy Ide

Chief Film Critic

Wendy is a film critic and film industry expert with more than twenty-five years experience. She joined The Observer in 2015 and was appointed Chief Film Critic in 2023. She is also a critic for Screen International. Previously her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Times, Prospect and Sight and Sound. She has served as a programme advisor for film festivals including the BFI London Film Festival.

  • Wendy Ide
    Meet the Observers: Wendy Ide

    Mon, 1 Dec 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wicked: For Good suffers from sequel overload & Timothée Chalamet’s shenanigans

    We're back in the land of Oz with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo for the second half of the Wicked adaptation. It's a box office hit, but critics have been divided. Was making a Wicked sequel the best or worst move for the franchise?   Timothée Chalamet is flooding Liv and Miranda's timelines with a string of press stunts: from a spoof marketing Zoom call and designer merch collabs to commissioning orange blimps to hype his new film. So who is the little-known 29-year-old Glaswegian behind the stunts who is collaborating with Timothée, Charli XCX, and Billie Eilish?   Watch full episodes on YouTube - HERE    Read Wendy's review of Wicked: For Good HERE    Liv and Miranda love to share their recommendations, here's what's on their radar this week:    Liv: Burgonia (film)   Miranda:  This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich by Daniel Rachel (book)    Read more On My Radar recommendations from The Observer's New Review HERE    Let's chat! Send us your voice notes!  @WeHaveNotes_Pod on Instagram @WeHaveNotes_Pod on TikTok wehavenotes@observer.co.uk via email     

    44 min • S1, E10

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s picks: Blue Moon, Wake Up Dead Man

    This tale of Richard Rodgers’s drunk and bitter former writing partner Lorenz Hart is elegantly witty and melancholic

    Sat, 29 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Pillion shows the hard and soft sides to leather culture

    This ‘dom-com’ about a timid traffic warden who meets a surly, leather-clad alpha finds humour in the transgressive and the mundane

    Fri, 28 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: The Ice Tower, The Thing with Feathers, and more

    There’s a chilly, uncanny magic and dream logic to Lucile Hadžihalilović’s story of a diva movie star played by Marion Cotillard

    Sat, 22 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    What to do this weekend, from a Lee Miller exhibition to a festival of melodrama

    Our critic picks five cultural highlights, whether you have 50 minutes, an afternoon or a whole day to spare

    Fri, 21 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    In Wicked: For Good, the magic is gone

    The second part of the musical adaptation takes the yellow brick road straight to Dullsville

    Thu, 20 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Jay Kelly, Left-Handed Girl, Nuremberg and more

    Noah Baumbach’s Hollywood redemption story is slightly derailed by the inherent likability of its lead George Clooney

    Sat, 15 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Edgar Wright’s The Running Man is propulsive popcorn entertainment

    This brash, boisterous dystopia, starring Glen Powell, is a cobweb-clearing blast of a movie

    Fri, 14 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Train Dreams, Dragonfly, Predator: Badlands, The Choral and more

    A superb adaption of Denis Johnson’s novella tells of the fleeting encounters and fragmented memories that make up a man

    Sat, 8 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Die My Love explores the feral side of motherhood

    A fearless, frenzied Jennifer Lawrence excels in Lynne Ramsay’s disturbing portrait of postpartum mania

    Fri, 7 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Relay, Facing War, Palestine 36 and more

    Riz Ahmed is compulsively watchable in a pleasingly slippery New-York set thriller about a whistleblower

    Sun, 2 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Yorgos Lanthimos’s conspiracy comedy Bugonia is deranged

    Emma Stone is terrific as a kidnapped big pharma boss in a story that is both savage and uncomfortably timely

    Sat, 1 Nov 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Hedda and more

    Jeremy Allen White captures some of Springsteen’s electrifying energy in an otherwise inert, uninventive biopic

    Sat, 25 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Kelly Reichardt rewrites the heist movie

    The Mastermind is not interested in the blood-pumping tension of the crime, but its brooding aftermath

    Thu, 23 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Frankenstein, Roofman, Ballad of a Small Player and more

    Guillermo del Toro’s take on the gothic classic is a thrillingly immersive, sensual experience – if a little self-indulgent in the storytelling

    Sat, 18 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    After the Hunt isn’t as clever as it thinks it is

    Luca Guadagnino’s provocative cancel culture film, starring an impressively icy Julia Roberts, already feels dated

    Fri, 17 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Tron: Ares, Good Boy, A Want in Her, The Perfect Neighbor

    Jared Leto is in full messianic prat mode as an AI super-soldier in the synthetic spectacle Tron: Ares

    Sat, 11 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Films of the week: The Smashing Machine, Urchin and more

    Dwayne Johnson delivers an unexpectedly bruised performance in the solo directorial debut from Benny Safdie

    Fri, 3 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    A House of Dynamite is terrifyingly plausible

    Rebecca Ferguson excels in Kathryn Bigelow’s muscular political thriller about an imminent nuclear attack on the US

    Wed, 1 Oct 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Dead of Winter, Brides, Homebound and more

    Emma Thompson stars as a recent widow in a chilly winter noir that gets bogged down in flashbacks and clumsy storytelling

    Sat, 27 Sept 2025

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