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
    The Long Walk, Downton Abbey and more

    The Long Walk, about a brutal annual endurance test in which 50 young men plod across the country, is a dour slog

    Sun, 14 Sept 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Spinal Tap loses its satirical edge

    This meagre and unfunny sequel to the original rock mockumentary has none of the first film’s on-the-nose savagery

    Fri, 12 Sept 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    The Roses: An astringent, sweary screwball comedy

    Olivia Colman is at her best in this portrait of a couple at war

    Fri, 29 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Sorry, Baby, The Life of Chuck, and more

    Sorry, Baby is a rare, phenomenal first feature from Eva Victor that achieves a playful intimacy as it explores life-shattering abuses

    Sat, 23 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Eddington is a sour-spirited and self-indulgent parody

    Ari Aster’s latest film demonstrates that satire without wit and insight is not satire. It’s just trolling

    Fri, 22 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love, Nobody 2, Night Always Comes and more

    The second release from the Norwegian trilogy is a sexy film about the unsexiest of subjects: kindness

    Sat, 16 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Materialists satirises the transactional nature of modern dating

    Celine Song’s follow-up to Past Lives is so preoccupied with the asset valuation of prospective partners that it neglects to develop its characters

    Fri, 15 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Late Shift, The Naked Gun and more

    Film-maker Mstyslav Chernov returns to the frontline, joining a bleak mission to reclaim a devastated Ukrainian village. Plus, The Naked Gun is a surprise goofy delight

    Sun, 3 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Dreams is a window into the mind of a teenage girl

    Sharply written, insightful and exhilaratingly unexpected, this is one of the very best films of the year

    Fri, 1 Aug 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Bring Her Back is the most unsettling film of the year

    Sally Hawkins is utterly chilling as a bereaved foster mother in this trauma horror from the Philippou brothers

    Fri, 25 Jul 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Friendship, Four Letters of Love, Gold Songs and Smurfs

    A new comedy starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd is a grotesquely deformed mutation of the bromance genre

    Sat, 19 Jul 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Harvest is a hallucinogenic tale of displacement

    This brooding adaptation of Jim Crace’s Booker-shortlisted novel about a village imperilled by outsiders is uncomfortably topical

    Fri, 18 Jul 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Jurassic World Rebirth, Hot Milk and more

    Sun, 6 Jul 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    The Shrouds is morbid, unsettling – and tedious

    Compared to the full-blooded nastiness of some of his enthusiastically lurid earlier works, this grave-digging horror feels inert and woolly

    Fri, 4 Jul 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    F1: the Movie is one long midlife crisis

    Cliches and product placement plague a film so corporate it comes with its own registered trademark symbol

    Fri, 27 Jun 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Elio, Red Path, Rust and more

    From a pleasant but unexceptional Pixar flick to a record-breaking Swedish hit, our film critic rounds up the best of the rest

    Sat, 21 Jun 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    28 Years Later lacks political bite

    The true horror of Danny Boyle’s original zombie masterpiece was its subtext. The third film is missing a message

    Fri, 20 Jun 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Review: John Maclean’s Tornado is Kurosawa in a kilt

    A young woman seeks vengeance on a brutal criminal gang in this skin-flaying Scottish badlands-set feature – a film so vivid you can almost smell it…

    Fri, 13 Jun 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: How to Train Your Dragon, Lollipop, Echo Valley and more

    Fri, 13 Jun 2025

  • Wendy Ide
    Film: Naomi Watts takes the lead... and more

    Naomi Watts stars as a writer grieving the loss of her friend, played by Bill Murray, and finds herself adopting his colossal canine in this bittersweet New York doggy tale

    Sat, 26 Apr 2025

  • Follow

    The Observer
    The Observer Magazine
    The ObserverNew Review
    The Observer Food Monthly
    Copyright © 2025 Tortoise MediaPrivacy PolicyTerms & Conditions