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Ben Dowell

Ben Dowell's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
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Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Leaving Neverland 2: Surviving Michael Jackson (2025) 4/5 EDIT “Safechuck’s anguished talk of his dialogue with his younger self felt thoroughly convincing to me. If this is all an elaborate fiction, it would make them more accomplished performers than Jackson himself.” – The Times (UK) Aug 13, 2025 Full Review Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band (2024) 88% 3/5 EDIT “Springsteen is 75, and if there is a theme here it is the passing of time and attempts by our man and his band to defy its ravages. Probably the film’s most important song is his reflection on mortality, Last Man Standing. ” – The Times (UK) Oct 24, 2024 Full Review Secret Lives of Orangutans (2024) 3/5 EDIT “It is pleasant, undemanding and occasionally enlightening. But I hoped for slightly more.” – The Times (UK) Aug 22, 2024 Full Review A Storm Foretold: Roger Stone and Die (2023) 100% 4/5 EDIT “The abiding sense is that this isn’t just a nation sharply split on political lines, but a country divided by blinding, fathomless hatred.” – The Times (UK) Jul 31, 2024 Full Review Men Up (2023) 78% EDIT “Who knew that the man behind the Game of Thrones psychopath Ramsay Bolton could so sensitively portray such pain and shame? ” – The Times (UK) Jan 2, 2024 Full Review Tabby McTat (2023) 4/5 EDIT “A tale of love and growing up, this fitted the season nicely enough.” – The Times (UK) Dec 27, 2023 Full Review Nothing Compares (2022) 99% EDIT “What was made for a world where she was still with us became a fitting and moving epitaph for a world where she now isn’t.” – The Times (UK) Jul 31, 2023 Full Review Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time (2021) 93% EDIT “[Weide's] thoughtful approach largely fits a subject where sadness, cynicism, laughter and optimism jostle fascinatingly together. ” – The Times (UK) Apr 25, 2023 Full Review David Baddiel: Jews Don't Count (2022) 100% 4/5 EDIT “This smart, impressive programme left you with an abiding sense that the most dangerous people in today’s world aren’t just those on the racist right but also those who are so convinced of their own correct-thinking virtue... ” – The Times (UK) Nov 22, 2022 Full Review Life Is Beautiful (1997) 80% EDIT “Schmaltzy, treacly, saccharine — call it what you like, if you’re not blubbing by the end, check your pulse. ” – The Times (UK) Sep 20, 2022 Full Review River (2021) 88% EDIT “You would be forgiven for feeling that this is a little pretentious at times, but there is also something hugely seductive about a transportive slow TV viewing experience...” – The Times (UK) Jul 25, 2022 Full Review Citizen Ashe (2021) 97% EDIT “Eye-opening...” – The Times (UK) Jun 28, 2022 Full Review Little Girl (2020) 100% 4/5 EDIT “The exquisite intensity, tenderness and occasional moments of anger did not let up and Lifshitz's film-making was often sublime.” – The Times (UK) Jul 2, 2021 Full Review Offended by Irvine Welsh (2020) 100% 3/5 EDIT “Welsh probed and prodded with great warmth, intelligence and skill, but Offended By Irvine Welsh was more of an essay with a through-line that rarely deviated.” – The Times (UK) Nov 18, 2020 Full Review The Night Notre Dame Burned (2020) 4/5 EDIT “Unlike poor old Quasimodo, the great lady was saved from destruction. Yet the extraordinary thing about The Night Notre-Dame Burned was that one felt an acute heart-in-mouth fear that things might not turn out that way.” – The Times (UK) Nov 18, 2020 Full Review The Real Eastenders (2020) 3/5 EDIT “Where this film triumphed was in its raw profiles of real rather than fantasy families.” – The Times (UK) Aug 11, 2020 Full Review Anthony (2020) 100% 4/5 EDIT “It was powerful stuff and unlike anything I've seen before.” – The Times (UK) Aug 3, 2020 Full Review 4/5 EDIT “It was like an exhibition of student posters come to life - Sex Pistols imagery... and calls to be "cool like Fonzies". All slightly juvenile and tedious, yes, but this programme, with its whizzy graphics and guitar soundtrack, was a sucker for it.” – The Times (UK) Mar 19, 2020 Full Review 4/5 EDIT “Hannah Berryman's engaging documentary about the night that heralded feminism's explosion into the mainstream was actually finely balanced.” – The Times (UK) Mar 17, 2020 Full Review 5/5 EDIT “The image of this strange, hugely likeable woman - workmanlike and slightly ethereal, eccentric but no-nonsense - scurrying to her flat near her home on the Devon coast was delightful.” – The Times (UK) Mar 13, 2020 Full Review
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