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Wael Khairy

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Wael Khairy is an Egyptian film critic whose work has been featured in numerous international publications. He was recognized by legendary critic Roger Ebert as one of the reasons we live in the golden age of film criticism in The Wall Street Journal. Ebert later brought him on as a foreign correspondent, and Wael has been a regular contributor to Ebert’s website for over fifteen years. His essays and reviews have appeared in World Film Locations books published in the UK, academic journals, Newsweek, Forbes, MUBI, and The Criterion Collection. He is currently the resident film critic at Cairo Scene and has discussed film on Nile FM and BBC Radio. Wael has been invited to and contributed to major film festivals, including Sundance, Ebertfest, BFI London Film Festival, and Cannes. He has also served on juries for prestigious awards such as the Golden Globes, Arab Critics Awards for European Films, and African American Film Critics Awards. He lectures at ESLSCA University in Egypt.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Knight of Cups (2015) 47% EDIT “Powerful and Soul-shaking....Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups is philosophical fiction at its finest. ” – The Cairo Scene Jan 12, 2026 Full Review Wings of Hope (1999) EDIT “Herzog’s almost lyrical narration turns an otherwise harrowing tale into a story of hope and beauty. ” – The Cinephile Fix Dec 8, 2025 Full Review Demons (1971) EDIT ““Demons”/“Shura” remains one of the most radical films ever made. Its daring techniques continue to astonish even today.” – RogerEbert.com Nov 4, 2025 Full Review Sirāt (2025) 92% EDIT “The suspense is relentless. There were long stretches where I found myself at the edge of my seat. One scene in particular left me in complete shock....It’s an image I’ll likely never forget. I doubt I’ll see a more jaw-dropping moment this year. ” – The Cairo Scene Oct 7, 2025 Full Review Urchin (2025) 96% EDIT “...a compassionate and darkly humorous portrait of homelessness. ...Urchin asks us to care, even when it’s easier to turn away.” – The Cairo Scene Sep 6, 2025 Full Review Sentimental Value (2025) 97% EDIT “The writing is devastating. ‘Sentimental Value’ is a film about the redemptive power of storytelling. It explores how the act of making cinema can be a form of healing. ” – The Cairo Scene Aug 3, 2025 Full Review The Plague (2025) 97% EDIT “A chilling descent into the horrors of bullying...There’s a particular kind of ache that comes from betraying your own sense of right and wrong just to avoid becoming a target yourself. The film is one of the most promising debuts of the year.” – The Cairo Scene Jul 2, 2025 Full Review Die My Love (2025) 74% EDIT “This is without doubt her (Jennifer Lawrence's) greatest performance yet. The film perfectly captures the grief of losing a part of yourself in the process of becoming someone else. It’s not a story about motherhood as much as it is an experience of it. ” – The Cairo Scene Jun 18, 2025 Full Review It Was Just an Accident (2025) 97% EDIT “"It Was Just An Accident" contains perhaps the most perfect ending of any film I’ve seen this year. It invites a kind of active spectatorship where audiences must reckon with the discomfort of moral ambiguity. ” – The Cairo Scene Jun 15, 2025 Full Review Once Upon a Time in Gaza (2025) 92% EDIT “With Once Upon a Time in Gaza, the Nasser brothers pull off something so rare. They created a film that is both unflinching and unexpectedly uplifting. It demands to be seen.” – The Cairo Scene Jun 1, 2025 Full Review The President's Cake (2025) 100% EDIT “Like the cake at the heart of the story, the film builds itself layer by layer.‘The President’s Cake’ is the strongest film from the region to premiere this year at Cannes. The film everyone should be talking about” – The Cairo Scene May 25, 2025 Full Review Eddington (2025) 68% EDIT “Aster might have thought that his film is unmasking a nation in crisis, but it ends up revealing little more than a blank expression. ” – The Cairo Scene May 21, 2025 Full Review Taxi Driver (1976) 89% EDIT “The viewer has no choice, we are forced to breathe the air, gaze through the pupils, and experience the city by slipping into the shoes of a twisted protagonist, the shoe laces tightly tied by none other than a master of his craft, Scorsese.” – The Cinephile Fix Apr 21, 2025 Full Review Mean Streets (1973) 92% EDIT “Mean Streets opens a window to the indoor activities of gangsters. Scorsese uses pool halls, restaurants, bars, and clubs as the backdrop and as with most of his films, the external environment has an internal effect on our protagonist. ” – The Cinephile Fix Mar 10, 2025 Full Review Collateral (2004) 86% EDIT “While Heat is Mann’s quintessential Los Angeles film, Collateral is his exploration of the city’s darker side.” – The Cinephile Fix Mar 10, 2025 Full Review Ghost in the Shell (1995) 95% EDIT “As the world edges closer to the ideas that it once speculated, these images resurface in my thoughts like fragments of a future that was always meant to find us...“Ghost in the Shell” didn’t predict the future; it dissected it before it arrived...” – RogerEbert.com Feb 26, 2025 Full Review Atlantics (2019) 96% EDIT “Like ghosts, her films are traces, fragments of lives, histories, and emotions that refuse to fade into oblivion....operating between the realms of the living and the dead, the past and the present, the material world and the spiritual...” – The Cinephile Fix Feb 19, 2025 Full Review Dahomey (2024) 97% EDIT “Diop amplifies cries from the past, compelling us to confront their implications for the present and future. In doing so, she creates a cinema through which the silenced voices of history are finally given the space to speak...” – The Cinephile Fix Jan 28, 2025 Full Review The Conversation (1974) 94% EDIT “editing and sound mixing used to perfection” – The Cinephile Fix Jan 18, 2025 Full Review Midsommar (2019) 83% EDIT “Part fairytale, part break-up movie, Ari Aster’s twisted cult horror will surely stand the test of time.” – The Cinephile Fix Jan 18, 2025 Full Review Marriage Story (2019) 95% EDIT ““Marriage Story” could’ve easily been called “Divorce Story”, but the contradicting title suggests that marriage is a failed institution.” – The Cinephile Fix Jan 18, 2025 Full Review Zero Dark Thirty (2012) 91% EDIT “...at the film’s most climatic scene, you’ll forget you’re even watching a movie.” – The Cinephile Fix Dec 9, 2024 Full Review Looper (2012) 93% EDIT “I was always a sucker for time-travel movies and the mind-bending paradoxes that materialise from baffling scenarios of crafty science fiction. ” – The Cinephile Fix Dec 9, 2024 Full Review Ondine (2009) 70% EDIT “Films like “Ondine” don’t come that often...watch it on a cold and windy night.” – The Cinephile Fix Nov 10, 2024 Full Review Monsters (2010) 75% EDIT ““Monsters” has one of the most unexpected endings...Pay close attention to the opening and closing shots, there’s a link between them. When you discover what it is, you’ll be thinking of this unsettling ending for days. ” – The Cinephile Fix Nov 10, 2024 Full Review
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