Rotten Tomatoes certified lead film critic/editor/entertainment reporter for The AU Review. Voter for the 84th Annual Golden Globes. I give a great interview.
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Articles by Peter Gray
Film Review: Tenzing is a breathtaking Everest drama gives an unsung hero his due
History has a funny way of remembering partnerships as individual achievements. Ask who first reached the summit of Mount Everest and Edmund Hillary’s name will likely arrive before Tenzing Norgay’s, despite the two men standing together atop the world’s highest mountain on May 29th, 1953.
Interview: Gnomes creator Joel Kohn and producer Richard Kelly on their gloriously unhinged new comedy-horror series
Garden gnomes have long been considered harmless, if somewhat unsettling, fixtures of suburban lawns. But in the delightfully deranged new Australian horror-comedy Gnomes, those innocent-looking ornaments are anything but, as an ancient evil unleashes an army of murderous garden dwellers upon an unsuspecting small town.
Win a double in-season pass to see Jenna Ortega in Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun
Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia, we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Taika Waititi‘s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, exclusively in cinemas from October 22nd, 2026, starring Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Steve Buscemi and Natasha Lyonne.
Film Review: Street Fighter ; a promising cast can’t save this chaotic, juvenile video game adaptation
The video game-to-film adaptation has long been a notoriously difficult undertaking. Despite the Mortal Kombat films enjoying relative commercial success and this year’s Resident Evil proving a welcome exception to the rule, Hollywood has continually struggled to translate the appeal of interactive entertainment into something equally engaging on the big screen.
Film Review: Sense and Sensibility ; Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles bring fresh emotional weight to Jane Austen’s enduring romance
Jane Austen‘s stories have endured for more than two centuries, their romantic misunderstandings, rigid social expectations and quietly devastating heartbreaks proving remarkably timeless. It’s little wonder filmmakers continue to revisit her work, even when the challenge of bringing something new to such familiar material becomes increasingly difficult.
Film Review: La Bola Negra feels like witnessing almost a century of queer history reach across time to touch itself
At 155 minutes, and unfolding across three timelines that initially appear to have only the faintest connective tissue, La Bola Negra asks its audience to place an enormous amount of trust in directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. For much of its first two hours, their sweeping queer epic can feel deliberately elusive, moving between characters, decades and emotional registers without hurrying to explain why these particular lives are being placed alongside one another. Trust it.
Interview: Milo Quifes on finding his voice through silence, queer identity and the enduring legacy of Lorca in La Bola Negra
Winner of the Best Director award at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, La Bola Negra, from filmmaking duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, is an ambitious and deeply affecting exploration of queer identity, repression and the enduring legacy of love across generations.
It’s the same beach but a new era in the first full-length trailer for the all-new Baywatch
The red swimsuits are back, and so is one of television’s most recognisable franchises, with the first trailer for the new Baywatch offering audiences a glimpse at the sun-soaked action, beachside drama and familiar faces awaiting them when the series premieres exclusively on Stan in Australia from January 2027. More than three decades after the original series became a global phenomenon, Baywatch is heading back to Southern California with an entirely new generation of lifeguards.
Australia’s own Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace kick off global tour for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping in Sydney
The odds are looking ever in Australia’s favour as The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping launches its global press tour in Sydney, with Australian actor Joseph Zada and Mckenna Grace arriving to promote the highly anticipated next chapter in the blockbuster franchise.
Series Review: Crystal Lake is a gloriously gruesome and ambitious resurrection of the Friday the 13th franchise
After almost two decades of cinematic silence, Jason Voorhees is finally back. Well, sort of. The hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding horror icon has remained conspicuously absent from our screens since 2009’s Friday the 13th reboot, with legal complications and creative uncertainty keeping one of the genre’s most recognisable villains frustratingly dormant.
Interview: Brad Caleb Kane on recontextualizing the world of Friday the 13th for the Crystal Lake series
For nearly half a century, the Friday the 13th franchise has taught audiences to fear what lurks around Crystal Lake. With A24’s Crystal Lake, creator and showrunner Brad Caleb Kane is asking audiences to look at that mythology from an entirely different perspective – not by beginning with the unstoppable killing machine Jason Voorhees would become, but with the mother whose grief helped create the legend.
Interview: Director Rachel Morrison on the importance of forgiveness in her new film Love of Your Life ; “One has to fall back in love with themselves in order to really move forward in life.”
Grief is rarely a linear experience, and the notion of simply “moving on” after losing someone can feel almost cruel in its suggestion that love is something we’re expected to leave behind. It’s this emotional complexity that sits at the heart of Love of Your Life, the beautifully observed romantic drama from director Rachel Morrison (The Fire Inside).
Film Review: Love of Your Life is a beautifully affecting reminder that moving forward doesn’t mean leaving love behind
The notion of “moving on” after losing someone has always felt somewhat cruel. It suggests that grief is something we can eventually put behind us, that heartbreak comes with an expiration date, and that finding happiness again somehow requires us to leave behind the people who once made us happy. Cinema has often embraced this idea, presenting loss as a temporary obstacle to overcome before life can return to some semblance of normality.
Live Review: Zara Larsson brings a euphoric dose of pop perfection to Brisbane’s Riverstage (13.10.26)
There are certain pop stars who seem destined for arenas, and Zara Larsson is undoubtedly one of them. Armed with a catalogue of infectious dance-pop anthems, a spectacular voice and the kind of stage presence that makes performing look effortless, the Swedish singer has all the makings of a global superstar. So, to see her commanding Brisbane’s comparatively intimate Riverstage on Tuesday night felt like something of a privilege.
Nicholas Galitzine and Bill Skarsgård face the horrors of war in the explosive trailer for Netflix’s The Mosquito Bowl
Based on the bestselling nonfiction book “The Mosquito Bowl: A Game of Life and Death in World War II” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Buzz Bissinger, and directed by Peter Berg, The Mosquito Bowl is a sweeping World War II drama about sacrifice, brotherhood and the devastating loss of innocence, starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis as four of America’s most promising college football players whose lives are irrevocably changed following the attack on...
Win a double in-season pass to the acclaimed drama La Bola Negra starring Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close
Thanks to Rialto Distribution, we have 10 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to giveaway to see Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close in the acclaimed drama La Bola Negra, recent winner of the People’s Choice Award at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, in Australian theatres from October 15th, 2026.
Darkness must be hunted in the first trailer for Mike Flanagan’s The Exorcist: Martyrs
Mike Flanagan is no stranger to exploring the darker corners of the human psyche, but with The Exorcist: Martyrs, the acclaimed filmmaker is stepping into one of horror cinema’s most iconic franchises. And judging by the newly released trailer, he’s bringing his particular brand of psychological unease to a story where the horrors of the past refuse to stay buried.
25 years of Britney : How Britney Spears’ defining coming-of-age album changed the rules of pop
There are pop stars, there are superstars, and then there is Britney Spears. An artist whose cultural impact has long transcended the music itself, Spears possessed that almost indefinable quality that comes along perhaps once in a generation. She wasn’t merely selling records or setting trends; she was shaping the very language of pop culture, commanding an extraordinary level of fascination that few artists before or since have managed to replicate.
More than a meal: Inside IPPIN’s ambitious approach to Japanese dining in Brisbane
From premium sake pairings to exclusive culinary collaborations, West End’s award-winning IPPIN Japanese Dining continues to evolve, with its recent HENGE Australian launch showcasing an ambition that extends well beyond the traditional restaurant experience. Since opening its doors in April 2023, IPPIN Japanese Dining has steadily established itself as one of Brisbane’s more distinctive destinations for contemporary Japanese cuisine.
Ready. Set. Fight. And win a double in-season pass to Street Fighter
Thanks to Paramount Pictures Australia, we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to Street Fighter, where the battle moves from the arcade to the big screen with Hadoukens, roundhouses, and all your favorite characters! Set in 1993, estranged Street Fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) are thrown back into combat when the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament: a brutal clash of fists, fate, and fury.
Film Review: Other Mommy ; Jessica Chastain’s supernatural horror is more silly than scary
There is something inherently unsettling about the idea that the person you trust most in the world could be replaced by something altogether more sinister. It’s a simple but effective premise, one that has fuelled countless horror stories built around identity, parental protection and the terrifying uncertainty of childhood.
Film Review: The Social Reckoning ; Aaron Sorkin logs back on for a sharp, timely and occasionally surface-level examination of social media
Given how dramatically our relationship with social media has mutated over the last two decades, it was perhaps inevitable that Aaron Sorkin would eventually return his attention to Facebook. This time, though, the creation of the platform is far less interesting than the monster it potentially became.
Interview: Mike Flanagan on why he had to adapt Stephen King’s Carrie ; “There’s nothing about the story that’s inevitable. And that’s part of the fun we had with it, was to really look at the choices.”
For more than 50 years, we’ve known how the story of Carrie White ends. Stephen King’s 1974 debut novel has become so embedded in popular culture – helped immeasurably by Brian De Palma’s seminal 1976 adaptation – that even those who have never read the book or watched one of its screen incarnations likely know the image: a teenage girl, a prom queen’s crown and a bucket of blood. That familiarity presents an unusual challenge for Mike Flanagan’s Carrie.
Series Review: Carrie ; Mike Flanagan creates suspense around a tragedy whose destination we already know in emotionally bruising adaptation
For more than 50 years, we’ve known how the story of Carrie White ends. Stephen King’s 1974 debut novel has become so embedded in popular culture – helped immeasurably by Brian De Palma’s seminal 1976 adaptation – that even those who have never read the book or watched one of its screen incarnations likely know the image: a teenage girl, a prom queen’s crown and a bucket of blood. That familiarity presents an unusual challenge for Mike Flanagan’s Carrie.
Interview: Summer H. Howell and Samantha Sloyan on reestablishing the mother-daughter relationship at the centre of Carrie
Stephen King’s Carrie has been revisited on screen numerous times, but Mike Flanagan’s eight-episode television adaptation has something those earlier incarnations never truly had: time. Time to understand Carrie White before the blood falls. Time to explore Margaret White beyond the religious fanaticism that has traditionally defined her. And time to consider the small acts of kindness and cruelty that gradually shape a tragedy audiences have spent decades believing they already know.
Interview: Brett Sullivan on reuniting the original broadway cast for Hadestown: The Musical ; “It’s in their blood.”
There’s an inherent contradiction in committing live theatre to film. Part of the magic of the stage is its impermanence: every performance exists for one audience, on one night, with subtle variations that can never be entirely replicated. Put cameras in the room, however, and that fleeting experience suddenly becomes permanent.
Interview: Anne Hathaway reflects on a stellar year and finding unapologetic power in The Odyssey ; “I’m going to hold it because it’s a treasure.”
Few performers could claim the type of year Anne Hathaway has enjoyed. Across five major releases – Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, The Odyssey, The End of Oak Street and Verity – the Academy Award winner has moved between wildly different characters and filmmakers, revisited one of the most beloved roles of her career, and helped Christopher Nolan turn one of literature’s oldest stories into one of the year’s biggest cinematic events.
Interview: Peter Lawson on the bodies, bloodshed and bad behaviour of Kill Jackie
Catherine Zeta-Jones being hunted across Europe by seven of the world’s deadliest assassins is already a fairly irresistible proposition. Give her a wicked sense of humour, a violent criminal history and permission to beat the living hell out of anyone standing in her way, and Kill Jackie has all the ingredients of a gleefully unhinged action thriller.
Interview: Spencer King on his new film Nickels , Rob Riggle’s dramatic turn and the signs we find in grief
Rob Riggle may be best known for his comedic work, but in Nickels, the actor taps into a far quieter and more dramatic register as Tom Monroe, a successful entrepreneur and devoted family man still carrying the grief of losing his older brother as a teenager.
Film Review: Nickels ; Rob Riggle finds dramatic weight in a quietly affecting story of grief and second chances
Nickels is the type of film that could have very easily overwhelmed itself. A story about grief, possible reincarnation and the signs we attach meaning to could have exploded into melodrama or lengthy monologues about faith. Instead, director Spencer King approaches the material with admirable restraint, allowing uncertainty to hang over the film and trusting the audience to decide how much they want to believe.
Film Review: Verity is a serviceable, slickly mounted psychological thriller
Colleen Hoover may not exactly be considered one of the great literary voices of our time, but there’s an amusing moment in Verity when struggling writer Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) describes the titular author’s output as the type of books you pick up at the airport.
Noosa Chocolate Factory is unveiling its new Hastings Street store this weekend
There’s something particularly appropriate about Noosa Chocolate Factory finding its way to Hastings Street. What started in a small Noosaville kitchen in 2009 has grown considerably over the years, but the Sunshine Coast remains central to the family-owned business. Now, its latest store is bringing the chocolate maker closer to one of Noosa’s busiest stretches, opening at Village on Hastings this Saturday, October 3rd.
Opinion: Ross was Rachel’s endgame, but Friends showed Joey was better at loving her
Of all the romantic choices Friends made across ten seasons, few have been treated with as much contempt as Joey and Rachel. Their brief attempt at becoming a couple is regularly dismissed as a late-series mistake, a storyline born from writers running out of ways to keep Ross and Rachel apart before inevitably putting them back together. But what if Joey and Rachel weren’t the mistake?
Film Review: Digger ; Tom Cruise goes for broke in Iñárritu’s bold, overworked satire
Alejandro G. Iñárritu has never been particularly interested in making films that quietly disappear into the background, and Digger may be one of his boldest swings yet. An absurdist, visually audacious satire about power, ego, environmental catastrophe and the stories people construct around themselves, it is the type of ambitious studio filmmaking that deserves to exist. Whether audiences will actually enjoy what Iñárritu has constructed is another question entirely.
Nothing stands between Brandon Sklenar, his dog, and his daughter in the first trailer for The Rescue
Brandon Sklenar finally gets his leading-man moment in The Rescue, a new action thriller that looks to put a distinctly Western spin on the familiar Taken formula. Sklenar stars as former rodeo cowboy Jamie Lee Betts, whose quiet existence is shattered when his daughter is kidnapped and held for ransom. Rather than wait for someone else to bring her home, he takes matters into his own hands, setting out to find her with only her devoted dog by his side.
Win a double in-season pass to the anticipated sequel to The Social Network ; Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning starring Academy Award winner Mikey Madison
Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia, we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the anticipated sequel to The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning, starring Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison and Jeremy Strong, only in Australian cinemas from October 8th, 2026.
Interview: Kenneth Branagh on surrendering himself to the playful nature of Mayday ; “I believed that my job in this was just to absolutely show up.”
John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Mayday may wear the familiar uniform of an old-school 1980s buddy movie, but beneath the action, comedy and Cold War absurdity is a surprisingly tender story about two men questioning the lives they were taught to want. Ryan Reynolds stars as Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly, a hotshot U.S. Navy pilot whose top-secret mission into Russian territory spectacularly implodes, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines.
Interview: Director Alex Liu and stars Simon Rex, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and Grace Palmer on their darkly funny, sinister thriller God Bless You, Mr Kopu
God Bless You, Mr Kopu may unfold like a darkly comic genre piece about ambition, desperation and the seductive promise of success, but beneath its increasingly twisted surface, writer-director Alex Liu is asking a more personal question: how much of yourself are you willing to surrender to become the person you think you’re supposed to be?
Paradise Lost ; grief and AI collide in Yeon Sang-ho’s haunting thriller: Toronto International Film Festival Review
Yeon Sang-ho has never needed monsters to expose the uglier parts of humanity. Even when working within horror, science fiction or apocalyptic spectacle, the filmmaker behind Train to Busan and Hellbound has remained fascinated by what people become when circumstances push them somewhere uncomfortable.
Happily Ever After is a warm, perceptive drama about the uncertainty of adulthood: Toronto International Film Festival Review
Happiness is an easy concept to romanticise. We spend so much of our lives imagining the job, relationship or milestone that will finally make everything fall into place, only to discover that fulfilment rarely arrives as neatly as expected.
Interview: Robert Pattinson on what drew him to Primetime ; “I like things that are more esoteric and strange.”
Robert Pattinson has rarely seemed interested in taking the most obvious route into a character. Across a career increasingly defined by peculiar, unpredictable and sometimes deeply uncomfortable performances, the actor has demonstrated a willingness to disappear into characters without necessarily explaining them. For Primetime, though, Pattinson initially wasn’t planning on disappearing into anyone at all.
Film Review: Primetime ; Robert Pattinson is extraordinary in Lance Oppenheim’s engrossing examination of sensationalism
Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime understands that the most disturbing thing about To Catch a Predator was never necessarily what happened when Chris Hansen stepped out from behind that curtain. It was how effortlessly something ostensibly created in the name of public safety became entertainment; how quickly justice could be packaged, promoted and sold to an audience hungry to watch someone else’s worst moment unfold.
Interview: Jay Baruchel and director Michael Dowse on The Stunt Driver and the razor-thin margin between love and enablement
To look at Ken Carter’s 90-foot ramp jutting into the Canadian skyline was to look at a monument to sheer impossibility. In The Stunt Driver, filmmaker Michael Dowse dives headfirst into the folklore of Canada’s most audacious stunt performer, who, battered by decades of broken bones, staked his survival on jumping a mile across the St. Lawrence River.
Film Review: The Stunt Driver ; unusual sports biopic proves unexpectedly tender
Ken “The Mad Canadian” Carter may willingly strap himself into vehicles designed to leave the ground, but don’t call him a daredevil. For Carter, the distinction matters. What he does isn’t supposed to be reckless. It requires engineering, preparation and an almost irrational faith that every calculation will keep him alive. It’s that increasingly fragile divide between courage and stupidity that gives Michael Dowse’s The Stunt Driver its comic energy and eventual melancholy.
Film Review: Charlie Harper ; Nick Robinson and Emilia Jones ignite the screen in emotional dramedy
Young love and all the amazing, traumatic things that come with such are explored in Charlie Harper, Mac Eldridge and Tom Dean‘s emotional, non-linear romance dramedy, anchored by the moving performances – and palpable chemistry – of its leads, Emilia Jones and Nick Robinson.
Win a double pass to see Tom Cruise as Digger
Thanks to Warner Bros. Pictures, we have 5 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Tom Cruise in a role unlike any other in Alejandro G. Iñárritu‘s original dark comedy Digger, in Australian theatres from October 1st, 2026. Academy Award winner Tom Cruise stars in Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s original film “Digger”.
La Bola Negra is a sweeping queer epic: Toronto International Film Festival Review
At 155 minutes, and unfolding across three timelines that initially appear to have only the faintest connective tissue, La Bola Negra asks its audience to place an enormous amount of trust in directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. For much of its first two hours, their sweeping queer epic can feel deliberately elusive, moving between characters, decades and emotional registers without hurrying to explain why these particular lives are being placed alongside one another. Trust it.
The Julia Set ; Chase Infiniti continues to prove herself a compelling screen presence in serviceable coming-of-age drama: Toronto International Film Festival Review
Being encouraged to recognise your own brilliance can prove a cruel lesson when the person doing the encouraging preferred you when that brilliance remained safely beneath theirs. That uncomfortable contradiction sits at the centre of Niki Byrne’s The Julia Set, an academically minded coming-of-age drama that doesn’t rewrite the formula but finds enough intelligence and emotional truth within it to earn a passing grade.
Interview: Taron Egerton and director Jonathan Schey at the TIFF premiere of Everybody Wants to F*ck Me ; “Where does the satire stop and the confession begin?”
There’s something inherently dangerous about satire when the person holding the knife is willing to turn it back on themselves.
Everybody Wants to F*ck Me ; Taron Egerton commits to dark and strange horror-comedy: Toronto International Film Festival Review
Jonathan Schey’s Everybody Wants to F*ck Me is the kind of film that seems determined to make you laugh before making you question exactly why you’re laughing. What begins as a filthy comedy about modern dating gradually mutates into something darker, stranger and considerably more uncomfortable. Taron Egerton plays Adam, a London gallery worker who has perfected the art of appearing to be a “nice guy”.
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