Since the release of Sight & Sound magazine’s 2022 Top 100 Greatest Films of All Time critics poll, some of us agreed, others were appalled; in particular with the absence of masterworks by Luis Buñuel, Ernst Lubitsch and Howard Hawks. But the positive is that it opens pathways for lists by other cineastes which keeps the importance of cinema on the front burner. …

No doubt about it, Richard Lester has “the knack”: considerable intelligence, explosive visual invention, unequalled cleverness with a camera. Petulia, his latest, parades these virtues – and reveals the defects which prevent him from becoming a major artist. Petulia starts with an almost insurmountable disadvantage...