Skip to main contentSkip to navigation
Print subscriptions
Newsletters
Sign in

Alexander Payne

September 2025

  • Kaouther Ben Hania with the Grand Jury Prize for The Voice of Hind Rajab on Saturday.

    The Voice of Hind Rajab was better than the film which won Venice. But that result wasn’t a cop-out

    Many felt Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza docufiction was robbed when Jim Jarmusch’s latest took the top prize. Yet accusations of moral cowardice on the part of the jury are naive and unfair

November 2024

  • The Holdovers.

    The seven best films to watch on TV this week
    The Holdovers to Airplane! The seven best films to watch on TV this week

    Alexander Payne’s melancholy masterpiece is witty and bittersweet, and Leslie Nielsen’s 80s spoof classic is brilliantly ridiculous

June 2024

  • Reese Witherspoon in Election; John Travolta in Primary Colors; Bobi Wine: The People's President.

    Guy Lodge's streaming and DVDs
    Streaming: the best films about elections

    From The Manchurian Candidate and Primary Colors to Uganda’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, the high-stakes drama of voting season lends itself to film-making

May 2024

  • Phedon Papamichael on the set of Downsizing in 2017.

    ‘We were the magicians’: cinematographer Phedon Papamichael on 40 years of film-making

    He has collaborated with an array of star directors, and is currently at work on James Mangold’s Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. He explains why US film-making is like the army, and British cinema is more like a factory job

March 2024

  • 96th Academy Awards<br>Da'Vine Joy Randolph accepts the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for "The Holdovers" during the Oscars show at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S., March 10, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake

    Da’Vine Joy Randolph wins best supporting actress Oscar for The Holdovers

    Randolph triumphs for her role as a grieving mother in the Alexander Payne-directed film also starring Paul Giamatti
  • Peter Bradshaw

    double quotation markOscar predictions 2024: who will win, who should win – and who was snubbed

    Peter Bradshaw
    Is Oppenheimer a lock across the board? Does Barbie have any chance? Our critic makes his final predictions – and highlights the most egregious omissions
  • from left, Dominic Sessa, Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers.

    Best picture Oscar hustings
    Why The Holdovers should win the best picture Oscar

    Its warmth makes it an outside bet, but the seriousness the Academy values is here amid the Christmassy redemption, and it has already won many hearts

February 2024

  • Clockwise from top left: Sidney Poitier in To Sir, With Love (1967); Parker Sevak and Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Kindergarten Teacher (2018); Robert Donat in 'genre grandaddy' Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939); Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers (2023). Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa

    Guy Lodge's streaming and DVDs
    Streaming: The Holdovers and the best films about teachers

    From Robert Donat’s heart-breaking Mr Chips to the real-life Mr Bachmann, Judi Dench’s venomous schoolmarm to Paul Giamatti’s classics stickler in The Holdovers, teachers great and awful make for inspirational cinema

January 2024

  • And the Oscar goes to … contenders Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Poor Things and Oppenheimer.

    Oscars nominations 2024: Oppenheimer eclipses Scorsese, Poor Things – and Barbie

  • Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers, in coats in a street at night

    Wendy Ide's film of the week
    The Holdovers review – a masterclass in melancholy with Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph

  • The British Academy film awards

    Baftas 2024: the full list of nominations

  • Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Paul Giamatti and Dominic Sessa in The Holdovers.

    Peter Bradshaw's film of the week
    The Holdovers review – brilliant Paul Giamatti hits the happy/sad sweet spot

  • The Holdovers’ Dominic Sessa: ‘Everyone’s like, don’t become a celebrity – stay who you are’

  • Observer New Review Q&A
    Actor Da’Vine Joy Randolph: ‘Eddie Murphy taught me to pace myself – don’t blow your wad’

  • ‘If no one flies, they won’t give you the money’: Alexander Payne on Marvel, misfits and making movies

December 2023

  • This image released by Focus Features shows Dominic Sessa, from left, Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph in a scene from "The Holdovers." (Seacia Pavao/Focus Features via AP)

    Best movies US 2023
    Best movies of 2023 in the US: No 4 – The Holdovers

    Paul Giamatti leads a winning trio in Alexander Payne’s bittersweet Christmas-set crowd-pleaser that harks back to the very best films of the 1970s

November 2023

  • Adrian Horton

    double quotation markNostalgia has consumed pop culture but The Holdovers does something special

    Adrian Horton
    Alexander Payne’s Oscar-tipped 1970-set comedy drama pays tribute to the time, as if it were made back then, without falling into pastiche

September 2023

  • Paul Giamatti

    First look review
    The Holdovers review – Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti reunite for charming comedy

    The director makes a welcome return to form with a warm and melancholic 70s-set comedy drama led by a trio of note-perfect performances

August 2023

  • Reese Witherspoon as Tracy Flick in Election

    Stream team
    Reese Witherspoon for president! Election, a comedy from a time when US politics was amusing

    Alexander Payne’s spiky and smart 1999 film, with its cast led by Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick, follows a race for high school president in Omaha, Nebraska

December 2022

  • Reese Witherspoon in Election.

    Reese Witherspoon to return as Tracy Flick in Election sequel

    The Oscar-winner will reunite with Alexander Payne for a Paramount+ adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s Tracy Flick Can’t Win
About 99 results for Alexander Payne
1234...
Explore more on these topics