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Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 7
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the seventh of 2025, covers another six scores released this year from a wide array of genres and countries, including a French documentary feature about the forgotten women of the Revolution, a Spanish mystery TV series about a pair of missing teenage girls, a French comedy film about the first African astronauts, a drama about the love affair between two of the most famous actors in French cinema in the 1960s, a horror-thriller for a film based on a mysterious short story by Edgar Allan Poe, and a Swedish historical murder mystery TV series involving a murderous bear. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 6
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the sixth of 2025, covers another five scores released this year from a wide array of genres and countries, including a Japanese anime TV series set in a steampunk alternate-universe World War I, a children’s fantasy film from Germany based on a beloved novel, a playful animated fantasy film from Thailand, a superb romantic score from a French live action short film, and an epic fantasy adventure score from China based on one of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 5
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fifth of 2025, covers another six scores released in the first half of the year from a wide array of genres and countries, including spooky sitcom from France, a gorgeous nature documentary from the Basque country of Spain, a French-Canadian comedy-drama, a Chinese military action film, a Japanese animated romantic drama film set during the French Revolution, and a French comedy-adventure film set in North Africa, with music by a recent Oscar-winner! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 4
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fourth of 2025, covers another six scores released in the first half of the year from a wide array of genres and countries, including a Japanese drama TV series set in a high school, a British true life period crime drama about the last woman to executed in the UK, a Ramadan TV drama series from Syria, a German children’s fantasy adventure film, a Norwegian period drama TV series about the Norwegian royal family, and a French comedy-adventure film about a high-flying air hostess! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 3
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the third of 2025, covers another six scores released in the first half of the year from a wide array of genres and countries, including a couple of Japanese TV series – one of which is an adaptation of a beloved piece of classic Canadian literature – plus a French romantic drama film, an Italian historical drama film, a French historical drama TV series, and an epic fantasy film from China that is the sequel to one of the best scores of 2023. Read more…
WASHINGTON BLACK – Cameron Moody
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Washington Black is a new Hulu drama-adventure TV series based on the 2018 ‘bildungsroman’ novel of the same name by Canadian-Ghanaian author Esi Edugyan. The story follows the adventures of George Washington ‘Wash’ Black, who is born into slavery on a sugar plantation in Barbados in the early 1800s. When a brutal new overseer named Erasmus Wilde takes charge of the plantation, Wash is unexpectedly chosen to be the assistant to Erasmus’s brother Christopher, nicknamed ‘Titch,’ a kindhearted inventor who is also secretly an abolitionist seeking to end slavery. Titch teaches Wash to read, write, and appreciate scientific exploration, introducing him to a world of wonder. However, a traumatic event forces Titch and Wash to flee Barbados in a flying machine, and their escape sets them on an adventurous globe spanning journey across the Americas to Nova Scotia, the Arctic, then to London, Morocco, and beyond, all with Erasmus’s slave-hunting henchman Willard hot on their trail. The show was written by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, produced under the auspices of showrunner Kimberly Ann Harrison, and stars Ernest Kingsley Jr. and Eddie Karanja as the younger and older Wash, with Rupert Graves, Tom Ellis, Billy Boyd, and Sterling K. Brown in major supporting roles. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 2
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the second of 2025, covers another six scores released in the first quarter of the year from a wide array of genres and countries, including a quirky Italian comedy-drama, a Spanish documentary feature about a contemporary Christian music group, an Italian WWII drama, a French animated film about Frida Kahlo, a Finnish crime drama TV series, and a Swedish animated film about a super-hero baby! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2025, Part 1
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the first of 2025, covers seven scores released in the first quarter of the year from a wide array of genres and countries, including tender romance score from Japan, a fantastic historical animated action-adventure TV score from France, a jazzy Swiss period drama, a Japanese animated short film, a Norwegian nature documentary TV series, a French period TV series, and a French action-adventure score with a gender-swapped twist! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 7
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest installment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the seventh and last of 2024, is a massive bumper crop covering NINE scores from across the world, all of which deserve to be considered in people’s end-of-year best lists. The scores include a Spanish animated adventure film, an acclaimed WWII documentary, an Italian comedy-drama, a Hungarian historical epic film, an uplifting and life-affirming Norwegian documentary , a sultry Italian thriller TV mini-series, a Spanish Christmas-themed animated action-adventure comedy, a Spanish horror-thriller TV series for Netflix, and a Japanese drama television series! Read more…
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER, SEASON TWO – Bear McCreary
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SEEN THE SHOW, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER WAITING UNTIL AFTER YOU HAVE DONE SO TO READ IT.
Despite being one of the most lavish, ambitious, and expensive television shows in the history of the medium, the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was not quite the overwhelming success that Amazon Prime Video hoped and expected it to be. Although it quickly became the most-watched Prime Video original series in history, and although it received generally positive reviews from critics – particularly for its visuals and designs – many Tolkien purists took great exception to the fact that showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay took some creative liberties with the source material. Not only that, the show was also the victim of racist online ‘review bombing’ stemming from complaints about the casting of non-white actors in key roles, as if that matters in a fantasy setting. Such is the way of toxic fandom today. Despite this, I thought it was absolutely outstanding, one of the most impressive television productions I have ever seen. Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 4
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the fourth of 2024, covers another six scores from a wide array of genres and countries: a French period courtroom comedy, a new adaptation of a classic of French literature, two Japanese TV scores, a Chinese animated fantasy film, and a Swedish TV series remake of a beloved children’s adventure! Read more…
Under-the-Radar Round Up 2024, Part 3
Original Reviews by Jonathan Broxton
I’m pleased to present the latest instalment in my on-going series of articles looking at the best under-the-radar scores from around the world.
This article, the third of 2024, covers seven scores from a wide array of genres and countries: a Chinese thriller about an autistic math genius, a French historical TV mini-series, a Spanish romantic thriller, a Japanese romantic survival horror movie based on a TV show, a French action comedy, a Japanese TV series about surrogate parenting, and a French swashbuckling TV series, all of which feature superb and memorable thematic writing! Read more…
BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER – Frederik Wiedmann
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Despite being a long-time fan of the character as a whole – at least since Michael Keaton donned the mask and cowl in 1989 – for some reason I never really embraced the world of Animated Batman. I never sat down and watched any episodes of Batman: The Animated Series when it premiered in 1992, I have only seen the Mask of the Phantasm movie once, and I have not seen any of the numerous subsequent films or TV shows that have been released in the thirty years since then. I don’t know why; by all accounts they are all well-made, well-written, dramatically interesting stories with a clear internal logic, stylish design, and a whole host of excellent voice actors, notably Mark Hamill and the late Kevin Conroy. Musically, too, composers as talented as Danny Elfman, the late Shirley Walker, and the Dynamic Music Partners trio comprising Kristopher Carter, Michael McCuistion, and Lolita Ritmanis, have all written excellent scores across a myriad of episodes and entries. Read more…
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW – Federico Jusid
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A Gentleman in Moscow is an 8-part British TV mini-series directed by Sam Miller and Sara O’Gorman, based on the on the 2016 novel by Amor Towles. Ewan McGregor stars as the fictional aristocrat Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov who, after recently returning to Russia from Paris, is arrested by Bolsheviks following the October Revolution of 1917, tried, and convicted for being a traitor to the Community Party. However, instead of receiving a death sentence, he is sentenced to a lifetime of house arrest inside a luxury hotel – the Hotel Metropol Moscow – where he subsequently spends several decades, banished to a small attic room. However Rostov – who is a brilliant conversationalist, with expertise in everything from evolution and philosophy, to art, literature, poetry, and food – finds himself becoming an integral part of the hotel, interacting with guests, while observing the development of post-revolution Russia and the birth of the Soviet Union. Read more…
MASTERS OF THE AIR – Blake Neely
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Masters of the Air is the latest TV mini-series from executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks looking at the American military experience in World War II. It serves as a companion piece its predecessors Band of Brothers (2001) and The Pacific (2010), as well as the 2020 movie Greyhound, and is based on the 2007 book of the same name by Donald L. Miller, which follows the actions of the 100th Bomb Group, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber unit in the Eighth Air Force in eastern England during World War II. Led by Gale ‘Buck’ Cleven and John ‘Bucky’ Egan, the group embarks on a series of dangerous missions to bomb targets inside German-occupied Europe. The series stars Austin Butler and Callum Turner as Buck and Bucky, with support from Anthony Boyle, Nikolai Kinski, and Saltburn’s Barry Keoghan. Read more…
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