‘The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo’ Review: Chile’s Oscar Hopeful Is a Touching Queer Western
An unconventional coming-of-age story with splashes of Western tropes and queer compassion to spare, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo proves to be an assured debut from Diego Céspedes.
‘Little Trouble Girls’ Review: Catholicism and Coming-of-Age Clash in Slovenia’s Oscar Entry for Best International Feature
Urška Djukić's directorial debut aptly concentrates on the revelatory school trip of a sixteen-year-old Catholic schoolgirl, who struggles to disentangle the clashing feelings of a changing mind and body from her devout, up to this point, untested faith.
‘100 Nights of Hero’ Review: A Colorful, Zany Love Letter to Female Kinship
Starring the likes of Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, Charli XCX, and Richard E. Grant, 100 Nights of Hero transports audiences to an offbeat alternate universe where women, all too similarly to our own world, toil to share their own stories under the constraints of male authority.
‘The Chronology of Water’ Review: Kristen Stewart’s Directorial Debut Is a Demanding, Multi-Faceted Treasure
English actress Imogen Poots delivers her most moving performance in an opaque, if not faithful, adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir of the same name.
‘Reflection in a Dead Diamond’ Review: Style Reigns Over Substance in Dizzying Giallo-Inspired Thriller
For their latest movie, which premiered earlier this year in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival, filmmaking duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani fully lean into their fancy for Giallo cinema to deliver a work packed to the brim with stylistic flourish, although drastically detouring from any sense of satisfying narrative coherence in the process.
‘Hamnet’ Review: Chloé Zhao’s Glorious Examination of the Precipice Between Life and Death
Zhao’s latest emotional powerhouse stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, concentrating on the love they share and the tragedy their family faces in the aftermath of their son’s death, which would go on to inform the composition of Shakespeare’s most celebrated play.
‘Train Dreams’ Review: Joel Edgerton Delivers His Career-Best in a Meditative and Moving Exploration of Americana
Adapted from the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson, Train Dreams follows the life of a simple working-class man who comes to experience all of the horrors and beauty that life has to offer against the backdrop of a rapidly changing America at the dawn of the 20th century.
‘River of Grass’ Review: Sasha Wortzel’s Tesselated Tribute to the Florida Everglades
Wortzel’s latest documentary combines her personal history with the spirit of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ 1947 text, from which the documentary takes its name, and the traditions of the Indigenous custodians of Florida’s increasingly endangered Everglades National Park.
‘The Ice Tower’ Review: A Frosty, Hitchcockian Spin on a Classic Fairytale
French filmmaker Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s 2025 Berlinale winner casts a wholly hypnotic spell through its explorations of obsession and belonging.
‘The Tale of Silyan’ Review: Feathers and Folklore Amalgamate in the Latest From One of Macedonia’s Most Celebrated Filmmakers
Academy Award nominee Tamara Kotevska’s latest film brilliantly links the hardships of a peasant farmer facing a world in flux with those of a 17th-century Macedonian fable about a boy transformed into a white stork.
‘Noviembre’ Review: Tomás Corredor’s Debut Viserally Reflects on One of Colombia’s Darkest Moments of Modern History
World premiering in the Discovery section at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Noviembre concentrates on Colombia’s Palace of Justice 1985 siege by the M-19 Leftist group and the violent military retaliation that followed.
‘Riefenstahl’ Review: A Timely and Perturbing Excavation of Leni Riefenstahl’s Estate
Utilizing a vast array of archival materials from the Riefenstahl estate with a masterful hand, Andres Veiel’s latest documentary delivers a topical vision of an enduring yet contradictory figure who denies their complicity in the structures of power that profit them.
‘The Balconettes’ Review: Female Friendship Sizzles and Shines in Noémie Merlant’s Genre-Bending Second Feature
Merlant once again re-teams with Céline Sciamma (the film’s co-writer) to serve up an exceptionally feminist genre mashup centered around a trio of longtime girlfriends who rise against the men fighting to control them amid a midsummer heatwave in the South of France.
‘Sudan, Remember Us’ Review: Hind Meddeb Platforms the Poetry, Music, and Youthful Spirit That Motivate the Future of a War-Torn Nation
Taking her camera to the streets of Khartoum, Meddeb concentrates on the youthful spirits at the epicenter of the nation’s evolving situation, filming between 2019 and 2023 to bring a fully developed impression of the nation’s descent into upheaval to the silver screen through the experiences of its young adult subjects.
‘Diciannove’ Review: A Colorful, Kinetic, and Molto Italiano Coming-Of-Age Tale
Filled to the brim with clashing energies reflective of its youthful protagonist, Diciannove powerfully embodies the challenges we experience in the complex position between childhood and adulthood that most of us face at age nineteen.
‘Collective Monologue’ Review: Jessica Sarah Rinland’s Latest Is a Brilliantly Immersive Examination of Human-Animal Connections
For her latest cinematic experiment, multidisciplinary artist Jessica Sarah Rinland explores the tacit connections between animals and their keepers in several Argentine animal sanctuaries undergoing significant transformation. Enigmatic in form but moving in the sensations it so skillfully captures, Collective Monologue stands out as one of the year’s most mesmerizing documentaries.
‘Life After’ Review: Sundance-Winning Documentary Investigates the System’s Sinister Grip on the Disabled Community
A long-forgotten account from a disabled Californian woman is reborn in Life After, serving as the North Star in documentarian Reid Davenport’s latest socio-political exploration of the disabled community’s experiences within the modern world and the legal and healthcare system’s authority over their autonomy.
‘To a Land Unknown’ Review: A Train of Misfortune Pursues a Pair of Palestinian Refugees Seeking New Beginnings
The narrative feature debut from Danish-Palestinian filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel, To a Land Unknown obliterates the remoteness of the migrant crisis to bring the viewer directly into the tribulations experienced by many refugees, delivering a gritty and affecting portrait of individuals desperate to achieve the safety and possibility we should all be entitled to in life.
‘Afternoons of Solitude’ Review: Albert Serra Examines the Savage Beauty of Spain’s Bullfighting Traditions
Far from operating with the glossy, sensationalized style that is becoming so prevalent in documentary cinema, Serra injects his unique examinations of time into his latest work while also probing the deep-rooted cultural ties that leave some still enamored with the barbaric traditions and practices of bullfighting.
‘Redlands’ Review: John Brian King's Feature Debut is Flawed and Unfeeling
While Redlands may scratch the surface of intriguing ideas surrounding alienation, masculinity, and creativity, its form and performances are unable to support these notions in ways that are particularly engaging.