‘Saccharine’ Review: A Sapphic Supernatural Horror for the Ozempic Age
Australian horror connoisseur Natalie Erika James revisits conventions of the genre’s connection with body image, albeit with a feminine edge that puts the film in engaging conversation with society’s ever-shifting perspectives on body positivity, even at junctures when the film overstays its welcome, much like the supernatural adversary haunting its narrative.
‘Blue Film’ Review: An L.A. Camboy Gets a Blast From the Past in Elliot Tuttle’s Intense Queer Chamber Drama
Tuttle’s striking feature debut channels the boldest provocateurs of European cinema to deliver a work hellbent on excavating the moral and sexual boundaries of Queerness in ways rarely seen onscreen, culminating in a film both viscerally demanding and endlessly fascinating in its ideas.
‘The School Duel’ Review: A Sobering and Satirical Vision of the U.S. Gun Crisis
An unapologetically in-your-face condemnation of pro-gun politics and the nationalist sentiments that support them, The School Duel is a stylish work that startles in just how closely its satirical vision resembles the Trumpian America we are increasingly confronted with.
‘Omaha’ Review: John Magaro Stuns in Great Recession-set Road Movie
The directorial debut from Cole Webley, Omaha is an affecting road film that captures complex corners of American family life with an impressionistic feel.
‘Mārama’ Review: Taratoa Stappard’s Directorial Debut Pioneers Māori Gothic Horror
Mārama draws on Gothic horror elements to fiercely rebuke the colonial influences that decimated the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand, serving as a singular genre piece grounded in anticolonial philosophy.
‘Amrum’ Review: Childhood’s End During the Final Days of World War II
German-Turkish filmmaker Fatih Akin turns to more traditional fare with Amrum, made to honor the childhood memories of one of his most influential friends and mentors, the late Hark Bohm.
‘The Stranger’ Review: François Ozon Plays by the Rules to Bring the French Absurdist Classic to the Silver Screen
Elegantly shot in crisp monochrome and starring Benjamin Voisin as the epochal antihero at the center of the novel, Ozon’s effort serves as a sensual adaptation that may surprise some of the director’s longtime fans with its willingness to play by the rules laid down by its source material.
‘Living the Land’ Review: An Exquisite Ode to Life and Tradition in Rural China
Chinese filmmaker Huo Meng elegantly examines a time of great change for the traditionally rural communities of his home country, richly showcased through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy.
‘Revelations of Divine Love’ Review: Caroline Golum’s Latest Is a Handcrafted Ode to One of History’s Forgotten Heroines
Golum heads back to the late Middle Ages to explore the life and work of Julian of Norwich, an English Catholic anchoress whose history-making work (from which the film draws its title) is the oldest known English-language book written by a woman.
CPH: DOX Review: ‘Birita’ Touchingly Documents a Family of Artists in Flux
A deeply personal work that intimately explores the nuances of family life and the unstoppable passage of time, Birita approaches its uncommonly explored subject matter with graceful sensitivity.
Berlinale Review: ‘Traces’ Soberly Speaks to Overlooked Injustice in the Ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War
Premiering in this year’s Panorama program at the Berlin Film Festival, Traces calls crucial attention back to the Russo-Ukrainian War, albeit through a perspective commonly overlooked: that of female survivors of sexual violence experienced during Russia’s war of aggression.
‘Islands’ Review: Sam Riley Stands Out in a Sun-Baked Neo-Noir
German filmmaker Jan-Ole Gerster makes his debut English-language feature with a twisty resort-set neo-noir starring Sam Riley, Stacy Martin, and Jack Farthington.
‘The Plague’ Review: A Kubrickian Study of Teenage Boy Toxicity
For his feature directorial debut, American filmmaker Charlie Polinger draws inspiration from his own teenagehood to investigate the unsettling social and biological changes that shape adolescent boys' psychology, albeit through an uncanny process that parallels male puberty with cinematic traditions of psychological horror.
‘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.