Christopher Machell

It’s not that Abigail is terrible: all its pieces slip together where they should, but its for all its excessive violence and gore it is a dull, lifeless experience.

Civil War, though imperfect, is a biting, satirical blockbuster that is as much about the alienation of modern media as it is about imagining a second American Civil War.

This biopic is a well-mounted and handsomely shot study of men obsessed by their work, but never fully hits top gear.

Argentinian director Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen is an enigmatic, semi-absurdist puzzle that defies the allure of narrative solution in favour of the liberation of loose ends.

Like the best film noir, with which this in undoubtedly in dialogue, Trenque Lauquen is a film about affect and textural cohesion moreso than logic and catharsis.

In its depiction of a part of Europe struggling to keep up with neoliberalism, R.M.N. exposes the dark mirror of liberal, globalised western European metropolitanism.

More than a casual swipe at modern social trends, Rotting in the Sun exposes a kind of cruelty, alienation, and social stratification that is only as modern as the technology through which it expresses itself.

Past Lives, a film about love, friendship and fate, is an astonishing debut from South Korean-Canadian director Celine Song, and a devastatingly romantic one at that.

A pointed, revealing study of selfishness and an all-too familiar portrait of emotional indulgence, bolstered by three excellent lead performances.

Garrel’s The Innocent deftly mixes comic family melodrama with genre thrills in this pacy, emotive thriller with a killer cast.

German director Christian Petzold’s latest is a tense, emotionally fraught drama, layered with smouldering internal conflict that by its incendiary close invariably catches alight.

In examining the reflexive, redemptive power of fiction, Lie with Me is a moving story of love lost to time.

American writer-director Erika Arlee’s debut feature showcases strong performances and nice visual flourishes, but A Song for Imogene struggles to find an emotional hook.

There is a vitality and a quiet defiance to this kind of filmmaking that is difficult to resist.

Ever the craftsperson, rarely the artist, Nolan has constructed a grand and terrible machine, a fascinating object of cinema and a deeply frustrating work of imagination.

Gerwig has crafted a warm, funny and cinematically rich film – if one whose narrative and political ambitions are far less radical than it would like us to suppose.

Sharing its name with a 1950 Joan Crawford film, The Damned Don’t Cry has thematic resonance with its namesake as a study of women’s vulnerability in a patriarchal society and the criminalising of marginalised lives.

On its own terms, M:I-7 is a superbly-crafted action thriller.

8 A.M. Metro is a sweet but ultimately shallow film whose final act ultimately finds depth and dimension too late to redeem its prior narrative shortcomings.

The Dial of Destiny starts with a prologue that easily stands up against the classic trilogy, is often disarmingly poignant and never less than entertaining. Much of this is down to Ford, who has always excelled at bringing depth and charm to a character who on paper is fundamentally little more than a silhouette.

With a tightly-woven plot, dazzling cinematography and a razor-sharp cast of characters, Medusa Deluxe is Brit neo-noir at its knotty best.

A basically entertaining, but flimsy and shallow object, The Flash may not be the final entry in this long-beleaguered franchise, but it might as well be.

Across the Spider-Verse’s hymn to emotional storytelling is a much-needed salve to the dreary primacy of cycles and lore: more importantly, full of colour, life and drama, it is a near-unassailable good time.

Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.

For most of his career, Paik was dismissed by critics and struggled financially, but as director Kim amply demonstrates, his work has had tremendous influence on both fine art and popular culture. Moon Is the Oldest TV is at once a celebration of that work and testament to its incalculable value.

This is strong work for a debut feature, and while not presenting assisted suicide itself with the greatest of nuance, Plan 75 is an accomplished portrait of capitalist alienation.

Its social reality – that of the emptying and decline of rural regions in Italy – is contemporary and vital, but there is something deeper and simpler at play here. In that simplicity, with its notes played purely, there is no need of distortion or abstraction to justify itself.

Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul is a visceral, astonishingly assured work, compelling, rarely predictable, and vital.

Julia’s journey is one of nihilism having transformed into a quest for meaning: Rodeo’s final image speaks to both of these impulses.

Albert Serra’s latest is a hazy fever dream of post colonialist politics and ambition that in its final minutes lurches into apocalyptic mania.

With One Fine Morning, celebrated French director Mia Hansen-Løve presents complementary accounts of infatuation, love, and loss in a nuanced, moving study of the ways that love can sustain and consume us.

Austere, emotionally taciturn and with shades of Bergman, Dreyer and Jan Troell’s The New Land about it, Godland is the Icelandic director’s most accomplished work to date.

In politics and the media, opportunistic hate-mongers whip up bigotry against gender non-conformity, while everyone in contemporary cinema is beautiful but no one is horny. In this context, Please Baby Please is a vision inspired by the past, but is undoubtedly a document of the present.

As historical noir, Martelli’s film is thrilling, but as a document of the comforts of complicity and the terror of resistance, 1976 is visceral.

While The Five Devils doesn’t quite have the clarity of vision of her previous picture, its emotion, erotically-charged themes and puzzle-box structure leave much to recommend.

Pearl is notable as a pandemic film, situating itself in the middle of the Spanish flu outbreak, though much like its engagement with sex, violence and entertainment, and its treatment of women, the film sets the table for a discussion but doesn’t quite make a full meal of it.

Six films in, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett deserve credit for crafting two set pieces that manage to emphasise their characters’ vulnerability and paralysing fear in surprising and unique ways.

The screenplay balances the big narrative beats that this kind of broad crowd pleaser demands, along with posing more difficult social questions to which there are no easy answers.

The components are all here for a compelling psychological drama, led by two excellent performances, but a conflation between narrative obfuscation with thematic depth undermines Esme, My Love’s final emotional impact.

As a mechanism the film functions very well indeed – but as a film, as “a machine that generates empathy” as Roger Ebert had it, Quantumania falls vastly short. Still, one might argue that we do not board roller coasters expecting art, and so as an entertainment at that level it is hard to deny that this latest entry fulfils its purpose handsomely, providing all the thrills and spills of the fair.

Religious allegories, monochrome photography and folk horror trappings will draw in viewers as much as its meandering contemplations and languorous pacing may test their patience.

Bebjak’s film is far from bad and its three-tiered narrative is often compelling, buoyed by fine performances. But its treatment of women and shallow exploration of its themes sadly bring down its initial promise.

[An] astonishing feature debut.

Polley is not especially subtle in her allegory, and nor does she need to be: the exceptionally well-made Women Talking gets to the point in its sheer, righteous invective.

EO is at once a cinematic curiosity, a compelling drama and a harrowing portrait of cruel whimsy.

As a neo-noir Holy Spider offers a tightly-woven procedural crime thriller, bolstered by a superb central performance from Amir-Ebrahimi and gorgeous, lurid aesthetics. A steadier hand marshalling its themes and a more disciplined third act might have tipped Abbasi’s third feature into being something truly special: as it stands we are left a very solid, smart and satisfying thriller.

Whereas Bait was a lament for a way of life swallowed up by mindless urbanite tourism, Enys Men is a hymn to sublime, endless time and the hauntedness of existence.

Director Carla Simón’s Alcarràs is at once a paean to family, community and a dwindling way of life, and a complex and heartbreaking study of the victims of progress.

Beyond its gender-swapped lead role, Peter von Kant never truly ventures into new territory and so never quite justifies its own existence.

At 150 minutes, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? could easily have been shorter and still achieved its intended emotional and aesthetic effects. But a river isn’t less pleasant for meandering before it reaches the ocean: if this is how it has to happen before we lose the thread of Lisa and Giorgi’s lives in the flow of others, then so be it.

At almost four hours in length, Mr. Bachmann and His Class is long, but its enormous characters and emotions more than fill the space, headed by an astonishingly charismatic and inspiring teacher in Dieter Bachmann.

As the credits roll on one of the most spectacular and unengaging films of the year, The Way of Water’s vision is as clear as mud. As Cameron has become more fascinated with the technology of storytelling, it seems he’s become less so by the actual storytelling.

As just another entry in the MCU, Wakanda Forever is a very solid film. Entertaining and intelligent, it builds on the themes of its predecessor. Yet, navigating more than defying the Marvel machine, Coogler’s sequel becomes more than the sum of its parts. And so Wakanda Forever’s most important legacy is as a fine and fitting tribute to its erstwhile hero.

As a fable Amerikatsi hits the big emotional notes: it’s an American tale in reverse, told sincerely and personally. Sentimental, yes, simplistic too, but also honest and even affirming.

Panahi’s courageousness as an agitator is matched only by his inventiveness as a filmmaker.

Okuno’s Watcher is smart, engaging and intelligent, and it’s especially refreshing to see this sort of mid-budget, grown-up genre film getting a proper theatrical release.

With surprises, compelling performances and strong visuals across the board, Barbarian warrants recommendation but with serious caveats.

Vesper is throughout a gripping post-apocalypse fable. Despite its mythological derivations, Buozyte and Samper’s world, grounded in blood, mud and viscera, is often uncomfortably close to our own.

Bitch Ass is an off-the-shelf genre flick with some decent ideas and a fun cast, sadly lacking in sufficient inspiration or originality to merit recommendation.

Sadly, despite some cultish potential this aptly-titled debut feature is indeed a lost cause: an incoherent, undisciplined and tedious mess with little about it to truly recommend.

As blades pierce flesh and Carpenter’s iconic theme swells, the film wrestles with provocative imagery it’s not entirely in possession of, but which is nevertheless rich and layered with meaning. Whether transcendental, idiotic or both, the effect is overwhelming, a catechism for a series that has defined modern horror.

As a comedy about contemporary American society it feels weirdly anachronistic, with an uninspired story told with little urgency or novelty.

In its surreal rendering of space and character, Fingers in the Wind offers enough ambition, intelligence and unvarnished authenticity to warrant recommendation.

There is a great deal to enjoy here for devotees of Strickland’s work and the film feels destined to be described as his weirdest piece yet. But underneath that surface strangeness, Flux Gourmet doesn’t quite satisfy the appetite.

Despite its bland paperback title, French writer-director Stéphane Demoustier proves hasty assumptions wrong with his gripping, thoughtful third feature, courtroom drama The Girl with a Bracelet.

A captivating film of deep emotional power; like weeds slowly cracking the pavement above, its movements in isolation are barely felt but its effects are profound.

Kline perfectly captures the out-of-jointness of our age, defined by a generation caught by social and economic decline in a state of permanent instability.

In its totality Ava is a powerful and authentic depiction of a vital moment in a young woman’s life.

Ava is a singular vision marking Foroughi as a talent to watch.

An entertaining-enough survival romp that at only 90 minutes long feels oddly slack.

As far as film theory goes, it’s hardly revolutionary, but as science fiction, Nope is smart and entertaining as we’ve come to expect from an increasingly captivating filmmaker.

Endless drone shots, perspective switches and too many CGI animals undercut any grit or claustrophobia that Trachtenberg – director of the brilliant 10 Cloverfield Lane – might otherwise have crafted. Meanwhile, the interminable score refuses to quiet down and let the images or emotions speak for themselves.

David Leitch once again proves himself one of the most adept action directors in Hollywood.

The Falling World contains moments of intrigue but a limp script and a cast of unengaging characters make this effort fall flat.

Its emotional structure, reconstructing Katia and Maurice’s marriage and their shared passion for exploding mountains, feels far more intuitive and lyrical than its linear narrative structure might suggest. In this, Fire of Love is more portraiture than storytelling.

All Light, Everywhere is, most importantly, a history of our technological attempts to offer objective views of the world. But instead of charting our striving to capture of reality, what is revealed is its fabrication.

A Chiara is arguably Carpignano’s most accomplished work to date, pressing ever further into the interior psychologies of his characters.

Sadly, Love and Thunder proves that it’s possible to have too much of a good Thor.

If not in the right frame of mind, Faya Dayi is difficult to get a handle on. But that, perhaps, is the trick. Instead of trying to pin the film down and understand it logically, surrendering to its poetry and rhythms reveals something altogether more meaningful.

Pleasure is not a morally proscriptive film and seeks neither to venerate nor condemn pornography, but to depict its hollowing effect on those who make it. The film’s title is not accidental; at a time when porn is freely and ubiquitously available, the price of gratification may be cheap, but there is always a cost to be paid.

In one sense, Il buco is a testament to human hubris, contrasting the self-satisfaction of our own temporary structures with the unknowable depth of nature’s works.

In an almost impressive display of ineptitude, Dominion combines the very worst vices of its predecessors in addition to a few new ones for good measure. As well as non-existent characterisation or thematic coherence, quaint concepts like comprehensible scene geography and narrative tension have all but disappeared.

Oyate isn’t an extraordinary documentary, but in telling the story of some of the United States’ most marginalised and persecuted people, it is certainly an important one.

Bergman Island is at once an ambivalent love-letter to the Swedish master director Ingmar Bergman and a charming study of the complexities of relationships, the creative process, and the ways that one invariably influences the other.

A good two-thirds of Top Gun: Maverick is very solid, if unremarkable, but what really gets it off the ground are its top-drawer flight sequences, staged thrillingly by director Joseph Kosinski.

Its quiet visuals are at the heart of Benediction’s sense of dignity and remembrance. Its language is not the passionate rage of Sassoon’s youth, but rather of the quiet, profoundly sad reflections of his later years.

The Argentinian director’s follow-up to 2019’s Lux Æterna is a typically difficult watch, subjecting us to the grinding indignities of old age, but it also a deeply moving study of lifelong love and loyalty to the bitter end.

Is Raimi’s latest effort as rich as Spider-Man 2, as revolutionary as The Evil Dead or as fun as Drag Me to Hell? No. But within the self-imposed confines of the studio machine, Multiverse of Madness is about as entertaining as it’s possible to be.

What distinguishes Skin to Skin from its counterpart is its subject, a man utterly dedicated to his craft and to its rich cultural traditions.

Both Vanderbeque and Duret give star turns here: utterly believable as brother and sister, each performance informs the other as they try to survive each day.

Happening is a naturalistic, heart-breaking and relentless account of the multiple traumas and injustices that cascade when women are denied their basic bodily autonomy.

What is most satisfying about the film is its full and non-ironic commitment to a ludicrously operatic masculinity. There is surely no other way to end such a piece than the way it does.

Benedetta has its cake and eats it, with gratuitous nudity and violence offered up to the audience as a base feast for the eyes. Yet in this indulgence, Benedetta eschews simplistic moralising in favour of a complex vision of female sexuality that is as problematic as it is compelling.

Prayers for the Stolen is fundamentally an account of powerlessness, of the insidious ways that forces act invisibly, immeasurably, and often horrifically on those with the least ability to resist them.

Setting his film largely on the dingy confines of an overnight train, Kuosmanen kindles a tender love story between two lost souls.

A Night of Knowing Nothing is a celebration not merely of resistance, but also of joy and art as a political act in the face of despair.

A rollicking masterclass in escalating tension.

Olga’s final sequences suggest a hope for the future, but there is an underlying irony to the superficially-peaceful imagery, rendered horribly prophetic in the current moment.