Matthew Jackson

For all this and more, Oppenheimer deserves the title of masterpiece. It’s Christopher Nolan’s best film so far, a step up to a new level for one of our finest filmmakers, and a movie that burns itself into your brain.

Everything about it, from the performances to the production design to the sickly quality of the light in scene after scene, is designed to make us not just question what we’re seeing, but stand at a remove from it, like we’ve just seen a wild animal behaving strangely. Like that wild animal might just lash out and bite us if we get too close.

The film does not have easy answers, but rather than making it seem shallow, its lack of clear moral coding instead offers us something more primal and more powerful. It’s a film about the open-ended question of how much humanity we as a species have left in us, and that makes it a provocative, thrilling monster of a movie that will sear itself into your eyeballs.

Eggers' Nosferatu is a beautifully crafted, endlessly compelling nightmare that will envelop you in its shifting, writhing darkness and simply refuse to let go. It's one of the best horror films of the year, and represents a new level of ambition and craft from one of our best horror filmmakers.

Patel’s film may have found its greatest success in the way it seamlessly, powerfully translates the director’s pure, kinetic love of cinema into something bold, new, and unforgettable.

The Beast is a monster of a movie, one that will sink its claws into you, then ask you to contemplate the wounds it leaves. It’s not an easy watch, but it is a deeply rewarding one that you’ll be thinking about for days.

I Saw The TV Glow is a remarkable portrait of pop-culture obsession—how it can unite us, change us, and ripple down through our entire lives in ways both uplifting and unsettling.

It’s a warm, approachable movie that you’ll get blissfully lost in.

With its unexpectedly moving sights, remarkable voice ensemble, and pure clarity of humanist vision, The Wild Robot emerges as a stunning achievement.

It’s not just a film, it’s a blaze of glory, and that sense of daring is both the best thing about Vol. 3 and, occasionally, the worst.

DaCosta arrives in the world of 28 Years Later with confidence, swagger, and infectious energy, delivering 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple — one of the best horror sequels in recent memory, and a must-see horror film for 2026.

Fierce, fun, and steeped in youthful energy, it’s a film that’s willing to go to some truly dark places in its exploration of grief, death and what it means when we reach too far into the beyond, but it’s also never afraid to laugh along the way. That juxtaposition alone is enough to make it one of the year’s must-see horror films, an addictive thrill ride that never loses its own playful spin on some classic horror ideas.

Violent, laugh-out-loud funny, and often cartoonishly macabre, The Monkey is everything "Longlegs" is not, and yet it fits perfectly in Perkins' larger body of work. And like "Longlegs," it's a horror experience that should not be missed.

It's another triumph from a singular voice in cinema, and another Lanthimos movie you sort of never see coming.

Even when you might want more from its plot, and even when it’s sticking to quiet character drama over all-out monster assaults, The Boogeyman thrives on the implied thing that’s lurking in every corner, which makes it a very effective, intimate creepshow.

Who we really are versus who we hope we are is a source of phenomenal dramatic tension in any genre. Throw in some horror concepts and some scary atmosphere and you’ve got what’s (hopefully) a compelling concoction about the fear of facing your true self, and the fear of learning those closest to you aren’t who you thought they were.

If you’re lucky enough to feel the presence built by this film, you’ll find one of the most rewarding and impressive genre films of the year so far, and proof that Geoghegan has plenty more to offer us as a horror storyteller.

Personality Crisis: One Night Only retains the impish mystery surrounding one of rock’s most underrated frontmen while building a beautiful and slightly abstracted portrait of a man in a constant state of transformation.

The aim is to deliver something that’s both a gripping throwback and a shockingly timeless exploration of human terror. Happily for horror fans, the film mostly hits the mark, and becomes a must-see genre film along the way.

Forget what you think you know about horror prequels. The First Omen gets it, goes for the throat, and never lets go.

The Rule Of Jenny Pen‘s willingness to constantly challenge its audience with shadows and hints rather than some kind of outright horror mythos is one of its great strengths, and Rush embodies that with intense, compelling control.

Hokum is the latest fruit of McCarthy’s chameleonic gifts, and his best film yet.

It’s got great tension, great characters, and great jump scares, and it cements Mc Carthy’s place as a major new voice in horror.

The greatest success of The Baltimorons, aside from how effortlessly funny it is, lies in its focused thematic weight, wrapped up in its setting.

It might not be destined to join the ranks of teen comedy masterpieces, but in the short term, its ability to nail the right balance of emotional and comedic unpredictability makes it a very pleasant journey, and a must-see for teen movie aficionados.

Even with the action and stunt work operating at full throttle, what really makes The Fall Guy work is the partnership between Gosling and Blunt.

An all-out assault on the senses that’s fun, funny, and still capable of making you a little queasy. That’s Destroy All Neighbors in a nutshell, but that’s also just the beginning.

Packed with memorable kills, knowing winks, and a playful slasher whodunit plot, Thanksgiving is a horror feast worth sitting through, even if it never exactly pushes beyond the bounds of its central hook.