Rory O'Connor

Baruchel and Johnson, bouncing off each other in a classic straight man/loudmouth two-hander, are a fine double act. As their would-be foil, Howerton is even better, and I loved the contrast between the actor’s soft mouth and the foul-mouthed stuff spewing out of it. Michael Ironside and Rich Sommer are given welcome cameos.

Perhaps the most impressive thing is Miyake’s refusal to succumb to the material’s mawkish pull—like its protagonist, Small, Slow But Steady is occasionally salty and only sparingly sweet.

Alcarràs appears simple, even slight at first, but is deceptively far-reaching; enough at least to have impressed a Berlinale jury led by M. Night Shyamalan (and including no less than Ryusuke Hamaguchi), who collectively awarded Simón the Golden Bear.

The worlds of contemporary geopolitics and narrative independent filmmaking collide in You Resemble Me, a movie that shape-shifts from a first act coming-of-age tale into something searing and provocative, and ripped straight from the headlines.

Master Gardener is another of the old Calvanist’s prayers of absolution—honest and personal to a fault, and a satisfying close to one of the great contemporary trilogies.

Amongst the stars, Love Life (named for an Akiko Yano song of the same name) is jarringly everyday in color palette and setting, but has just the right amount of scope, filmmaking nous, and unusual choices to hold its own and even stand out.

Dead for a Dollar is derivative by nature, but not in unpleasing ways.

The Whale is Aronofsky at his most trimmed down.

I couldn’t bear another minute of A Couple, but I’m perfectly happy it exists.

Gavras, for better and worse, is a creature of spectacle; not apolitical, per se, but more concerned with triggers and semiotics than manifestos.

TÁR is an effort of tremendous skill and restraint, beginning with a confidence bordering on arrogance and building to a brilliant crescendo—only after that first act do the best things begin to surface, the compelling energy of ruthless ambition and the unmistakable, delicious hum of dread.

Aftersun is a beautiful film, albeit one with too many endings, brimming with inner life and creativity, and worthy of comparison to Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher and other debuts of that ilk.

Reichardt takes a jab or two at some of the hippy-dippy practices of Lizzie’s art school, but Showing Up is compassionate toward the efforts of teachers, artists, and students. Whether or not it goes anywhere, Lizzie’s pursuit has been a personal one. You sense Reichardt’s has too.

Making every moment grim is to risk over-saturation, but Davis and Holmer’s deft direction keeps things compelling here, skilfully leaving plenty of things unsaid and with the confidence to allow key events to happen offscreen or in the margins.

Pacifiction draws you in with its sense of mystery and surrealism and leaves you ultimately agog.

Shot in gorgeous natural light by Denis Lenoir (the cinematographer on all but one of her films since Eden), and backed by a soundtrack of typically esoteric needle-drops, the director delivers her finest in years by doing what she’s always done best: a humanistic story of when to love and when to let go.

It’s dazzling and uneven, seductive and flawed, and only [Cronenberg] could have made it. There’s no beating the genuine article.

Its dizzying culmination of ideas proves more feature than bug.

Ruben Östlund might like his fish in a barrel but he’s a ruthless shot.

As swings go, Three Thousand Years of Longing is a miss, but there is something infectious about Miller’s confidence here: you’re never too far from an idea to enjoy.

A fevered, hypnotizing, meticulously detailed period piece with a protagonist so monomaniacal the film could almost be considered high camp.

Brunner’s doom-metal vibe isn’t always easy on the eye, and while images in Luzifer shiver with portent as early as the opening frames–all muck, rain, and knackered-looking bodies––there is a clarity from cinematographer Peter Flinckenberg that saves it from being too sullen.

It’s compelling viewing, if a bit uneasy—not just for the flashbacks to those early COVID days of respiratory machines and people in HAZMAT suits, or the film’s second half, which covers the lack of egalitarianism in the vaccine rollout, and how those decisions ravaged non-Western countries and accelerated the rise in variants.

A rare and elusive sense of myth is captured in The Tale of King Crab.

Thomas’ Bravo, recalling both Mikey Saber and Mickey Rourke, has a protruding gut, slicked-back hair, an alcohol problem, and some deep-rooted mommy issues. The film is all his.

Drawing a number of deeply felt performances from her cast, it is an aching period piece, if frankly staid, that comes complete with many of the genre’s most reliable tropes: sharp intakes of breath; glances stolen through laced curtains; and love, as ever, in opprobrium.

Yes, Dario Argento’s first film in ten years is pretty fun, for a while—and no, not near his best.

It isn’t difficult to imagine Denis–one of the most cerebral, confounding filmmakers we have–constructing Fire, with its oddly trivial love triangle and omnipresent string section, as a duplicitous farce; a way to upend our expectations of how a film like this should look.