Stephen A. Russell

The Birthday Party is too languorously paced to keep the tension levels high and a ridiculous, biology-defying third-act twist doesn’t help. Still, there’s just enough chills here for anyone who prefers their trauma to come with a rural French flavour.

There’s not a great deal that’s new here, though the idea of the zombies rapidly evolving with the aid of fungi-like mucus and an ant colony’s hive communication is well deployed. But what makes Colony a fun night out is how well the mayhem is staged.

Revered Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki adheres to the concept of ‘Ma’, or intentional emptiness. Likewise, Austrian filmmaker Markus Schleinzer’s equal-parts effervescent and unsettling third feature, Rose, sings with thoughtful silence and enriching stillness.

Kreutzer threads a fine needle through difficult material in a film that, even if it occasionally pulls its punches, will niggle on in your mind.

At a slight 71 minutes, it nevertheless manages to be an engaging misadventure with a wanderlust spirit, replete with a jolly voiceover narration from Jacek Zubiel, constantly reminding us life is one big joke.

As this tight-knit clan frays in the face of this vilification, they listen to one another less and less. And in that sense, it’s very much a story for our times.

Matthew Robinson’s sloppy screenplay feels like it may have been churned out by AI itself. It’s crammed with leaden exposition and clumsy with hammy dialogue in which everyone over-explains themselves, as if we’re watching it with one eye on our phones.

A blistering take-down of the social media-driven celebrity culture, The Moment combines the anxiety-inducing mayhem of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You and the omnishambles clusterfuck of The Thick of It. It works because the satire’s coming from inside the house.

Rosebush Pruning is a fabulous feast for the eyes and ears – and those who like their cinema deliriously queer.

Padraic McKinley’s Great Depression gold heist flick has a welcome ’70s vibe and a careworn charm, mostly emanating from the always trusty Ethan Hawke.

We want to be there with them in the fading light, and that’s the might of Sach’s quiet little ode to friendship.

You can expect Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman-like banter from Robert Kaplow’s finely-tuned screenplay, an expert evocation of the ‘40s.

Bronstein crafts a thriller of teeth-grinding magnificence centred on Byrne as the indefatigable figure at the centre of this whirlwind of unsolicited advice.

At just over an hour, Diop’s strange, captivating and rigorously intellectual film leaves a mighty impression well beyond its compact length.

The Outrun is adapted by Scottish journalist Amy Liptrot from her own searingly honest memoir, with German director Nora Fingscheidt as co-writer. Fingscheidt handles her true-life traumas with great care, but without sparing us any of the harsh realities of recovery.

Sure to be a cult classic, it’s quite literally cuckoo – and often gloriously so.

It’s a profound performance by Murphy – perhaps even more so in fewer words than Oppenheimer – as Bill’s anger burns with tragic urgency.

It reunites director Kitty Green with her ’The Assistant’ star Julia Garner and should marry provocative genre thrills with a cerebral feminist subtext.

Did we really need this Dracula footnote to set sail at all? Perhaps not, but while Øvredal’s expansion on the world isn’t as fun as the grim fables from which it draws blood, it still has some bite.

There’s a kinetic strength to star-in-the-making Aswan Reid’s screen presence as we first glimpse his unnamed ‘new boy’ attempting to throttle the life out of a policeman much bigger than himself.

As the film shifts away from the mansion and into a pretty pat subplot about far-right goons and drug addiction, it grows less like a prize-winning flower and more like a clump of unsightly weeds, further sunk by underwhelming work from Schrader’s regular cinematographer Alexander Dynan.

Much like climbing a mountain, the two-and-a-half-hour runtime may occasionally feel arduous, but the emotional release is worth it once you reach the peak.

Right down to a final shot that’s scored joyously by a brass band, Sachs delivers an achingly beautiful film that’s sexy, sad and so very French.

It is a spectacular achievement hung on a remarkable performance by Savage. Like Barton’s startling artistic vision, Blaze is a masterpiece.

It may not be the sharpest satire, but Barlow and Senes have a heap of wicked fun wielding the blunt trauma as Sissy takes a wild stab at everything from influencer culture and wellness voodoo, to body image crises and backstabbing (literally) so-called friend circles.

A fitting tribute to a life well lived in spite of the overwhelming odds stacked against her, it is surely a sign of a remarkable woman that we are left wanting more.

Beating with a wild and restless energy, the film’s fearsome but ferociously beautiful heart marks the emergence of a rare and remarkable talent.

A monument to Australia's thriving music scene, it will have you whooping with joy one minute, then fighting back the tears the next.