Shot entirely in the director’s home country with a largely amateur, untrained cast, the film blends a striking sense of street-level realism, political commentary and poetic nostalgia for the naive innocence of youth.

What Cregger best accomplishes with Barbarian is an unhinged sort of storytelling that nevertheless feels calculated in its design. It knows that comedy and horror are two sides of the same coin, and synthesizes both while also playfully knocking loose a screw or two.

The result is a magnificently off-the-rails poison pill of a film, one that skitters from paranoiac thriller to reactionary satire to something far more caustic and unnerving. It is the cinematic equivalent of long COVID – lingering, haunting, and demanding rigorous, skeptical investigation.

The story is captivating, the characters are magnificently fleshed out, and the emotional stakes are entirely, utterly believable.

If watching mass-murdering maniacs get absolutely destroyed on-screen is your thing – and it very much is mine – then Sisu is a perfectly depraved night out.

New Order might go down as the most uncomfortable watch of the year. Sadistic and ugly and crushingly depressing. But also demanding of your engagement. The reward? A master-class in high-anxiety cinema, and enough fodder for a thousand uncomfortable conversations.

Priscilla the movie is as complicated and beguiling as Priscilla the woman.

The new comedy Kneecap is a riotous delight that will have even the most staid audiences ready to flip the bird.

Frightening and romantic, dreamy and dreary, the film laces the gore of a zombie movie with the magic-hour sunsets of a Terrence Malick film, plus a healthy amount of 1980s needle-drops. It is, in so many ways, one of the most unusually beautiful and violently sensual films in recent memory.

In an era where studios are obsessed with reviving ostensibly comforting intellectual property, Goldhaber has twisted the end-goal of modern Hollywood radically and beautifully.

There is an unshakable and electric hum to Foe that ensures director Garth Davis’s work will stay with audiences attuned to its distinct frequency for days, months, perhaps ages.

The most derivative but finely tuned of superhero movies to come out in ages.

In truth, there is not much this film does not cover; every minute of Luce is saturated with the organicism of its sharp lines of inquiry and its actors here are at their best in their handling of their given materials.

Monos sinks you into its mud until the dirt stuffs your mouth. You won’t be able to breathe – but you’ll be thanking Landes for the cinematic suffocation all the same.

Even hardened cynics will embrace the cliché – yep, you will laugh, you will cry.

Raimi doesn't make the mistake of over-thinking the flimsy psychology of the genre. All this conflicted-hero stuff isn't meant to be profound; instead, it's there for the same reason as everything else -- to give the action (the interior action in this case) a healthy shot of pop energy.

A delirious, disgusting and delightfully dark concoction, this low-budget movie is the latest throwback creation from Steven Kostanski (Manborg, The Void), whose artistic vision seems perma-stuck in the sugary-cereal haze of a Saturday morning circa 1989.

A film rich in paradoxes. Much of the film's style is dreamy, from the snow-covered Ontario landscapes suggestive of a blanket of forgetfulness, to Julie Christie's pale, intoxicating beauty, to the ambient musical score.

Queen & Slim’s ultimate route is a powerful one – a drive meant to be shared, and discussed, long after the road ends.

Once Rufus Norris’s film gets going, it quickly reveals itself as a vibrant, almost revolutionary work. Shame, though, that Tom Hardy is only onscreen for a single scene – though his intentionally nerve-racked warbles prove once and for all that he’s a master vocal manipulator.

Point and Shoot is a riveting documentary and a disturbing portrait of a pampered American’s “crash course in manhood.”

An inspired variation on his familiar theme: the whore with a heart of gold is a man. [2 Feb 1980]

Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel is lively and thoughtful and beautifully formed. [21 Dec 1994]

As a consumer, it is simply your responsibility to see it, just so that many more Love, Simons can be made. There are worse things to spend your money on than this adorable teen gay comedy whose worst quality is its boring straight man.

Flagrantly flawed but never less than fascinating film that does indeed blend the funny Woody and the serious Woody.

With its gore and brutality and general nihilistic sensibility – not to mention an eyeball scene that would make Bunuel blush – Becky is not fit for 95 per cent of the populace, especially those who might innocently click on the title after recognizing the star of their favourite CBS sitcom. But for those who like to get dirty with this kind of scuzzy chaos, then this is near-perfect slimeball cinema.

Something amazing happens in it just about every 90 seconds: From one moment to the next you have no idea where the director is going. It's as if the screen has been hard-wired directly to Fuller's id. [13 Mar 1998]

Even when his touch is light, the Swedish filmmaker is masterful at capturing youth’s contracted perception of time and amplified emotions: Every slight could mean the end of the world, and every joy feels limitless.