For the last forty years, the Sundance Film Festival has been a crucial festival to highlight American independent cinema. Each year, when the event unveils its lineup, cinephiles, audiences, and sales agents dive into the programming to guess which of the selections will join films like Little Miss Sunshine, Memento, …
The young Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan is already a well-loved personality in the arthouse community. Despite his brief filmography, the director has already produced remarkable works in his career, such as Kaili Blues, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and his short film, A Short Story. Employing a poetic approach to …
A mishmash of moods held together by preposterous musical numbers is part of the appeal of most Indian cinema, but Telugu-language The RajaSaab holds together worse than most. There are three movies inside The RajaSaab struggling to get out: a haunted-house horror thriller, a paean to the grandmothers who raised …
It may come as a surprise but SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the most successful cartoons of all-time in terms of popularity and longevity. While it doesn’t boast the same quality as cartoons like fellow Nickelodeon juggernaut Avatar: The Last Airbender, its frivolous humour and eccentric-to-a-fault characters are hard not …
Since his debut feature in 2006 with Reprise, Joachim Trier has become a relevant author in the arthouse circuit. His films gathered attention for the humanity, but centered on the use of Oslo, Norway, as a prominent character. Hence, Trier is mainly associated with his “Oslo Trilogy”, composed by Reprise, …
We often do not comprehend our parents’ occupations when we are children. Aside from professions like lawyer and doctor, the titles promptly explain their duties; there are a plethora of other careers that carry enigmatic titles and corporations that are tough to understand their business. This childish ignorance may clash …
Romanian writer-director Andrei Epure already tested the premise of his feature debut Don’t Let Me Die, which premiered in the Filmmakers of the Present section of the 2025 Locarno Film Festival, in his 2021 short film Intercom 15, an entry in Cannes’ Critics’ Week. In fact, exactly seven minutes into …
During the peak of the internet’s spread in the early century, the media and the world were still coming to terms with the reach of this new medium. One of the questions and a new understanding related to information access: shifting from the concentration of it in selected vehicles and …
The immediate reaction to this excellent movie – which on its surface is about an arrogant young American table-tennis player’s attempts to attend two world championships, one in London and the other in Tokyo, in the early 1950s – seems to be that no one wants to watch a movie …
I was 40 before I got my first tattoo. Since then, I have added to my collection, but I have avoided many pop culture references because I have seen too many of my favorites fall over the years. But the one that I have is of the Vince Gilligan show, Breaking …
When discussing the sociopolitical problems of the United States, health care and housing are the primary issues in American society. The elevated prices of houses are due to the real estate industry, which raises the costs of residences to gain higher profit margins, benefiting from a basic human necessity: a …
Ever since the organization of humanity in societies or colonies, female sexuality has been exploited. Hence, either through prostitution or paid pregnancies, there is a trade for the reproductive capacities of women. In a modern context, despite the prohibition in plenty of countries, surrogacy is a commercial practice that generates …
Love+War is the second film in 2025 by Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Their first release, Lost in the Jungle, follows the survival of four children in the Colombian Amazon after a plane crash in the woods. The new projects from the Academy Award-winning recipients had premieres at two crucial …
It’s Spiderman’s birthday, and the Avengers are set to celebrate in Central Park when suddenly a giant blue arm takes out the bounce house. Arriving with the gigantic blue arm are Thor and Loki. Thor begs his fellow heroes to help him come and stop Ragnarok, but Loki insists that …
What if you could hire a doppelganger to solve your responsibilities while you dedicate yourself to another activity? It is the logline for Serious People, the directorial debut of Pasqual Gutierrez, which he co-directs with Ben Mullinkosson. Gutierrez is a prestigious music video director, having directed videos for The Weeknd, Madonna, and Playboi …
The first film of the new year is always an exciting moment. Why this specific movie to kick off 2026? The answer is simple: Daisy Ridley. Despite being familiar with some of the previous work by filmmaker Zak Hilditch (1922), my interest in this feature resided 100% in the lead …
The British multi-artist Charlie Shackleton is among the most fascinating figures in modern non-fiction. Throughout his extensive catalogue of short films, the director discussed criticism in the TikTok era, low-budget film production in the 1990s, but his most well-known work is a 607-minute static shot of paint drying on a brick …
When the film adaptation of the Broadway megahit Wicked finally hit theaters, a fascinating element got highlighted by critics and fans: the original score by Stephen Schwartz and John Powell. Despite the well-known songs from the musical, with both the music and lyrics by Schwartz, the film had a thrilling …
Immigration is a central aspect of humanity. Since the beginning of time, the human being has had the need to transition from one place to another. Yet, the reasoning behind that shifted throughout the years. At the outset, individuals would move to access food and protect themselves from danger. However, …
Documentary filmmaking captures a particular notion of reality. Although common sense believes non-fiction means an utter sense of reality, it is a false premise. Every frame shot by a camera is an illusion, a magical process provided by technique to transform into imagery; consequently, it eternalizes something. The same goes …