Touch Me is the sophomore effort by Addison Heimann. The director premiered with Hypochondriac, a 2022 release. His new film is another addition to the tendency of contemporary horror films to use genre conventions to tackle trauma and abuse. In his latest film, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is a traumatized …
Lurker is the debut feature by Alex Russell. He is an Emmy winner for his work as a supervising producer in Netflix’s miniseries, Beef. Besides the show with Ali Wong and Steve Yeun, the young screenwriter penned episodes of FX’s Dave and The Bear. In 2017, Russell wrote a feature …
Based on the novel of the same name by Jordan Harper, She Rides Shotgun follows Nate McClusky (Taron Egerton, Rocketman), an ex-convict who is forced to kidnap his 11-year-old daughter, Polly (Ana Sophia Heger), to protect her from a hit order issued by a neo-Nazi gang after Nate killed their …
In Irish folklore, the presence of a banshee symbolises the impending death of a family member. On Inisherin, a small island off the coast of Ireland, where everyone knows everyone, everyone is family. No one in this macabre comedy is safe from the wail of The Banshees of Inisherin. April …
After the laugh-a-minute riot that was Booksmart, Olivia Wilde turns her attention away from comedy to attempt a pulpy, adult thriller in the form of Don’t Worry Darling, a film that embodies the notion of sophomore slump as it wears its message on misogyny loudly, proudly and with a nuanced …
Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet is no stranger to filmmaking. Besides his iconic writing efforts like Glengarry Glen Ross and Wag the Dog, Mamet is also no stranger to directing. With a focus primarily on short films and TV movies, he has directed relatively few theatrical features. Granted, not all of …
During Jamie Adams’ whimsical, flimsy romance, She is Love, a character is told while reading a script that “the less you rehearse it, the better it will be”. This, it turns out, is Adams’ motif. The film and script is crafted through non-traditional methods. The cast and himself will propose …
The Slovak director Miro Remo presents an alternative way of living in his film Better Go Mad in the Wild. In his fifth feature-length film, the director closely observes the twin brothers František and Ondřej Klišík. They live in the inner countryside of the Czech Republic, in the Sumava. The …
Lydia Tár is a b*tch. That’s what a student calls Cate Blanchett’s Lydia, the sociopathic lead of Todd Field’s visceral psychological thriller Tár. They’re not wrong. She is the sort of damaged soul that has hit the heights of her conducting profession, who flies so close to the sun and …
When Squid Game, the South Korean survival drama series created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, debuted in 2021, it took the world by storm, topping Netflix’s most-watched list barely two weeks in, and at one point becoming “the most in-demand show in the world, with 79 times as much audience interest as …
Single-location mystery thrillers are one of the tried and true genres of stage and film. When executed well, they can be an edge-of-your-seat experience and a satisfying watch. Writer/Director Christopher Landon has a history of taking high-concept versions of setups like this and delivering a good time at the movies; …
In both film and television, Zombies have become an iconic part of the entertainment culture. Ever since 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, zombies have carved a niche for themselves. The tension, gore, and general terror of those stories have resonated with audiences. Recent examples, such as The Walking Dead …
German master crafter of epic-scope action films, Wolfgang Petersen, famous for his Academy-Award nominated 1982 World War II Das Boot, later in his life became a name in Hollywood for when you needed an author to sculpt a large-scale action film. Petersen ranges from the classic heartbreaking family movie The …
Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon has been one of the most fascinating workshops for the medium since their 2009 feature debut, The Secret of Kells. Wolfwalkers by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart is only their fifth feature since Kells. Nearly every work of theirs went on to get an Academy …
The British director Mike Leigh is one of the most quintessential British filmmakers. His style consists of improvisations, and the film’s shooting focuses on the natural reactions and emotions of his actor’s reminiscing of the theatrical approach to acting. His realistic approach offers a deep connection between the public and …
In recent years, few shows took the world by storm like 2023’s The Last of Us. Add in one of the hottest stars, Pedro Pascal, and the results provide a winning formula. Now, in 2025, the hit television show is back with season two. Expectations were at an all-time high, …
In 2021, while the world was still heavily facing the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sundance Film Festival introduced its hybrid version with drive-ins in different states of the country, an online option, and the traditional Park City venue in Utah. Coming off a year of complicated production for the film industry. …
In Yanuni, the Tribeca closer from Austrian director Richard Ladkani, ecocide and genocide are one and the same. From the vantage point of the occupied, the Ecocidal project is decidedly one of ethnic cleansing—it is only through the forceful killing and erasure of Indigenous peoples defending their homeland that the …
In her first full-length feature, Louise Hémon presents L’engloutie (The Girl in the Snow). A selection in the Quinzaine des Cineastes of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Hémon designs a vibey film. She narrates the story of Aimée (Galatea Bellugi), a volunteer teacher from an unspecified big French city. She …
In her debut feature, On Falling, the Portuguese director Laura Carreira uses her life experience to portray the migrant experience. Born in Porto, Portugal, but living in Edinburgh, Scotland, she presents a social drama about immigration. She narrates the story of Aurora (Joana Santos), a Portuguese woman living in the …