Nuremberg (2025)

Direction: James Vanderbilt
Country: USA

Written, directed, and co-produced by James Vanderbilt (Truth, 2015), Nuremberg plunges into the aftermath of World War II, dramatizing the historic trial initiated by the Allied forces following the collapse of the Nazi regime in 1945. Adapted from Jack El-Hai’s essay The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, the film draws on the personal archives and writings of Douglas Kelley, the American psychiatrist tasked with evaluating the mental state of the 22 defendants awaiting judgment. 

Kelley is portrayed by Rami Malek, who feels miscast here, lacking the authority and charisma the role demands. By contrast, Russell Crowe delivers a commanding and unsettling performance as Germany official Hermann Göring, capturing the character’s narcissism and manipulative intelligence with chilling precision. Michael Shannon appears in a restrained supporting role as Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor determined to hold the Nazi leadership accountable for their crimes.

Undermined by uneven pacing and an overly heavy-handed directorial approach, Nuremberg tells an undeniably important chapter of history, but not in a particularly compelling way. The film suffers from a troubling lack of nuance and dramatic tension, never rising beyond a tepid simmer. While competently shot, its methodical assembly of scenes grows monotonous, evoking the feel of a dutiful, moderately polished Hollywood production rather than the urgency and moral weight such subject matter demands. The visual polish contrasts starkly with an emotional core that feels bland and inert, and the narrative rarely ventures beyond what is expected.

At times artificial, at others overtly sentimental, this historical-by-numbers drama never quite finds the path to grandeur or resonance. A a firmer grasp of the material was needed to elevate it beyond respectable mediocrity.

The Mastermind (2025)

Direction: Kelly Reichardt
Country: USA

Directed by the acclaimed Kelly Reichardt (Certain Women, 2016; Showing Up, 2022), whose approach often feels refreshingly removed from convention, The Mastermind is a charming, atmospheric crime thriller infused with subtle humor. Set in Massachusetts in 1970, the story casts Josh O’Connor as an indolent family man turned naive art thief on the run.

Airily layered, the film burns quietly but steadily, exuding a poignant, dark, Robert Altman–esque sensibility. It greatly benefits from Rob Mazurek’s outstanding jazz score—he doubles on piano and trumpet, complemented by tasteful solo drum figures and shimmering cymbal work—and from the gorgeous ’70s texture captured by cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt, who collaborates with Reichardt here for the sixth time. 

The director’s simple, patient, and direct approach once again proves fruitful, resulting in another subtle yet assured film that largely succeeds through the natural, unforced presence of its lead performance.

Simmering without boiling, The Mastermind peels off the surfaces of old-school heist genre, smartly avoiding commonplace, complacency, and demagogy to achieve something truly moody and dusky. While the character's psychology is intriguing, the story and context are subtlety anchored in consistency, rigor, and a deliberate rhythm that catches, almost without words, the sensation of someone who, once lost, seems condemned to the unfathomable pain of permanent solitude. The unforeseeable finale is strikingly ironic in both tone and perspective.

With aesthetics perfectly attuned to its subject, this is another authentic-feeling narrative that further enriches Reichardt’s singular filmography.

Sentimental Value (2025)

Direction: Joachim Trier
Country: Norway

Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Oslo, 31 August, 2011; The Worst Person in the World, 2021) returns with another compelling drama, co-written with his regular collaborator Eskil Vogt. Sentimental Value is a film about paternal estrangement that goes well beyond that premise. It unfolds as an accomplished, Bergman-esque portrait of a family in decline, carrying a particular sensitivity toward film and theater as emotional and narrative frameworks.

Absent for far too many years, renowned filmmaker Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) inadvertently re-enters the lives of his daughters—Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas)—after their mother’s death. Nora, a theater actress, is deeply scarred by a cruel past, living with feelings of abandonment, depression, and insecurity that stem from her parents’ separation. Agnes, married and with a young son, is calmer and far less confrontational. When Nora refuses to take part in Gustav’s new film—written specifically for her—he turns instead to an American actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who struggles to find her footing within the script.

Sentimental Value achieves a rare blend of art and life, where powerful emotions surface within a crystal-clear mise-en-scène. Trier’s direction is marked by confidence and precision, while the actors’ remarkable presence and naturalness anchor the film, shaping complex relationships rich in nuance. This is family drama at its most quietly devastating, sustaining a strong dramatic integrity as its characters grapple with unresolved pain and buried resentment.

The narrative—thoughtfully built through calibrated dialogue—flows with such ease that its underlying complexity can almost go unnoticed. A single gesture often speaks louder than words, with each frame serving to deepen our understanding of the characters. It stands as a touching, mature work of fiction grounded in reality, driven by the invisible bonds that continue to hold us together, even when fractured.

Die My Love (2025)

Direction: Lynne Ramsay
Country: USA 

This raw, startlingly honest effort by Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, 1999; We Need to Talk About Kevin, 2011; You Were Never Really Here, 2017) comes charged with fury, following a young mother—superbly portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence—grappling with mental health struggles and postnatal depression. Set in rural Montana, the story unfolds across two time frames, incorporating flashbacks that gradually deepen our understanding of the character’s fragile psychological state.

Die My Love, both painful and exquisite, carries nuance and complexity even in its seemingly blunt title. It is a small yet shattering adult drama that plunges the viewer into a suffocating, harrowing psychosis that appears to offer no clear way out. Based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz, the film was co-produced by Martin Scorsese and co-stars Robert Pattinson, Sissy Spacek, and Nick Nolte.

Creatively shot, Die My Love demonstrates keen visual intelligence in service of a compelling narrative that foregrounds boredom, loneliness, and pervasive unhappiness. It leaves you powerless and contemplative, drawing the audience into a state of distress that mirrors that of its characters. The emotional impact is profound, offering a compassionate look at the unexplainable intricacies of life that can suddenly unravel everything. This film also stands as a remarkable showcase for Lawrence, who delivers an unparalleled performance. She and the rest of the cast maintain complete control over the material, while Ramsay never condescends to or sentimentalizes the subject.

Jay Kelly (2025)

Direction: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA

Decidedly petty, Jay Kelly is the new feature by Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote it with Emily Mortimer. This comedy-drama follows a famous yet lonely Hollywood actor (George Clooney) who, accompanied by his loyal manager and longtime friend (Adam Sandler), travels through Europe in an attempt to reconnect with himself. Along the way, he visits his indifferent, often rude father (Stacy Keach) and is forced to confront his strained relationships with his two daughters—the traumatized Jessica (Riley Keough) and the more adventurous Daisy (Grace Edwards). If only the film itself didn’t feel so adrift too…

Jay Kelly is built around a series of glittering but hollow exchanges between characters who always look and act like characters. It never seems to have much that is interesting or new to say. Fragile in conception, the film leans heavily on the strength of its cast, which also includes cameo appearances by Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig, and Jim Broadbent.

There are moments of interest when the characters face their own emptiness and limitations, but these are undercut by several irritating, even ridiculous scenes—the train sequence is a complete wreck—that disrupt the pacing and add a sense of frivolous choppiness. For most of its runtime, this uneven Jay Kelly remains diluted in both tension and emotion, while the humor strains for offbeat quirkiness without ever quite getting there.

The film marks the first collaboration between Sandler and Clooney. While Sandler feels confident and grounded, Clooney tends to overact. Still, it’s within their characters’ relationship that the film becomes minimally tolerable. Everything else falls flat, leaving you simply waiting for it to end.

Springsteen: Deliver me From Nowhere (2025)

Direction: Scott Cooper
Country: USA 

Scott Cooper’s adaptation from the book Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springteen's Nebraska by Warren Zanes focuses on a very specific period in Springsteen's life, a depressive phase partly motivated by a complicated relationship with an abusive father and a wobbly, reticent romantic affair. Yet, it was a musically creative one, with the musician risking an unorthodox career move that ultimately paid off.

Jeremy Allen White’s much-anticipated turn as Springsteen raises expectations, but neither he nor Cooper ever quite find a rhythm to build upon. The biopic drifts along passively, leaning heavily on Springsteen’s music while failing to draw any real emotional charge from the material. Conventional in approach and stretched well beyond what its thin narrative can sustain, the film remains trapped in bland, repetitive formulas, never daring to push beyond familiar biopic beats.

Cooper’s pacing is leaden, and the film’s narrow focus further limits its scope, sinking into melancholic passages that rarely rise above banality. Enthusiasm is hard to muster, as the overall experience lacks urgency, momentum, and vitality. Despite the suitably retro-flavored cinematography by Cooper’s regular collaborator Masanobu Takayanagi, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere remains dramatically inert.

The Running Man (2025)

Direction: Edgar Wright
Country: UK

British filmmaker Edgar Wright, who made his name with cult favorites such as Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), and Baby Driver (2017), returns with The Running Man, an effusive sci-fi action thriller based on Stephen King’s novel and adapted for the screen for a second time, following Paul Michael Glaser’s 1987 version. Glen Powell takes over Schwarzenegger's role in this weakened satire, which plays less like a cautionary dystopia and more like a garish circus broadcast in real time.

Powell stars as Ben Richards, an honest yet volatile man caught in a family crisis, recently fired for insubordination and deeply distrustful of the system and its rules. Desperate, he signs up for the wildly popular TV show The Running Man, a dangerous, often barbaric, technology-manipulated game of survival run by sadistic producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin).

Although it gestures toward revolution and rebellion, The Running Man never feels grounded or serious, instead pushing forced ideas and piling on far-fetched action sequences. It can be mildly entertaining in spurts, yet it feels as artificial as the fictional program it depicts, constantly echoing better films without forging a strong identity of its own. Don’t let the hype mislead you: this is a slick pretender, driven by formulaic plotting and an aggressive posture, unable to connect its excesses to anything resembling a plausible reality.

Burdened by what feels like heavy post-production interference, the film struggles to find a stable rhythm, repeatedly tripping over its own noisy boom-crash-bang theatrics and a shaky script. Had Wright opted for greater simplicity and fewer preposterous action set pieces, the result might have been a leaner, more coherent spectacle. As it stands, The Running Man is cluttered with loose ends and strained credibility. Check out for yourself and see if you can forgive its flaws.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

Direction: Rian Johnson
Country: UK

Wake Up Dead Man, the third installment of the Knives Out franchise, is a sporadically watchable whodunit assembled without much brilliance. Here you’ll find a tenacious religious cult of personality, heavy confessions, an insoluble murder mystery, ghostly apparitions, and mystical insinuations. Yet the film is not nearly as clever as it believes itself to be. Written, directed, and co-produced by Rian Johnson (Looper, 2012; Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2017), who also signed the previous two entries (2019 and 2022), it feels increasingly mannered and self-satisfied.

Artificial and predictable, the film is a collage of cheap schemes and contrived plotting revolving around guilt-ridden Father Jud (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer turned Catholic priest assigned to a rural parish in upstate New York. There, Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin)—a provocateur and opportunist who thrives on a cult of personality—presides over a congregation of fanatical, ambitious followers, whose simmering tensions gradually come to the surface. When a gruesome crime occurs inside the church, only the famed private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), operating with his trademark relaxed yet sharply observant demeanor, appears capable of untangling the mystery.

Despite a stellar cast and an abundance of secrets waiting to be unearthed, the story never truly coheres, creeping forward in a disorienting manner that suggests narrative confusion rather than deliberate complexity. The mystery itself proves more bland than intriguing, and by the time the case reaches its conclusion, it feels more undaunting than haunting. Wake Up Dead Man ultimately takes the shape of a hollow parody—a loud, overcooked puzzle that favors spectacle over substance. Sadly, beyond its wackiness, few of its moments are sharp or amusing enough to earn even a fleeting smile.

The Things You Kill (2025)

Direction: Alireza Khatami
Country: Turkey

The Things You Kill, the third feature from Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami (Terrestrial Verses, 2023), is a Lynchian misfire. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the film follows Ali (Ekin Koç), a college English professor grappling with fertility issues, who returns to Turkey after several years in the US. Back home, he is confronted with deeply ingrained patriarchy, ongoing family disputes, government corruption, and a series of invisible wounds rooted in shameful, inherited behavioral patterns. Everything shifts after his mother dies under suspicious circumstances, prompting Ali to hire a new gardener, Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil), an enigmatic wanderer from the North with whom he enters an obscure and unsettling pact.

At first, the film sustains a slow-burning tension, working as a measured psychological character study with a clear sense of purpose. However, the surreal second half—a hall-of-mirrors pact that probes darker impulses, exposing cruelty, vengeance, and simmering resentment—possesses an enigmatic allure, though one that feels more decorative than illuminating. Like a Picasso painting, it invites interpretation without necessarily deepening emotional engagement.

The performances are solid, and Khatami deliberately sidesteps several conventions of the crime thriller. Still, everything feels a bit jarring and soulless throughout. It is a thinly veiled, downbeat tale that, despite its complex narrative construction, still delivers a fairly straightforward message. The austere tone and chilly portrayal of grief and obsession are intellectually intriguing but rarely visceral. Spiraling and twisting without arriving at anything truly revelatory, The Things You Kill won’t make you sweat—its surreal dimension adding too little substance to justify its ambitions.

Hamnet (2025)

Direction: Chloé Zhao
Country: USA 

Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s fictional novel of the same name—adapted for the screen by the author alongside director Chloé Zhao (The Rider, 2017; Nomadland, 2020)—Hamnet emerges as a grievous, moody, and faintly mystical historical drama, hampered by torpid narrative development and muted dramatic contours.

In need of greater dramatic maturation from beginning to end, the film is set in England in 1580 and follows the young Latin tutor William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), who marries Agnes (Jessie Buckley), a free-spirited woman endowed with an enigmatic bond to the natural world. Despite strong opposition from their families, the couple builds a contented life together with their three children. This fragile harmony is shattered by the sudden death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet—an event that would later inspire Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Hamlet, written at the turn of the 17th century.

Although Buckley and Mescal work earnestly to anchor the emotional weight, the film rarely achieves the depth or intensity it promises. There is something curiously generic and over-polished about its execution, as if the individual elements never quite ignite into something greater. After an opening stretch that sparks curiosity with its atmospheric hints and suggestive mysteries, Hamnet slowly contracts into a dutiful, emotionally distant pseudo-epic in which everything feels pale and overly restrained.

Zhao struggles to overcome the dramatic inertia of a sluggish, lifeless script, and the film trudges forward without accumulating force. By the time it reaches its conclusion, it is too little and too late to recalibrate expectations. Even the ending—clearly designed as an emotional crescendo—lands with disappointing shallowness. A thin narrative spine and awkwardly staged theatrics prevent Hamnet from forging a meaningful emotional connection, leaving it more inert than affecting.

Train Dreams (2025)

Direction: Clint Bentley
Country: USA

Co-written and directed by Clint Benton (Sing Sing, 2023), Train Dreams adapts Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name. Set in the early 20th century, it follows Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a humble, hard-working lumberjack employed by a railway company that operates around Bonners Ferry, Idaho. He lives a largely solitary existence until he meets and marries Gladys Olding (Felicity Jones), with whom he has a daughter. Struggling financially, Grainier is forced to spend longer stretches working in the forests, and his prolonged absences from home grow increasingly painful. Yet nothing compares to the sudden tragedy that ultimately reshapes his life.

Influenced by the dreamy tones and minimalist aesthetic of Terrence Malick, Benton crafts a cruel, elegiac, and melancholic tone poem about life, loss, grief, and the inexorable passage of time. Will Patton’s voice-over narration gently guides us through a harsh landscape of hope and disillusionment. The intimacy and sorrow are quietly transfixing, and despite its unhurried pace, Train Dreams emerges as a deeply moving piece of filmmaking. It is elevated by polished, evocative visuals (shot by Adolpho Veloso), a bittersweet script that also reflects a racially divided America yearning for progress, and a soundtrack that convincingly transports us to another era.

Carrying the sweep of an epic drama without overreaching, Train Dreams stands as a heartfelt tribute to honest, hard-working men in search of solace and inner peace.

It Was Just An Accident (2025)

Direction: Jafar Panahi
Country: Iran

Jafar Panahi (Crimson Gold, 2003; Taxi, 2015; No Bears, 2022), the ingenious Iranian filmmaker long targeted by his country’s authoritarian regime, draws directly from his second imprisonment for his 11th feature, It Was Just An Accident. Favoring long takes and dialogue-driven scenes, the film follows Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic falsely accused of spreading propaganda against the regime, who believes he has unexpectedly crossed paths with Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), a ruthless, one-legged agent who tortured and humiliated him for years. Consumed by rage, Vahid kidnaps the man with the clear intention of killing him. When doubt begins to creep in, however, he turns to a group of fellow survivors—Shiva (Mariam Afshari), Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), and Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr)—to help confirm the man’s identity.

Filmed clandestinely, It Was Just an Accident functions as a straightforward thriller that, despite its lucid dialogue and principled intentions, gradually loses narrative momentum. Blending political courage with cinematic audacity, the film bears the mark of a true fighter, one who insists on distinguishing executioners from victims even when rage and the thirst for vengeance blur moral lines. Panahi approaches these heavy themes—acknowledging wounds that never truly heal—with a tone that oscillates between dark humor and sober drama. He worked with the advice of Mehdi Mahmoudian, himself a former political prisoner who spent considerable time in Iranian jails.

While not a radical departure from Panahi’s earlier work, the film signals a shift toward a more direct approach. The result is a provocative, at times satirical drama whose parts often feel stronger than the whole. It’s a film that actually stands up and shouts, wanting to be noticed, yet its narrative twists are limited, and several key scenes fall short of the emotional impact they seem to aim for. Support for Panahi is unquestionable, but he has articulated sharper and more inventive statements in his previous films.

To Kill a Mongolian Horse (2025)

Direction: Jiang Xiaoxuan
Country: Malaysia / Hong Kong / other

Manchurian writer-director Jiang Xiaoxuan makes a promising debut with To Kill a Mongolian Horse, a gloomy contemporary drama centered on the loss of cultural identity and the difficult adaptation to a new reality. Set against the arid landscape of Inner Mongolia, the story follows Saina (a first-time actor playing himself), a dexterous horseback performer who sees the traditions he cherishes slipping away.

Divorced, Saina works at both a tourist show and a popular local equestrian site to make ends meet—most of his income goes to his ex-wife (Qilemuge), who has custody of their child—while he also looks after his alcoholic, gambling-addict father (Tonggalag). The work is unstable, but Saina refuses to sell his beloved horses. Matters worsen when a massive mining project is announced for the grasslands where they live. The developers promise the families a small apartment in the city, but would they ever be happy there?

Adopting a documentary-like, Jia Zhangke-esque approach, To Kill a Mongolian Horse carries a reflective strength, keeping you in quiet suspense until its shattering finale. Details accrue gradually, rewarding patience, and despite its unrelenting tone, this anguishing story becomes both poignant and meaningful as its characters hover between a joyful past, a dispiriting present, and an uncertain future. With its no-punches-pulled realism and emotional precision, this deeply felt drama deservedly earned Xiaoxuan the “best director and screenwriter under 40” prize at Venice.

Blue Moon (2025)

Direction: Richard Linklater
Country: USA 

Richard Linklater—who also made the wonderful Nouvelle Vague this year—directs Blue Moon, a strong, impeccably staged biopic about the witty, technically sophisticated lyricist Lorenz Hart, who rose to prominence in the 1930s through his long collaboration with composer Richard Rodgers. Together, they created immortal jazz standards such as “Blue Moon”, “The Lady Is a Tramp”, “Manhattan”, and “My Funny Valentine”. The script by novelist Robert Kaplow—re-teaming with Linklater after Me and Orson Welles (2008)—offers more than enough to give us a precise sense of Hart’s personality and inner struggles.

Shot with controlled, precise camerawork, Blue Moon is beautifully rendered, anchored by powerhouse work from Ethan Hawke, who portrays the alcoholic lyricist with a mix of lively spark, reverence for beauty in all its forms, and deep poignancy. The narrative, set in 1934 New York, unfolds over one painful night at Hart’s favorite bar, capturing the bitterness of having to celebrate the massive success and rave reviews of Oklahoma!—Rodgers’ first Broadway show without him (this time collaborating with Oscar Hammerstein). At the same time, Hart confronts an abyss of despair as he feels used by his twenty-year-old protégé and production-designer-wannabe Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley).

Blue Moon sifts gently across a jazzy landscape with a heartfelt, sometimes bitter touch. Bursting with Hart’s sharp wit and mordant observations, the dialogue is a delight—inebriating, funny, sarcastic, and engrossing. The film’s visual and atmospheric formality may feel pronounced, but don’t let that deter you: this passionate account darts and hops with bracing energy, offering just enough depth to both warm and break your heart.

Observant in the way only Linklater can be, the film feels strikingly authentic and radiates a contagious pleasure. It is not a conventional biopic, but it’s cleverly attuned to emotional nuance, and that makes all the difference.

Bugonia (2025)

Direction: Yorgos Lanthimos
Country: USA

Bugonia, a delirious sci-fi thriller by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, 2009; The Favourite, 2018; Poor Things, 2023), is propelled by violence, dark humor, paranoia, and outlandish situations. The film, a remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s South Korean hit Save the Green Planet! (2003), stars Lanthimos’s muse Emma Stone, who maneuvers through different dramatic registers with unflinching force; Jesse Plemons, delivering a convincing bravura performance; and first-timer Aidan Delbis, a welcome surprise. Will Tracy (The Menu, 2022) wrote the script, and Ari Aster (Hereditary, 2018) co-produced alongside Stone, Lanthimos, and others.

Cousins Teddy (Plemons), an enraged, manic conspiracy theorist, and the submissive Don (Delbis), who behaves like an innocent child, kidnap Michelle Fuller (Stone), a powerful pharmaceutical CEO they believe to be an Andromedan on a special mission to Earth. Their goal is to force a meeting with her alien emperor, negotiating the withdrawal of her species in order to save the planet. The choice is not arbitrary: Teddy and Michelle share a charged history. 

The film confronts a postmodern society in decline, voicing anxieties about human extinction and Earth’s urgent need for care and healing. While its message is clear, the narrative is provocatively mounted, with Lanthimos once again subverting norms—this time through a mix of cynicism, absurdism, eccentric sci-fi, and a wacky, dystopian doomsday theory. The ferocity of his direction is striking, and the story grows more intriguing and disconcerting as it progresses, carrying a kind of grip sorely missing from many recent entries in the genre.

Bugonia is a wild, offbeat eco-tale built with boundless imagination, sprinting toward a punishing finale that dismantles a macabre farce and plunges into perpetual tragedy. Though it sometimes feels calculated, it is also finely crafted, hallucinatory, and immensely entertaining. A galvanizing cinematic experience with a radical edge—one that, whether you love it or hate it, won’t be easy to forget.

Misericordia (2025)

Direction: Alain Guiraudie
Country: France

Stranger By The Lake’s director Alain Guiraudie attempts to shock with Misericordia, a silly, slippery, and stiffly libidinous rural comedy-thriller whose wobbly parts add up to an uneven whole. With an absurdist edge reminiscent of Lanthimos, the film begins with intriguing observations and enigmatic characters, only to reduce them to the flimsy ideas they represent. Both the story and the style end up lumbering and graceless, sketching a web of desires and suspicions that feels amorphous, undercooked, and oddly weightless.

Former baker Jeremie (Félix Kysyl, in his first leading role), now living in Toulouse, returns to his hometown of Saint-Martial for his former boss’s funeral. There he reconnects with the boss’s protective widow (Catherine Frot), her belligerent son (Jean-Baptiste Durand), and the latter’s closest friend (David Ayala). A voluptuous, amoral priest—whose intentions remain both unprincipled and self-serving—joins the mix. Their relationships, initially ambiguous, turn sinister, but the film’s formula burns out long before it has a chance to ignite.

Several scenes are outright ludicrous—especially those involving the police—while others strain for provocation, like the fleeting shot of a priest with an erection. These moments feel less like organic absurdity and more like screenwriter contrivances, gestures meant to veer sharply from expectation without becoming any more compelling. Guiraudie clearly aims for a strain of outrageousness he never fully embraces.

As a highly manufactured piece, Misericordia feels more pathetic than smart, functioning like a one-joke film where the filmmaker keeps forgetting to tell it. One doesn’t find enough juice here to keep the boredom at bay.

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

Direction: Richard Linklater
Country: France / USA

Acclaimed American filmmaker Richard Linklater (Boyhood; the Before trilogy) ventures into unexpected territory: reconstructing a pivotal moment in film history—the birth of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), and, with it, the rise of the French New Wave and its legends. More interested in the mechanics and behind-the-scenes processes than in traditional drama, Linklater reimagines the past in crisp black-and-white, delivering a wildly entertaining throwback to the ’60s.

Guillaume Marbeck’s radiant performance as Godard—revolutionary, anarchic, unorthodox, and perpetually dismissive of convention—is nothing short of flawless. Zoey Deutch, in her second collaboration with Linklater after Everybody Wants Some!, brings vivid presence to Jean Seberg, while Aubry Dullin channels the charisma and ease of Jean-Paul Belmondo. Together, they infuse the film with a youthful, infectious vitality that makes Nouvelle Vague pulse with energy.

Beautiful, stylish, and memorable, the film captures the joy, urgency, and constant negotiation that define the filmmaking process. Linklater balances complex elements with sharp dialogue and stellar performances, all framed by deftly angled compositions that reflect the unpredictable currents of Godard’s personality—an unconventional filmmaker perched on the cusp of stardom.

Nouvelle Vague arrives as a triumphant recreation of a defining cinematic moment. Steeped in realism and fueled by a palpable love for cinema, it often feels like an exercise in cinephile time travel. And although a few characters drift in without clear purpose, Linklater widens the frame, painting a dazzling portrait of a generation that revolutionized cinema.

No Other Choice (2025)

Direction: Park Chan-wook
Country: South Korea

No Other Choice is a highly satirical dark-comedy thriller that never settles down. Directed, co-written, and produced by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, 2003; The Handmaiden, 2016), who adapts Donald Westlake’s acclaimed novel The Ax (1997), the film bursts with offbeat overtones and biting irony as we follow the tortuous path of Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), an unemployed family man turned serial killer.

Man-su, a paper-industry expert who spent twenty-five years sacrificing himself for a Korean company, is abruptly fired after a buyout by a powerful American corporation. With his family in financial crisis, he is on the verge of losing his beloved childhood home and the comfort it has always provided. That’s when he comes up with a plan: eliminate the competitors for a job he has applied for at a rival firm. At once vulnerable, disturbing, and faintly ridiculous, this cold executioner ultimately carries out his strategy with the complicit help of his dental-assistant wife, Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin).

Chan-wook’s fondness for dark stories—mixing the traits of film noir with a sharp critique of neoliberal modernity—is on full display, yet he never abandons the black humor, which spreads as contagiously as the madness itself. What he delivers is a perverse pressure cooker that serves up laughs and shrieks in equal measure. Initially unnerving in a slow-burn fashion and eventually catastrophically depraved, No Other Choice is potently harsh, unflinchingly amoral, and sinfully enjoyable. Pure noir zaniness.

Broken Voices (2025)

Direction: Ondrej Provaznik
Country: Czech Republic / Slovakia

A shattering and cold coming-of-age drama, Broken Voices leaves us petrified with a well-rendered tale that, though difficult to watch, feels painfully real. Writer-director Ondrej Provaznik avoids dramatic excess, relying on a simple yet potent script drawn from the Bambini di Praga case, in which a choirmaster was convicted of sexually abusing minor girls between 1984 and 2004.

The film centers on Karolina (promising debut from Katerina Falbrová), a talented 13-year-old singer thrilled by the prospect of joining a prestigious girls’ choir on a U.S. tour. Her older sister Lucie (Maya Kintera), 15, is also in the choir but has been acting increasingly withdrawn. She was once a favorite of the sly choirmaster, Vitek Mácha (Juraj Loj).

We can sense where the story is headed, yet Broken Voices becomes a quiet, devastating plunge, magnificently carried by its actors. It’s a heartbreaking, deeply impactful, and merciless film, elevated by a persistent undercurrent of harrowing anxiety. Hitting hard even in moments that momentarily lighten the tone, Broken Voices is the antithesis of a feel-good movie—something that fractures from the inside and leaves a long-lasting bruise.

Afternoons of Solitude (2025)

Direction: Albert Serra
Country: Spain

Undoubtedly well shot, Albert Serra’s Afternoons of Solitude lingers in the mind solely because of the brutality of its subject. This docudrama follows venerated bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey and his crew through several Spanish arenas, where sadistic crowds exalt in the bulls’ agony. No matter how much lyricism Serra attempts to inject, what dominates the screen is unrelenting animal suffering.

The bullfighters appear addicted to adrenaline and cruelty, proudly displaying their virility while gradually sacrificing an animal that, driven only by instinct, becomes their bloody puppet. This closed world of ancestral tradition and hyper-masculine ritual feels raw, disturbing, and numbing—an exercise in endurance that borders on the nauseating. With no plot, no tension, and no real variation, the film becomes a pointless nightmare.

Repetitive and displeasing, Afternoons of Solitude stands as an ode to barbarity that leaves you wondering, almost in disbelief: is this seriously never going to end?