Vulcanizadora (2025)

Direction: Joel Potrykus
Country: USA

The films of independent filmmaker Joel Potrykus have achieved cult status, often presenting high-risk material that yields unexpected rewards. His latest black comedy thriller, Vulcanizadora, follows two emotionally unhinged outfits—the hyperactive, motor-mouthed Dereck Skiba (Potrykus) and the laconic, perpetually bored Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burge). They make a bizarre pact deep in the Michigan woods. A decade after Buzzard, Potrykus and Burge reprise their roles in this psychotic delirium laced with psychological horror.

The actors dominate every scene, clearly relishing the opportunity to explore territory most filmmakers would shy away from. They do so with a disarming simplicity. The subject matter is anything but light, and the film’s pull comes from the ambiguity and tension it steadily builds.

Bone-dry in tone, Vulcanizadora offers zero warmth, scant compassion, and weird characters. There is something profoundly unsettling about this tale of anguish, as Potrykus probes human vulnerability with a nameless, creeping unease. He reminds us that there’s still vitality in low-budget independent cinema, and his oddly sorrowful mindbender—flawed and fascinating—leaves its mark.

La Cocina (2025)

Direction: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Country: Mexico / USA

Adapted from Arnold Wesker's play, La Cocina  is an exercise in style, full of highs and lows. It portrays a large, chaotic, multicultural New York kitchen where steel clangs, voices clash, and bodies move with tense urgency. Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios (Gueros, 2014; Museo, 2018) crafts a hot-blooded, surreal, and poetic spectacle that often resembles a wild circus.

Amid the clamor, dreams and personal struggles simmer—money has mysteriously vanished from one of the registers, and suspicion falls on Pedro Ruiz (Raúl Briones), a volatile, immature Mexican cook who has gotten Julia (Rooney Mara), an American waitress, pregnant. The film’s atmosphere is zany and sometimes disorienting, yet it retains a certain magnetic pull.

Undocumented immigrants and the marginalized are at the heart of the story—they’re indispensable and yet exploited—and the film offers fleeting but poignant glimpses into their roles in the restaurant’s ecosystem, which mirrors the nation’s broader social dynamics. The characters feel vivid and authentic, each with distinct aspirations and personalities, contributing to a frenzied spectacle that veers between hilarious and excruciating. 

La Cocina thrives primarily on its kinetic energy, with bursts of anger pushed deliberately to extremes, while also grappling with the dehumanizing mechanisms of an overburdened capitalist system that traps its workers. The score insightfully conveys the characters’ inner turmoil, and visually, cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez excels with striking black-and-white imagery and expressive camera work.

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2025)

Direction: Rungano Nyoni
Country: Zambia / UK / other

In Zambian Rungano Nyoni’s On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, characters move through a world marred by sexual abuse, trauma, and an infuriating societal passivity. Nyoni, who gained international acclaim with I Am Not a Witch (2017), also penned the script, centering the story on Shula (Susan Chardy), a fragile and apparently cold middle-class woman who shows no grief when she discovers her uncle’s body lying in the street. 

This moving, quietly furious drama, laced with moments of dark humor, gathers powerful elements to present a stirring call for a more just and self-aware Africa. It offers a compelling lens through which to examine Zambian traditions, cultural attitudes, and widespread indifference to issues like statutory rape and systemic sexism. Haunting and unsettling, the narrative’s ending may initially feel unresolved, yet compassion weaves subtly through the film. The emotionally fractured Shula is likened to a guinea fowl—an alert, talkative African bird known for warning others of lurking danger.

Tonally assured throughout, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl delivers a piercing, unflinching portrait of a family in desperate need of healing. Its ethos hits hard, and Nyoni deserves high praise for tackling such a difficult subject with discernment and sensitivity.

Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (2024)

Direction: Radu Jude
Country: Romania 

After the polemic and somewhat superfluous Loony Porn (2021), the incredibly talented Romanian writer-director Radu Jude continues to claim a spot at the peak of contemporary cinema with Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, another love-it-or-hate-it endeavor that places an independent young woman under relentless observation in a radically changing Bucharest. 

Ilinca Manolache plays Angela Raducanu, an exhausted and underpaid production assistant working for an Austrian company that exploits workers and has a reputation for destroying Romanian forests for profit. Overworking to the point of risking falling asleep at the wheel, she navigates the chaotic Bucharest traffic - often filled with macho drivers - to interview handicapped people for a devious TV show. With no time for herself, she finds solace in posting provocative TikTok videos where she impersonates a man with moronic behavior and lousy ideas. Two key moments of the film include a frank conversation with her boss, Doris Goethe (Christian Petzold’s muse Nina Hoss), and an encounter with the wishy-washy German filmmaker Uwe Boll (himself).

Using footage, the film creates a link with Angela Merge Mai Departe, a 1981 feminist Romanian feature directed by Lucian Bratu, centered on a female taxi driver under the communist dictatorship. This raffish and pertinent divertissement brings a lot of truths to light, touching on themes such as neoliberal capitalism, sexism, corruption, exploitation, resignation, and impunity in a tortured urban society that simply has no time to enjoy life.

Jude evokes the social realism of Jim Jarmusch and Jean-Luc Godard - creative in form, tenacious in the storytelling - and infuses a caustic humor that, cutting sharper than a knife, is often quite delicious. More jarring than sweet, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World is an eye opener for our hectic times. A must-watch.

Poor Things (2023)

Direction: Yorgos Lanthimos
Country: USA

Greek-born filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos is able to keep audiences in giddy laughter or shocking horror. Known for his unique storytelling in films like Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015), and The Favourite (2018), he presents his latest black comedy, Poor Things. Adapted from Alasdair Gray's 1992 novel, the film is written by Tony McNamara and features a stellar cast, including Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo, and Ramy Youssef.

The film follows the story of Bella (Stone), a candid young Victorian woman brought back to life by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Godwin Baxter (Dafoe). With newfound free will, Bella embarks on a journey of self-discovery, choosing to explore life with its pleasures and challenges. Her unconventional choices, including running away with lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Ruffalo), will teach her many things, ultimately sending her back to an unimaginable past of darkness.

Gorgeously rendered, the film offers a smart and eccentric exploration of society and the human experience. An ambitious idea framed with visual distinction and spirited performances, where vertiginous philosophical foundations merge with a strong determination in self-learning and sexual liberation. This sinister tale is hilarious in spots, persistently full of life (despite dealing with death), and provocative as the hip filmmaker likes to shape his off-kilter comedies. 

With its moody soundscape by Jerkin Fendrix and superb cinematography by Robbie Ryan, Poor Things is the standout unconventional comedy of the year. Lanthimos continues to surprise audiences with his daring imagination, offering a fresh and intoxicating cinematic experience.