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.

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.

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.

Colours of Time (2025)

Direction: Cédric Klapisch
Country: France / Belgium

Colours of Time is an absolutely delightful and mesmerizing impressionistic tale, packed with history and an invigorating sense of adventure and discovery. Co-writer and director Cédric Klapisch (The Spanish Apartment, 2002; Rise, 2022) knows how to draw out charm through a compelling narrative structure, well-chosen environments, and bright, luminous visuals.

In this period drama, four distant cousins—young digital creator Seb (Abraham Wapler), soon-to-retire teacher Abdel (Zinedine Soualem), workaholic businesswoman Céline (Julia Piaton), and easygoing beekeeper Guy (Vincent Macaigne)—hit it off surprisingly well after meeting for the first time in Paris, summoned by a governmental agency interested in purchasing the house of an ancestor, Adèle Meunier (Suzanne Lindon). Alternating between past and present, with Paris as the central axis, the film also follows Adèle’s inspiring 19th-century journey as she leaves Normandy in search of her mother (Sara Giraudeau).

Impeccable production design and period detail make the film beautiful as a painting, and the smooth transitions between eras are particularly notable. Driven by a love of art and by Lindon’s charming performance, Colours of Time unfolds gently—subtly mixing humor and emotion in satisfying doses and using feel-good ingredients to explore what binds people together in a warm, perceptive portrayal of human relationships.

The script, which could easily sit alongside Alain Resnais’ lighter works, earns its own originality through its endearing characters and narrative fluidity. It marks an ambitious return for Klapisch, who invites us to look at life with renewed tenderness and understanding. This is truly great cinema, reminding us of the enduring impact of ancestry on our lives.

The Ice Tower (2025)

Direction: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Country: France 

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s new feature, The Ice Tower, is a contemplative and gloomy fairytale that reaches gothic proportions by playing with shadows and immersing itself in dark, anguished atmospheres. However, this mise-en-abyme exercise, set in the ’70s, nearly exhausts itself in artifice. Adopting experimental, surreal, and glacial tones, this fantasy drama strikes with emotional cruelty—a bleak blend of strange passions, obsession, motherless trauma, and inharmonious relationships. The controversial filmmaker Gaspar Noé—Hadzihalilovic’s partner in real life—makes a cameo appearance, while Marion Cotillard reunites with the director 21 years after their first collaboration, Innocence (2004).

The script, co-written by Hadzihalilovic and Geoff Cox, draws an obvious connection to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen, while its cinematic influences range from Black Narcissus (1947) to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) to The Spirit of the Beehive (1973). Never rushing its narrative flow, The Ice Tower follows a runaway 15-year-old orphan, Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who takes refuge in the film studio where volatile actress Cristina Van Den Berg (Cotillard) is shooting The White Snow. Drawn to one another, they develop a very strange bond.

This is one of the oddest, most outrageous, and most disproportionate films to emerge this year—a beguiling mix of art and fantasy, psychic dissonance, and shattered mirrors that yields yet another intriguingly peculiar experience. It is, however, a difficult film to watch, and not as captivating as Hadzihalilovic’s previous feature, Earwig (2021). Technically well made, it is not particularly enjoyable at its core, limned with bitter rawness and marked by loneliness and despair that can be terrifying. But does its dreamlike, phantasmagoric aura carry us anywhere more profound than the merely artistic? Not quite. The narrative eventually freezes, suffocating without knowing where to go next. It’s a film that transfixes more than it enchants.

Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) (2025)

Direction: Sierra Falconer
Country: USA 

Executive produced by Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir, 2019), Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) is a soulful five-vignette anthology directed by newcomer Sierra Falcone. The semi-autobiographical film, built around coming-of-age themes, follows a 14-year-old girl who discovers a love of sailing while staying with her grandparents after her mother’s recent remarriage; a young violinist striving to excel at a summer music camp under the pressure of his ambitious mother; a brief, tragic romance between a dreamy fisherman and a rebellious young woman; and the deep bond between two sisters who run a bed-and-breakfast on Michigan’s Green Lake.

Through carefully framed shots and a cohesive ensemble cast, Falcone tackles mature themes while maintaining a gentle patina of softness across the film. There is a generosity of spirit and a sense of lived experience that lift Sunfish above more conventional indie dramas. The screenplay’s objectivity and simplicity may frustrate viewers seeking denser plotting, but Falcone has an undeniable gift for tuning into deftly tactful wavelengths, rendering each story with a delicate, warm sensibility.

These modest, uncynical tales make space for compassion—occasionally moving, never manipulative. The actors bring nuance and vitality, often adding just when the film seems to risk subtracting from itself.

The Smashing Machine (2025)

Direction: Bennie Safdie
Country: USA 

In his first film without his brother Josh, Bennie Safdie (Daddy Longlegs, 2009; Uncut Gems, 2019) turns to the true story of former wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, reconstructing key events—between 1997 and 2000—of his professional and personal life with with the relaxed, comfortable posture of an alternative sports biopic. Safdie casts Dwayne Johnson—here boasting an intimidating, Herculean presence—in the lead role, with Emily Blunt as Kerr’s selfish yet intermittently supportive girlfriend. Double-time Bellator MMA champion Ryan Bader appears as Kerr’s best friend Mark Coleman, while Dutch MMA former champion Bas Rutten, who trained Kerr in real life, plays himself.

Buoyed by terrific lead performances, The Smashing Machine avoids pushing the drama into radical territory, instead adopting a mildly superficial stance toward adversity. Although well shot, the fighting scenes lack visceral bite and could have carried more tension. Ultimately, this is a compact, low-key film that resists showiness. Safdie—who also wrote, produced, and edited—doesn’t inject new life into the familiar framework. It’s Johnson, vigorously supported by Blunt, who keeps the film afloat with a ferocious, career-expanding performance, breaking free from his usual screen persona and delivering a convincing portrayal of Kerr in a successful turn toward dramatic acting.

The Smashing Machine, overshadowed by John Hyams’ 2002 documentary of the same name, sometimes feels like a re-enacted documentary, following a classic, predictable narrative path. It’s a minor biopic with a satisfying retro flavor—one we watch without either great enthusiasm or boredom.

The Summer Book (2025)

Direction: Charlie McDowell
Country: UK / USA / Finland

Directed by Charlie McDowell (The One I Love, 2014; Windfall, 2022), written by Robert Jones, and starring and co-produced by Glenn Close (Fatal Attraction, 1987; Dangerous Liaisons, 1988), The Summer Book is a bland adaptation of Tove Jansson’s 1972 novel of the same name. It follows a grandmother (Close) and her six-year-old granddaughter, Sophia (Emily Matthews), as they spend the summer on a small island in the Gulf of Finland. The young girl and her emotionally distant father (Anders Danielsen Lie), a busy yet lonely illustrator, are still grieving the loss of her mother and his wife, respectively.

Emotional fragility and occasional boredom affect Sophia, while her grandmother—deeply connected to nature—shows signs of memory lapses. The Summer Book is a sweet, tender tale, but its development feels sluggish and its resolution predictable. The film lacks gravity, lingering too long on minute details and subdued gestures that make it feel humble yet monotonous. Rania Hani’s somnolent score does little to invigorate the pacing, which often borders on lethargic.

There are lessons to be learned here, but it takes more than a leading star and gentle plotting to make a film truly resonate. Not to mention that the scenery has more definition than the characters. Slight at its core, The Summer Book remains stubbornly stalled between sincere intentions and a weary torpor.

Young Mothers (2025)

Direction: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Country: Belgium / France

The Dardenne brothers, Belgian masters of social realism, return with Young Mothers, a poignant chronicle of five teenage single mothers facing economic hardship while temporarily living in a maternal center in Liège. Struggling with anxiety, hope, and fragile illusions about their new reality, these young women each grapple with uncertain futures—whether to return to their families, reconnect with their child’s father, or keep their baby. Functioning as a group portrait, this marks the Dardennes’ first ensemble film, an inspired shift that proves fruitful. They shot it in the very center that initially sparked their idea for the film, grounding the story in authentic detail.

Young Mothers is not without flaws, but it stands as a powerful, emotionally resonant portrayal of young motherhood. The Dardennes’ signature quasi-documentary style brings intimacy and immediacy to the narrative, with each story punctuated by twists and moments of quiet revelation. The suspense lies less in whether these disoriented girls will give up their babies and more in whether they’ll achieve the emotional stability needed to build a full life. It’s a sharply observed and deeply felt drama that—despite its somber themes—glows with empathy and restrained optimism.

Throughout, the need for love, care, and human connection remains constant, while trauma is often met with gentle compassion and flickers of hope. Unraveling the threads with a tone that screams truth, Young Mothers never slips into pathos. It’s a vital, humanistic work that captures the wounds of the past, contradictions of the present, and fears of the future. Not the grandest film of the year, perhaps—but quite possibly the most essential.

Tina (2025)

Direction: Miki Magasiva
Country: New Zealand

This New Zealand drama, written and directed by debut filmmaker Miki Magasiva, follows a Samoan teacher (Anapela Polataivao) who loses her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and seeks solace in directing a student choir at an elite, predominantly white private school. There, she confronts racism and social inequities but gradually earns the respect of her students, their families, and the broader community, ultimately finding redemption through music and mentorship.

Tina is a motivational, feel-good story infused with genuine emotion and strong dramatic moments. Its triumphs feel hard-won, and Magasiva—himself born in Samoa—approaches the material with sincerity and craft. He employs a largely traditional filmmaking style, balancing it with a modern sensibility. His camera searches earnestly for emotion, particularly in the climactic musical sequence, where sentimentality hovers. However, he walks that tightrope with passionate devotion, showing he has a way with both actors and sets.

Generic and uncomplicated—which doesn't mean it doesn't work—Tina catches the eye as an admirable tale of resilience and hope.

Kontinental '25 (2025)

Direction: Radu Jude
Country: Romania 

Admired Romanian writer-director Radu Jude, always incisive and corrosive in his observations, continues to nurture a deceptively simple yet striking filmmaking style, favoring long, conversational takes—this time shot entirely on an iPhone 15. His latest feature, Kontinental ’25—both a nod to Rossellini's Europe ’51 (1952) and a sharp social commentary on Romania’s systemic failures and the erosion of individual experience—captures the essence of real neighborhoods (partly drawn from documentary footage on the history of local architecture) while following the story of a guilt-ridden Hungarian bailiff, Orsolya (Eszter Tompa). After evicting a once-celebrated athlete turned destitute alcoholic—who later takes his own life—she becomes haunted by the event.

Vilified by nationalists online and demonized by the xenophobic press, Orsolya cancels her vacation with her detached husband and seeks solace through a series of tense encounters—with a cold friend, her quarrelsome nationalist mother, an Orthodox priest, and her former law student Fred (Adonis Tanta), now a food delivery worker fond of reciting “Zen” parables.

This tragicomic narrative, seemingly small in scope, expands into a broader portrait of Romania’s social, moral, and political condition. Jude fuses absurdism with realism to create something both unpretentiously profound and mordantly funny. There are no thrills in the conventional sense—the real suspense lies in discovering where Jude will ultimately take us. Visually, the film remains modest, yet the director providies just enough terra firma to sustain viewer engagement.

While Kontinental ’25 may not reach the towering resonance of Aferim! (2015) or Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023), it achieves a finely tuned balance between structural modesty and thematic depth. Depending on one’s patience for slow cinema, this unabashedly sardonic work will either repel or fascinate—but it unmistakably continues Jude’s bold dismantling of Romanian society from within.

Sirat (2025)

Direction: Oliver Laxe
Country: Spain / France

The fourth feature by French-born Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe (Mimosas, 2016; Fire Will Come, 2019), Sirat unfolds as a radical road trip that transforms into a breathtaking survival thriller. Watching it feels like being struck by a seismic wave that grips you from the start. Early on, we’re told that Sirat is a bridge connecting heaven and hell—a fitting metaphor for the journey ahead. 

Co-written with his regular collaborator Santiago Fillol, the film follows a distressed father (Sergi López) and his young son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) as they search for his missing adult daughter in the southern mountains of Morocco. Along the way, they encounter a group of nomadic ravers caught in trippy dance rituals, awash in hallucinogens and the volatile promise of freedom.

Beautifully shot and powerfully acted, this intoxicating work confirms Laxe as a singular filmmaker. His skill in balancing nihilistic, hallucinatory, and spiritual tones is remarkable. Kangding Ray’s hypnotic trance score meshes seamlessly with Mauro Herce’s vivid, sun-scorched cinematography, deepening the film’s immersive atmosphere.

Aside from López, Laxe again directs non-professional actors, maintaining his idiosyncratic style—measured, raw, and far removed from conventional storytelling. Drawing inspiration from Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997) and produced by Pedro Almodóvar, Sirat is a grave, unsettling meditation on loss and human frailty. It builds on fear and anguish, creating a palpable sense of doom that seeps into your bones—you’ll feel the sweat on your back in its most intense moments.

Sirat is a punchy, excruciating film that shakes things up in a way rarely seen on screen. An audacious leap forward for Laxe, who edges ever closer to becoming one of auteur cinema’s defining voices.

Manas (2025)

Direction: Marianna Brennand
Country: Brazil 

Debut filmmaker Marianna Brennand co-wrote and directed Manas, a raw, devastating, and deeply somber drama film that lays bare impaired family ties and cruel, traumatic adolescence in the isolated city of Marajó in Brazil’s Amazon region. The story sheds light on an abominable reality, examining cycles of family dysfunction that give rise to a different kind of horror.

We follow 13-year-old Marcielle (Jamilli Correa), who abruptly loses her innocence and trust after confronting sexual abuse within her own family. What’s most harrowing is the collective silence that surrounds her: relatives, church members, and the broader community are all aware of the crimes yet choose to look away.

The subject matter alone is emotionally shattering, but Brennand amplifies its impact through stark, eloquent imagery that speaks louder than words. The setting’s haunting isolation makes everything feel even more suffocating and real.

Measured in pace but unrelenting in power, this quietly distressing film is revolting, heartbreaking, and profoundly compelling. It’s not an easy watch, but Manas is an essential one—an urgent act of courage by a fearless filmmaker, carried by performances of striking emotional truth.

A Little Prayer (2025)

Direction: Angus MacLachlan
Country: USA

From Junebug (2005) writer Angus MacLachlan comes A Little Prayer, a bittersweet meditation on family, faith, and fracture. The film portrays the delicate dynamics within an American family with more seriousness than humor, revealing a humanity so genuine that its imperfections feel wholly forgivable.

The rigorously streamlined scrip follows Bill Brass (David Strathairn), a veteran and successful metal-sheet company owner who is very fond of his kindhearted daughter-in-law, Tammy (Jane Levy). He gets consumed by distress when he finds out that his alcoholic son, David (Will Pullen), is having an affair with one of his employees. His sense of stability unravels when he discovers that his troubled, alcoholic son, David (Will Pullen), is having an affair with one of his employees. At the same time, his emotionally fragile daughter, Patti (Anna Camp), returns home after another quarrel with her drug-dealer husband. Strathairn’s quiet dignity makes Bill’s private anguish palpable, while Celia Weston brings warmth and gentle humor as his wife, Venida.

A Little Prayer is a sincere, heartfelt, and beautifully restrained drama. Its format might feel familiar, but this is an affecting story that brings an emotional specificity to each scene. Balancing heartache and grace, the film captures the tragic and the beautiful facets of family life with rare empathy and control.