REVIEWS
Post-film thoughts.
The Drama: Ignorance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Balancing the film’s weaker moments and its tendency to rely on rather superficial aspects of its story, Zendaya and Pattinson both deliver impressively nuanced interpretations and manage to bring a strong physicality to the internal struggles of their characters.
Wasteman: Who We’ve Left Behind
Shot over the course of only 18 days, Wasteman (2026) is an adrenaline rush that never subsides. It is a pressure cooker of a film. There is a consistent, thrumming tension in even the stillest moments thanks to a searing script by Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran.
Sukkwan Island: Love Out in the Cold
After a long career with supporting roles, Arlaud’s talents are finally omnipresent on screen. Shifting seamlessly between a chilling anger and a playful energy, his performance as Tom leaves the audience feeling like we should be walking on eggshells.
Julian: An Ode to Queer Love
Carried by Nina Meurisse in the role of Fleur and Laurence Roothooft as Julian, the Belgian-Dutch drama beautifully translates the expectations the couple had for gay rights through their unusual project, as well as the hardships of navigating love and grief.
The Christophers: Soderbergh's Artistic Dialogue
Unlike Soderbergh’s previous film, 2025’s sexy spy thriller Black Bag, the director takes a more muted, intimate approach as he attempts to find the connection between art and relationships.
Seahorse: On Connections and Feeling Seen
Sometimes the past is too hard to let go and it keeps coming back for us. At the same time, SXSW 2026 Narrative Feature competitor Seahorse poses a question: Is the past holding us back or are we the ones incapable of letting go and moving forward?
Project Hail Mary: Full of Grace, Friendship, and Science
Directed by Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, with a formidable score by Daniel Pemberton and impeccable production design by Charlie Wood, Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary is brought to life with the purpose of making it a visual experience.
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo: Queerness in All Its Grandeur
The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo is a reinvented Western, in which the sad and lonely cowboy is replaced with a vengeful teenage girl, and the luxuriant mountains with the scorching plains.
Wuthering Heights: Rewritten
Some had high hopes; Saltburn was generally well-received and a similar thriller would fit the gothic horror of Wuthering Heights, while others dreaded her campy style and worried she would miss the target in the interest of modernizing the story to fit her whims. Now that theaters are packed with curious viewers, the verdict is out: It’s bad.
No Other Choice: A Veteran’s Playground
No Other Choice is a plot that requires eccentricity, suspense, and a hint of melodrama that the actors organically delivered. They were shameless in bringing out the quirks of the story through their respective characters, resulting in this spectacle of a crazy film.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple: Hell is Empty
Between sweeping wide shots of rolling green hills to a close-up on creative and awe-inspiring wounds and practical effects makeup, The Bone Temple is truly a visual treat for nature and horror enthusiasts alike.
Avatar: Fire and Ash: A Spectacle Meant for the Cinema
Avatar is a franchise that brings cinema back to its origins. It is a spectacle. We sit in awe in our seats, captivated for over three hours by its technical prodigy.
Die My Love: Unfiltered Humanity
What does it take to finally make someone snap? To finally make yourself feel alive? Die My Love (2025), starring Jennifer Lawrence as Grace and Robert Pattinson as Jackson, is a strange slice of life film skewed sideways into an uncomfortably funny thriller.
Wicked: For Good: Ready for a Last Dance in Oz?
On paper, it has everything audiences have been waiting for: the continuation of the characters’ story that we grew attached to in the first opus, new songs to enchant the end of the year’s celebrations, and the introduction of the iconic Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz (1939). But does it stick the landing? Debatable.
Now You See Me: Now You Don’t: Magical Mess
The Now You See Me franchise is back and better than ever. Twelve years since the original film, the Horsemen are here to stay. The newest installment in the series, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025), further expands the network of scrappy magicians as well as the scope of their heists.
The Running Man: A Race Toward Freedom
Sometimes, we want to watch a film not to puzzle over but to be entertained. That’s exactly what The Running Man proposes, a good action movie with enough heart to be interesting.
Plainclothes: Identity Laid Bare
What is most striking about Plainclothes is its use of camcorders, grainy footage, home videos, and nonlinear narrative. Coupled with close ups of eyes and sound mixing of heavy breathing, the audience is caught up in Lucas’ disjointed mental space.
She’s the He: A Charming Trans-centric Comedy
The comedic style of She’s the He—pop-y and goofy with bright colors and one-liners galore—brings to mind both classic early ‘00s high school comedies and more recent contemporaries in the “queer high school comedy” genre, such as 2024’s Bottoms.
The Mastermind: A Quiet Warning
Written, directed, and edited by Showing Up’s (2022) Kelly Reichardt, the film firmly plants itself in a quiet subversion of the heart-racing, action-packed sequences that permeate similar stories.
Bugonia: Is It Aliens Ruining the World, or Just Us?
Bugonia doesn't offer something different from Save the Green Planet or try to override its credibility. The film only slightly shifts the perspective to give a contemplative and contemporary take.
