Author: Peter Gray

Community theatre is an inherently strange little ecosystem. It’s a place where people with wildly different levels of talent, ambition and self-awareness come together and, for a few fleeting nights, treat a modest suburban stage as if they’re opening on Broadway. For some it’s a hobby. For others it’s a calling. And for the particularly…

Friendships don’t necessarily end with an argument or betrayal. Sometimes life simply starts pulling two people in different directions, and the fear of what might be lost along the way can prove just as painful. That anxiety sits at the emotional centre of DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island, a vibrant fantasy adventure that sends lifelong best…

Growing older has a way of revealing which friendships were chapters and which became part of the entire story. Or, as Forgotten Island co-director Januel Mercado rather wonderfully puts it, perhaps we’re not getting old so much as we’ve simply “been younger, longer.” That perspective feels particularly fitting for DreamWorks Animation’s latest original adventure, a…

DreamWorks has been enjoying something of a creative renaissance in recent years, but even with the studio increasingly willing to push its visual language, Forgotten Island feels like a particularly special swing. Vibrant, wonderfully strange and ultimately far more emotional than its chaotic adventure initially suggests, Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado’s Filipino mythology-inspired feature takes…

Hollywood has always been particularly adept at selling dreams whilst quietly destroying the people trying to live them. In Misty Green, Chris Rock turns that contradiction into something funny, furious and increasingly uncomfortable, crafting a showbusiness satire that isn’t afraid to let its laughter curdle. Rock’s latest effort as writer-director centres on Misty Green (Rosalind…

Family can make us feel safest, but it can also reopen wounds we thought had long since healed. That tension sits at the heart of River, the nerve-shredding feature debut from writer-director Joshua Giuliano, which celebrated its world premiere at Midnight Madness at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Jane Levy, Jessica Rothe and Max…

Sometimes horror really doesn’t need to be complicated. Give us a handful of characters we care about, isolate them somewhere they shouldn’t be, introduce something terrifying and let nature take its course. Joshua Giuliano understands this remarkably well with River, his feature directorial debut and a brutally efficient love letter to the kind of slasher…

Even if Jordan Firstman has never particularly been someone you’ve vibed with, Club Kid may completely rearrange your perception of him. Serving as writer, director and star of his feature filmmaking debut, Firstman initially seems determined to test that theory. His Peter Green is a New York club promoter whose existence is fuelled by late…

Following a Best Picture winner is no enviable task, but Siân Heder has never seemed particularly interested in taking the easy route. With Being Heumann, her first feature since CODA, the writer-director turns her attention to disability rights activist Judy Heumann and a landmark moment in American civil rights history, delivering a film that is…

There’s a necessary emotional armour that comes with spending your life staring at the worst things human beings can do. In The Girl in the River, Devon Sawa’s seasoned criminologist has learned to treat death, violence and unimaginable crime as simply part of the job. But when that carefully cultivated detachment is shattered by the…

John Steinbeck’s sprawling American classic is receiving a new interpretation, with Florence Pugh stepping into one of literature’s most formidable roles in Netflix’s upcoming limited series East of Eden. Premiering October 1st, the new adaptation turns its attention towards Cathy Ames (Pugh), the unforgettable antihero at the centre of Steinbeck’s multigenerational story of family, love,…

For all the Hadoukens, roundhouses and larger-than-life personalities synonymous with Street Fighter, Noah Centineo sees something surprisingly vulnerable underneath Ken Masters’ famous bleached-blonde exterior. Set in 1993, Street Fighter reunites the estranged Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Centineo) when the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. What initially promises…

Few films arrive quietly when they star Armie Hammer. Citizen Vigilante, the latest provocation from writer-director Uwe Boll, certainly hasn’t. The controversial thriller stars Hammer as Sanders, a self-appointed vigilante who hunts violent criminals and dispenses his own uncompromising version of justice. As his actions turn him into a hero to some and a dangerous…

The act of speaking out is so often framed as an inherently empowering one. But what happens when telling your story comes with the threat of financial ruin, public vilification, exile, or years spent defending the very fact that you chose to speak at all? That question sits at the unsettling heart of Silenced, the…

Apple TV’s Dark Matter has always used its high-concept science fiction to ask deeply human questions. Its multiverse may offer infinite realities and innumerable versions of the lives we could have lived, but beneath the physics, the Box and the alternate worlds is something far more intimate: if you could see every path you didn’t…

Bruno Mars is officially heading back Down Under, and he’s bringing some very good company with him. The 16-time Grammy Award winner has expanded his mammoth The Romantic Tour, confirming a run of Australian and New Zealand stadium dates for February and March 2027. And, as if Mars returning to our shores wasn’t enough of…

There’s a fascinating film buried somewhere within The Dog Stars. It’s quieter than its marketing suggests, more interested in grief, loneliness and the necessity of human connection than the violent survivalism its trailers have largely sold. And whenever Ridley Scott allows his latest to simply exist in that contemplative space, there are flashes of something…

For Olympic gold medalist Jessie Diggins, the “pain cave” has long represented the place an elite athlete willingly enters when the body is screaming to stop, but the mind insists it can keep going. In Threshold, that celebrated capacity to endure takes on a far more complicated meaning. Unfolding across a single high-stakes cross-country ski…

History may be written in retrospect, but Annemarie Jacir has little interest in treating it as something safely contained in the past. With Palestine 36, the acclaimed Palestinian writer-director behind Wajib and When I Saw You turns her attention to the Arab Revolt of the 1930s, crafting an intimate yet expansive portrait of ordinary people…

After more than a decade away from feature filmmaking, Gregg Araki returns with I Want Your Sex, and the wonderfully provocative filmmaker has lost none of his appetite for pushing buttons. Brash, colourful, sexually charged and gleefully inappropriate, this is Araki operating in a considerably more playful register than something like Mysterious Skin, but still…

More than a quarter of a century after Memento announced Christopher Nolan as one of cinema’s most audacious storytellers, the fractured psychological thriller is being pulled apart and put back together once again – only this time, rhythm is rewriting the equation. For the latest presentation from Hear My Eyes, Michael “CAVS” Cavanagh, drummer for…

For Connor Finch, the key to understanding Jack in Bookish has always been deceptively simple: he’s a working-class kid who learned to survive because nobody gave him much of an alternative. Created by and starring Mark Gatiss, the richly atmospheric detective drama returns to post-war London, where eccentric bookseller Gabriel Book once again puts his…

Thanks to Maslow Entertainment, we have 5 double in-season digital passes (Admit 2) to see an intimate and cinematic portrait of one of Australia’s most enduring and enigmatic artists in Tina Arena: Unravel Me, in nationwide cinemas from August 27th, 2026. Marking 50 years in the spotlight, TINA ARENA: UNRAVEL ME  is an intimate and…

Before Anthony Bourdain became the unmistakable voice, world traveller and cultural figure audiences came to know, he was a restless 19-year-old trying to work out where he belonged. Matt Johnson’s Tony captures that formative summer in Provincetown, where an unexpected introduction to the chaotic world of restaurant kitchens would quietly set his life on an…

Jason Statham has built a remarkably durable career out of knowing exactly what audiences want from a Jason Statham movie. Put him in a confined space, surround him with disposable henchmen, give him a vaguely personal reason to be angry, and eventually someone is going to discover just how creatively an everyday object can be…

Michael Bisping knows a thing or two about taking a hit. But carrying an action film on his shoulders? That presented the former UFC champion with an entirely different kind of pressure. In Atlas King, Bisping steps into the title role as a former fighter drawn back into a world he thought he had escaped….

Every September, Toronto briefly becomes the centre of the cinematic universe, and in 2026 The AU Review will once again be on the ground for the Toronto International Film Festival, taking in as much as humanly possible across 11 days of premieres, discoveries, red carpets and those inevitable scheduling clashes that force you to choose…

Australian queer drama Invisible Boys is heading stateside, with the acclaimed Stan Original finding a new home on Hulu in the United States. The Disney-owned streaming service has acquired the Australian series through Banijay Rights, which handles its international distribution, giving the homegrown drama access to a significant new audience following its Australian debut on…

Being called a mooch isn’t usually the type of insult one spends a decade transforming into a feature film, but Jeff Ryan has never seemed particularly interested in taking the expected route. Following YouthMin: A Mockumentary and the horror-comedy Mean Spirited, Ryan once again writes, directs and stars in Mooch (read our full review here),…

Anthony Bourdain knew exactly what kind of young man he had been. Tony opens with his own less-than-flattering assessment: “I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” It’s both a warning and something of an invitation. Rather than attempting…