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…
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…
Seduction is rarely just about sex in Corpus. It’s about power, desire, vulnerability, and that dangerous willingness to ignore the warning signs when what’s waiting on the other side is attractive enough. Set against the sultry haze of upstate New York in 1998, Corrin Evans’ feature directorial debut lures Sayo (Jeff Wahlberg), his increasingly famous…
A certain amount of beautiful stupidity comes with believing your teenage band could actually become something. That blind conviction – the kind that tells you stealing a car and driving across America might somehow be a perfectly reasonable response to an invitation to open for Green Day – sits at the heart of Nimrods, writer-director…
There’s a certain honesty in opening your movie with the declaration that it is “based on a pathetic true story.” It’s an immediate indication of the wavelength Jeff Ryan is operating on with Mooch, a scrappy comedy noir that understands there are few things funnier – or, occasionally, sadder – than watching a grown man…
Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia, we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see the latest chapter in the Insidious series, Insidious: Out of the Further, only in Australian cinemas from August 20th, 2026. Having earned over $740 million at the global box office, the Insidious franchise returns with a new family and a…
Australian medical drama The F Ward is officially going global, with the locally produced series securing licensing deals across 100 key international territories and becoming the fastest-selling Australian drama ever pre-launch. Commissioned by Stan and co-produced by Roadshow Rough Diamond and CBS Studios, the six-part series launched in Australia last month, introducing audiences to the…
There’s an infectious sincerity running through Nimrods that makes it difficult not to root for. On paper, it’s another coming-of-age road trip about three underdogs chasing an impossible dream. In execution, however, it plays like a love letter to the scrappy youth comedies of decades past, complete with muted colours, fuzzy VHS inserts, a wall-to-wall…
Few modern musicals have travelled quite as successfully as Hadestown. From its beginnings as Anaïs Mitchell’s independent theatre project to Tony-winning Broadway phenomenon and international hit, its journey is now taking another turn, with the celebrated musical heading to the big screen. Trafalgar Releasing has confirmed that Hadestown: The Musical, filmed live on stage at…
David Robert Mitchell has never seemed particularly interested in giving audiences exactly the movie they think they’re getting. It Follows turned a seemingly simple supernatural curse into an unnerving meditation on intimacy and mortality, while Under the Silver Lake gleefully disappeared down its own paranoid rabbit holes. So perhaps it makes perfect sense that Mitchell’s…
There’s something almost quaint about One Night Only being sold on the promise of sex. Will Gluck’s latest romantic comedy takes place in an alternate United States where premarital sex has been outlawed under a government decree known as “The Mandate.” For 364 days of the year, unmarried citizens are expected to keep their hands…
There’s something almost rebellious about a comedy as proudly, aggressively stupid as Stop! That! Train! In an era where even the lightest studio entertainment can feel burdened by franchise mythology or the need to justify its own existence, Adam Shankman’s disaster-movie spoof has a refreshingly uncomplicated ambition: make people laugh. Preferably with a dirty joke,…
From The Wedding Planner and Bringing Down the House to the gloriously larger-than-life musicality of Hairspray, Adam Shankman has spent decades making studio comedies designed, above all else, to entertain. But for his latest film, Stop! That! Train!, the director traded the machinery of a major Hollywood production for a 19-day independent shoot, a train…
If there was ever a role designed to weaponise Brooke Lynn Hytes’ statuesque presence, impeccable posture and bone-dry delivery, it’s Amber, the gloriously condescending first-class attendant she plays in Stop! That! Train! Directed by Hairspray filmmaker Adam Shankman and produced by the team behind RuPaul’s Drag Race, the unabashedly camp disaster-movie spoof takes its cues…
For Liv Hewson, a good detective story isn’t really about the crime. It’s about the people trying to make sense of what has been left behind. That philosophy sits at the heart of Treasure & Dirt, a distinctly Australian murder mystery set in the scorched, dust-choked opal mining town of Nullah, where the brutal beheading…
Fifteen years after its release, Conan the Barbarian remains one of modern fantasy cinema’s most understood films. Dismissed upon arrival by critics and audiences alike, it was quickly branded an unnecessary remake, a hollow echo of John Milius’s 1982 classic, and a failed vehicle for a rising star. Yet time has been kinder to Conan…
There’s something inherently unsettling about the suburbs in the films of David Robert Mitchell. Familiar streets, quiet houses and seemingly ordinary neighbourhoods have a way of suggesting that something strange might be lurking just beyond the frame. With The End of Oak Street, the filmmaker behind It Follows and Under the Silver Lake takes that…
Thanks to Warner Bros. Pictures, we have 5 double digital in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor in The End of Oak Street, from director David Robert Mitchell (It Follows), in Australian theatres from August 13th, 2026. After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood…
For countless families around the world, CoComelon is already an instantly recognisable part of childhood. Now, director Kat Good is taking JJ and his friends somewhere they’ve never been before: the big screen. Marking Good’s feature directorial debut, CoComelon: The Movie expands the preschool phenomenon into a colourful musical adventure that follows JJ (Connor Esterson)…
Pregnancy has long been fertile ground for horror cinema, but Son of Sara transforms familiar fears into something far more intimate. As Sara, a woman whose increasingly disturbing cravings coincide with the return of her estranged boyfriend and the terrifying possibility that something sinister is growing inside her, Chloe Van Landschoot delivers a performance that…
Son of Sara opens with a compelling premise. Sara (Chloe Van Landschoot) is heavily pregnant after a one-night stand and living with her supportive partner, Carol (Tymika Tafari), but increasingly disturbing symptoms – an insatiable appetite for raw meat, violent bouts of sickness and terrifying visions – suggest something far more sinister than a difficult…
Eli Roth has never been a filmmaker I’ve felt compelled to defend. He’s a provocateur whose work often lives or dies by how much you’re willing to embrace outrageous violence, juvenile humour and unapologetic excess. At his best, films like Cabin Fever, Hostel and Thanksgiving understood the particular corner of horror they occupied, balancing their…
BINGE has unveiled a first look at its upcoming original series Apocalypse, while also confirming longtime Australian television presenter Jonathan LaPaglia as the show’s narrator. Best known for hosting Australian Survivor and Top Gear Australia, LaPaglia will guide viewers through the eight-part reality series, which poses a simple but daunting question: Could you survive the…
