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…
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….
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),…
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…
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…
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…
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…
There’s something gloriously difficult to pin down about Phillip Philadelphia. At once a queer melodrama, an absurdist comedy, a portrait of creative decay and a love letter to the strange beauty lurking beneath the Gold Coast’s sun-soaked façade, Adam C. Briggs‘ latest feature refuses to settle into any one identity. Shot on luminous 16mm, it…
For Allan Clarke, documentary filmmaking isn’t simply about preserving history – it’s about challenging audiences to confront the stories they’ve long ignored. The award-winning Muruwari and Gomeroi filmmaker, journalist and writer has built a career giving voice to communities too often left out of Australia’s national conversation, from The Bowraville Murders and The Dark Emu…
When Violent Night arrived in 2022, it felt like the cinematic equivalent of finding a lump of coal that somehow turned out to be the perfect Christmas gift. Tommy Wirkola’s gleefully blood-soaked action-comedy paired David Harbour’s weary Santa Claus with outrageous festive carnage, but beneath the shattered ornaments and sharpened candy canes was an unexpectedly…
After proving that Santa Claus could dispatch mercenaries with the same ease he delivered presents, director Tommy Wirkola‘s Violent Night earned an unlikely place alongside the festive classics many audiences return to every December. Beneath the gloriously excessive violence and gleefully inventive action was a surprisingly sincere Christmas story, one that found David Harbour’s weary…
Twenty-five years after Super Troopers transformed a group of sketch comedians into unlikely cult icons, Broken Lizard still hasn’t grown up. Thankfully. If anything, Super Troopers 3 proves they’ve become even more comfortable embracing the wonderfully bizarre universe they’ve built. What began as a relatively grounded story about Vermont state troopers amusing themselves on lonely…
Few actors have built a career as fascinatingly varied as Rebecca De Mornay. For many, she’ll forever be synonymous with Risky Business or the unforgettable menace of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, but her filmography reveals an artist who’s consistently gravitated toward women of intelligence, mystery and quiet strength, whether in prestige dramas, thrillers…
Artificial intelligence is often framed as a technological revolution, but for producer Andy Huang, it’s the profoundly human stories emerging from that revolution that matter most. His latest documentary, Replica, follows women who have formed intimate relationships with AI companions, using their experiences to explore loneliness, connection and the rapidly shifting boundaries of what we…
For Peter Parker, saving the world came at the ultimate personal cost. After the heartbreaking ending of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Spider-Man: Brand New Day finds Marvel’s iconic hero navigating a life where everyone he loves has forgotten he exists. But rather than simply raising the stakes with another city-destroying threat, director Destin Daniel Cretton…
On its surface, Test is about bodybuilding: the relentless pursuit of physical perfection, the sacrifices demanded in chasing a professional career, and the dangerous temptations that can accompany that ambition. But beneath its sculpted physiques and competition stages lies something far more intimate. Director Sam McConnell and writer-star Brock Yurich use the sport as the…
Across four seasons, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has boldly proven that its greatest strength isn’t just the adventures awaiting the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise—it’s the people who share them. Whether navigating impossible missions, confronting terrifying new threats or simply finding strength in one another, the series has built a crew defined by empathy,…
For Pene Pati, opera has never just been about perfect notes or standing ovations. Despite becoming one of the world’s most celebrated tenors and earning comparisons to Luciano Pavarotti, the Samoan-born New Zealander remains driven by something far more personal: family, community and the hope that his journey might inspire someone else to believe their…
Opera has long been associated with grandeur, but Tenor: My Name Is Pati reminds us that every soaring performance begins somewhere far more intimate. Charting the remarkable journey of Samoan-born New Zealand brothers Pene and Amitai Pati – from singing in church as children in South Auckland to commanding some of Europe’s most prestigious opera…
As global politics becomes increasingly shaped by disinformation, media manipulation and the battle to control public narratives, Olivier Assayas‘ latest film, The Wizard of the Kremlin, arrives with unsettling relevance. Adapted from Giuliano da Empoli’s bestselling novel, the political drama charts the rise of Vladimir Putin through the eyes of the enigmatic strategist who helps…
Based on Josh Malerman’s acclaimed novel “Incidents Around the House,” Other Mommy is the latest collaboration between horror powerhouse James Wan and director Rob Savage follows young Bela, whose seemingly ordinary family life is disrupted by a sinister entity that looks exactly like her mother. Starring Jessica Chastain in a remarkable dual role, the film…
Andy Serkis has spent much of his career exploring what power does to those who wield it. From Gollum’s all-consuming obsession in The Lord of the Rings to Caesar’s reluctant leadership in Planet of the Apes, his work has repeatedly examined the fine line between idealism and tyranny. Now, the acclaimed filmmaker turns his attention…
Ten years after audiences first sailed beyond the reef with Moana, Lin-Manuel Miranda has returned to one of the defining works of his career – not because the songs needed rewriting, but because the story deserved to be experienced in an entirely new way. The Pulitzer Prize, Tony, Emmy and Grammy-winning songwriter, who penned the…
Few modern Disney films have resonated with audiences quite like Moana. Nearly a decade after the animated original became a global phenomenon, the beloved adventure returns to cinemas in an expansive live-action adaptation that honours its roots while charting a course of its own. Directed by Emmy and Tony Award winner Thomas Kail (Hamilton), Disney’s…
Across Booksmart, Don’t Worry Darling and now The Invite, Olivia Wilde has shown an unmistakable fascination with characters reaching a point of rupture. Her films may differ wildly in tone and genre, but they all orbit a similar question: what happens when people begin to challenge the life they have accepted as normal? With The…
For more than four decades, the Evil Dead franchise has revelled in pushing the boundaries of horror, blending relentless gore, pitch-black humour and unforgettable Deadite mayhem. But with Evil Dead Burn, director Sébastien Vaniček adds another layer to the carnage, grounding its blood-soaked terror in the raw emotions of a family already splintered by grief…
There are countless documentaries that ask audiences to feel outrage. Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals, the latest film from award-winning Australian documentarian Mary Zournazi, instead asks something far more radical: that we choose tenderness. Beginning among the stray cats of Athens before expanding across Greece, Australia and beyond, the film explores the fragile bond…
