André Øvredal has proven himself capable of delivering horror with atmosphere and restraint. Whether it was the creeping dread of The Autopsy of Jane Doe, the gothic ambition of The Last Voyage of the Demeter, or the gateway scares of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, his work usually contains at least a few…
For a franchise built on cinematic awe, Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu arrives with surprisingly small ambitions. Expanded from the enormously successful Disney+ series The Mandalorian, the film technically delivers everything fans have come to expect: dusty space-western imagery, blaster-heavy action, adorable Grogu reaction shots, and endless lore connective tissue. What it struggles to…
There’s always a risk when a successful streaming series makes the leap to a feature film that it will feel like an extended episode rather than a cinematic evolution. Fortunately, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War threads that needle with confidence, delivering a slick, character-driven thriller that works both as a continuation for fans and…
Romantic comedies live and die by chemistry, sincerity and the audience’s willingness to believe two people are destined to collide at exactly the right moment. Finding Emily, the charming new feature from director Alicia MacDonald, understands that formula completely. Rather than trying to reinvent the genre, the film leans into what has always made these…
Jing Ai Ng’s Forge slips into the art world through the side door. There are no velvet ropes, champagne-soaked auctions, or globe-trotting thieves in tuxedos here. Instead, the film plants itself in the sticky Miami heat, inside cramped motel rooms and a family-run dim sum restaurant where exhaustion hangs heavier than ambition. What emerges is…
Guy Ritchie’s In the Grey feels like the filmmaker maintaining the exact groove he knows best – fast-talking criminals, swaggering operatives, tangled negotiations, and men who communicate affection through insults, loyalty, and violence. After several years spent bouncing between blockbuster experimentation and franchise filmmaking, Ritchie once again returns to the kind of slick, dialogue-driven crime…
Birthright is the kind of film that feels painfully recognisable, even as it spirals into increasingly absurd and unsettling territory. Writer-director Zoe Pepper takes the all-too-relatable anxiety of moving back in with your parents as an adult and turns it into a viciously funny social satire about class, entitlement, and the widening emotional divide between…
There’s a grimy authenticity pulsing through Dirty Hands that elevates it beyond the standard one-night crime thriller. Written, directed by, and starring Kevin Interdonato, the film thrives not because of its escalating violence, but because of the emotional wreckage left in its wake. Beneath the bloodshed, bruises, and frantic survival instincts is a surprisingly affecting…
David Lowery’s Mother Mary wants to be an exorcism of pop stardom. Sometimes it feels like a fever dream stitched together from celebrity mythology, couture spectacle, psychological collapse, and gothic horror imagery. Other times, it feels like a film so entranced by its own symbolism that it forgets to give its characters enough humanity to…
Heavy metal has always carried a certain mythology around it, but few bands have embodied that larger-than-life aura quite like Iron Maiden. With their undead mascot Eddie, operatic stage shows, and literary-infused lyrics about war, history and mortality, the British legends have spent five decades building a legacy that stretches far beyond music. Iron Maiden:…
Mortal Kombat II understands exactly what fans wanted more of after the 2021 film: brutal fights, outrageous fatalities, fan-favourite characters, and a stronger sense of the video game’s gleefully excessive identity. While Simon McQuoid’s first film may have been the more technically controlled entry, the sequel is easily the more entertaining one, operating with the…
Access can be a dangerous crutch in documentary filmmaking – all the unseen footage and unheard audio in the world won’t save a story that doesn’t know what to do with it. Amy Berg’s It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, however, understands that access is only the starting point. What she builds from it is something…
After the breakout success of both Caveat and Oddity, expectations were understandably high for Irish filmmaker Damian McCarthy’s next move. With Hokum, he steps into a more expansive, studio-backed arena – bringing with him the same commitment to atmosphere and unease, but struggling to sustain it across a film that ultimately feels more familiar than…
Two decades after The Devil Wears Prada first carved its place in pop culture, its sequel arrives with both the weight of expectation and the benefit of distance – and against the odds, The Devil Wears Prada 2 proves not only worthy, but surprisingly vital. What could have easily felt like a nostalgic cash-in instead…
Few filmmakers working in Australia today understand the land the way Warwick Thornton does. With Wolfram, he once again turns the Central Australian desert into something more than a backdrop – it becomes a living, breathing force that shapes every character, every decision, and every moment of survival. Wolfram unfolds as a loose companion to…
There’s no point pretending Seven Snipers is aiming for prestige – it knows exactly what it is, and to its credit, it rarely misfires because of that. Director Sandra Sciberras leans into the film’s B-grade action-thriller DNA with confidence, delivering something tight, tense, and just self-aware enough to stay engaging without tipping into parody. The…
The Sheep Detectives is exactly that kind of oddball triumph of a film that feels like it shouldn’t work on paper – until it absolutely does: A murder mystery where the sleuths are a flock of sheep, the victim is their beloved shepherd, and the emotional through-line quietly sneaks up on you when you’re least…
Grief sits at the centre of Apex, but it’s not the kind that asks for quiet reflection. It’s restless, disorienting, and constantly pushing forward – much like the film itself. What begins as a solitary escape into the wilderness gradually tightens into something far more dangerous, until it snaps into a lean, nerve-rattling game of…
Beast doesn’t pretend to break new ground. It moves along a well-worn path – fall from grace, one last shot, the hope of redemption – but what sets it apart is how seriously it treats that journey. Directed by Tyler Atkins, working off Russell Crowe and David Frigerio‘s script, the film is less interested in…
In an era where musical biopics arrive with assembly-line regularity, it was only a matter of time before Michael Jackson – arguably the most mythologised pop figure of all – received the full prestige treatment. Backed by his estate and positioned as the definitive cinematic account, Michael has all the makings of something monumental. Instead,…
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy is not the film you might be expecting – and that’s precisely its strength. Rather than leaning into the sweeping, action-adventure bombast typically associated with the title, Lee Cronin pivots sharply into something far more intimate and unnerving: a slow-burn, investigative horror story rooted in grief, absence, and the uncanny terror…
There’s no easy way to watch Wasteman – and that’s exactly what makes it so compelling. From the moment it locks you inside its grey, suffocating world, director Cal McMau makes it clear this isn’t a prison drama interested in comfort, catharsis, or even conventional morality. Instead, it’s a clenched, nerve-fraying character study that trades…
There’s a quiet confidence to A Love Like This that sneaks up on you. What begins as a sun-drenched romantic escape gradually reveals itself to be something far more introspective – an intimate, emotionally levelled portrait of two people trying to hold onto something that perhaps was never built to last. Directed by John Asher,…
There’s a very specific kind of cinematic daydream that films like Under the Tuscan Sun perfected – sun-drenched escapism where heartbreak is healed by good wine, better views, and the promise of reinvention. You, Me & Tuscany clearly wants to bottle that same vintage. The problem is, somewhere along the way, it forgets that charm…
Towards the end of the new Australian musical The Deb there’s an uplifting song-and-dance sequence to a ditty titled “Pretty Strong”, and that’s an acceptable enough term to describe Rebel Wilson‘s directorial debut. The comedienne makes for a serviceable presence behind the camera as she injects an infectiousness and often-home-grown-specific humour into the proceedings of…
You know how when you go and see a scary movie, you’ll either be one of those people who covers their ears or their eyes when they can sense something bad is about to happen? Well, when it comes to Undertone, I really couldn’t advise which is the best move. Because although this film is…
There’s a moment early in The Drama where everything still feels deceptively perfect. The lighting is soft, the chemistry is effortless, and Zendaya and Robert Pattinson move through their relationship with the kind of easy, enviable rhythm that makes strangers roll their eyes and secretly take notes. It’s a rom-com fantasy – polished, aspirational, and…
There’s a moment early in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie where a glowing Luma drifts into frame, wide-eyed and urgent, setting off a galaxy-spanning rescue mission. It’s the kind of whimsical, high-concept storytelling the Mario universe thrives on – colorful, strange, and full of possibility. Unfortunately, that promise quickly gets swallowed by a film that…
There’s something quietly radical about a filmmaker as singular as Jim Jarmusch making a film that feels this small. Father Mother Sister Brother doesn’t announce itself with narrative urgency or emotional fireworks – instead, it invites you to lean in, to notice, to sit with the awkward silences and half-truths that define family. And in…
Adapting The Magic Faraway Tree for the screen was never going to be straightforward. Simon Farnaby, who helped bring the charm of Paddington 2 and Wonka to life, takes a decent swing at translating Enid Blyton’s whimsical, plot-light books into something resembling a cohesive family film. The result is a bright, well-meaning adventure that captures…
