Film & TV

Tonight, the 73rd Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) unveiled an outstanding program of over 275 screen works and announced the 10 Bright Horizons films screening in competition and vying for MIFF’s flagship prize. From the 7th to the 24th of August, cinephiles across Melbourne, regional Victoria, and throughout the country online can explore a diverse…

If you’ve seen the marketing for the latest Smurfs film – which is serving as a soft reboot of the series, disregarding the live-action features from 2011 and 2013, and the animated retooled “sequel” from 2017 – you would notice that they’ve been very much banking on the voice casting of Rihanna as Smurfette.  There’s…

A friend coming group together is a tried and true concept when it comes to situational comedy, and whilst writer/director Deena Kashper isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel with her ensemble laugher Nuked, she gives enough of her reflective humour and narrative hook a distinct personality that we’re happy to go along for the ride; which,…

It’s Jack and Gill’s 40th birthdays, so they invite their college friends to a rented mansion for a weekend away. Phones are confiscated for an “unplugged” dinner party, but to ease the tension, Jack and Gill reveal the five-course meal is fully cannabis-infused. That does the trick – until someone sneaks a peek at their…

Karma is a killer. Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see I Know What You Did Last Summer, the new horror legacy sequel from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, and starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Freddie Prinze, Jr., Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers, Sarah Pidgeon, Billy Campbell,…

Similar to fellow DC Comic mainstay Batman, the character of Superman has had his share of big screen iterations (one could argue too many at this point) over the years, with no less than four different actors across as many intended franchises; disregarding the Superman serial series of the late 1940s and early 1950s with…

Wicky, the crime-scene cleaner is back for a new series in The Cleaner, encountering even stranger people and even messier situations. Some jobs involve more than their fair share of blood, sweat and tears. Armed with chemicals, scrubbing brushes and cleaning rags, Wicky cleans up crime scenes. But being a sociable type, he also likes…

The story we know, but told not as we’ve seen it before. Coming only a few months after Disney’s controversial musical live-action adaptation, Snow White is given a dark, violent makeover in The Death of Snow White, director Jason Brooks‘s unique take on a classic, with a decidedly gory twist. In the film, Snow White,…

Meet the Cat in the Hat you don’t know! In the wonderfully whimsical tradition of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat comes to the big screen in his animated theatrical feature film debut – an all-new, epic adventure with an edge, where mischief, magic and mayhem reign supreme. Doing what he does best, the…

There’s a whole lot of familiarity going on with Heads of State.  It’s a tested premise – that of mismatched partners in an action landscape – but screenwriters Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Harrison Query don’t try to pretend it’s anything otherwise, and so with a capable genre director in Ilya Naishuller (Nobody) and both…

Bleeding follows Eric, a 17-year-old grieving the death of his brother. When his cousin, Sean, the hot-shot son of an alcoholic cop, gets pulled into the lucrative, deadly world of using and selling Blood, Eric will do whatever it takes to save him from the same fate that swallowed his brother whole. With a debt…

In a near-future society, The Running Man is the top-rated show on television – a deadly competition where contestants, known as Runners, must survive 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins, with every move broadcast to a bloodthirsty public and each day bringing a greater cash reward. Desperate to save his sick daughter, working-class…

The Rose Byrne-led dramedy, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, has been announced as the official Opening Night film of the 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), with tickets now on sale. The blistering second feature from US writer-director Mary Bronstein will make its Australian Premiere this August, hot off a rapturous reception at…

Despite the general consensus very much being that the last two Jurassic World features – 2018’s Fallen Kingdom and 2022’s Dominion – were vastly underwhelming in the manner in which they pushed the story forward, audiences pushing each film to over a billion dollars each at the box office meant that they ultimately didn’t seem…

Following our chats with both director Gareth Edwards and the trio of Luna Blaise, David Iacono and Audrina Miranda, The AU Review’s dino-sized coverage of Jurassic World Rebirth wraps up with Rupert Friend and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. Ahead of the film’s release in theatres this week, Peter Gray spoke with the actors – Friend stars as…

As The AU Review’s coverage of Jurassic World Rebirth continues, Peter Gray spoke with rising stars Luna Blaise, David Iacono and Audrina Miranda about their entrance into the iconic series; you can read our interview with director Gareth Edwards here. Starring as siblings Teresa and Isabella Delgado, Blaise and Miranda spoke of building their sisterly…

A new era has been born. Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures within that tropical biosphere hold the key to a…

AIDC and Screen Queensland, with the support of Sunshine Coast Council and in association with Sunshine Coast Screen Collective, are proud to reveal the full session program and speaker line-up for this year’s Regionality Sunshine Coast documentary and factual industry event, taking place at Mantra Mooloolaba Beach on Monday 28 July 2025. The very special one-day program…

Director Hariharasidhen Nagarajan and writer Anghus Houvouras couldn’t accept “the new normal” of shootings in the United States.  Such mass attacks as the Parkland High School shooting and the Pulse Nightclub incident were part of a grim reality that the two weren’t willing to become accustomed to. They thought of not only the victims whose…

Given that Stealing Pulp Fiction very much wears its Tarantino affection openly, you’d be forgiven for expecting director Danny Turkiewicz to have the same kind of flair as the very filmmaker he’s adoring.  No, Turkiewicz isn’t replicating that same QT magic, but it would be a heavy ask to expect so, and on its own…

TIFF is sharing the first five Special Presentation titles of its Official Selection set to have their World Premieres at the Festival’s 50th edition this September. Alejandro Amenábar’s The Captive, Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers, Sung-hyun Byun’s Good News, Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, and Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks serve as the first round of announced titles. …

M3GAN 2.0 is hyping up its central battle of A.I. killbots as “This Bitch versus That Bitch.” But which bitch is which? The anticipated sequel brings back the the murderous doll who captivated pop culture in 2023, and this time around M3GAN has to contend with AMELIA, a military-grade weapon and the ultimate killer infiltration…

Whilst the original M3GAN was sold as a horror film, its camp sensibilities ultimately shone through, turning its titular killer “doll” from a slayer to an outright slay.  It had tense set-pieces and a terrifying mentality, but it found its personality sat more comfortably in the space of a meditation on A.I. and technology through…

Based on the story of the Mitford sisters, Outrageous follows six sisters who refuse to play by the rules and whose often-scandalous lives made headlines around the world. Set in the 1930s, it is a tale of betrayal, scandal, heartache and even imprisonment. Following the show’s release on BritBox in North America and UKTV’s U and…

In 2022, when cinemas were still largely recovering from the pandemic and blockbuster viewing wasn’t guaranteed, director Joseph Kosinski (and Tom Cruise) revitalized such a brand with Top Gun: Maverick.  It was undeniably thrilling popcorn entertainment that, with its heart, humour, action and dramatic stakes, checked all the boxes for each major demographic, ultimately resulting…

There is no doubt that Agatha Christie is one of the most influential authors in the mystery genre. Her work is beloved all over the world, with adaptations of her stories spanning across decades on screen and on stage. There is also such an innate human curiosity in finding a sense of justice and resolve,…

Following their chat earlier in the year when the M3GAN 2.0 trailer was released, Peter Gray and director Gerard Johnstone are speaking once again as the sequel to the acclaimed science fiction horror film M3GAN constructs itself for release. As the killer doll faces a new threat – a military robot called AMELIA (autonomous military…

The murderous doll who captivated pop culture in 2023 is back. And this time she’s not alone. The original creative team behind that phenomenon – led by horror titans James Wan for Atomic Monster, Jason Blum for Blumhouse and writer-director Gerard Johnstone – reboot an all-new wild chapter in A.I. mayhem with M3GAN 2.0. Two…

In The Edge, the dramatic feature film from debut filmmaker Jane Larkin (a former Australian representative sprinter), three young women (Larkin, Japanese paralympic swimmer Mei Ichinose and First Nations powerlifter Lily Riley) navigate life, love, education, and controversy while deeply embedded in the world of elite sport. The film is an honest and gritty portrayal…

The Mitford sisters are amongst some of the most well known people in the United Kingdom, gaining notoriety in the 1930s. What caused this fame and widespread attention was not the affluent and aristocratic status of these women (although their status did lead them to be targets for scandalous headlines in the press), but the…