Lang’s blueprint for the psychological procedural thriller remains significant in cinema history, as was his influential use of sound, rendering his ghastly subject—a serial killer of children—in poetic, paralegal light.
Powerful, insightful, frightening and surprisingly amusing, this documentary gives us unprecedented access into the inner workings of the Taliban as they returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Angelina Jolie plays Maria Callas admirably in Larrain’s elegantly shot biopic about the troubled final days of the famous opera singer, though it somewhat suffers from a contrived script.
While sometimes too overreliant on its non-linear storytelling, this serviceable rehabilitation drama boasts stunning scenes of the Orkney Islands, as Saoirse Ronan captures all of the fury and sensitivity of her character trying to liberate herself from alcoholism.
The third entry in Seidl’s trilogy may be the least provocative but it is surprisingly one of his more embracing films as a teenage girl becomes infatuated with a much older doctor at her dieting camp.
Akin’s exuberant documentary is a work of real cultural value, capturing the vibrant if ‘unclassifiable’ Turkish underground and street music scene with an inquisitive spirit.
Moving in unexpected ways, this meta-filmic documentary about a director who conducted a series of film classes for a group of German girls in 1968, brings everyone back for a reunion as they revisit those wonderful days when filmmaking seemed to have limitless pedagogical possibilities.
While at times vacuous, this Cronenberg picture is still intellectually stimulating, and most certainly one for the arthouse crowd.
Hausner’s bleak feature debut can be difficult to watch, adopting lo-fi aesthetics and conspicuously fast zoom-ins, as an outcast teenage girl tries to cope with the problems of family and school by seducing an older man and a younger boy.
This could be Seidl’s most provocative work about the moral slippage of religious fanatics, as the faith of an extremely devoted Catholic Austrian woman is tested by the unexpected return of her handicapped Muslim husband.
Eternality Tan 