Welles’ butchered studio film remains a remarkable showcase of his storytelling prowess, one that is haunted by deep regrets and vicious jealousies, as an aristocratic family faces inevitable decline in a modernising world.
Cuaron’s first Hollywood project is shot like a fairy tale, adopting a child’s imaginative perspective, as she must try to find a way to adapt to worsening personal circumstances in a boarding school run by a mean-spirited headmistress.
Beers, drugs, hazing rituals, and unchecked rebelliousness mark the last day of high school circa May 1976, Texas, as Linklater expertly drops us in the middle of the chaos, with a killer rock soundtrack to boot.
Borden’s radical ‘sci-fi documentary’, put together in a gritty, agitprop style, imagines an alternate universe USA, where black lesbian ‘terrorists’ fight for justice for women and the oppressed.
Boyle returns with a banger in this solid third film of the cult zombie franchise, as he finds another peak, sonically and experientially, with this tense, gory and energetic work that is also surprisingly moving as a meditation on mortality.
A crafty businessman with a death wish concocts a shady scheme in Anderson’s new work that seems to have diminishing returns, though backed by strong performances from Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton and Michael Cera.
This terrific Iraq War picture is as anti-war as it gets, adopting a pure, minimalist aesthetic but operating with a maximalist Oscar-worthy sound design, as several soldiers holed up in enemy territory await support and rescue.
Bigelow’s muscular film overcomes a very info-dense first half with an extremely riveting and tense second half, chronicling the decades-long hunt for Osama bin Laden.
A tense, suspense-driven war thriller centering on a bomb squad that thrives on unpredictability, even though its shaky-cam excesses and lack of a traditional narrative may wear thin at more than two hours.
Cruise remains committed as ever as Hollywood’s death-defying action star par excellence, but this is such a slog and bogged down by the need to justify the knotty, plotty ideas of the earlier movie.
Eternality Tan 