While his name is often associated with some of the most terrifying moments in modern popular culture, Stephen King’s work as an author is not inherently tied to the horror genre. King has always shown an interest in the perception of time, and generally uses supernatural components to rationalize existentialist questions. This is perhaps what has drawn Mike Flanagan to adapt his writing on such a regular basis, as he is a filmmaker who has benefited from emotional maturity, even…

Although he had spent the better part of his career making scathing political and social satires like “Peep Show” and “In the Loop,” Jesse Armstrong became a household name to American entertainment pundits thanks to “Succession,” the epic HBO drama series that became hailed as an instant classic.

With its Shakespearean themes, shockingly relevant material, and powerful performances, “Succession” proved to be a natural heir apparent to classic shows like “Mad Men” or “The Sopranos.” It’s been unsurprising that many…

My belief about “Predator” as a franchise—and there is nothing original about this belief, just a result-oriented outlook at what is working—is that the ideal “Predator” movie starts as an entirely different genre film before the Predator interrupts the proceedings or operates in the fringes of the setting before it reveals itself and hijacks the setting, transmuting the genre. The Yautja (finally canonized to be the true name of the Predator species) codex, which opens this film, highlights how the…

Try as one might, you could hardly blame any Hollywood studio for holding onto the “John Wick” franchise for dear life; in an age of increasing financial uncertainty and endless failed attempts at burgeoning franchises, who could truly begrudge any studio executive for returning again and again to what seems like the one and only enduring Western action series born from scratch in the last decade? Having done the legwork to establish itself as a quality name brand, it was…

Ana Cristina Benítez’s "MAMA" (2025) searches deep into her recesses in the wake of her late-stage breast cancer diagnosis. Just back from a trip, the 36-year-old Ana is carted into the most unexpected life, rife with chemotherapies and drastic upheavals. Everything she’s known about life becomes vulnerable, testy, and fraught. She takes a camera and begins to record everything that’s happening to her.

This is honest, wrenching work from Benítez. When she says she wants to turn the camera on…

“Hesitation Wound” (Original title: Tereddüt Çizgisi, 2023) is less a legal thriller and more a quiet, simmering study of a moral crossroads. Directed by Turkish filmmaker Selman Nacar, “Hesitation Wound” follows Canan, a criminal lawyer (played by Tülin Özen), who is defending Musa (played by Oğulcan Arman Uslu)—a man accused of murdering his former boss.

While Canan is in the process of defending her client, she’s also dealing with a deeply personal crisis: her mother is in a coma, nearing…

Jasmina Wójcik’s “King Matt the First” is an enthralling peek into childhood’s many pleasures. The taste of them may linger on even if the spirit has mostly receded. The film is a tussle with eventual loss, arcing from innocence to beguilement. So much blurs away with only a faint echo of the past. One clutches onto it, the grasp slipping.

Circling her two young daughters, Lea and Zoja, Wójcik’s film puts a gentle, searching gaze on the shifting, sparkling expanse…

Many movies have dealt with the period of the French Revolution, since it was a pivotal era in history, full of compelling stories that can be told at any time. Those films usually focus on the harsh life of poverty and hunger endured by the French people under the rule of King Louis XVI, or on the lives of Enlightenment thinkers and revolutionary leaders.

But the French film “Ridicule” (1996) is considered one of the most important movies that tried…

It would be hard to believe that “A Desert” is Joshua Erkman’s feature-length debut. The kind of masterful buildup the first act of his film manages to conjure up is no short of brilliant. Taking inspiration from Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” and Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with an original visual language to accompany those subtle nods, Erkman’s slow-burn horror has a sense of mystery that keeps you engrossed. However, it also slides away so much from where…

India’s presence on the European film festival circuit has been relatively–and worryingly–muted, especially given the nation’s seismic, almost self-sustaining movie industry. It appeared as though this might finally begin to change in 2024 when Payal Kapadia’s masterfully tender “All We Imagine As Light” broke through the barrier of the Cannes competition after a 30-year drought and emerged as a major standout through the rest of the season (in addition to the from “Santosh” in the Un Certain Regard section).…

Needless to say, remaking one of the greatest films of all time by arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time for an American crowd is a recipe for probable cinematic sacrilege. Add to this the fact that the American doing the remaking happens to be a director who’s already famously desecrated one classic of Asian cinema, and the prospects for Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest” appear rather dim from the outset.

Fortunately, while his rehash of “Oldboy” was the work…

Sandra Beerends’ “Neshoma” is an invocation of a bygone era, lives endured and lost, by turns wondrous and affecting. A real panoply of emotions bubbles to the fore as we are invited into the life and times of a fictional woman called Rusha. Culled from a compendium of Jews’ memories, lived experiences, Rusha’s experiences are an encapsulation. As persevering and resilient as she is, there are also multiple surprises that she encounters.

They could have run her down, but she…