Top 20 Films of 2025

When it all comes together and you make a good movie, it's good forever; Patty Leigh

She's not wrong, movie producer Patty Leigh, as played by Katherine O'Hara in Apple TV's scabrously funny Hollywood satire The Studio. Even in this era of death-flogged franchises, film-creation by committee, and generic streaming service slop, good movies still get made. A lot of them - in Tinseltown itself, and far beyond it. For anyone who claims, "They don't make them like that anymore," when The Great Escape has its annual Christmas airing on terrestrial TV, my answer is, "No, but they make them like this, and this, and - look - this!" There are more quality filmmakers out there making more quality films than ever before - pushing boundaries, taking risks, developing the medium with amazing work. You just have to be alert to it. 

True, all the cinema sins catalogued in The Studio were exhibited in a theatre near you during the past twelve months, but so was the good stuff, or some of it. The rest you might have to track down on one of innumerable streaming platforms. Still - while cinemas themselves may continue staggering through one battle after another, films are being crafted with love world over, wherever we get to view them. Their creators are drawing on 125 years of accumulated artistry to tell stories that relate to today and that can speak to or just plain entertain us, if only we give them the time.

So here are my favourite films of the year, crammed messily into a top twenty ranking that even I can't take too seriously - except to say the one in the top spot really is my number one. All list entries were released in the UK during 2025, which explains why certain 2024 productions have made the list while films such as Hamnet and Nouvelle Vague aren't even up for consideration. (Not least because I haven't seen them.)

Enough preamble. Let's get listing.

20. The Lost Bus

How this film almost sneaked under my radar I'm not sure. Recounting the true story of a bus driver's attempts to rescue a class of elementary school kids from the wildfire that ravaged Paradise, California in November 2018, The Lost Bus is reminiscent of the peril and everyday heroism of 2010's runaway train drama Unstoppable. While character elements are fictionalised, the depiction of the relentless blaze is authentic - terrifyingly so. Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera are both good as the driver and teacher thrown together by dire circumstance, but key to the movie's success is director Paul Greengrass, who brings nerve-shredding verisimilitude to every shot of the fire on its rampage. Not a horror film, but a very real kind of scary.

19. Nosferatu

Nosferatu IS a horror film, and who better to remake F. W. Murnau's silent era Dracula classic than Robert Eggers, whose films explore the most grotesque aspects of history and folklore. Eggers' grand period settings are steeped in shadow and saturated with dread, and he draws satisfyingly ripe performances from a cast including Willem Dafoe, Nicholas Hoult, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It's Bill Skarsgard and Lily-Rose Depp who you'll remember though, the former imbuing Count Orlok (Dracula in all but name) with charismatic menace, while the latter delivers a shattering physical performance as the object of his obsession. Top marks to the make-up department also, for its properly freakish vampire design.

18. The Girl with the Needle

There's a definite Robert Eggers feel to this Gothic drama from Denmark, not least in its grimly gorgeous black and white visuals. The Girl with the Needle explores a deeply disturbing incident from Danish history, the most hair-raising details of which a quick Google search will confirm. Set in post-WW1 Copenhagen, the story centres on Karoline, a factory worker with a ruthlessly pragmatic approach to survival, who ultimately accepts an offer of help from shopkeeper Dagmar. Her new friend's altruism, however, belies a shockingly dark secret. More than simply share a macabre anecdote from history with its audience, this film portrays an environment of grinding poverty and despair that pushes desperate people to measures that match. It's fascinating, immersive, and as bleak in every shot as it's beautiful.

17. Superman

From black and white despair to primary coloured hope. Superman is the first film in the new DCU and carries considerable DNA from Richard Donner's 1978 classic version of the story. While not as bumbling as Christopher Reeve in the Clark Kent part of the role, David Corenswet has much of the same boy-scout charm, and the movie as a whole replaces the forbidding air of the Henry Cavill/Man of Steel era with comic-book exuberance and heart. With Superman and other such 'metahumans' already established on Earth, director and DCU overseer James Gunn plunges us unapologetically into this world of gods and monsters, letting a scrappy, ill-behaved dog named Krypto steal half the scenes. Happily the other half are shared out between a talented cast, not least of which is Nicholas Hoult as an almost relatable Lex Luthor. DC studios are embracing a Gunn kind of fun, and the results - so far - are irresistible. 

16. A House of Dynamite

Ever seen Sidney Lumet's Fail Safe? Released in 1964, the same year as Dr Strangelove and dealing with the same apocalyptic possibilities, it struck the fear of God and nuclear weaponry into anyone who saw it. While 2023's Oppenheimer reminded us of the militaristic plight into which the human race has got itself, it's been a while since the terror of an imminent nuclear strike has been portrayed on screen. A House of Dynamite summons up the same sweaty, hand-wringing tension as Fail Safe, as it depicts the same twenty minutes between the launch of an unattributed missile and its feared impact on a US city from multiple viewpoints. The story of this seismic event is told through a host of characters, political or military, trying to sublimate all personal emotion and operate professionally under insane pressure. It's an intense, deeply unsettling watch, directed with characteristic control by Katheryn Bigelow. And its ending, while divisive, might just be perfect. 

15. F1

From the writers and director who brought you Top Gun: Maverick, here are high-speed thrills at ground-level. F1 revamps old-school storytelling with state-of-the-art filming techniques to bring the most exhilarating blockbuster of last summer. Brad Pitt supplies star power this time as the veteran rule-breaker lured back into the racing game, becoming rival-cum-mentor to Damson Idris's cocky young pretender. Heads will butt, egos will bruise, setbacks will abound - but determination and team spirit will win through. It's corniness on wheels but so sleek and stylish and adrenalised with its practical stunt-driving and pov camerawork that you'll sit back and enjoy the 230mph ride. Meanwhile, Javier Bardem wears the sharpest suits ever tailored, while Kerry Condon reins in the boys' egos and gets it on with Brad. Nice going for a girl from Tipperary!

14. Bring Her Back

In 2022, one-time YouTube pranksters Danny and Michael Philippou revamped the possession horror with their memorably gnarly film Talk to Me. Three years on, and they've continued the subversion of occult tropes with the even darker Bring Her Back. Kicking off with the arrival of orphaned siblings at the home of new foster mother Laura (Sally Hawkins), it veers steadily into ever more troubling territory as Laura's true intentions and the identity of her other foster - the mutely creepy Oliver - become clear. The film's young newcomers are all excellent, and Hawkins is a multi-faceted revelation. (She wasn't this scary when she took in Paddington!) As for the Aussie director-brothers, they learned a thing or two when they worked on The Babadook over a decade ago, and it shows. Prepare to be disturbed.

13. Bugonia

Likewise disturbing, albeit quite a bit funnier, is Bugonia, the latest mind-melter from Yorgos 'Poor Things' Lanthimos. Collaborating with Emma Stone for the fourth time, he adapts the existing story of a steely CEO (Stone) kidnapped by two conspiracy theorists (or one conspiracy theorist and his hapless disciple) who believe her to be an alien intent on wiping out the human race. What ensues is an intense psychological battle and clash of world-views - hilarious at points and butt-clenchingly uncomfortable at others. The setting is real-world as opposed to Poor Things' theatricality, but the camerawork and soundtrack never let you forget that something really bloody weird is going on. As for the ending, it's another divisive one - but if you love it, you'll really love it.  

12. Frankenstein

If your preference is for a more classic form of science fiction, or horror for that matter, then look no further than Guillermo del Toro's passion project (another of them - this director always commits 100%) Frankenstein. The Mexican auteur embraces the spirit of Mary Shelley's iconic tale if allowing himself some licence with the plot, zeroing in on Victor Frankenstein's hubris and the tragedy of his creation's abandonment. Del Toro also lavishes the entire project with his signature design, achieving the most spectacularly Gothic version of the story since Boris Karloff strapped his platform boots on to play the Monster. Every shot - including the horrific ones - is a work of art, and the Creature design is weirdly beautiful. Or maybe it's just impossible to make Jacob Elordi look hideous. While maybe not my favourite GdT title, this is still a stunning and endlessly rewatchable piece of cinema.

11. I Swear

Some films are a different kind of special. Aside from the craft involved - or indeed because of it - they feel like they might just change lives. Such a film is I Swear - written and directed by Kirk Jones (of, surprisingly, Waking Ned and Nanny McPhee fame) and telling the real-life story of Tourette's sufferer/survivor/educator John Davidson. Wrestling with the condition's onset during the 1980s when few knew what Tourette's syndrome was, he ran a gauntlet of misunderstanding, ridicule, and physical abuse before meeting people empathetic enough to see past the tics and the swearing to the intelligent and funny individual beneath. Swiftly ascending star Robert Aramayo smashes the lead role, while Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan bring heart-warming support in a story that's hilarious and poignant by turns, but too tough to be sentimental. The result is one of the year's most life-affirming theatrical outings.

10. Black Bag

Don't be fooled by the presence of Pierce Brosnan in this film. Black Bag is espionage with all the shoot-outs and car chases stripped away. It's much more akin to the Cold War stories of John Le Carré. Directed by the prolific and genre-hopping Steven Soderburgh, however, it's sleek and sexy and streamlined, driven by wittily dangerous dialogue and coming in at a compact 90 minutes. At its centre are glamorous spy-couple Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, the former of whom is tasked with identifying the traitor within a small group of associates, one of whom is his beloved wife. What follows is a devilish and tightly plotted game of truth and lies, including one exquisite sequence of friends at dinner with a truth drug in the chana masala. Contender for classiest film of the year.

9. Thunderbolts*

2025 was a year in which the Marvel Cinematic Universe course-corrected. February saw the hotchpotch by committee that was Captain America: Brave New World, but subsequent months gave us two properly conceived, tightly constructed offerings that set things on a much stronger footing. While I enjoyed The Fantastic Four: First Steps' retro-futurist production design and breezy tone, Thunderbolts* (if you don't know what the asterisk in the title signifies by now, you probably don't care) was my favourite Marvel movie of the year. Its tale of antiheroic misfits bonding in time to save New York from an existential terror turned out to be all about issues of mental health and overcoming trauma. Yet it still managed to be genuinely funny and properly thrilling. Add to that, it opted for practical effects over CGI at every turn and told a satisfyingly cohesive story. A more grounded version of the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy, I'd like to hang out with this bunch again.

8. The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Here's a different kind of cinematic marvel  - apologies for the pun. The story behind this film serves to heighten respect for the storytelling on screen, making it all the more compelling. Secretly filmed on location in Iran, The Seed of the Sacred Fig caused an uproar in its native land when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, dealing as it does with the 'Women, Life, Freedom' protests of 2022. The crew were reportedly taken into custody and questioned for hours, while director Mohammad Rasoulof fled the country, taking refuge in Europe, to avoid incarceration. His offending film centres on the daughters of a newly appointed judge in Tehran's Revolutionary Court who find themselves at odds with their father over the growing protests. Incorporating social media footage of the protesters and their often brutal suppression, this film shouldn't just be watched because it's worthy - it's one of the most gripping and painfully authentic family dramas from last year. (Likewise my no. 6.)

7. One Battle After Another

Here it is - everyone's front-runner for Best Picture at Oscars '26 and the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of awesome films like Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. And while I don't love One Battle After Another as much as some (at least not after a first watch), it's still formidably good, worthy of its predicted Academy Awards. Its subject of left-wing American revolutionaries pitted against an authoritarian regime has come at a politically fraught time, sparking much culture-war controversy. Maybe it's best, however, to set all that aside and focus on the central plot of Leonardo DiCaprio's pot-frazzled ex-resistance fighter trying to rescue his daughter (a revelatory first-time film performance by Chase Infinity) from Sean Penn's vengeful military colonel. That and the dazzling VistaVision cinematography, Johnny Greenwood's consistently inventive score, and some bravura action sequences the like of which you've never seen before. As ever with PTA, it's for those who admire true cinematic ambition.

6. I'm Still Here

While I loved Mikey Madison's Best Actress win for Anora at last year's Oscars, there was a strong case for Fernanda Torres as the indomitable matriarch in biographical family drama I'm Still Here. Based on a 2015 memoir, the film charts the journey of Eunice Paiva from mother to activist when, in 1971 her husband was taken by Brazil's then military dictatorship never to be seen again. What begins as a terrifying story of life under an unforgiving and unpredictable regime transforms over two hours into a moving story of familial bonds and mutual support. Torres is at the heart of the movie's success, convincingly ageing decades while conveying love, grief, and strength of will with understatement and complete authenticity. It's a story of heartbreak and beauty that despite the grimness of its subject-matter is ultimately uplifting.

5. Train Dreams

With Netflix currently negotiating purchase of the Warner Bros studio, it's reassuring to know that despite the frequent blandness of their original film output, they can also get behind quality. A House of Dynamite and Frankenstein I've already mentioned, but Train Dreams is arguably the most visually ravishing film of 2025, with a moving story of love and loss to match. Joel Edgerton is a railroad worker and logger, toughing out life in the early 20th century Pacific Northwest of America. It's an unremarkable life in a time of remarkable change, but the camera captures the man's stoicism through hardship, sorrow, and joy with a frame by frame sense of screen poetry. It searches, in fact, for meaning within the limits of this man's existence, along with a tender narration by actor Will Patton. All that this movie lacked was a widespread theatrical release to properly showcase its rapturous beauty. If Netflix does win the battle for Warner Bros, let's hope they seriously rethink their strategy and allow the likes of Train Dreams proper cinema time.

4. A Complete Unknown

Okay - as a Bob Dylan fan, I'd probably have put this film in my list had it been half as good. But since Walk the Line director James Mangold did such a fine job of recreating the enigmatic troubadour's early career, it's vying for a top spot. Don't listen to anyone who tells you this is a by-the-numbers biopic, because - (1) it's an immersion in the New York music scene of the 1960s, (2) it limits itself to Dylan's early folksinging era and his controversial transition into rock, (3) it therefore centres on themes of artistic licence and perceived betrayal, rather than presenting a beat-by-beat life story. The same critics may well tell you that the film doesn't help you understand Bob any better, to which I say, "Ehhh - clue's in the title." All that aside, this is a music film for music lovers, with Timothée Chalamet inhabiting the lead role and his acting cohorts similarly nailing their turns as Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Johnny Cash. We can't travel back to that time and place, but for those of us who'd like to, A Complete Unknown is quite the consolation prize.

3. Weapons

Zach Cregger's 2022 film Barbarian was perhaps the most suspenseful and narratively inventive horror flick of the year. It was also the director's debut horror feature, and he's followed it up quite masterfully with Weapons. The basic premise is there on the poster - a class-ful of inexplicably vanished schoolchildren. Suspicion falls on the teacher, the town flips out with paranoia, so far so freaky. But then the film's structure becomes apparent - multiple overlapping chapters, each with a unique character viewpoint, so that we piece together the awful truth a little at a time until finally everything locks into place. And by that time, the movie has gone truly batshit insane. It's unsettling, nightmarish, and - at points - darkly hilarious. It also showcases great work from Josh Brolin, Ozark's Julia Garner, and a clutch of others, including one turn that vies with Sally Hawkins for Horror Performance of the Year. If you like genre cinema that subverts all the clichés, this one's for you.

2. The Ballad of Wallis Island

Here's an exquisitely wrought little gem of a film - as funny as it is melancholy, as heart-warming as it is cringe-inducing. Expanded by writers (and lead actors) Tim Key and Tom Basden from their 2007 short, it centres on a reclusive, accidental millionaire who makes the questionable decision to invite his favourite folk duo to his island home to play a private concert. This despite the fact that they have broken up professionally and romantically, and neither knows that the other will be there. Key is priceless as benign borderline-stalker Charles, an unstinting torrent of apologies and puns. Meanwhile, both Basden and Carey Mulligan impress as the one-time folk partners, feeling and sounding like the real deal, even as they cope with Charles' eccentricities and the awkwardness of the situation into which they've unwittingly landed. The Ballad of Wallis Island is a deliciously happy-sad treat of a film and almost my favourite of last year...

1. Sinners

How to describe Sinners? It's a captivating drama of entrepreneurial brothers in racist, Depression-era Mississippi. A musical odyssey through Delta blues, gospel, bluegrass, and Irish folk. An erotically charged double romance. A retelling of the Robert Johnson Devil-at-the-crossroads myth. And yes - a blood-soaked vampire horror film. There are scores of reasons to love writer/director Ryan Coogler's most recent film. Here's a few. The genre-blending originality of the screenplay. Autumn Durald Arkapaw's brooding cinematography. An evocative, rootsy score by Ludwig Goransson. Michael B. Jordan's expertly calibrated dual-performance as the Smokestack Brothers. The depth of the supporting cast, not least Delroy Lindo's ageing bluesman and Jack O'Connell's creepily charismatic chief villain. Newcomer Miles Caton's otherworldly vocals. The single most audacious movie sequence of the year. Style. Sexiness. Suspense. Hoodoo. Gore. Dancing. TUNES. Sinners is a thematically rich and constantly surprising tour de force that looks as good as it sounds as good as it feels. And that's why it has the top spot on my films of 2025.  

What's left to say? Simply the fact that there are multiple films making me second-guess the above list. How Warfare or A Real Pain, or Stephen King double-bill The Long Walk and The Life of Chuck didn't make it on all seems wrong. What about Wicked: For Good and Ballerina? Companion and Predator: Badlands? September 5 and Flow? Point is, the impossibility of creating a definitive list is a good sign. Modern cinema, for all the valid criticisms levelled at it, is still thriving and innovating and evolving. As with any entertainment form, there's be a lot that's throwaway and forgettable. And among it, there'll be gold. Maybe even a rush of the stuff.

Happy New Year, and Happy Watching. 🍻🎦

(Addendum - shortly after finalising this list, I saw Marty Supreme, which had a limited UK release on Boxing Day but only opened nationwide on New Year. It would have stormed the upper half of this list. Guess I'll just have to review it separately.)

Film Review - Twisters (12A)

 You don't face your fears. You ride 'em.

Was there ever a more '90s film than Twister? The 1996 summer spectacular ushered in a new generation of CGI-enhanced disaster movies, none of which quite matched its blend of fun characters, environmental mayhem, and patently daft, seat-of-the-pants action. Well, twenty-eight years have passed (sorry to break the news, y'all) and it's time to revisit the Twister universe - if not it's characters, most certainly its spirit. 

(The 1996 crew.)

There's no direct reference in Twisters to the characters played by Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt et al, just all manner of visual ones. This is without doubt the same storytelling universe. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate, a college-grad and one-time stormchaser, who ceased her pursuit of bad-weather systems after she tangled with the wrong tornado. Now she's lured back into that world by old pal Javi (Anthony Ramos) in the name of using science to tame twisters before they devastate further Deep South communities. Her methods are challenged by self-styled 'tornado wrangler' and YouTuber Tyler (Glen Powell) and his fellow mavericks, right as storm season descends on Oklahoma. It's going to get a wee bit windy.

The question that occurs with such a film release is Why now, after all this time? In answer, comes a groundswell of affection for the original from the movie geek regions of the internet. Twister mightn't have been a great film, but it's one that inspires a whole lot of fondness from a generation of cinema-goers. Its pluralised spiritual sequel makes the smart move of not breaking what didn't need fixing. Twisters takes the awesome spectacle and warm character dynamics of 1996 and adds just enough of its own meteorological spin to make the whole enterprise worthwhile. In some aspects it's arguably better.

The unlikely-seeming director is Lee Isaac Chung, best known for 2020 migrant story Minari. He takes the beautiful visuals and intimate character details of that Oscar-nominated indy film and applies them here, providing significantly more beauty and heart than you might reasonably expect this popcorn sequel to have. There's also a near-seamless combining of computerised and practical effects, including scenes of post-tornado devastation that might come straight from the news. (One subplot alludes to the economics of what might be termed the disaster industry, even if it doesn't attack that subject with real teeth.) And the Oklahoma setting is underscored throughout by a rocking-good country soundtrack. This film really knows where it's taking place.

Powering the story along with wind machines and great production is an extended cast who really sell the thrills and the jeopardy. Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People, Where the Crawdads Sing) earths the story emotionally as the trauma-wrangling, heroic Kate, while Glen Powell lassos multiple scenes as Stetson-topped glory-hunter Tyler, a guy you'd probably hate if he wasn't so damn charming. They're backed up by a band of lively, ragtag support, including a trepidatious British reporter from a hilariously specific part of London who's along for the wild ride.

Ultimately, Twisters is the kind of unifying experience that the contemporary box-office needs. It's an outlandish story written with a smartness and played with a conviction that undercut its most ludicrous elements, making the audience care whether or not its characters make it to the end without being spun off into oblivion. As a throwback to 90s disaster flicks it succeeds, capturing the awe and the terror, while amping things up with some 2024 rising-star power. It's quality B-movie entertainment, so grip those big-screen arm rests and enjoy.

Memorable Moment: What's playing at the movie theatre? A ruddy great windstorm!

Ed's Verdict: 8/10. Not just a nostalgia-fest, although there's plenty of that. Twisters is what summer blockbusters are supposed to be - big fun, and not nearly as dumb as you might expect!

2023 Film Review: Till (12A)

 Now I want America to bear witness.

Gist: In August of 1955 a 14-year-old African American lad named Emmett Till left his home in Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi. It was the final time his mother Mamie Till-Mobley would see him alive. While in the Delta, young Emmett died at the hands of a lynch mob, having been accused by a white woman of inappropriate advances. Till is the story of Mamie's efforts to achieve justice in the aftermath of her son's vicious torture and murder, a struggle that would act as a major catalyst for the US Civil Rights movement.

Juice: This film is a compelling watch and a difficult one, as, realistically, it should be. It only alludes to the central act of violence, but lingers on the consequences - both the emotional devastation wrought by Emmett's death and the appalling image of the boy's body that his mother shared with the world's news outlets. It's a tough and unflinching drama that doesn't seek a way to soften the black American experience in that era. At its heart (and wrenching those of the audience) is a performance by Danielle Deadwyler that's nothing short of extraordinary. She portrays a mother's love and grief, for sure, but also a fierce, controlled rage and steely courage as the story progresses, the camera fixing on her and refusing to cut away in protracted moments of intensity. 

Nor is hers the only noteworthy talent on show. Nigerian-born director Chinonye Chukwu makes some striking decisions, not least to have the film shot in vivid colour, giving it the warmth of a Normal Rockwell painting at odds with the ordeal endured by the protagonist and her extended family. She also keeps the story's racist tormentors shoved to the periphery, focusing instead on both the grief and the endurance of its black characters, and aided all the while by the elegiac depth of Abel Korzenioski's score. The support performances are strong too, not least that of Jalyn Hall, who with limited screen time invests the precocious Emmett with a naive likability that only rubs salt into the story's emotional wounds.

Judgement: 9/10. Co-written by Keith Beauchamp, director of a 2005 documentary on Emmett's murder, Till is a terrifically made film underpinned by a sense of authority and carried home by Deadwyler's remarkable performance. That the Academy failed to nominate its lead for a Best Actress Oscar this week suggests that many of its members simply haven't seen the film, resulting in one egregious oversight. Till is one of those movies that once seen may prove too painful for a rewatch. But its ongoing relevance, its accomplished direction, and that frankly astonishing central turn deserve your time. They'll certainly have your attention.

2022 Catch-up: The Wonder (15)

 I live on manna. From Heaven.

Gist: In post-Famine rural Ireland a girl named Anna O'Donnell has seemingly gone four weeks without eating, yet without starving. Enter Florence Pugh as Elizabeth Wright, an English nurse come from the Crimean War and summoned to Ireland specifically so she can observe young Anna. Locals are calling the girl's condition a miracle, but Elizabeth, along with London reporter (Tom Burke) originally from the locality, are understandably skeptical. The truth behind the fasting girl's situation, however, may prove more haunting than either believers or dissenters could fathom.

Juice: Based on Emma Donoghue's 2016 novel, The Wonder is a film where characters clash on multiple fronts, the lines of division either explicit or merely implied. Faith versus science, Irish versus English, community patriarchs versus a female outsider - relations are complex and strained, with slim chance of common ground as the odd and secretive Anna's fate plays out. It's a finely tuned screenplay, with input from both director Sebastian Lelio and Succession writer Alice Birch, who supplied lines for Pugh in the equally bleak and windswept Lady Macbeth. 

For all the cross-currents of conflict, this is a dramatic slow-burn. Lelio is restrained in his direction, letting the story get its hooks in elsewhere. Like in the austere, perfectly lit cinematography of Ari Wegner (The Power of the Dog and - again - Lady Macbeth) and Matthew Herbert's creepily mesmerising score with its evocative, unsettling female vocals that insinuate their way right under your skin. Pugh is - no big shock - terrific, gradually exposing depths of empathy under a brittle exterior. Her chemistry with the amiably cynical Burke is a welcome counterpoint to the grimness elsewhere, and the support cast, including Ciaran Hinds and Toby Jones (he gets everywhere these days), provide additional weight. But it's relative newcomer Kila Lord Cassidy who gives the other standout performance as Anna, embodying the peculiar, otherworldly girl with enough humanity to get you fully invested in her increasingly precarious fate.

Judgement: 8/10. The Wonder deals, among other things, with the stories we tell ourselves to explain the inexplicable, the heartbreaking, or the just plain scary. That helps explain the film's strange third-wall-break framing, and just maybe the events of the final act, where all that simmering emotion pays off in ways you won't necessarily expect. While presenting a very different mystery from fellow period drama The Pale Blue Eye, it could work well as a companion piece, with both movies' chilliness - environmental and otherwise - ultimately countered by the intensity of complex human passions. At any rate, it's a lovingly crafted and affecting tale, with a further knockout turn from unstoppable Florence. Yet she's only one one of many reasons behind the film's stealthily creeping power. 

2022 Catch-Up: The Pale Blue Eye (15)

 The heart is a symbol or it is nothing.

Gist: The year is 1830, the place West Point military academy, New York, and world-weary detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) has been summoned to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a young cadet. A verdict of suicide is rendered problematic by the fact that the corpse has been mutilated in macabre fashion. Senior officers want the mystery solved swiftly, but are perturbed when Landor enlists the help of a young private, with a poetic turn of mind, named Edgar Allan Poe. And as the truth unfolds, it proves as dark and twisted as anything of which young Poe's literary imagination will ever conceive.

Juice: The Pale Blue Eye is a snowbound January treat from director Scott Cooper, one best watched by a fire warm enough to thaw its icy Gothic chill. West Point in winter is a beautifully bleak setting for this morbid tale of human frailty and evil, the uniform blue of the cadets standing out against the crisp white backdrop. It's down to stark and spectacular camerawork from the sure hand of Masanobu Takayanagi, complimented by Howard Shore's epic lamentation of a score. The performances are chilly too. Christian Bale is at his most gruff and contained as the damaged detective, while a coterie of great character actors - Timothy Spall, Simon McBurney, Toby Jones - populate the military command with frosty skepticism. Lucy Boynton, meanwhile, is all pale reserve as a focal point of several characters' romantic attention, and Gillian Anderson delivers an altogether more gregarious and enjoyably scenery-chewing performance as the doctor's wife. But it's Harry Melling who stands out as the theatrical and morbidly romantic young Poe, adding humanity to the proceedings along with greater warmth (albeit a mite creepy) than all the ale he downs with Bale. The lad has come a long way from the Dursley household in Harry Potter, and his portrayal of the burgeoning literary genius is a big step along his road to acting greatness.

If the film has a drawback, it's the slow and meandering mid-section, one that pushes the story beyond a two-hour running time and loses along the way some of the plot momentum so briskly established in the opening. Compensation comes in the form of sheer melodrama in the movie's final stages, which deliver more plot layers than the snow blanketing West Point. This includes a twist you'll either embrace completely or dismiss as too damn much. I chose the former.

Judgement: 7.5/10. Director Cooper is no stranger to bleak stories - his western Hostiles, again with Bales, portrayed a brutal landscape - but The Pale Blue Eye has a specifically desolate beauty to it, while spinning a tale worthy of Edgar Allan himself. The film is an especial treat for lovers of American Gothic, leaning hard as it does into influences that might have shaped the writer of The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart. It takes its bitterly cold time, for sure, but makes it worth the while. So - throw a few extra logs on the fire, settle down with a snifter of something warming, and enjoy.

Filmic Forays 2023 Preview - Twenty Most Anticipated Films

I set about writing this feature with some trepidation. The last time I listed my most anticipated films of the forthcoming year was January 2020, three months before all of the UK's cinemas closed. When they opened again during the summer I was too covid-phobic even to go see Tenet, one of titles that had enthused me the most pre-pandemic. (I finally saw it when it came out on blu ray the following year, and it was almost worth the wait.)

Anyway, barring further global catastrophe - and were in the Reaming Twenties, so let's not tempt fate too far - I intend to view and report back on all the titles listed below. Here's hoping that the greater part of them live up to my expectations, and that their combined success provides the film industry and all our favourite movie theatres with the cash transfusion they continue to need. In case you're wondering, the first few of my picks were all released in North America and elsewhere during 2022, hence their inclusion. Enough said. Let's leap right in. 

1. Till (6th January)

This promises to be uncomfortable New Year viewing, focused as it does on the fight for justice in the aftermath of the notoriously racist crime from 1950s Mississippi. Danielle Deadwyler plays the campaigning mother of murdered Emmett Till, with Chinonye Chukwu as co-writer and director. The film has garnered critical praise and high audience scores, but hasn't scored the kind of box office that makes a hit. Let's see if the imminent awards season can create some additional buzz around around this weighty drama. Either way, it's on my early-2023 radar.

Verdict: TBA

2. Tár (13th January)

Tár has got all the buzz for which an arthouse movie could wish, most of it due to a front and centre performance that many people are calling the best of Cate Blanchett's career. This from the actress who gave us Kathryn Hepburn and Galadriel, Blue Jasmine and Carol, to name-check a mere handful of her greatest hits. Here she's in the spotlight as Lydia Tár, celebrated composer and glass ceiling-shattering conductor of a major European orchestra, the sins of whose past are threatening to unravel all the success in her present. It's written and directed by Todd Field, who's yet to do anything less than really, really good, so count me in for this character-based ride.

Verdict: TBA

3. Babylon (20th January)

Sad to say, filmmaker Damien Chazelle has already crashed and burned with this one. Riding high on the twin box office successes of Whiplash and La La Land, and the critical plaudits won by First Man, he's gone for broke with Babylon, a period epic depicting the excess and debauchery of silent era Hollywood. At three hours plus, however, this has turned out to be a project very few people want to see, on the big screen at any rate. Seems I'm one of those few. Everything I've watched of Chazelle's I've more than enjoyed, and First Man (his emotional Apollo 11 space odyssey) was my favourite film of 2018. Babylon may ultimately go down as the director's great cinematic folly, but with Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and a host of others spiralling into hedonistic 1920s destruction, I'm up for every last minute of this courageous theatrical bomb.

Verdict: TBA

4. The Fabelmans (27th January)

In his mid-seventies, Steven Spielberg goes from the expansive genre storytelling of the past few years (Ready Player One, West Side Story) to the most intimate and personal film of his fifty-year-plus career. It's not actually called The Spielbergs, but with the mirror it purportedly holds up to his family background and formative years as an aspiring young filmmaker, it might as well be. The trailer hints at all kinds of cinematic magic, and since 2021's awards-baiting Sharks and Jets reboot showed this maestro at the top of his game, we can expect something of insight and beauty, and doubtless with a good sprinkling of sentimentality. The pairing of Michelle Williams and Paul Dano as those Spielberg-y parents is likewise no bad sign. Get ready, this side of the Atlantic, to be charmed.

Verdict: TBA

5. The Whale (3rd February)

I won't lie - I approach any Darren Aronofsky film with as much apprehension as anticipation. While it'll no doubt be made with technical finesse and carry a heavyweight dramatic punch, The Whale will very possibly leave a residual taste in my mouth that'll ensure I never watch it again. I'm always glad I ran the newest Aronofsky gauntlet, for sure, but those evenings simply don't exist where a re-viewing of Requiem for a Dream or Mother! seems like a good plan. The Whale is proving as divisive as everything else the director has done (you've got to admire that commitment to envelope-pushing content and execution), but Brendan Fraser is being hailed as a comeback hero in his role as a reclusive and dangerously obese academic, in process of facing up to the consequences of his life choices. It's also got Stranger Things star Sadie Sink and The Menu's Hong Chau for added dramatic clout. I genuinely am keen to see this one. If I end up wanting to repeat the experience, I'll let you know.  

Verdict: TBA


6. Women Talking (10th February)

Which women? Mara. Foy. Buckley. McDormand. Among others. And this isn't any old chit-chat. Women Talking is based on the novel of the same name by Miriam Toews, in which a devout female group in an isolated religious community confront deeply ugly truths about their existence there. Canadian Sarah Polley wrote the screenplay and, from the look of anything I've seen, has directed the hell out of it; her 2012 documentary Stories We Tell is excellent, which also bodes well. Embraced by critics, this has been so far ignored by US cinema-goers, arguably due to a Christmas release. (Festive subject-matter this is not.) There's also the matter of that uninspiring title for those not familiar with the book. Here's hoping it surmounts these obstacles on its UK debut, finding a more enthusiastic audience. I'll be there for sure.

Verdict: TBA

7. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (17th February)

Will 2023 be the year in which I resume my love affair with the Marvel Cinematic Universe? It's not that I actively disliked any of the content aired by the studio over the past twelve months, but there was an undeniable sense of market saturation and of quantity at the expense of both quality and overarching narrative coherence. Well, my Spidey sense tells me that the MCU is about to steady its course with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Director Peyton Reid has steered the Ant-Man franchise through two entertaining heist/caper movies and is now taking it into epic micro-territory with one of Marvel's more heavyweight and layered casts. To the weaponised likability of Paul Rudd and to-die-for pairing of Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas is added Jonathan Majors in a potentially magnificent villainous turn as Kang the Conqueror. How much fun can an audience have in the Quantum Realm? Hopefully macro amounts.

Verdict: TBA

8. 65 (10th March)

I really like the look of this film - there's something about the colour palette in the trailer that I find really appealing. From all appearances it's a stripped down survival story (cast-wise at any rate) with Adam Driver and a young girl/daughter surrogate(?) struggling to stay alive, somehow having travelled 65 million years into a prehistoric past. Okay, maybe I just want to see a quality dinosaur pic following the travesty that was last year's Jurassic World: Dominion. But Driver is always good value, and the writing-directing team of Bryan Woods and Scott Beck originally conceived and drafted the screenplay that became A Quiet Place. So that's got to be a good sign. Hasn't it?

9 and 10. Pearl (17th March) / MaXXXine (TBC)

Ti West's X was one of my favourite horror films from 2022, and gosh darn it if he isn't in the latter stages of turning his '70s-style slasher into an unconventional trilogy. Pearl was released forever ago in North America, but over here we have to wait till March to see Mia Goth play the girlish version of her decrepit antagonist X role. This time the Texas Chain Saw milieu has been replaced with something more akin to an MGM studio-era classic (a twisted Wizard of Oz springs to mind), and Goth's performance has been widely hailed as breathtaking. As for MaXXXine, that one - release date included - remains shrouded in secrecy. All we know is that Goth will reprise her other X character, wannabe adult-movie starlet Maxine, into the 1980s. I have little if any idea what to expect and, with the same gifted team in charge, that's just how I like it.

Verdict: TBA

11. John Wick: Chapter 4 (24th March)

Did ever the killing of a house pet result in so much carnage as within the John Wick franchise? It seems a long time since Keanu Reeves' killing machine came out of self-imposed assassin's retirement to wreak vengeance on the perpetrators of that senseless dog-murder. Four films in and expect to find our antihero mired in the kind of glossy, balletic, high-octane violence that has become his trademark. The John Wick universe and its gloriously over-the-top mythology has expanded with each episode, production values escalating together with the choreographed mayhem's complexity. On realising at the end of part three that the film's Parabellum subtitle meant 'Prepare for war', I beamed, happy in the assurance that there would be more. Now that I've seen the trailer, I'm smiling again. We're mere months from re-immersion in this crazy world, and I for one couldn't be more glad.

Verdict: TBA

12. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 (5th May)

In all honesty I'm not a huge fan of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. I sensed, for much of the running time, that James Gunn's efforts to rebottle the first film's lightning simply weren't working. It was bigger and brasher, sure, but the humour felt forced and at points unnecessarily mean-spirited. Since then, however, the characters have been enjoyably developed elsewhere in the MCU, and the recent Guardians Holiday Special recaptured much of that original magic. The recent Vol. 3 trailer supplied both the lols and the feels while suggesting additional dramatic weight. This is to be the final outing for the disparate band of heroes and their dysfunctional-family dynamic, so consider my hopes renewed and my anticipation stoked.

Verdict: TBA

13. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2nd June)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wasn't on my radar back in 2018. While I enjoy the live-action Spider-Movies as much as most people, comic-book animation isn't my bag at all. It's a measure of how much I was impressed by this film's narrative imagination and wealth of creativity that its sequel has made this list. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse promises to advance on its predecessor's spectacular visual craft, while spinning its multiversal myth-making into a significantly more complex web. With the cast list including a stupid amount of voice talent and the trailer exhibiting the same visual ingenuity and wit as first time around, I'll be surprised if this chapter doesn't out-smash the first on every conceivable level.

Verdict: TBA

14. Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (14th July)

Tom Cruise may be a divisive figure, but no one can deny his commitment to one film project after another and, frankly, his willingness to risk his own sky-highly-insured neck in service to quality mass entertainment. Top Gun: Maverick remains my unexpected favourite film of last year, and I've loved the previous two Christopher McQuarrie-directed Mission: Impossible episodes, so based on that alone the odds of a top blockbuster experience are strong. Add an impressive trailer, the addition of Hayley Atwell to an already crackling cast, and an on-set featurette involving the franchise's most inadvisable stunt to date, well - what reason not to salivate?

Verdict: TBA

15. Oppenheimer (21st July)

Christopher Nolan continues to alternate between fiercely conceptual science-fiction and 20th century historical drama. (Let's face it, the guy's unlikely ever to give us a romantic comedy.) Regular Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy is this time is front and centre as the so-called Father of the Atomic Bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and from what glimpses we've seen so far should be a mighty subatomic fusion of guilt and hubris in the role. He's not going to be left out to stew on his own, though, surrounded as he is by a support cast that includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, and Gary Oldman, along with Robert Downey Jr. in a turn that might redefine him post-Ironman. Of course the ultimate reason to get excited is the broad and start cinematic vision of the director paired with subject matter of such moment. Even in the trailer the sense of tragedy and awe is palpable. 

Verdict: TBA

16. Barbie (21st July)

No, I wouldn't have considered myself target audience for this one either. But then it turned out that Greta Gerwig - fresh from her Little Women success - is directing, having co-written the screenplay with partner Noah Baumbach of Marriage Story acclaim, and that Margot Robbie is starring as the iconic plastic heroine. There's also Ryan Gosling as Ken, which is fun. The nature of the film's concept remains an enigma, but a stand-out teaser trailer parodying Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (think evolution of the doll') suggests that this will be as riotous in its entertainment value as the colour scheme is pink. Life in plastic might just prove - in this case at least - to actually be fantastic. It should be a blast finding out. (Barbie is due to open the same day as Oppenheimer, so I'll watch the Oppenheimer blast first. I might find myself in need of some platinum blonde optimism afterwards.)

Verdict: TBA

17. Dune Part Two (3rd November)

Did you see Dune Part One? Have you read all of the book? If the answer to both those questions is 'Yes', then I scarcely need to explain why this is my most hotly anticipated film release of 2023. Denis Villeneuve (he doesn't do rom coms any more than Christopher Nolan) shouldered the challenge of adapting Frank Herbert's science fiction tome for the big screen with Sisyphean levels of commitment, and while he achieved an epic creative success, he's had to begin all over again, the story's halves not having been shot back to back. Unlike Sisyphus, however, he's got a whole lot of help with the task. That includes technicians capable of making gargantuan sandworms and insect-like ornithopters appear utterly real, the stirring musical contributions of Mr Hans Zimmer, and an already fine cast that's been bolstered by the likes of Florence Pugh (yup, her again), Christopher Walken, and Elvis himself, Austin Butler. How excited am I? Enough to read the book a second time - or at least listen to it on Audible. It's long, so November should come around just in time.

Verdict: TBA

18. Beau is Afraid (TBC)

Having proceeded in order of release date, I now come to a dicey trio of choices - insofar as their arrival in theatres isn't carved in granite. Of course, most of 2020's solid dates had to be rechiselled, so let's not get hung up on such petty details. Beau is Afraid - I know all of three things about this project. 1. It's written and directed by Ari Aster. 2. It's the life story of a (probably) fictional entrepreneur. 3. Its crazily talented cast is headed up by one Joaquin Phoenix. To take those each at a time... Aster, whether you loved or hated Hereditary and Midsommar, is one of the most exciting newer filmmakers around today. The fact that he's branching out from horror to embrace a story this enigmatic is fascinating in itself. And 'The Phoenix' doesn't sign up for any old crap. Frankly, if Ari and Joaquin made a Christmas Hallmark film together, I'd watch it gladly - this film all the more. Whatever it damn well turns out to be.

Verdict: TBA

19. The Killer (TBC)

The big 2023 hitters continue - hopefully - with David Fincher's The Killer. Sadly, this does suggest that there's no third season of criminal psychology drama Mindhunter on the horizon, but with a talent like Fincher, we're glad of what we get. And this film promises to hark back to cold steeliness of crime films like Panic Room and Zodiac in its subject matter, while drawing on the writing skills of Andrew Kevin Walker, with whom the director worked on the ever memorable Se7en. Adapted from a French graphic novel series about a ruthlessly efficient assassin having a psychological crisis, it'll be headed up by Michael Fassbinder and Tilda Swinton. That's one great combination of elements. Now just let it happen this year...

Verdict: TBA

20. Killers of the Flower Moon (TBC)

Let's round things off with a forthcoming opus from that other latter day great, Martin Scorsese. 2019's The Irishman was a mammoth achievement and an elegiac companion piece to movies like Goodfellas and Casino, and Killers of the Flower Moon feels like it'll carry similar dramatic heft. Based on a non-fiction book about murders of Osage tribespeople linked to big business interests, and the very birth of the FBI, it sounds like Scorsese is digging deeper into the forces of violence and corruption that have helped shape the modern US than ever before. The cast (DiCaprio, De Niro, Jesse Plemons) is as heavyweight as you'd expect, Dune writer Eric Roth is on screenplay duties, and Scorsese has only developed his visual mastery of storytelling on an epic scale. Now in his early eighties, he's still fighting the good fight on behalf of mature American cinema. It's a privilege to have him still working at this rate, so bring on another magnificent creation.

Verdict: TBA

Inevitably it's the most fiercely promoted films that grab attention, and the titles that make up my end-of-year favourites might look very different to this one. Terrific smaller films will show as if from nowhere, while some of the supposed heavy hitters will fail to land any punch. This is always the way. But so long as the public buy more film tickets and keep those cinema doors open, I'll be happy enough for now. Here's to some great theatrical movie experiences along the way. 

Happy New Year, and happy watching.