So Daddy, I’m Finally Through: Kovalenko Explores Familial Dysfunction in Rural Melodrama
The suppression of women by the heteropatriarchy is tale as ancient as civilization,...
Unhappy Together: Shipei Concocts Romantic Neo-noir
Director Wen Shipei strikes an oddly satisfying balance between broody Neo-noir and simmering romance with his debut Are You...
Games of Hate & Chance: Kiberlain Curates Characterization with Tragic Wartime Portrait
In the eye of a swiftly gathering storm in the summer of 1942,...
Delirium Tremens: Serebrennikov Maddens with Post-Soviet Magical Realism
Historically, Russian cinema (and literature) always tends to go for broke. Challenging narratives, endless characters, and opulent...
King Without a Crown: Ongaro Crafts a Rap Trap in Portrait of Creative Crisis
Fifteen years ago, Jay-Z defiantly declared “Thirty’s the new twenty” in...
Shellfish People: Rigo de Righi & Matteo Zoppis Craft Unique Narrative Steeped in Oral Tradition
For their directorial debut The Tale of King Crab, directors...
Same Old Song & Angst: Audiard Misfires with Millennial Love Tugs
Jacques Audiard turns to youth culture amour fou with his latest feature, Paris, 13th...
Ground Control: Exarchopoulos Takes Flight in Portrait of Repressed Anguish
For their directorial debut Zero Fucks Given, Julie Lecoustre and Emmanuel Marre opt for a...
Kneedful Things: Lapid Highlights Complex Conflicts in Indignant Screech
The entirety of Ahed’s Knee, the fourth film from Israel’s Nadav Lapid, is formatted to aggravate...
Strange Fruit: Meurisse Gets Gonzo with Slice of Cinema Bizarre
Director Jean-Christophe Meurisse follows up his 2016 comedy Apnee with something a bit more uncomfortable...
Sometimes She Loved Them Too: Trier Formulates Winning Composite of Love and Self Discovery
For his fifth film, The Worst Person in the World, Norway’s...
France de France: Dumont Soars with Offbeat Melodrama on Media & Misogyny
Few and far between are odd cinematic delights so deliberately off-center and...
Blaspheme, Queen: Verhoeven Turns to Nunsploitation in Erotic Melodrama
Occupying a dazzling intersection of exploitation and queer historical recuperation is the long-awaited Benedetta from Dutch...
Repetition Commission: Anderson Flatlines with Twee Aesthetic
Since cinema requires a semblance of participation by the audience, a passive relationship of sorts, the latest curio...
The Passion of Mia: Hansen-Love Makes Her Own Place at the Table
For her complex and absorbing seventh feature, Bergman Island, Mia Hansen-Løve returns to...
Car Crash Set: Ducournau Crafts a Cult Classic with Grotesque Odyssey of Dysfunction
In J.G. Ballard’s seminal 1973 cult novel Crash, infamously adapted in 1996...
Americana Trauma: Penn Returns with Hysterical Melodrama
After the formidable misfire of his last directorial effort The Last Face (2016), Sean Penn unfortunately doesn’t fare...
Among the surprise selections for the Cannes Competition line-up, Nabil Ayouch's Casablanca Beats (known in French as Haut et fort), and before that it...