ScreenAnarchy: Reviews

New York 2026 Review: FATHERLAND, Unrealized Utopia

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 13:32:01 -0500

Pawel Pawlikowski's new film revolves around a hefty subject, conveyed with visual grace and succinct editing with beautiful, subtle performances by both Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller.

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Vlissingen 2026 Review: ISABEL Shows Mid-Life And Hangovers

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 06:00:01 -0500

Ten years ago, filmmaker Gabe Klinger released his debut feature with Porto (reviewed here by Shelagh), and in that film he put some serious question marks at the popular cinematic trope of people being destined for each other after having one fantastic night together. In his second narrative feature Isabel, Klinger does the same thing with another such trope: people following their dreams and reinventing themselves. Let's just say Klinger likes to "keep it real". In Isabel we follow the titular main character, a wine expert in her early fifties who works at a Michelin-starred restaurant as the sommelier. A dream job for a connoisseur, but she feels frustrated and constricted because the restaurant's chef does not share her love of Brazilian natural wines and...

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New York 2026 Review: HEIL JUPITER!, Experiment That May Surprise but Not Enthrall

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 22:45:10 -0500

Carlos Reygadas' new film.

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APPOFENIACS Review: Nostalgic 90s Neo-Noir Grit Meets Present-Day AI Terror

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:00:00 -0500

The use of AI technology reaches its most violent and bloody conclusion after a series of deepfake videos are unleashed into the world.

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BEWARE BOIÚNA Review: This Giant Snake Movie Needs Way More Giant Snake

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 09:00:06 -0500

It doesn’t take much for me to completely buy into your giant snake movie. Number one, show me the snake; number two, make the snake exciting; and number three, make the movie fun. Somehow, Mike P. Nelson’s Beware Boiúna comes up short on all three counts, delivering a turgid, overly serious eco-fable about a monster boa with very little action, and even less payoff. Alli (Jessica Rothe) is an American do-gooder on a humanitarian medical trip deep into the Amazon. She’s just a trainee, but thankfully she has a team of medical professionals and a seasoned boat hands as they wind their way deep into the mysterious – and dangerous – jungle. When their boat breaks down leading to a tense showdown with a motley...

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VERITY Review: Erotic Thriller Pays Lots of Attention to Teeth, but Forgoes Having Its Own

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:17:17 -0500

Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett star.

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DIGGER Review: Tom Cruise Acts His Ass Off In Iñárritu's Latest Big Budget Experiment

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 09:00:03 -0500

Too far is not far enough in Academy Award-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s bombastic satire, Digger. Iñárritu guides an enthusiastic cast of Hollywood’s A-list through what is sure to wind up as one of the year’s loudest films. Tom Cruise leading the shout-y pack as the obstreperous oil baron, Digger Rockwell, a man whose greed may have doomed the world, but also possibly the only man who can save it. The less said about the plot and structure of Digger, the better, even for those who will not like the film – and they will be legion – any joy that can be wrung from this boisterous, absurd experiment will be in the discovery. Suffice it to say that Digger Rockwell appears to be the most...

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New York 2026 Review: BUCKING FASTARD, Kate and Rooney Mara Dig a Tunnel of Love

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:32:05 -0500

Real life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara play sisters in Werner Herzog's modern fairytale.

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New York 2026 Review: MY WIFE CRIES, Love Abstractions

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 20:02:08 -0500

Agathe Bonitzer and Vladimir Vulevic star in Angela Schanelec's new film.

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New York 2026 Review: A LONG WINTER, Hauntingly Beautiful Drama of Longing for a Change

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:17:05 -0500

Director Andrew Haigh's new drama stars Fred Hechinger, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Caitríona Balfe.

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New York 2026 Review: POSSIBLE LOVE Examines Class Divide

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 20:30:08 -0500

It's surely one of the finest films of the year, and yet another masterpiece by Lee Chang-dong.

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Toronto 2026 Review: THE SMELL OF APPLES, Subtle, Unsettling Coming-of-Age Drama Under Apartheid

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 17:12:07 -0500

John Trengove adapts Mark Behr's novel into a restrained, disquieting coming-of-age drama that filters apartheid-era privilege, racial hierarchy and paternal idealization through a child's limited understanding.

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Netherlands 2026: DOWNTOWN Opens Festival, Wins Dutch Film Critics' Award

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 12:02:12 -0500

There's something special going on with Michiel van Erp's new film. That the cast and crew received a standing ovation at the opening of the Netherlands Film Festival (NFF) last Friday isn't all that unusual (festival opening, enthusiastic audience), but here something different seemed to be happening. First there's the film's subject: three men who, in the midst of one epidemic, corona, look back on another, entirely different but even deadlier epidemic of the 1980s, and on their lives and love within it. What's special about it, and it's easy to forget this after the largely positive reception, especially from the Amsterdam in-crowd and the media around it, lies particularly in the film's dramatic structure and execution, which is nearly flawless. Of course, the film...

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Toronto 2026 Review: TEHRAN, UNDER THE SKIN Reveals the Politics Beneath the Promise of Transformation

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 11:02:11 -0500

Afsaneh Salari's formally controlled documentary examines cosmetic surgery in Iran as an unstable expression of conformity, resistance, consumer desire, and bodily autonomy.

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New York 2026 Review: NAZA, AI-Assisted Genocide

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 17:02:05 -0500

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor directed the documentary. Once we delegate our moral obligation to AI, we've already lost whatever we are fighting for.

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New York 2026 Review: ROSE By Any Other Name

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 15:02:03 -0500

Sandra Hüller and Caro Braun star in Markus Schleinzer's period drama.

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New York 2026 Review: PAPER TIGER, No Crime, Yet Punishment

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 11:07:11 -0500

Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson star in director James Gray's crime thriller.

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Vlissingen 2026 Review: WHISPERS IN THE WOODS Stuns With Visual Poetry

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:00:04 -0500

During the opening titles of Vincent Munier's new documentary, you watch a forest, for minutes, with trees slowly emerging from the fog, while Hildur Guðnadóttir's Fólk Fær Andlit music plays. Seen on the big screen it's a jawdropper of a shot, and a meditative moment which is a feast for your senses. Many will follow. Vincent Munier is an award-winning nature photographer and filmmaker, and for this title he spent a winter in the French Vosges mountain forests. Not alone, mind you: he brought his father (also a renowned nature photographer) and his 13-year-old son with him. The end result is this film, Whispers in the Woods, which is about love of nature, of patience, of incredible dedication for getting the right shot. In a...

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Toronto 2026 Review: WOMAN UNKNOWN, Provocative Drama of Survival and Retribution

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:02:09 -0500

May el-Toukhy's film, by virtue of winning the Golden Lion, is an automatic entrant into the Best International Film Oscar race.

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YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER Review: Singularly Engaging, Singularly Provocative Religious-Themed Action-Thriller

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:42:06 -0500

The title of the Mahershala Ali-led, Bassam Tariq-directed Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, an action-thriller with more than just action or thrills on its mind, derives from a well-known “Hadith,” a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad in Islam. Depending on the translation, the question differs slightly (e.g., “Whom should you honor foremost?”, “Who deserves your companionship and finest treatment?”), but the answer, repeated three times, remains the same: “Your mother.” "Your father" comes in fourth and last. Ali’s character, Latif, a Muslim hitman (“he only kills the undeserving and the unrighteous”), finds himself at a literal, metaphorical crossroads when his wife dies suddenly, not through random or intentional violence as a genre enthusiast might expect, but through natural causes. Her loss...

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ANGEL'S EGG 4K Review: Mamoru Oshii's Gorgeous and Distinctive Vision Comes Home

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:02:02 -0500

Mamoru Oshii ('Ghost in the Shell') tells a mysterious story in a mesmerizing fashion, now on 4K from GKids.

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PRIMETIME Review: Form and Performances Shine Through Fairly Standard True Story Drama

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Robert Pattinson, Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Matthew Maher and Bokeem Woodbine star in director Lance Oppenheimer's drama, inspired by true events.

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PRINCE OF BROADWAY Blu-ray Review: Early Sean Baker Gem Gets Its Due

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 11:02:11 -0500

Long before 'Anora' made Sean Baker a record-breaking Oscar winner, he took to the streets of New York City.

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HEART OF THE BEAST Review: Brad Pitt and a Dog Named Odin Elevate Survival Thriller

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 09:02:09 -0500

Only a year and a half ago, the Boy Scouts of America officially changed the name of the century-old youth organization to Scouting America, a move intended to be more inclusive than its gender-specific predecessor. (Currently, Scouting America includes roughly 200K female participants out of a total of 1 million.) Their motto, “Be Prepared!”, however, remains the same. While those two words encapsulate Scouting America’s wilderness-related goals, they're also applicable to everyday life, even in a survival thriller like Heart of the Beast, a Brad Pitt-led film helmed by David Ayer, Pitt's Fury collaborator (The Beekeeper, Suicide Squad, End of Watch), which can — and should — be amended to: “Be prepared and bring your closest canine companion on your wilderness adventures, planned or...

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NEVER AFTER DARK Review: Genuinely Frightening, Not a Typical Ghost Story

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Moeka Hoshi, Kento Kaku, Kurumi Inagaki, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Bokuzo Masana, and Tae Kimura star in writer/director Dave Boyle's haunting thriller.

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SLOW HORSES S6 E2 Recap: Daddy Issues

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 03:02:03 -0500

Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, and Kristin Scott Thomas reprise their roles in the British spy series.

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Venice 2026 Review: LOVERS IN THE BLUE NIGHT, Tender Social Drama Caught in Its Own Emotional Web

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:02:02 -0500

Anuparna Roy's second feature intertwines queer longing, displacement, caste and emotional misrecognition in the nocturnal margins of Mumbai.

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STEVEN SPIELBERG: THE SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION Brings Home Eight Modern Classics

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Eight cinematic masterworks from Steven Spielberg are brought together in a beautiful 4K UHD collector's edition.

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Now on VOD: BURY THE DEVIL, Fluid Camerawork and Lead Performances Elevate Familiar Horror

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:00:00 -0500

On a very dark and stormy night, Julia arrives for her very first overnight shift as a hospice nurse, only to end up trapped in a remote lakeside house with Evelyn, a dementia patient who might be dealing with something supernatural. Julia took the job out of guilt because she avoided her own mom while she was dying of dementia. Now, she is stuck in this remote house, gradually unearthing the truth about their patient's past, realizing something supernatural is wrong with Evelyn. Things get worse when Evelyn’s estranged ex-husband, Randall, shows up in the middle of the night, all "Torches and Pitchforks." He and Evelyn shared this dark past—they lost their daughter and used a sketchy spiritual ritual to try and save...

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Venice 2026 Review: ARRESTED MEMORY, Screwball Cop Caper Brings Melancholy to the Police-Action Formula

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 10:02:10 -0500

Japanese cult filmmaker Sabu refreshes the police-action formula with screwball comedy and melancholic undertones.

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Now On Demand: MISTURA, Peruvian Comfort Food

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:02:09 -0500

Barbara Mori, César "Pudy" Ballumbrosio, Christian Meier, and Hermelinda Luján star in Ricardo de Montreuil's crowdpleasing film.

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Venice 2026 Review: JUPITER, Claustrophobic Political Thriller for the Current Time

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 07:02:07 -0500

Alexandre Smia's gripping feature debut locks Denis Ménochet inside the machinery of presidential power, where rational calculations lead toward an unthinkable conclusion.

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Steven Spielberg's DISCLOSURE DAY Lands on Home Video with Its Wonder Intact

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Blockbusters both new and old are now on 4K UHD from Universal, Warner Bros., and Sony.

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Toronto 2026 Review: MARIE MADELEINE, An Unforgettable Experience

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 20:07:08 -0500

Géssica Généus directs and stars.

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Toronto 2026 Review: EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOISE

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Opening with one of the most pleasurable and ambient scenes of 2026, Everything Else Is Noise announces its intentions immediately. Gridlocked traffic in a Mexico City intersection struggles to move and to find space in a complex interactive dance, while we listen to someone warming up the bow-on-strings of a cello. Nicolás Pereda’s latest exquisitely calibrated comedy of manners devotes a sizeable amount of its slim (but typical for this director) 71-minute runtime to let this scene play out in all its anticipatory banality before introducing us to its lead character. Teresa (Teresita Sánchez) is a composer who has lent out her apartment to a fellow female composer for a television documentary interview that morning. Her neighbour first comes up to complain about the cello...

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Toronto 2026 Review: THE UNKNOWN, Elevated Body-Swap Thriller Is A Magisterial Masterwork

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Léa Seydoux and Niels Schneider lead Oscar-winner Arthur Harari's mind-bending thriller.

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Vlissingen 2026 Review: TOO MANY BEASTS Delightfully Zigs And Zags

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 12:00:05 -0500

A few minutes into Sarah Arnold's debut film Too Many Beasts I was wondering if the booklet of Vlissingen's Film by the Sea Festival had been misprinted. A comedy? This? Judging from the gore, lighting, music and ehm... bodycount, I was still deciding whether this was going to be a creature feature or a serial killer thriller. And the next few minutes didn't exactly make things easier, with our protagonist being a decidedly unsympathetic mentally broken policeman drunkenly stalking his ex. But as the narrative starts to develop, the fun starts too, just when you as a viewer catch on to what the hell is happening. We follow Fulda, who starts working in a rural village on the French mainland. Demoted after a violent incident...

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Toronto 2026 Review: UNION TOWN, The Power Divide Is Real

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 11:02:11 -0500

With Union Town, master documentarian Barbara Kopple completes a trilogy she began with the Oscar winning documentaries Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) and American Dream (1990). From the coal mines of Kentucky to the factories of the Midwest, Kopple shifts her focus to New York City, a so-called ‘union town’. Her intensive investigation of class struggle becomes a sharp callback to ancient times, when the lower class was robbed of their humanity by their unending servitude. Kopple’s formidable persistence in her mission once again exposes the endless courage of the human spirit. Deeply invested in presenting raw, empathic stories of the unsung workers who toil to keep the American economy running, here she profiles crucial labour battles as they unfold. They involve workers from UPS and Amazon, as well as...

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Toronto 2026 Review: HALF, Malayalam Vampires Throw Down the Beats, and Slay On the Beatings

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 10:02:10 -0500

Somewhere in the vast open spaces of the Rajasthan Desert in Northwestern India, there is a highly organized group of bandits operating a well-oiled machine of hijacking, car-stripping, electronics and jewellery fencing. The local cops are in their pocket, and they even have an onsite crematorium for getting rid of the bodies. One fine and sunny day, they try their usual business of a pair of vampire fraternal twins who happen to be passing through in their white Chevrolet Cruz. Violent, bloody and quite imaginative mayhem ensues as it is a showdown between bandits versus vampires. That is about it. And that is about all there needs to be. It's a stylish genre mash-up of vampire, martial arts action, Western, Mad Max vehicular bedlam,...

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Toronto 2026 Review: MISTY GREEN, Profane Hollywood Satire Is Fitfully Amazing

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:02:09 -0500

Chris Rock, as a Hollywood insider kimono-opener, wants to regale us with joyously crass anecdotes about the business' lurid inner workings. In his telling, everyone is a coke-addled fuck-up cheating on their partners, sleeping around for roles and money, and uninterested in art or progressivism. With Misty Green, he's breathlessly eager to spill the tea, only he can't get out of his way. His profane Hollywood satire needs to compete with issue-based digressions about police brutality, mental illness, and racism, making even the slender 100-minute runtime feel crowded. For what it is, though, Misty Green is entertaining with memorably vulgar dialogue, and Rock assembles an A-list cast in walk-on roles to play degenerate assholes. The gravy train is up for the titular Misty Green (Rosalind...

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Toronto 2026 Review: ANCHORS AWEIGH, Deadpan Profundity, with Sailing Metaphors

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:02:06 -0500

Matt Barats is an idiot. He says so himself. He should have dropped a knee in his marriage proposal to his rich, blonde, much younger girlfriend. He didn’t. Now she is kissing her co-worker in the park. And here he is. On a boat he cannot sail. In a marina by the airport. Alone with his childhood DV videotapes. Wallowing in self-pity, unacknowledged narcissism, and a questionable artistic project of unconnected vignettes. Vignettes. Yes, vignettes. Vignettes. After honing his confessional-cringe style with Cash Cow, a film about a struggling actor waiting for some Domino’s advert royalties to roll in while he wallows in a tent in Mormon country, Barats returns with Anchors Aweigh, a smart film about cluelessness. Or, perhaps, a self-aware film about a...

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Venice 2026 Review: NO PARADISE IF YOU ARE KILLED BY A WOMAN Goes into Stealth Mode to Confront the Scars of War

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:02:03 -0500

Merging the exportable mechanics of a stealth-combat thriller with the political urgency of Kurdish resistance, Halkawt Mustafa delivers an ambitious Iraqi-Norwegian genre film.

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Toronto 2026 Review: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BRIAN MULRONEY

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:02:02 -0500

Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney is, in the words of our former honourable Prime Minister from Baie-Comeau, a "little bit of genius in everybody that causes something to happen in Canada, and that thing has got to be rewarded.” And rewarded it shall be: With post-modern satire that is both gentle and savage. Matthew Rankin’s propulsive, stylised and hyper-ironic political tele-visual remix is a work of staggering amusement. Both him and his team have assembled an unfathomable amount of archival footage and RetroOntario ephemera. They have leavened it with sensational fantasia-constructs, and slathered it all visually with the remix-aesthetic of 21st century Twitch-collective RacerTrash set to the sounds of Francophone electro-pop. The result is a whirligig of Canadian political machination, Game of Thrones filtered through the...

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Venice 2026 Review: DIANE IN THE LOOP Channels Inherited Generational Rage into a Whimsical Yet Touching Feminist Western

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:02:10 -0500

Belgian filmmakers Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni turn intergenerational trauma into an eccentric tale of revenge and rebirth, veiled as unexpected feminist Western fairy tale and family road movie.

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Toronto 2026 Review: THE DEBUT, Community Theater Satire Is a Feature Length SNL Skit

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:12:07 -0500

Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti lead Jesse Eisenberg's musical comedy for A24.

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Toronto 2026 Review: NOBODY'S VIOLENCE, Profoundly Engaging, Genre-Shattering, Surreal Investigation

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:02:05 -0500

Veteran Canadian avant garde filmmaker, Denis Côté once stated that he measures the success of his works by the number of walk-outs. It's doubtful that his wish will be satisfied with his latest. Nobody's Violence (Violence du corps de l'autre) is a profoundly engaging, genre-shattering, surreal investigation of a futuristic euthanasia enterprise. Reteaming with actress Larissa Corriveau (Mademoiselle Kenopsia) and fellow director Vincent Biron as cinematographer, Côté fashions a swirl of dreamlike energy that riffs on genre films ranging from dystopian sci-fi to character study to bitterly ironic satire of the power of the rich. He even throws in romance. It's so utterly engaging that it is certain to haunt audiences well after the end credits roll. The film's brilliance lies in Côté's narrative strategy:...

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Toronto 2026 Review: COWARD, Gentle Romance in Shadows of War

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 16:32:04 -0500

Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne shared the Best Actor prize at Cannes for Belgium's Oscar entry.

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Toronto 2026 Review: LA BOLA NEGRA, Netflix's Ambitious War Epic Is Destined To Be an Awards Juggernaut

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 15:32:03 -0500

Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi's Cannes award-winner is a visually splendid historical drama.

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BAD APPLES Review: There Is Always One

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:02:01 -0500

Saoirse Ronan stars in Jonatan Etzler's unsparing satire.

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THE WEIGHT Review: Gold, Greed, Betrayal, Violence, and Murder, Made Remarkably Engrossing

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:02:12 -0500

Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe star in Padraic McKinley's feature directorial debut.

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