2020s

The young vacationers of Afire are happy assuming for the time being that they will be safe from the distant forest wildfires, and yet it is only a matter of time before this inferno wreaks havoc on their delicate lives, developing a haunting metaphor of blazing summer romance that Christian Petzold wields with ethereal elegance.

Much like the first instalment in this series, Extraction 2’s action is as ambitious as its narrative is thin, though Sam Hargrave’s marvellous set pieces thrilling advance mercenary Tyler Rake’s rescue with thrilling momentum and a touching confrontation of fatherly responsibility.

Whether or not recent widow Sandra was the one to push her husband to his death in Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet’s chilling autopsy of their lifeless marriage uncovers an enormous, guilty weight in her soul, positioning us through flashbacks and cutaways as the jury of her moral conscience.

So intoxicating is the allure of fame in Priscilla that by the time Elvis Presley’s naïve future wife is trapped behind the gates of Graceland, she can barely distinguish between its privileges, constraints, and everyday banalities, as Sofia Coppola blends each into musical montages and dreamy vignettes that beg the question – why did he…

It is almost impossible not to give into the retro, festive charm of The Holdovers, as through its unlikely pairing of a troubled student and his cantankerous history teacher over the Christmas break, Alexander Payne transforms the loneliest holiday of the year into a season warmly dedicated to its most distant outcasts.