2020s

Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time to Die presents us with an older, more mortal James Bond who is more likely to take risks out of selflessness than a reckless belief in his own invincibility, closing out an era of action cinema with a touch of poignancy that few action stars would be able imbue with…

It was only a matter of time that Terence Davies would turn his sentimental fascination in the subjective, personal accounts of British history to an artist as culturally significant as Siegfried Sassoon, as here in Benediction he filters grim archival footage of World War I through the mind of a poet driven to eloquent expressions…

One woman’s quest to determine the source of a mysterious sonic boom only she can hear is rendered through effervescent soundscapes and long, static shots in Memoria, as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s enigmatic, magical realist style lifts us away from the progress and constructions of the material world and drops us into an enigmatic, serene sea of…

Casting aside those moments where Chloe Zhao gives up her artistic voice to the will of Marvel Studios, Eternals may be the franchise’s most narratively and stylistically ambitious film yet, constructing entire civilisations from the sorts of natural landscapes and golden hour lighting that the Oscar-winning director has well and truly mastered capturing.

Medieval English folklore finds fresh life in The Green Knight as David Lowery relishes the poetic fantasy and dreamlike imagery of this enchanting setting, and very gradually surrenders Sir Gawain’s mystical quest for glory to the creeping power of time, nature, and mortality.

Ridley Scott’s formally astounding interrogation of history as it is lived and perceived from moment to moment offers great understanding to those whose voices are lost to the past, all the while examining the inherent unreliability of any one account as the sole vessel of truth.