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Rebel Ridge (2024)
Patience, discernment, and cunning are virtues embodied in veteran Terry’s violent pursuit of justice in Rebel Ridge, and as he fights to save his imprisoned cousin and expose a corrupt police force, so too are they superbly carried through in Jeremy Saulnier’s tense, brooding storytelling.
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Alexander Nevsky (1938)
Alexander Nevsky may not possess the formal innovation of Sergei Eisenstein’s avant-garde silent films, yet this venture into sound cinema unfolds a historic clash of medieval armies with incredible finesse, celebrating a Russian folk hero whose tale resonates across eras and cultures.
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Jean de Florette & Manon of the Spring (1986)
Claude Berri does not set his Shakespearean tragedy of greed, scorn, and betrayal within historical halls of power, but underscores its meekness through the sun-dappled farms of 1910s France, witnessing the fateful, divine devastation wreaked upon two feuding families in Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring due to a pair of blocked springs.
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Earth (1930)
The symbiosis between man, machine, and nature is a delicate dance in Earth, choreographed with seamless synchronicity through Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s lyrical montage editing, and celebrating the collectivist return of farming land back to the workers in the Soviet Union’s early days.
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Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
If there was ever a supervillain to leap into the movie-musical genre, then it is surely the one whose schtick is highlighting life’s senseless absurdity through colourful, extravagant theatrics, and not even the inconsistencies that plague Todd Phillips’ direction of Joker: Folie à Deux can completely detract from such vibrantly unhinged madness.
