If all the world is a stage, then A Big Bold Beautiful Journey sensitively understands the roles we must play to uncover hidden truths, channelling Kogonada’s immense imagination through the romantic, metaphysical odyssey that two strangers undertake into each other’s memories.
Armed with a sharp wit and touching sincerity, Eva Victor skilfully keys into the quirks and foibles of modern companionship in Sorry, Baby, composing a fragmented study of sexual trauma and healing over many years of one academic’s life.
The Roses is evidently far more a showcase for Tony McNamara’s crackling writing than its bland visual direction, yet this darkly funny autopsy of a dysfunctional marriage wields wit and cruelty with surgical precision, exposing the combustible tensions that drive vengeful lovers to self-sabotage.
As Bring Her Back draws a pair of stepsiblings into an abusive foster home, Danny and Michael Philippou unravel a conspiracy of ritual occultism and necromancy, probing the demonic depths a grieving mother will pursue to mend her broken heart.
Loyalties flicker with slippery inconsistency in the grimy urban decay of Caught Stealing, as Darren Aronofsky drags one New York bartender into the city’s violent underbelly, and masks familiar genre tropes beneath a tone that is equal parts sardonic, kinetic, and unapologetically chaotic.
What initially begins as a portrait of masculine rivalry in Eddington gradually reveals a study in reactionary control, capturing a microcosm of America’s tumultuous political landscape in one rural town, and cynically submitting to Ari Aster’s combustible, existential chaos.
While Alex Garland brings procedural precision to Warfare’s depiction of an ill-fated military operation, Ray Mendoza draws on his own firsthand experience to imbue it with an immersive, tactile realism, mounting tension through the real-time evolution of its descent into chaos.
Matt Shakman’s vision of the The Fantastic Four: First Steps may gesture towards greatness in its retro-futurist production design, but ultimately retreats into hollow grandeur, leaving behind a world rich in style for a superficial simulation that never dares to challenge its own utopian ideals.
Through Danny Boyle’s return to the horror series which redefined the zombie genre, 28 Years Later delivers an unexpectedly touching coming-of-age tale, confronting an apocalyptic world stripped of its humanity yet fostering a melancholy beauty that so many survivors stubbornly reject.
James Gunn’s blend of emotional sincerity and stylish flair in Superman offers a workable blueprint for the DC Universe, rejuvenating the alien hero with a radical, countercultural kindness, and nudging the genre towards stories that prioritise character over spectacle – without entirely sacrificing either.
