The tragedy of innocence persevering through historical turmoil underpins the vulnerable heart of Orphan, as through László Nemes’ intimate, subjective camerawork, one young boy grapples with the dissonance between an imagined father and reality in postwar Budapest.
Table tennis superstar Marty Mauser is unlikeable a sports movie antihero as they come, and through Josh Safdie’s abrasive illustration of a self-serving quest for glory, Marty Supreme propels his morally dubious ventures forward on waves of frantic, pulsating momentum.
Memory is the only projector that Hollywood celebrity Jay Kelly willingly surrenders to in his twilight years, and as he watches those frames of his regretful past unspool, Noah Baumbach composes a bittersweet reflection on the fragility of selfhood beneath the glare of stardom.
There is no reading of Shakespeare’s plays more intimate than that which considers his grief over his son’s passing, and as Chloé Zhao lyrically visualises this transmutation of pain into poetry in Hamnet, the very act of storytelling bridges the chasm between life and death.
Cobra Verde may not be as tightly focused as Werner Herzog’s grander masterpieces, yet in this grotesque nightmare of one bandit’s mission to revive Western Africa’s slave trade, it brutally exposes the barbaric machinery of empires built on the systemic commodification of suffering.
For all the flaws that plague the Star Wars prequels, very few can detract from the operatic descent into darkness that Revenge of the Sith ushers in, seeing George Lucas embrace the melodrama, myth, and political allegory of his epic saga to craft its most tragic chapter.
Claire Denis crafts a hypnotic meditation on masculinity, repression, and colonial alienation in Beau Travail, tracing one soldier’s obsessive jealousy within the French Foreign Legion, and rendering the human body a vessel of both discipline and desire.
Through the colourful, layered motifs that Luca Guadagnino weaves through the life of American expat William Lee, Queer delivers an unflinching fever dream that denies easy answers to his internal contradictions, constantly unravelling his capacity for love by his fear of being seen.
Opera singer Maria Callas’ astonishing talent is both her greatest gift and curse in Pablo Larraín’s impressionistic, melancholy biopic, simultaneously giving her reason to live and eroding her tormented soul as she wanders through the final week of her extraordinary life.
Though based on the autobiography of the historical Venetian adventurer and his expansive voyage through 18th century Europe, Federico Fellini’s reimagining of Casanova’s life manifests with demented surrealism, trapping this lonely man in cycles of absurd carnal exploits fuelled by a profound, existential emptiness.
