In centring a shady gang of thieves known as Les Vampires that haunts Paris’ streets, Louis Feuillade crafts an epic crime serial that plays right into the pulpy sensationalism of their macabre characters, each one inhabiting their own compelling archetype within a thrilling narrative of hypnotised servants, cunning disguises, and secret poisons.
For all its authentic grounding in the culture of 1980s Poland, Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog remains a mystical piece of theological cinema for its complex examination of the Ten Commandments in a series of contemporary moral fables, collectively provoking deep contemplation through an omniscient perspective akin to that of an all-seeing God.
In building out its characters in rich enough detail that both thrilling set pieces and quieter moments of drama are able to operate on equally gripping levels of tension, Squid Game forms a layered microcosm of cruel, barbaric capitalism in South Korea.
Barry Jenkins’ revision of the real “underground railroad” manifests as a retro-futuristic gift of modern-day resources to those who worked in secret to free slaves, dropping small, quiet doses of magical realism in among historical horrors.
