After becoming an unlikely action star in Nobody and its sequel, Bob Odenkirk is back for another round in new action-packed crime caper Normal.

Best known for his turn as seedy lawyer Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and its prequel series Better Call Saul, Odenkirk's career took an abrupt pivot in 2021 with a turn from comedy and drama to ass-kicking, and Normal continues this trajectory. Directed by Ben Wheatley, whose oeuvre covers titles from Jason Statham shark sequel Meg 2: The Trench to JG Ballard adaptation High-Rise, Normal was written by John Wick creator Derek Kolstad, who brings his signature slick action to proceedings.

Odenkirk, meanwhile, stars as Ulysses, an interim sheriff standing in as head of law enforcement in Normal, Minnesota, until they elect a new officer. He quickly discovers, however, that the placid, unassuming vibe of the town is no more than a facade – and some violent secrets lurk dangerously close to the surface. And that's bad news for Ulysses, who isn't supposed to know any of them.

Three dimensional

Just like in Nobody, then, Odenkirk plays a guy thrust into an outlandish situation that requires him to fight for his life, but he thinks Normal has something more in common with his previous two action movies than just one-word titles beginning with 'n'.

"There are things from these movies that are in the first act that are as honest as I can play them, and feel like they motivate the main character. And then in all three of these cases, those films become this self-aware movie experience that explodes into a conceptual place that hopefully you can laugh at and enjoy," Odenkirk says at a post-screening Q&A attended by GamesRadar+.

Action aside, which is predictably great (Kolstad knows what he's doing, after all), this is a movie that still manages to be very funny. It's not all slapstick and physical comedy, either, and there are some good old-fashioned jokes woven into the script, including a running gag about Ulysses' second-in-command's new leather jacket, which remains funny long after it should. This is a film that's well aware it's offering up something offbeat, but it's an offering on a silver platter. Come along for the ride, and you'll be rewarded.

Twists and turns

Underneath all that, though, is a darker undercurrent, and I think it's this lighter touch that conversely enables easier access to the more somber themes. It turns out the mayor of Normal (played by an on-form Henry Winkler) picked Ulysses for a reason: because he has a light touch to his law-keeping. We find out that Ulysses swapped his full-time job for interim gigs because of a shameful secret that he wants to scrub from his resume – a time when his "light touch" had devastating consequences.

"I don't try to tie things up. I'd rather try to get an audience who likes action films to have a moment or two where they think about serious things and feel things on a deeper level, because a lot of action movies don't even try to do that," Odenkirk continues. "They just go right to the action and stay there with the thinnest shell of motivation. 'Your daughter's been taken. I better go kill all those guys'" (Wheatley, also present for the Q&A, quips that this sounds like a pretty good movie).

"You can smuggle in some heavy feelings and challenging situations into pure entertainment, but there is a point where you gotta get out of the way and let it just be the fun ride that people bought a ticket for, but maybe you gave them something a little more to think about and feel at the end of it," the actor says. "That's my grand psychology of what I'm trying to do in this genre."

Normal is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

"There can only be one" – or as it turns out, not so much for the Highlander franchise. The fantasy action world features several sequels, TV shows, comics, and even a Henry Cavill-led reboot on the way, all spawning from the 1986 classic. And revisiting the movie 40 years after its release, it's clear to see why this story has had such long-lasting appeal.

Set between contemporary New York City and 16th-century Scotland, the film tells Connor MacLeod's story, an immortal warrior destined to live and fight forever – or at least until his head gets lobbed off. We follow him from when he first becomes the chosen one right through to his fights against other immortal swordsmen, including the dastardly Kurgan who is determined to become the ultimate winner of "The Prize".

It's a pretty great premise, but really what struck me most when watching Highlander is probably also why it has become such a cult classic. It's a real vibes-based movie – and one that still feels completely unique. Mixing fantasy with crime thriller, it's a tragic tale of a man destined to be lonely despite having great loves across his centuries on earth, all the while being a camp, Queen-soundtracked romp of a movie.

Unexpected places

Everything that Highlander would probably be annihilated for today is also what makes it such great fun. Take the absolutely abysmal Scottish accents, for a start. Whatever Christopher Lambert is doing, especially in the Scotland-set parts of the story, is not really close to a Scots drawl in any shape or form. Yet there's something quite funny and warm about his pure commitment to it, yelling difficult-to-decipher dialogue while wearing a kilt in the beautiful surrounds of Scotland.

Equally, Sean Connery's inexplicably Spanish/Egyptian warrior Juan Sanchez-Villalobos Ramirez' entrance in the middle of the movie feels like a bit of a fever dream. His sword-training sequences are full of vintage special effects as he trains young Connor on the ways of the Immortals. He constantly drops in lore that audiences are just expected to absorb – and it weirdly completely works.

Then there's the dialogue, which contains such incredible moments as Connor calling Ramirez a "haggis" and then discussing in depth the meaning of the food. Other personal highlights include Connor exclaiming that he is a "man not a fish" while being in a boat and Brenda quipping that "everyone has their problems" after being told about his immortality.

Highlander is silly, quirky, and often quite unintentionally hilarious – and it feels like a movie that exists completely in its own oeuvre. This is also probably why subsequent sequels never quite managed to capture its unique alchemy again.

A New Era

Given that what makes the original Highlander so fun is that it's completely of its time, it is hard to imagine how this will translate into a new reboot. The original film is being remade by John Wick's Chad Stahelski with Superman star Henry Cavill taking on the MacLeod mantle (and we assume the accent, too).

But, it seems that what Cavill and Stahelski are trying to do is build this unique story into a new thing. From reports of the early footage, it looks like they'll be leaning into epic, choreographed sword fights with a hint of Wick about them. They'll also be expanding the locations beyond New York City and Scotland, taking it to modern day Hong Kong as well.

There will still be nods to the original, though, with both set pictures of the Highland sequences looking near identical to the original and the homage to the soundtrack with Queen's We Will Rock You appearing in the first teaser. Whatever they're doing, I'm definitely intrigued by it, and if they can keep some of the quirkiness of the original, I'd welcome some '80s nostalgia back on our screens.

For me, at least, it is clear why this is a story we keep wanting to revisit, time and time again. And so while there may be a few more than one, revisiting the original Highlander shows why it all begins with this one. But that's probably a bit less catchy as a tagline…

Highlander has been rereleased in UK cinemas and will be released on Blu-ray from 29 June. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Although Adam Scott's most recent contribution to pop culture is his excellent turn as grieving widower Mark Scout and his cheery workplace counterpart Mark S. in sci-fi thriller Severance, he's best known for his comedy work.

His resume includes playing former child mayor Ben in sitcom Parks and Recreations and movies like Step Brothers or Hot Tub Time Machine 2, but now he turns his sights to horror in creepy new flick Hokum. He plays an author who travels to Ireland to spread his parents' ashes, but realizes the place he's staying in might be haunted. This isn't Scott's first foray into the supernatural, either, and it got us wondering – what is it that makes comic actors and filmmakers cross the line into horror? Scott isn't the only one, and plenty of A-listers who cut their teeth on laughs have turned to screams as their careers progressed.

Both genres are built on tension, pay-off, and audience reactions, so they're not as dissimilar as they might appear on the surface. So, in light of Hokum's release, we've picked out five other horror flicks with comedy stars involved, whether that's in front of or behind the camera.

Obsession

Hokum isn't the only new horror release with a comedy star at the helm. Director Curry Barker made a name for himself doing sketch comedy on YouTube, but his sophomore feature follows a man who bites off more than he can chew when he wishes for his childhood crush to fall in love with him.

That's not the only comedy link, either – Andy Richter, best known for his work with Conan O'Brien, also has a supporting role in the film. You'll have to wait a little longer to find out how things go down in this one, though, as Obsession doesn't hit theaters until May 15.

Together

Dave Franco and Alison Brie are best known for their work in comedies like 21 Jump Street and Community, but their comic chops translate perfectly to outlandish body horror Together. The IRL married couple play Tim and Millie, two 30-somethings in a stagnant relationship who find themselves drawn closer together (literally) by mysterious forces lurking outside their new rural home.

"My first foray into being more physical did start with physical comedy, and then I realized how much I love involving my body in my work and I've basically just amped it up ever since," Brie told GamesRadar+. "In comedy and horror, there's no place for vanity."

The Blackcoat's Daughter

Sure, you've seen Longlegs, but have you seen Osgood Perkins' directorial debut? Despite being descended from Psycho star Anthony Perkins, 2015's The Blackcoat's Daughter was his first foray into the genre after starting his career in comedy with roles in Legally Blonde and Not Another Teen Movie.

Starring scream queens Emma Roberts and Kiernan Shipka, The Blackcoat's Daughter follows a troubled woman as she travels to an isolated school where two students are stranded and facing a sinister and mysterious force.

Barbarian

This is a similar deal to The Blackcoat's Daughter – you've almost definitely seen Weapons already, but did you catch Zach Cregger's directorial debut when it hit theaters back in 2022? Like Perkins, this was Cregger's first foray into horror after co-writing and co-directing the 2009 sex comedy Miss March with Trevor Moore, a fellow member of the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U' Know.

In Barbarian, Tess checks into an Airbnb the night before a job interview in a new city only to find that the property has been double booked. Her fellow guest turns out to be the least of her troubles, however, when she uncovers some horrifying secrets in the basement of the house.

I Saw the TV Glow

This one is another supporting turn. Jane Schoenbrun's heart-rending psychological horror I Saw the TV Glow also has a sense of humor, which comes in the form of a final act Conner O'Malley jumpscare. The film follows Justice Smith's Owen, an isolated and scared kid as he journeys through life and tries to come to terms with his queerness and gender through his favorite TV show, The Pink Opaque, and his best friend Maddy. When Maddy disappears and just as suddenly reappears, several years later, Owen is left to question everything he knows to be true.

As the movie progresses into Owen's adulthood, he finds work at a family arcade, where his boss Dave is played by O'Malley. He's known for his satirical, surreal comedy, in which he often plays aggressive, outlandish characters. It's a shock to the senses in I Saw the TV Glow's final act, but one that works incredibly well.

Hokum is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

I'm the kind of Lonely Island fan that will watch anything Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, or Jorma Taccone are cooking up (and while wearing my bootleg Awesometown shirt that I got off RedBubble in 2009, mind you). So when I learned that Taccone was directing an English-language remake of The Trip, a Norwegian action-horror comedy about a couple who plan on murdering each other during a relaxing stay at their cottage, I was sold.

Since his last solo directorial venture was 2010's MacGruber, which gave us 91 minutes of Will Forte ripping out tracheas with his bare hands, I had a feeling we were in for a funny, moderately violent ride. In reality, however, Over Your Dead Body is a nearly two-hour-long gorefest with kills that would make Michael Myers jealous – and no, we never cut away from a severed finger or stab to the head. Beneath all the blood, however, is a surprisingly sweet love story that will have you clapping in the theater at the end (and calling your significant other to suggest some good old-fashioned couples therapy).

Dearly Departed

The film stars Jason Segel and Samara Weaving as Dan and Lisa, an unhappily married couple living in Hollywood. Dan is a director who managed to make one feature-length film before being resigned to doing cell phone advertisements, and Lisa is an aspiring actor (with an accent described as "British mixed with the Devil"). When the two decide to go up to the cabin for the weekend, we quickly learn that Dan (who is not a killer by nature) is planning to kill Lisa for her insurance money… and that, surprise, surprise, Lisa is planning on doing the same. Their plans get interrupted, however, when a group of escaped convicts (Timothy Olyphant, Juliette Lewis, Keith Jardine) taking refuge in the cabin decide to hold them hostage.

It starts out as your typical action comedy (though Taccone is careful to let the camera linger on a missing knife or cereal on the floor for some Knives Out-style foreshadowing), with Dan and Lisa bonking each other over the head and in the face with various blunt objects, and then things get real. It starts with hitting Jardine's beefy bald prisoner Todd over the head with a pool table ball, and escalates to a spine snapped via kitchen knife, a face pushed into a lawn mower, bitten off cartilage (and I'll be thinking about, 'Your nose tastes like sh*t,' for the rest of my life, probably), and blown-off faces.

"I sort of pride myself on that," Taccone tells GamesRadar+ when asked about blending comedy and hyper-violence. "And to me, because this movie has so many different tones sort of etched into one, you know, it's like it's kind of a suspense thriller, then it becomes this other thing, and then it's almost like an action movie, and it's ramping [up] the whole time."

Two of Hearts

Over Your Dead Body wouldn't succeed (especially not the ending) without the surprisingly wild chemistry between Weaving and Segel. Weaving is a scream queen, perhaps best known as the ultimate final girl in Ready or Not, and Segel is a comedy king who got his start in the short-lived cult classic comedy series Freaks and Geeks. Though Weaving is no stranger to wielding a knife and spitting out someone else's blood, this was something brand new for Segal.

"There was a bunch of stuff in this movie that I had no idea how to do, and Sam did know how to do," Segel tells GamesRadar+. "So I really got to learn from her expertise, which was really exciting for me. 20 years into a profession where there's very little that comes [to me] where I'm like, 'I have no idea how to do this.' But some of the stuff, I had no idea how to do, literally no idea. What am I supposed to do when that thing goes through my hand? And she taught me."

Though the first half of the film is driven by Dan and Lisa's hatred for each other, their struggle for survival in the second half is driven purely by the love that they still have for each other. And if that wasn't there, I'm not sure how else the movie would succeed. But it makes you wonder: if they had just talked about their feelings over the years instead of letting resentment build… maybe it wouldn't have led to two different murder plots (one more convoluted than the other)?

It's in the most high-tension, high-stakes parts of the film that Dan and Lisa finally tell each other what they've been holding back throughout the back half of their marriage. And while I won't spoil the ending for you, I will say that the message here is more or less that love really and really truly prevails… and that cartilage tastes really, really bad. Even Pete (Olyphant) and Allegra (Lewis), classic tale of a convict and the prison guard who helped him escape, have relationship problems throughout the film, and their unwillingness to work it out parallels Dan and Lisa's all-out fight for survival in an impossibly clever way (thanks to the brilliant writing of Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher).

True love will find you in the end

Over Your Dead Body is far from your typical action-comedy, and that's what makes it so damn good. It's even better watched in a crowded theater, with everyone around you squirming, screening, and aw-ing in unison like we're watching a popcorn slasher or another installment of Scream. When I asked Taccone if this signaled his foray into horror, he simply said that he'd "really like to do a version of Goonies." Segel, on the other hand, said he has always "walked the line between charming and creepy," and that he absolutely wouldn't mind (citing Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You, Man as comedies that could've gone horror in just a couple of script changes).

Love prevails, though it's often goopy, bloody, and fleshy… it's worth sticking it out for.

Over Your Dead Body is in theaters now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

There was a time before, and a time after Akira. Katsuhiro Ôtomo's wildly influential adaptation of his own epic manga forever changed the perception of Japanese animation in the West – the first domino to fall in widespread cultural adoption of anime outside of Japan. Without Akira, it's possible we might never have seen Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle outgross Superman at the box office in 2025. Arguably even more impressive than this legacy: Akira has barely aged a day in almost 40 years.

Timeless is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but if Akira were released for the first time today, audiences would undoubtedly be blown away anew. In the grand tradition of 80s sci-fi (see also: Blade Runner), Akira did wildly overestimate the march of progress; it's set in 2019, and its vision of Neo-Tokyo doesn't exactly resemble the world we live in. But Akira's major thematic interests – disaffected youth, cyclical fears of destructive acts, unchecked military power – are just as relevant today as they were almost four decades ago.

Now back on the big screen in remastered 4K, Akira's re-release is also a reminder that few animated films before or since have looked quite so ravishing. However many times you might think you've seen Akira, if you haven't seen it in a theater, you haven't really seen Akira at all.

Ride or die

Set 21 years after the destruction of Tokyo, Akira's Neo-Tokyo is a lawless, crepuscular mega-city rebuilt from the ashes. Hotheaded Kaneda is the leader of the Capsules, a biker gang, whose life of high-speed crime is upended when his best friend Tetsuo is captured by the militaristic Japan Self-Defense Forces.

Probed at a secret lab, the scientists discover that Tetsuo is an extraordinarily powerful esper, with psychic capabilities equal to Akira, the young boy secretly responsible for Tokyo's destruction two decades prior. Everyone quickly realises that Tetsuo is far too dangerous to keep alive, and as his dormant powers emerge, Kaneda may be the only one who can stop Tetsuo from leveling Neo-Tokyo all over again.

That two-paragraph precis, of course, doesn't come close to doing justice to Akira's intricate grand tragedy – an elegant, multi-strand narrative that squeezes novelistic scope into a two-hour runtime. As each of Akira's layers is peeled back, the full extent of its strangeness is gradually revealed, climaxing in a mind-bending, metaphysical moment of psychedelia that makes 2001's stargate sequence look like a plug-in lava lamp.

Akira's iconography is undeniable: the legendary bike slide has been referenced in everything from Batman: The Animated Series to Jordan Peele's Nope. Its astonishingly detailed cityscapes and fluid character animation still dazzle almost four decades on.

But Akira's influence extends beyond the visual. Along with Blade Runner and Neuromancer, it established the parameters for cyberpunk worlds that are still adhered to to this day.

Welcome to Kaneda

What's always struck me watching Akira, and something that remained unchanged on this latest rewatch, is how much Kaneda and Tetsuo's friendship anchors a story with unfathomably huge scope. It's a film which opens with the annihilation of an entire city and ends with its tragic monster transcending our plain of reality and essentially becoming a deity. But it's Kaneda's half-despairing, half-furious cries of 'Tetsuo!' that ring around my head at the mere thought of Akira. Kaneda will save Tetsuo, by any means necessary.

It's redundant at this stage to point out how acclaimed Akira is. Read practically any list of the greatest animated films ever, and there's a pretty good chance you'll see Akira hovering somewhere near the top spot. Otomo would go on to direct Memories, early episodes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and 2004's Steamboy, but Akira is the kind of film that stands above all. Arguably, only Ghost in the Shell could be considered a true peer.

Hollywood has tried to crack a live-action adaptation of Akira for decades at this stage. Blade's Steven Norrington, Black Adam's Jaume Collet-Serra, and Taika Waititi, of all people, have been attached at various stages across the years. In June 2025, Warner Bros. declined to renew the rights to Akira, but with the option back up for grabs, it's only a matter of time before it's snapped up again.

But Akira doesn't need an inevitably compromised Western adaptation for its legacy to be assured; it's a rare film that lives up to every bit of lofty hyperbole commentators (like me) care to throw at it. How lucky we are to live in a time after Akira.

Akira is back in UK cinemas now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Liminal space is scary enough without overanalyzing – and to be honest, I never once thought about what the Backrooms, or even those viral photos and videos of abandoned '80s malls, could be a metaphor for… until I watched Exit 8. The film, which serves as an adaptation of the popular Japanese video game, pulls us out of reality and into a series of unending fluorescent-lit hallways, only to make us examine our own lives from a new perspective (both figuratively and physically).

The movie stars Kazunari Ninomiya as The Lost Man, a young man who learns that his girlfriend is pregnant while smack-dab in the middle of his daily metro commute. As he begins to panic (because he is in no way ready to be a father), he becomes lost in a series of corridors that start to endlessly loop. He quickly learns that he's stuck in some kind of sadistic game. The rules are simple: each corridor has its own set of features; if The Lost Man walks through a corridor, and nothing seems out of place, he can proceed to the next one. If there is an anomaly (i.e. a doorknob where there shouldn't be, or a sudden flood of rats), he has to walk back to the corridor he came from… and if he doesn't, he finds himself back at Exit 0. The goal, of course, is to reach Exit 8.

On the way, The Lost Man encounters The Boy (Naru Asanuma), a child who is abandoned by his father in the corridors… only to become the permanent NPC known as The Walking Man (Yamoto Kochi). The Lost Man and The Boy begin to trust each other, trading stories of running away from home in hopes that their mothers would find them, and ultimately decide to find a way out together.

About a boy

The Boy is the heart of the film, and the one who makes both The Lost Man, and the viewer, examine their own lives and choices. At the beginning of the film, The Lost Man sees a woman being scolded by another man on the train for having a crying baby – and this is just moments after he learns that his girlfriend is pregnant. The Lost Man observes the situation, and, like the rest of the people on the train, goes back to looking at his phone. But, unlike other passengers who choose to remain blissfully unaware, he feels an immense amount of guilt that makes him question whether or not he'd even be a good parent in the first place. It's here that he panics and has an asthma attack... and suddenly finds himself in the corridors.

"I commute on the trains in Tokyo during rush hour, and I noticed this myself while on the train: everyone's looking at their smartphones," director Genki Kawamura tells GamesRadar+. "I think it's a very self-centered type of mood. And I think that also kinda shows the state of the world that we're in right now. And this act of ignoring it and going on with our daily lives, I think we're all guilty of this on, on some level. So I thought, well what if we took that small layer of guilt and projected it onto this very sanitized white corridor? I think that in itself would be very, very terrifying."

A dream within a dream

When you really get down to it, it sort of becomes its own Russian nesting doll: generally speaking, humans are afraid of liminal space because of the unfamiliarity, similar to the way any space becomes liminal to a child when they're left alone without their parents, and being lost and alone in a liminal space because of a natural fear of the unknown and what could be lurking around the corner… it's just a nightmare on top of a nightmare on top of a nightmare.

"I think what liminal space and these games offer is an exploration of a dream-like space, or a nightmare, if you will," Kawamura says. "It creates that type of feeling and vibe. And in that setting, I think we're able to pull out the biggest fears that we all carry with us every day. Monsters, ghosts, those are scary, but it's all external. I think going within these secret rooms that exist in our mind is much scarier in terms of the psychological effect."

When The Walking Man sees the false Exit 8, The Boy refuses to go with him and won't let go of his hand because he notices all of the anomalies. Instead of agreeing with his child, he throws him to the floor and happily runs up the stairs. When the corridors reset back to zero, The Boy sees his father walking… but it's in a trance-like state. He only looks ahead, and doesn't seem to acknowledge anything around him. The Boy tries to get his attention, but The Lost Man tells him to give up. "That isn't a human anymore," he says to The Boy, rather matter-of-factly. It's a one-two punch for the viewer: your own father abandons you… and then you have to see him walk on loop over and over again while he never ever even acknowledges your existence… because you're lost in the very same loop. A nightmare on top of a nightmare.

Exit 8 isn't the movie I thought it was going to be, and I'm glad. I appreciate what Kawamura and co-screenwriter Kentaro Hirase decided to do with a video game about being lost, taking his own daily train commute, and putting it into the fictional corridors of Exit 8. The viewer (and The Lost Man) has two choices, notice the anomalies or ignore them. The same can be applied to our own lives, and whether we decide to make a difference… or continue on an endless loop.

Exit 8 is in US theaters now and arrives in UK cinemas on April 24. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

A movie pulling in a perfect, 100% Rotten Tomatoes score is a rare thing these days. As rare, you might say, as finding a mythical sea creature bobbing off a Floridian marina – and yet, with Mermaid, Fallout star Johnny Pemberton manages to do both.

Written and directed by Tyler Cornack, the surreal horror-comedy is reminiscent of a slice-of-life Sean Baker flick, as it drops us into the world of Doug Nelson, a drug-addled dude who works at a neon-lit bar that's essentially a strip club meets Seaworld. He knows all there is to know about salt-water fish. Humans? Well, they're a little trickier for him to work out. After he's unceremoniously sacked for putting poems in his unrequited work crush's locker, Doug's life starts to unravel fast; his dealer, played by a terrifically funny, way-too-tanned Robert Patrick, is looking to collect an overdue $3,000 bill while his daughter's mother (Julia Larson) is desperate for him to be a more present father.

Buckling under the piling-up pressure – though you wouldn't know it from his distracted drawl and chilled-out demeanor – Doug drives a small boat out into the Atlantic and toys with the idea of doing something drastic. But he's shaken out of his stupor when he spots an injured mermaid, and takes her back to his rundown apartment to nurse her back to health. Chaos, as you might imagine, ensues.

In at the deep end

What's so tickling about the movie is that the "woman" he finds isn't some alluring damsel-in-distress with fins. Oh no, she's a flesh-eating scaly monster who bares her sharp teeth, snarls, and spits up black bile. Shots of her are used sparingly, oscillating between starkly bright wides where she's partly obscured, to darker, more close-up silhouettes, which gives the film a genuine sense of dread and tension. But, naturally, she's not the real villain here and Doug is such a sweetheart that he sees her as some sort of kindred spirit. "I've gotta be able to trust you and you gotta be to trust me. Trust. Otherwise, I don't think this is gonna work out", he urges in an early scene, before he dubs her Destiny. "You're probably scared. I'm scared. It's new territory for me. But as scary as it is, you're kinda making me feel some things, okay?"

It's Pemberton's sincerity amongst all the absurdity that makes Mermaid a must-watch. Initially a bully, Thaddeus, his ill-fated, mutating character in Prime Video's Fallout, has grown to become a fan favorite thanks to the actor's innate likeability – and it's impossible not to root for him here in much the same way, even if Doug is a bit of a creep and a deadbeat dad. As evidenced by my earlier Big Screen Spotlight features on Your Monster and Cold Storage, some of my favorite watches are where regular, kind of boring folks are thrust into crazy situations and as the actual baddies catch wind of Destiny, and try to capture her for reasons of varying degrees of twistedness, it's a chuckle-worthy delight to see Doug step up as her underachieving avenger. In a world where chosen ones and superpowered beings still dominate the big screen, I couldn't be more here for his hapless hero.

Despite being the main character, Doug acts as more of a straight man to the roster of zanier supporting players, however. Mermaid really shines – or should I say 'shimmers'? – in its more microscopic moments: Patrick's Ron filling Doug in on how his "mediocre wife of 35 gone done gay" or when he refers to the famous creator of Mickey Mouse as "Walter Disney". The fact that Ron's son is sporting board shorts and a neck brace for the entire 105-minute runtime. The awkward banter between Doug and his father's grandpa…

Kindred spirits

Mermaid's mix of humdrum and Odyssean antics is what makes it clear Cornack finds inspiration in Baker's work, but its pastel, neon-edged hues feel specifically The Florida Project-esque. It's a love letter to the Sunshine State in the same way the latter was; its characters running around and getting up to all sorts of mischief, like kids enjoying the last few hours of daylight. "I've been around this globe numerous times. I've slept everywhere that a man could possibly sleep. I've fucked everything that a man could possibly fuck. And until last night, well, I thought I had eaten everything," a particularly sinister figure explains to Doug in the final act. "No matter how many places I've been, I always manage to come back to Florida; it's the only place on Earth that can still kinda surprise me."

While Mermaid can be similarly compared to the likes of Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess's quirky coming-of-age tale about a socially awkward teen who vows to help his best friend become class president, and Guillermo del Toro's sci-fi romance The Shape of Water, it's a refreshingly original thrillride. As big-screen blockbusters like The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Project Hail Mary clog up theaters this weekend, I urge you to consider splashing your cash on this one. You won't regret it.

Mermaid will be in select US theaters from April 8. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

There are plenty of coming-of-age stories, but there's something especially riveting and oftentimes beautiful about a horror coming-of-age story. In fact, queer horror coming of age stories might just be one of my top five genres. The Serpent's Skin, the sixth feature film from Australian filmmaker Alice Maio Mackay, is all of that and more, putting a deep, unending love at its very center against a hazy, neon backdrop that feels like early '90s Greg Araki meets 2016's Neon Demon.

The Serpent's Skin follows Anna (Alexandra McVicker), as she leaves her transphobic parents behind and goes off to live in the city with her sister. It's there that she gets a cool job at a record store, hangs out with impossibly hot tattooed alt girls, and finds her soulmate Gen (Avalon Fast)... all while learning she has eye-ball popping powers akin to Cronenberg's Scanners (that her new lady has, too).

Where have you been all my life?

In the face of a supernatural danger that begins to destroy their lives, Anna and Gen manage to remain sweet, quiet, and very much in love. I won't spoil anything for you, but Mackay isn't interested in the tragedy trope that often comes along with queer love stories.

"It was about revealing the depth, strength, and conviction of a new, but enduring love," Mackay tells GamesRadar+. "It was about being allowed in to 'see' the complexity of their relationship in an increasingly daunting, unknown world. And while they found solace and strength to combat the unknown together, they also never lost sight of who they were as individuals."

Anna and Gen only want each other, but everyone wants a piece of Danny (Jordan Dulieu), who is impossibly '90s bad boy-coded and would probably be pals with Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. While Anna and Gen's friends are chasing lust, the two are figuring out not only how to control and develop their powers, but how to love each other in the best way possible. Even as they figure out how to stop an evil entity that has taken over the body of one of their friends and is quite literally sucking the souls out of everyone around them, there is patience and understanding and reasurance. When they sit opposite each other, their faces are lit with a specifically soft glow, quietly signifying joy.

In the mood for love

There's a moodiness here reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive, a 2013 vampire horror that depicted Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as quite possibly the most miserable vampires in the world, the former of which is a washed-up rockstar (Mackay says she was listening to a lot of Meatloaf while writing the script with Benjamin Pahl Robinson). Some critics have compared the film to The Craft, which Mackay admits was definitely in the back of her mind, but she was also thinking about Charmed and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"I kind of wanted to create something that felt akin to watching network '90s and 2000s shows but with my own spin and from a trans perspective," Mackay tells us.

This is more or less Mackay's signature style, as even her 2024 holiday horror Carnage for Christmas is styled in a way that feels like Wong Kar-wai directed a sequel to Silent Night, Deadly Night. Mackay uses neon, not in the loud (albeit dreamy) way Nicolas Winding Refn uses it, but to almost create a sense of calm. The world is more or less ending around them but I still wouldn't mind camping out there, having a cigarette, and listening to some vinyl. Even when Anna's eyes glow a kind of black light purple before she makes blood spurt from a terrible man's eyes, it's still somehow quiet and dreamy.

The Serpent's Skin is a beautiful, at times quietly devastating, love story about finding yourself and who you're meant to be, and when you lean into this, the person you're meant to be with comes along, too. My biggest gripe with the film has to do with its runtime, which is just one hour 23 minutes. I could've watched at least another hour of Anna and Gen, and even now I'm sitting in my room, listening to some indie rock and wondering what they're up to.

The Serpent's Skin is in theaters now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

"There's so much footage of the real event. Like, a crazy amount of footage," Bill Skarsgård tells us of his new film, Dead Man's Wire, which is based on the unbelievable true story of Tony Kiritsis. 49 years ago, Kiritsis walked into a mortgage company building, took the owner's son, Richard "Dick" Hall, as his hostage, and held him captive with a shotgun wired to his neck for 63 hours. Kiritsis asked for nothing more than an apology – and $5 million – after believing the Halls had swindled him.

"Even in the script, as you're reading it, Austin [Kolodney], the writer, had put links in to the actual 911 phone calls, and the footage of them walking on the streets with the shotgun wired to his neck," Skarsgård adds.

This profoundly odd true story forms the basis of My Own Private Idaho director Gus Van Sant's latest film, a taut, tense, and surprisingly funny thriller starring It and Nosferatu's Bill Skarsgård as the aggrieved Kiritsis, and Stranger Things' Dacre Montgomery as his captive Hall.

Stranger than fiction

Just like in real life, the film begins with Skarsgård's Kiritsis walking into the office of Meridian Mortgage Company and kidnapping Hall, using the so-called dead man's wire that gives the film its title. This wire connects Hall to the shotgun's trigger, and the other end goes around Kiritsis's own neck. One wrong move, and Hall will meet a grisly end.

"It was hard to separate the actual event and the film that we were trying to do," Skarsgård explains. "I researched the guy a lot – there's so much footage – and how he looked, and how he spoke, and his mannerisms, and all of it. And then also knowing that we're going to do some of these scenes that are verbatim of what he said on the day…"

But while the film hews extremely close to the true story, Skarsgård doesn't bear much of a physical resemblance to the real Kiritsis at all, something he initially found hard to reconcile. "My way into the character was so tied to the real guy that it just ended up becoming an obstacle for me, because I just felt that physically, I'm so different than the real guy," he says. "And I've played quite a few characters that have been based on real people, but then I've been cast because of some sort of physical likeness to the real guy. It was like, 'Oh, this guy was also tall and my age,' but this was very different. There was just something that I had to get over: I am not physically right for this role or portraying this man."

Van Sant was able to help Skarsgård deal with the discrepancy. "Gus kept just encouraging me that I will have to be portraying my Tony," Skarsgård says. "And some actors I think are quite different than that. You could do this and then separate yourself completely from the real guy, and just be like, 'Oh, who cares?' People don't know who Tony Kiritsis is today, really. He's not a household name. So, you could just separate yourself from him and do whatever the fuck you want to do with the role, or play the character much more closer to yourself, like, 'Okay, this is how I'm going to do it.' But I'm not like that. So, the research component was huge, to the point of getting in the way of me actually doing it."

Tied together

The bulk of the 63 hours Hall and Kiritsis spent together took place in Kiritsis's own apartment. Likewise, the film is mostly set in this dark, cramped space, with Montgomery and Skarsgård shouldering the majority of the screen time. "He was my partner in this. From the beginning to the end, it's just the two of us, really," Skarsgård says of working so closely with Montgomery.

Kiritsis forces Montgomery into a chair with the shotgun on a table in front of him, aimed squarely at his head. Montgomery is a quiet, measured man who weathers his ordeal with weary fear, enduring Kiritsis's ramblings and ravings as, outside, the police plot to save him.

The film was very much a collaborative effort, and Skarsgård was keen to ensure the situation, while fraught on screen, was safe behind the scenes. "It is just the two of us in so many of the scenes, quite literally wired to each other. So, we did have three or four days with just me, Dacre, and Gus, talking through the whole script, talking through our interpretations of our characters and the dynamics," he explains.

"And then we would rehearse a little, and it was a useful time for us to vent and get to know each other," he continues. "Right off the bat, Dacre and I just really got along, which is good and which was really helpful, because it was just really important that we both – or for me, at least, I think he has probably worked a bit different in the past, I know he's expressed it – but for me, it was like, 'Okay, it's really important that we're very safe with each other, and that we trust each other completely,' so we could rely on each other as scene partners, and I think we really did."

Naturally, the dead man's wire had an effect on the dynamic Skarsgård and Montgomery established, too. "Dacre and I became really good friends in the process of it. And I don't think either one of us have ever played two characters that are literally fused together like this. So, it was fun and organic," Skarsgård says. "He would feed to me and I would feed to him. Being fused together, whenever he had an instinct of, like, 'Okay, I want to go right,' and I'll go, 'No, go left!' So, it becomes this ping pong game of whatever he's doing, I'm counter-reacting to it physically."

Unexpected laughs

Despite the seriousness of the film's subject matter, it can be surprisingly hilarious at times. "There was something about the real Tony that I did find funny," Skarsgård says. "Part of the thing that I found so fascinating about the character, he could be menacing and funny and weird and endearing and sad, all in the same five seconds. I'm talking about the real guy. That type of complexity. I don't think he has gotten any sleep at all in the past three days, and so there's this whole manic episode unfolding, and he's really pivoting from emotions, where he could be fueled with black outrage, and then he can be in tears the next second, and then he could make a joke the third."

Much of the humor comes from the inherent absurdity of the situation itself – at one point, Kiritsis parades the captive Montgomery down the street to commandeer a police car after the key breaks off in his own ignition, to the consternation of onlookers and the police themselves, and at another, an officer has to tell him how to operate the police car's PA. There's also Kiritsis's frenzied mannerisms and deranged behavior, which often jar with the reality of the kidnapping: in the apartment, he offers Montgomery, forced to sleep in the bathtub, a donut, and he often apologizes for his behavior, even as it continues.

Even Van Sant was caught off guard. "Gus is a very explorative filmmaker, where he lets the film find itself, and he has a lot of trust in his actors, and he doesn't try to force anything. He gently shapes it and guides it into what the movie becomes, but he trusts the movie in a profound way," explains Skarsgård.

"But I think that the first day of the shoot, we were doing the reception of the mortgage company, and I just started improvising," he adds. "Tony… [there was] something just funny and bizarre about the real guy, but also what I was doing with the character. I remember Gus coming up to me, and he goes, 'Hmm, this is funny.' It surprised him that the movie might be funnier than he initially thought. And I was like, 'Yeah, I think it might be. I think it is.' I don't think Tony's being consciously funny. There's something funny about him, which is a different thing."

In fact, Van Sant didn't realize how funny the film actually turned out until very late in the process. "The first screening he did with friends and family, the whole audience was just laughing so hard, and he was genuinely surprised that the movie had turned out that funny, because he was just so close to it at that point," says Skarsgård with a laugh.

Despite this, though, the film still carries a real sense of pathos. "In a way, they're just two lost sons that never had a good male role model, either one of them," says Skarsgård of Hall and Kiritsis, and a scene in which they call Hall's unsympathetic father, played by Al Pacino.

"And I think that what the two of them are discovering, or at least what Tony is discovering, is that the illusion of coming from money, or having money, doesn't mean that you have everything. There is a genuine sadness in Dick as well, and that they can meet there, almost, briefly, for a moment, before the shotgun's wired onto the neck again and what has to be done has to be done."

Dead Man's Wire arrives in UK cinemas this March 20. In the meantime, check out our guide to all the most exciting upcoming movies of the year, along with the biggest movie release dates.

Earlier this week, the director of Pixar's Hoppers, Daniel Chong, posted an animation test from the film to social media. Hoppers, by most metrics, is a big hit and has ended something of a cold streak for Pixar's original offerings. But the response to the test, which is notably in 2D, and very reminiscent of Studio Ghibli's distinctive style, was unanimous: instead of Pixar's 3D house style, which has been industry standard for over three decades, why couldn't Hoppers look like that?

It's a thought that I couldn't get out of my head while re-watching Studio Ghibli's 1989 classic Kiki's Delivery Service, which is back on the big screen this week in glorious IMAX. It should be news to no one that Ghibli makes beautiful movies. Their nostalgic, painterly, soulful art style and whimsical worlds have enchanted generations. But in the cold light of 2026, where the animated landscape is almost completely dominated by hyperactive, saucer-eyed characters in vibrant, but vaguely rubber-looking worlds, watching Kiki's Delivery Service is like sailing on a sea of tranquility.

Kiki's re-release is also an urgent reminder that we're losing something vital – artists with the skills to create hand-drawn feature films, particularly in the West. While Ghibli still operates, its output has slowed to a crawl, and seems primarily driven by Hayao Miyazaki's continued refusal to retire. There are many filmmakers who could be considered successors to Miyazaki – Makoto Shinkai, Mamoru Hosoda and Tomm Moore, amongst them – but whether for practical, financial or creative reasons, purely hand-drawn animated movies are an endangered species. Kiki's Delivery Service, as a result, is a movie to be savoured.

Flying high

Written and directed by Ghibli's enigmatic co-founder Miyazaki – only his third official film for the studio, following 1986's Castle in the Sky and 1988's My Neighbor Totoro (The Castle of Cagliostro and Nausicaä were both released before Ghibli's inception) – Kiki's Delivery Service might be the studio's defining coming-of-age story. Shorn of the horrors of its immediate predecessor, Grave of the Fireflies, Kiki's Delivery Service is a tonic that finds meaning and warmth in everyday relationships, despite its eponymous character being a witch.

As the movie begins, 13-year-old Kiki (Kirsten Dunst, in Disney's English-language dub) sets out on her traditional (for witches) year away from home, alongside her sardonic feline familiar Jiji (Phil Hartman). Still in the process of finding herself and not even sure what her "skill" as a witch will be, Kiki settles in the coastal town of Koriko. After a young boy called Tombo (Matthew Lawrence) helps her escape the clutches of the law, Kiki finds a home away from home in a family-run bakery. There, she sets up a delivery service, the logic being that a broomstick beats any mail van.

By modern standards, Kiki's Delivery Service could be considered uneventful. Kiki may be a witch, but other than flying her broom from place to place and the ability to talk to her cat, magic hardly figures into the story. After setting up her business, Kiki makes a couple of inefficient deliveries, and there's a smidge of action in the final act, but really the film is about her connections in the community – to Tombo and the figures who pop by the shop for freshly baked goods. Uneventful does not equal boring in this case, then, as the film's gentle rhythms and its deceptively deep depiction of a 13-year-old girl's struggle with self-doubt on the way to discovering herself captivates in a way that no spell-casting battle ever could.

Picture purr-fect

And it bears repeating that Kiki's Delivery Service is gorgeous. Of course, it wasn't made for IMAX, but it's a fine way to see it, even if it's readily accessible on streaming nowadays; rarely, even in Ghibli's work, has a world felt quite so detailed and alive as Koriko. Kiki is one of Ghibli's great protagonists – it's easy to see her influence on the likes of Princess Mononoke's San, or Spirited Away's Chihiro, while the idea of a character on an adventure with a cat would live on through Whisper of the Heart and The Cat Returns.

With Disney having moved away from hand-drawn animation completely (though the success of the Spider-Verse movies has at least led to a realization from Hollywood at large that audiences crave variation from the norm), and Miyazaki not getting any younger, there's a very real chance we might never see a movie as visually splendid as Kiki's Delivery Service on the big screen again, and almost certainly not one that is as intentionally understated. Is that an overly dramatic statement? Perhaps. But for all their continued successes, modern animated movies feel worlds apart.

The good news is, the Ghibli IMAX re-releases aren't stopping here: over the next couple of months, both Whisper of the Heart and The Secret World of Arrietty are heading back to the big screen – the perfect opportunity to see two lesser-celebrated Ghibli works in a format that does them justice. And let's hope that when Hoppers 2 rolls around, that gorgeous 2D animation is more than a test.

Kiki's Delivery Service is playing now on IMAX screens in the US. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series, or for more Ghibli, check out our list of the best Studio Ghibli movies, ranked from worst to best.

If variety is the spice of life, it's now fairly well-established that Hollywood's store cupboards have been in need of a restock for the last decade or so. There are still plenty of interesting independent films being made, of course, but the bulk of the multiplex's offerings are franchise blockbusters, and there's been a distinct lack of mid-budget movies to fill in the gaps in the 2010s and into the 2020s.

Mid-budget movies are a high risk, high reward situation and, as such, many studios have opted out of the risk entirely. Still, a few are still being produced – and Glen Powell is often in them.

After making a name for himself in Top Gun: Maverick, Powell has used his star power to lead a range of mid-budget films: crime caper Hit Man, rom-com Anyone But You and, now, How to Make a Killing (which cost $15 million to produce).

A family affair

A loose remake of 1949 British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, Powell plays Becket Redfellow, whose mother was disowned by her uber-wealthy family for refusing to terminate her teenage, out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Although he grew up estranged from the Redfellows, Becket is still in the line of inheritance for the family fortune and, after being demoted at his retail job and running into affluent childhood crush Julia, decides to finally claim what he believes is rightfully his. All he has to do is take out the five family members standing in his way…

The Redfellows are a Knives Out-esque cast of eccentric, insufferable wealthy people – including an obnoxious Wall Street party boy, an even more obnoxious semi-famous artist, and a celebrity pastor – and they prove to be extremely easy to kill. But maybe not that easy, because we know right from the off that Becket, eventually, gets caught: the film is structured around his account to a priest who visits him in his death row jail cell. But what we don't know is how, or when, or why, which adds some necessary intrigue to the snappy 105-minute runtime.

For me, though, Margaret Qualley is the film's standout as cartoonishly amusing femme fatale Julia, who drops in with increasingly shorter skirts and threatening demands for Becket every 20 minutes or so. The character is a fun nod to the story's mid-century roots, when femme fatales were all the rage, and, I thought, a sign that we need more character roles for younger actors.

Character study

Powell is at his best in these mid-budget movies, too – he's much more convincing and charming doing character work than he is driving action sequences in, say, Edgar Wright's The Running Man. He found fame under the guidance of Maverick co-star Tom Cruise, and Cruise got his start on a similar trajectory. These films are how you make a name for yourself: big-budget blockbusters don't come around often enough to cement your name in public consciousness, and indie fare often doesn't break through beyond the already-committed theater-going crowd. If you stick to mid-budget movies, though, you remain a consistent presence on the multiplex screen – like Powell.

As he did in Richard Linklater's Hit Man, Powell plays the "everyman thrown out of his depth" role with charm and ease. The thing about mid-budget movies is that they're usually about ordinary people in extraordinary situations – but nothing completely out of the realm of possibility, thanks to the limitations posed by production funds. Rom-coms, straightforward comedies, and a good old-fashioned caper like How to Make a Killing often prove to be better vehicles for actors, who aren't going toe-to-toe with CGI aliens or distracting action sequences. More so than in The Running Man, How to Make a Killing gives Powell space to grapple with interpersonal relationships and his own morality thanks to a simpler plot that doesn't require any worldbuilding or super high stakes.

Mid-budget movies may be high risk, high reward (and How to Make a Killing isn't exactly, uh, making a killing at the box office yet), but if Powell follows in his mentor Cruise's footsteps, he could be the answer to waning ticket sales for medium-sized movie releases. I'm keen to see what he does in his next project, a JJ Abrams sci-fi blockbuster, but I hope he still finds time for a few more capers, too.

How to Make a Killing is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on March 11. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Sirāt is up for two Academy Awards at the Oscars 2026: Best International Film and Best Sound. In the latter, it could be an underdog winner: the Spanish movie takes a score by French experimental musician Kangding Ray to make a love letter to the rave scene that quickly descends into a hellish cautionary tale. But against what, exactly, is up to us, according to its director.

The movie follows Luis, played by Pan's Labyrinth star Sergi López, who's joined by his young son Esteban and their small dog Pipa as he searches for his missing daughter Mar at a rave in the Moroccan desert. When the party is broken up by the local army, who demand the evacuation of all European visitors in the face of political upheaval, Luis decides to tag along with a group of nomadic ravers who are about to set off through the Sahara to another party, closer to Mauritania, in case Mar is there instead.

The film's striking opening scene is full of contrast that feels precarious and uneasy: ancient rocks in a landscape that's millions of years old vibrate with electronic music that's barely 50 years old. As the camera pans down to the ravers, it's easy to get carried away in the hedonism. Bodies sway and move almost as one mass, completely lost in the music, separate but in unspoken community with one another.

Laxe filmed this scene at a real rave, so the dancers on screen were real attendees rather than extras (and the group who Luis tags along with are all played by non-actors scouted at clubs and festivals, too). These people shouldn't be out here, but it's hard not to see the allure of the party.

Hell and Paradise

In Islam, As-Sirāt is the bridge that passes over to the fires of Hell to take a person to Paradise. It's said to be thinner than a strand of hair and as sharp as the sharpest knife. In this film, though, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was inverted. If the rave is paradise (and for Luis' new friends, at least, it is), then our group of protagonists may well be going to hell in a handbasket – or a camper van. The deeper into the desert they go, they find themselves thoroughly out of their depth (think Mad Max crossed with Gus van Sant's Gerry and soundtracked by a techno score and you're maybe halfway there).

The desert is an unpredictable beast, then, especially as a filming location, but Laxe insisted that making a film "has to be difficult" in a post-screening Q&A that I attended. Sirāt was inspired by his time living in Morocco, where, he says, people were surrounded by death. "You die watching this film, right?" he asked the audience. And sure, there's certainly enough tension to make you feel like that. We're never made to feel at peace in the desert, and neither are the film's characters – despite their best efforts.

There are some jarring colonial overtones in the film that Laxe remains consistently and purposefully vague about when asked: local people are trying to get away as our band of thrill-seeking Europeans barter with them for gas to go further into the desert and, in a film set in the Western Sahara, the overwhelming majority of faces we see are white.

Cautionary tales

Why, exactly, evacuations are taking place is never elaborated on, either – the group flicks through radio channels as they drive, getting snippets of information here and there, but ultimately always switching it off before they get the full story. World War 3 may be breaking out, but that's none of their business.

When an audience member asked Laxe if North African people taking a backseat in this film was intentional or if he'd thought about the implications of this, he refused to elaborate.

But, to me, Sirāt reads as an indictment rather than a careless piece of filmmaking, and a cautionary tale of sorts: the ancient landscape always fights back, pushing our protagonists to their limits as they journey through a place they ultimately belong. At the present moment, this works as both an environmentalist warning and a message about Western exceptionalism in the face of political or social upheaval: none of this will help you in the long run.

In the film's final shot, in particular, as the weary travelers' journey comes to an anticlimactic end, it couldn't be clearer – our privileges can only keep us safe for so long, but we're all going to end up in the same place in the end.

Sirāt is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Gore Verbinski ends his 10-year break from directing with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, a madcap comedy that sees Sam Rockwell's Man From the Future drag a ragtag team of LA locals into his world-saving scheme. It's a timely take on technology, with Rockwell's rumpled protagonist set on stopping a kid from creating an AI that'll go on to destroy the world – and an awful lot of fun.

Ahead of its UK release (it came out in the US last Friday), we've been thinking back on some of the best time travel movies. Specifically, we've been thinking back on the best time travel movies that are kind of off-kilter and skew more comedic, like cult classic Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and French surrealist flick Incredible But True.

We've attempted to sum up why those titles are so good below, alongside four others that perfectly fit the bill. You won't find the likes of Groundhog Day or Back to the Future here, that'd be all too predictable – so we've elected to champion more obscure must-sees. Nor will you see serious, core-shaking joints such as Interstellar, since we're concentrating on films that flex their funny bones. If you'd rather focus on what's to come, our guide to all the upcoming movies.

Incredible But True

No one does surreal quite like Quentin Dupieux. So much so, in fact, that sometimes his movies can be a little jarring and difficult to watch. That can't be said for Incredible But True, a a brilliantly cohesive sci-fi comedy that sees a woman discover that the tunnel in her basement sends those who go through it forward in time 12 hours. Not only that, but it makes them three days younger too, supposedly.

It doesn't take long for Marie (Léa Drucker) to become obsessed with the tunnel, slipping through it any chance she gets throughout the day – much to the dismay of her increasingly exasperated husband Alain (Alain Chabat), who reckons they should just board it up and never think of it again.

As if that's not enough weirdness for one film, there are also characters controlling their electronic new penises from smartphones, morally ambiguous estate agents, and rotten apples full of ants. Time travel movies tend to be epic and large in scope by nature, so it's refreshing to see a darkly funny, domesticated spin on the idea.

Time Bandits

Released in 1985, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits follows Kevin (Craig Warnock), a self-proclaimed nerd who's obsessed with all things history. One night, he gets the shock of his life when six dwarfs emerge from his closet and tell him that they used to work for the Supreme Being (Ralph Richardson) and that they're now on a mission to steal all kinds of treasure from different periods.

Given his expertise, they're keen for Kevin to tag along and help them – and of course, the youngster finds it impossible to say no. Together, the ragtag troupe manage to drop in on Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese) and King Agamemnon (Sean Connery) before the Supreme Being catches up with them. Old-school, chaos brimming with British wit.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

I love me a stoner comedy, and there's not many better than Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Led by a totally committed Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, it's a raucous, heartfelt tale about two high school kids who enlist the help of a man from the future to help them pass a history assignment.

It's super goofy, but the best part is that its jokes aren't specific to the time in which it was released, so it's still endlessly watchable in 2026. "Be excellent to each other", the film's tagline, is perhaps an even more important phrase nowadays than it was in 1989, too.

Palm Springs

Starring Andy Samberg and The Penguin's Cristin Milioti, Palm Springs follows two 20-somethings who bond over being two of the few singletons at a destination wedding. Sarah, Milioti's character, is the bride's half-depressed half-sister, while Samberg's Nyles is more of a carefree, fun-loving spirit. At least on the surface, anyways.

After hitting it off, the twosome venture into the desert for a smooch, where Nyles is shot by a mysterious assailant wielding a bow-and-arrow and crawls into a cave. He orders Sarah not to follow him but she does – and gets stuck inside the same time loop as Nyles has been enduring for countless weeks. With that, Sarah embarks on a crash course in quantum physics, ultimately trying to stop the pair of them for enduring a surprisingly exhausting fate of repetitive partying and nuptial dramas.

Samberg and Milioti have palpable chemistry and it's the perfect combination of thrills, gags, and romance. I'm never going to complain about a film with a sunny vacation setting, either.

Army of Darkness

Long before he was directing a bloodsoaked Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien in Send Help, Sam Raimi was making Bruce Campbell do all sorts of wild things in Army of Darkness. Having tested the waters with its comedy-leaning predecessor Evil Dead II, the filmmaker turned the zaniness up to 11 with the drastically-departed trilogy capper that sees protagonist Ash Williams get trapped in 1300s Europe.

On arrival, he saves a bunch of local knights from a Deadite and is immediately hailed a hero – but getting home proves a much harder task. To return to his time, he must find the Necronomicon and, it turns out, drink a magic potion that'll let him sleep so long he'll wake up in the early 1990s.

Those looking for the scares and gore of the earlier flicks may be disappointed. But don't be fooled by the lukewarm 68% score on Rotten Tomatoes, it's a bone-a-filled... sorry, bonafide cult classic centering a gonzo performance by Campbell and a whole load of medieval mayhem.

Timestalker

If you're a hopeless romantic like me, you'll be all too familiar with the concept of lovers being destined to meet one another in every lifetime. Thanks to sci-fi and fantasy, it can sometimes play out literally across movies and TV – like Hawkgirl and Hawkman in Legends of Tomorrow and Tom and Izzi in Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain. Alice Lowe's take on the trope, however, is deliciously twisted.

In the film's first act, the writer-director is introduced as lowly maidservant Agnes, who immediately falls in love with a heretical preacher right before he's set to hang. All googly-eyed and smitten, she attempts to stop his execution – and winds up getting killed in the process. When we meet her again, she's resurrected (and married to a brutish Nick Frost) in 1793. That is, until she meets her former paramour (Aneurin Barnard) again. The rub, though, is that in every era, he's kind of repulsed by her.

What follows is a kooky, giggle-worthy odyssey of sorts, as Agnes learns to accept that her crush is unrequited and why she shouldn't keep putting herself in harms' way for a man who wouldn't look twice at her. Come for the zany premise, stay for the colorful costumes, dream-like cinematography, and 90-minute runtime.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Chances are, you've already made your mind up about Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights. The film, an adaptation of the beloved Emily Brontë Gothic classic, has spurred a frenzy of discourse: accusations of flagrantly disregarding the source material, of twisting a layered and complex story into a derivative steamy romance, or of ignoring the novel's complicated themes, have abounded.

This maelstrom also translated into the film's reception: it currently sits at 66% on Rotten Tomatoes, a career low for Fennell, the provocative director of Promising Young Woman and Saltburn.

As an English Literature graduate who has read Wuthering Heights no less than seven times, I was wary of this adaptation, but decided to keep an open mind. I'm a firm believer that adaptations should be transformative, and I was prepared to meet Fennell's film on its own terms. What I saw when I finally sat down in the theater was Wuthering Heights as a half-remembered dream – and that's why it works.

Be with me always

Like many adaptations, Fennell's version of Wuthering Heights reshapes the story to focus solely on Catherine and Heathcliff. Margot Robbie plays Catherine (or Cathy) Earnshaw, the spirited, cruel daughter of Martin Clunes' Mr. Earnshaw, and Jacob Elordi is Heathcliff, a young boy Mr. Earnshaw finds on the streets and brings home to his windswept, dark, and foreboding home of Wuthering Heights.

The pair grow up together and, by the time they're teenagers, they've become so tightly woven they're inextricable; Cathy famously declares "whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" when describing her love for Heathcliff. However, in both the novel and the film, Heathcliff and Cathy cannot be together – for many reasons, including class – and instead Catherine marries her wealthy neighbor Edgar Linton. Heathcliff, after overhearing Catherine say it would "degrade" her to marry him, vanishes, leaving Cathy to her new life. Of course, Heathcliff only heard half the story, missing Cathy's passionate declaration of love.

The novel tracks the main characters across their entire lives, including the introduction of their children, and through them, many of the novel's central themes are brought to fruition. Not in Fennell's version, however.

"This book is so dense. It's so complicated. It's so epic. It takes place over generations, and I think either you make a miniseries, or even a series of 10 episodes, where you give everything the attention that it would need to be completely faithful to the book, or you do what I've done here, and make your own response to the book, and the things that it made you feel, and the things that you wish happen and didn't happen," Fennell told Screen Rant of the decision.

"Before I reread it again with a view of adapting it, I wrote down everything I remembered from the book from the times I'd read it before and from the first time I read it," she added. "And some of it was real, and some of it was my own imaginings and memory."

Take any form

Indeed, Fennell's adaptation is more like a hazy, half-recalled version of the story: the general shape and feeling of the first half of the novel is there, but the details are off. The second generation is entirely absent, along with Catherine's older brother Hindley, who is a source of Heathcliff's abuse in the novel. Instead, Mr. Earnshaw is the drunken, abusive older man in the house. Similarly, the wealthy Linton siblings are not siblings here but guardian and ward, and they are introduced as moving into their home as adults, rather than meeting young Cathy and Heathcliff as children.

The film leans fully into this dreamy surreality after Catherine marries Edgar Linton. In a montage movingly soundtracked by Charli xcx's 'Chains of Love,' a song about a tortured romance, Cathy wears stunning gowns, sparkling jewellery, and silvery eye makeup, and she picnics on a giant strawberry in a beautiful garden and plays curious parlor games with her new family. Life with the Lintons is lovely but strange, and the only time Catherine finds her equilibrium is when she is outside on the Yorkshire moors, her eyes closed and her cheek pressed against the grass; even in this dreamscape, Fennell understands that Catherine Earnshaw is a wild thing who could never truly be at home in the Lintons' dollhouse.

Similarly, Fennell's Wuthering Heights indulges in a heady dose of wish fulfilment when Heathcliff returns. As in the novel, he has mysteriously made a fortune he refuses to divulge the origins of – and while in Brontë's book he and Catherine still cannot be together, Fennell lets the pair finally collide in a secret, self-destructive affair. This is the film's biggest departure from the source material, and it's an interesting exercise in what if?

This change also solidifies that Catherine and Heathcliff's tormented bond is the messy beating heart of the film, much as it is in the book: while their time together is depicted across only the first half of the novel, its ramifications echo through the second half and the generation that follows them.

It's also through this twist to the tale that Fennell's decision to remove the second generation from the film makes tragic sense. In the novel, the new generation brings an end to the cycle of generational trauma that moves through the book; in Fennell's film, Catherine and Heathcliff only have this one life and one chance to make things right. Still, their obsessive love, so intense it teeters on the brink of hatred, and the shockwaves of hurt it inflicts on the other characters, are all felt here as they are in the novel.

Drive me mad

Fennell has never claimed Wuthering Heights would be a faithful adaptation, which is even reflected in the stylistic choice to put the title in quotation marks. This is her version, straight from her own mind, shown in the lavish, anachronistic costumes and sets.

Of course, there are still valid criticisms to be made. Fennell does engage with the novel's themes of class, trauma, and revenge, but not all that deeply. The film also does not grapple with race or address accusations of whitewashing (Heathcliff's ethnicity is ambiguous in the novel and is still a matter of scholarly debate, though his repeated racial othering suggests he isn't white).

But Fennell has done exactly what she set out to do: bring her own version of the novel to the screen. She has distilled the essence of Catherine and Heathcliff's relationship as she sees it and used it to conjure up this dream version of the story that can either enchant or repulse, depending on your perspective.

In one of the novel's most enduring quotes, Heathcliff desperately begs Cathy to "be with me always – take any form – drive me mad!" This is Wuthering Heights in Fennell's form, and it's certainly driving people mad. Whether that's a good thing or not is up to you.

Wuthering Heights is in theaters now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

New zombie horror Cold Storage is goofy as hell, and I couldn't mean that as more of a compliment. Based on the book of the same name by Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp, it follows night security guards Naomi (Georgina Campbell) and Teacake (Stranger Things' Joe Keery), who stumble across a parasitic green goo in the storage facility they work in one evening – and are inadvertently tasked with saving the entire human race from extinction. Fortunately for them, Liam Neeson's world-weary bioterror operative has faced off against the mind-controlling, body-bursting fungus before and is keen to help. If he can get there on time and not blow them up in the process, that is.

The movie is upfront about its silliness from the get-go, as we see a bunch of debris crash land on Earth and a title card reads: "Pay attention! This shit is real." But what was perhaps less expected, though, was its tangible, old-school feel that took me right back to being a kid sat grossed-out, grinning, and wide-eyed in front of the likes of Slither, Dude, Where's My Car? and Eight-Legged Freaks. (In retrospect, I can admit that Teacake's curtained, bleach-blonde hair and the use of Daniel Powter's 2005 track 'Bad Day' in the trailer should've been a big clue as to its vintage vibes).

Directed by Phoenix Nights' Jonny Campbell, which goes some way to explaining why Keery is surrounded by so many British actors in the Kansas-set flick, it's an end-of-the-world movie that realizes the benefits of keeping its narrative small-scale. Its brilliant cold-open prologue sets things up at breakneck speed: in 1979, an experimental space station fell out of orbit, and some of its fragments crashed down on our planet. Cut to 2007 – because, of course – and Sosie Bacon's microbiologist, Dr. Martins, is called out to a tiny town in Western Australia after receiving a panicked phone call from a local. "Something came outta your tank!" he shrieks. "We're dying, we're all dying. It's your tank, you have to help us!" The line goes dead.

27 hours later, Martins and Pentagon pals Robert Quinn (Neeson) and Trinny Romano (Lesley Manville) investigate the Kiwirrkurra gas station the ill-fated guy dialled in from. I won't spoil what goes down, but let's just say, things don't go well. The incident leads the United States' Department of Defense to take a sample of the goo back to a military base (as The Beach Boys' 'I Get Around' kicks in) – and forget about it for 18 years.

Suits over supes

Given its tight 98-minute runtime, it's bold of Koepp and Campbell to not have Teacake and Naomi discover the antagonistic ooze until 45 minutes in. It works, however, because the likeable characters are fun to be around as they roam around the workplace and open up about their pasts; Naomi had a daughter with a "manchild" at 18 and wants to be a vet, while Teacake got in trouble with the law 'cause he's "easily talked into things" and this job is part of his parole conditions. We bond with 'em as they bond with each other, which makes it all the more thrilling once they find themselves batting off blood-soaked, brain-dead baddies.

Keery is well-versed in going toe-to-toe with murderous monsters brought to life with gnarly effects by now, but it makes for a welcome change to see him play a chatty everyman who tries his best to be brave but can't quite wrap his head around what he's seeing at any given moment. Campbell – who's fast establishing herself as a scream queen with Barbarian and up-and-coming slasher Psycho Killer – is his perfect straight-man scene partner, too, while Neeson is in top Naked Gun-esque form as he drops phrases like "space shit" and "Pucker Factor 10".

Even though its gags aren't slapstick, Cold Storage's unlikely team-up reminded me a lot of the one in Ivan Reitman's quirky comedy Evolution (2001), which sees David Duchovny and Orlando Jones' former science professors join forces with Sean William Scott's firefighter and Julianne Moore's CDC researcher to thwart an alien invasion. They're not superheroes or action stars, which we've grown so accustomed to thanks to the big screen domination of franchises like Mission: Impossible and the MCU; they're regular people in button-up shirts and name tags. There are no Avengers headquarters here, rather staff rooms and reception desks – and it helps ground the plot's absurdity. It makes our heroes more accessible and easy to root for, too, as we dare to imagine how we'd fare in a similar situation.

Opportunistic invader

With its small cast and singular setting, Koepp gets creative inventing opportunities for gooey carnage. There's Vanessa Redgrave's Mrs Rooney, who drops by to say a final goodbye to her late husband on their anniversary. At one point, Naomi's volatile ex shows up at the facility in a tizzy about accidentally shooting his parents' cat and, naturally, becomes cannon fodder. As do Teacake's boss and his punky crew, who've driven out into the middle of nowhere to buy 4K TVs. It's all hilariously situational and mundane in juxtaposition to the wild things that are happening in, say, the corridor over.

One standout sequence, which is amusingly set to Blondie's 'One Way or Another', uses a POV tracking shot to chart the devastating organism breaking out of its containment breach and latching onto a cockroach host, evading a hungry rat, and ultimately getting run over by Naomi's ex in the warehouse's driveway. Uh oh.

For the last 10 years or so, the film industry has been obsessed with capitalizing on our '80s nostalgia. From Stranger Things and the It movies to Netflix's GLOW and legacy sequels such as Top Gun: Maverick, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Karate Kid: Legends, and more, the bygone era has influenced a lot behind the scenes. After thoroughly enjoying retro romp Cold Storage, I hope we don't make the same mistake the DoD did and lose track of the good work we were doing two decades ago – and Hollywood will start leeching off more tongue-in-cheek titles from the noughties for inspiration next.

Cold Storage is out in US theaters on February 13, and will land in UK cinemas on February 20. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Love Elizabethan-era stories about vengeful Danish princes? Then you're in luck, because 2026 is rife with adaptations of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hot on the heels of awards weepie Hamnet – the 'untold' story of the creation of Hamlet – and just ahead of Mamoru Hosoda's anime Scarlet – a gender-flipped riff on Hamlet set in the afterlife – comes, well, Hamlet. But despite that more down-the-middle title, the Riz Ahmed-starring movie is just as distinct as its cinematic brethren, possessing the urgency and intimacy of a David Fincher thriller.

Directed by Aneil Karia (Surge) and written by Michale Leslie, it's a Hamlet adaptation that takes some surprisingly big swings. Primary among those is the decision to shoot it with a "kind of visceral first-person energy", according to Karia. "We made one big decision in the development process, which was: 'What if we experience everything with Hamlet? What if you encounter every problem in real time?" And it brought this singularity and interesting ambiguity to it."

Fresh blood

Set in contemporary London, and captured with an over-the-shoulder immediacy, it's a film that never leaves the headspace of its spiralling central figure as his world crumbles around him following the death of his father and the news that his mother, Gertrude (Sheeba Chaddha), is to marry his uncle, Claudius (Art Malik). For Ahmed, playing Hamlet was a long-held ambition.

"I'd been trying to make this for a long time because I became obsessed with [Hamlet] when I was a teenager," Ahmed tells GamesRadar+. "I had an English teacher who gave me this play at a time when I was really interested in rap music as well, and I found this was exactly how I felt, expressed in the most amazing lyricism ever. And it's interesting because I often felt, like a lot of people, that I was on the outside of Shakespeare, and it didn't really belong to people like me. But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that it had a lot of resonances with our own kind of cultural experience."

To that end, Hamlet and his family are no longer Scandinavian royalty, but British South Asian property magnates. As Malik bluntly puts it: "Was I surprised [about] it being set within an Asian community? No. It's about time."

"You know, it's a play about honor and family and who you can and can't marry," Ahmed adds. "And so, I was like, 'I would love to reframe this story so that more people feel like this belongs to them and that they can see themselves in it' because it's just such an amazing and beautiful piece of writing. I want it to belong to everyone."

Death becomes her

Also featuring Timothy Spall as Polonius and Joe Alwyn as Laertes (Alwyn's Big Willy year continuing in earnest following his supporting turn in Hamnet), another major beneficiary of the film's streamlining adaptive changes is The Rings of Power star Morfydd Clark, whose Ophelia is a combination of Hamlet's doomed lover and his friend, Horatio.

"I loved that they did that with the Horatio lines," Clark tells GamesRadar+. "It really modernized it, because it meant she was much more aware of what was going on. It made it more tragic for me in a way, because she's aware and still can't get herself out of this horrible whirlwind that's happening around her." Shot between seasons 2 and 3 of The Rings of Power, where Clark plays a young Galadriel, the star was also struck by how "urgent and exciting" the movie is. "It feels so frantic. I had to take a huge deep breath at the end of it because you are just so immersed."

Noting that she came to Hamlet, like most Millennials, through Disney ("I grew up with Hamlet because of The Lion King"), Clark has a theory about the sudden influx of stories inspired by the Shakespeare classic. "All of Shakespeare is always there," she says. "It was a story that was part of my upbringing, and I didn't know it at the time, but it is timeless. Unfortunately, this tragedy is timeless."

Having lived with Hamlet for decades, it's something Ahmed has given significant thought to as well: why Hamlet, and why now?

"The world needs it right now," Ahmed says. "Hamlet is a story about someone who is grieving the illusion of a fair world, who realizes that the world is a messed-up place that he's powerless in the face of it, and actually he's complicit in it. And that I think is how a lot of people are feeling in this moment. That question, which is, 'Am I losing my mind or has the world gone crazy?' You know, that's what Hamlet is about. And I think that's what we're living through at this moment."

Hamlet releases in UK cinemas on February 6 and in US theaters on April 10. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Yoo Man-su has it all. A loving family, two adorable dogs, ownership of his beautiful home, and a career of 25 years that he takes great pride in.

But, in Oldboy director Park Chan-wook's latest black comedy thriller No Other Choice, it only takes a few seconds to rip it all away. Man-su's beloved career evaporates when the new American owners of his paper factory lay him off. After an attempt to break back into the industry falls excruciatingly flat when a nervy Man-su bombs an interview, he decides his only path forward is to stage a fake job opening for a paper company, then kill off the competition one by one. Easy, right?

Well, wrong. Man-su quickly discovers murder is not an easy task – not just morally, but logistically, too – and his madcap quest to return to the paper industry at all costs sets him on a path that threatens to obliterate him and his family.

Sympathy for the devil

No Other Choice is arriving decades into director Park's career, but the legendary filmmaker – the mind behind instant classics like The Handmaiden, the Vengeance Trilogy, and Decision to Leave – has had his sights set on an adaptation of Donald Westlake's The Ax for almost as long.

"It's been 20 years since I first read the novel and decided that I wanted to adapt it, but I have actually been doing the work of the adaptation for around 16 years," director Park tells us when we meet with him and star Lee Byung-hun at London Film Festival. "And, I initially wanted it to be an English-language film in accordance with the original novel, but none of the studios offered the level of budget that I wanted for the project. And that's when I thought to myself, 'Why can't I just make this into a Korean film?' And ever since that thought occurred to me, everything has very quickly developed, and, after that, I've been able to cast amazing actors like Lee Byung-hun."

Lee, who is perhaps most recognizable as Squid Game's villainous Front Man, stars as the hapless Man-su. This ostensible family man starts out flawed but sympathetic, floundering at the thought of losing his home, but aghast at the concept of downsizing to an apartment. Luckily, Man-su's wife, Son Ye-jin's Miri, proves more pragmatic. She makes the difficult decision to temporarily rehome their dogs – to the agony of their youngest daughter – and even cancels Netflix, to the disdain of their son. Just like Man-su can't comprehend finding work outside of the paper industry, he also can't comprehend any significant lifestyle changes. He even struggles with Miri working as a dental assistant, increasingly paranoid that she might be having an affair with her boss, and convinced that, as the man of the house, it's his job to provide for his family.

Man-su's murderous scheming does even more to fracture this already fragile family, however, as his escapades take him away from the loved ones that need him in pursuit of a goal we're always painfully aware is absurd. Despite this, the film accomplishes a fine balancing act of making Man-su sympathetic, even though he has much in common with his victims – who themselves are former paper workers who have fallen on hard times – and is obliviously turning the ruthless competition of job-hunting under capitalism into a literal bloodbath.

"One characteristic of this story is that when you're typically eliminating and murdering somebody in the film, the audience follows the emotions of the protagonists," Lee tells us. "There are strong themes of revenge in those types of stories, so the audience is typically cheering on the protagonist, supporting them, really wishing that they'll get rid of and eradicate this other person.

"However, here in this film, Man-su is eliminating people that he has no prior relationship with. In fact, when he closely observes them and gets to know them, he even empathizes with them and has a lot of sympathy with them, which makes it really harder for him to act upon and execute his plans following his decision," he explains. "So, the audience could be following Man-su, cheering him on, and then all of a sudden depart from him, and just observe him from far away at a distance, which is quite an unusual, odd experience for the audience. So, then they can go back to him and then resonate and sympathize with him, and then again, jump out and observe him from further away. And the film is a repetition of that. However, for me as the actor playing Man-su, I was always on his side cheering him on."

Make 'em laugh

On paper, No Other Choice might sound like a deeply serious thriller, then. But, like many of director Park's films, pitch-black humor abounds – some critics have even compared Man-su's antics to Looney Tunes. While Lee is indeed giving a physically comical performance, he never viewed his role as slapstick.

"For me, honestly, Man-su is an ordinary man facing an extreme situation, leading him to make very extreme decisions as well," Lee tells us. "And in this process of acting upon his extreme decisions, he undergoes many changes psychologically and emotionally, ultimately leading up to his self-destructive situation. So, during this journey, for me, I gave my total focus on all the changes in his emotions that he goes through, and that was what I put my most thought and efforts into.

"And, even after I'd finished the film, I never considered that I was doing slapstick comedy in any way," he continues. "When we went to Venice and Toronto, and various journalists and critics were reviewing it as such, I was like, 'Okay, yeah, I can see why that would appear as being a slapstick comedy.' When you look at the protagonist closely, he's actually in a very desperate situation, falling on hard times. However, if you span out… I can see why it will look funny. And I think that's really the appeal of this film."

Lee's performance is an effortless, tonally perfect fit for this hilarious dark satire, so it might not come as a surprise to discover that this is not his and director Park's first collaboration. The duo first worked together on 2000's Joint Security Area, a poignant procedural in which Lee plays a South Korean soldier who befriends two guards on the opposite side of the Demilitarized Zone, and again on the short film Cut, part of the horror anthology Three… Extremes, which stars Lee as a successful film director who endures a nightmarish evening at the violent mercy of one of his extras.

"I guess if you look at it in terms of years that have passed in our careers, it has been many years since we've worked together," Park says. "But over those years, we've always stayed friends and caught up quite often. So, it didn't feel that long to me. In fact, I was surprised to find out that it's been so long since we'd last worked together, so it didn't feel like a lot of time had passed at all."

With No Other Choice receiving near-universal critical acclaim, here's hoping another collaboration comes sooner rather than later.

No Other Choice is in US theaters now and UK cinemas from January 23. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

The best kind of movies are the ones with a story so amazing that each rewatch feels like your first time seeing them. It's the films where you don't notice time flying away, as each scene perfectly paces into the next, and you're engulfed by the on-screen world and all the character journeys before you. Only a few films have ever reached this level of "movie magic" and, luckily for us, the best cinematic trilogy to do so, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, is now out in cinemas again.

Celebrating 25 years since the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, fans can now go to their local cineplex to tune into the extended editions of all three films. As someone who rewatches the extended editions every year, it's an experience I personally recommend to any movie lover. Even if you aren't a fantasy fan, the trilogy hasn't aged a day and is a masterclass in great adaptation that I'm becoming increasingly convinced will never be matched due to one reason: our modern obsession with convoluted franchises.

The right place at the right time

The 2020s have been characterised by many big-budget Hollywood affairs trying to replicate the Marvel effect rather than adapting new works. IPs are mined like Khazad-dûm, and films often tie into TV shows that you need to watch like extra homework, or go past the trilogy even when the story has run its course in an effort to keep the money flowing.

Compared to the 2000s, which saw both The Fellowship of the Ring and the first Harry Potter movie released in cinemas, the rights for novel adaptations are increasingly going to streaming services instead of film studios (queue the side-eye at the upcoming Harry Potter show), becoming series that are in constant danger of being canceled, and which also tend to be drawn-out affairs.

In 1954, JRR Tolkien published a fantasy epic that would go on to define a genre. His novel, The Lord of the Rings, described in painstaking detail a fantastic world called Middle-earth, where the most unlikely of heroes (a small Hobbit named Frodo Baggins) would journey to the fiery Mount Doom to destroy the dark Lord Sauron's ring of power. Frodo's journey in the books is a long one. Tolkien never shied away from lore or world-building, and even created his own language.

I'm forever thankful that The Lord of the Rings trilogy was made when it was, instead of today, because its source material is so vast and detailed that we'd likely be in Middle-earth Phase 12 by now if certain companies got their way. Instead, Jackson's trilogy is perfect. Opposed to stretching out Tolkien's story to make even more movies, he cut the work down, released extended cuts to add more context for those looking for it, and made necessary changes that didn't take away from the heart of what makes these stories so great: how even the smallest among us can take down an evil force that seems unstoppable.

The art of adapting Tolkien

There is a certain art to big-screen adaptations, and very rarely are you going to get one that isn't afraid to tweak the source material for the new medium. The Lord of the Rings trilogy does make substantial changes from the book, but does so in a way that will make any screenwriting professor and Tolkien fan happy.

For instance, Arwen's rescue of Frodo in The Fellowship didn't happen in the novel. In the book, Aragorn was never in exile, unlike in the trilogy. In fact, he was prepped and ready to take on his role against Sauron and for Gondor long before he met Frodo. There's also no Tom Bombadil in the movies, and the films even have Sam and Frodo splitting up for a time when Gollum gets between them during their journey to Mordor, which also never happened in the books. These are just a few of the changes made; however, most hardcore Tolkien fans agree that they aren't deal breakers either, and that's because, at the end of the day, all the alterations fit the medium of film perfectly.

Condensing an epic into three movies is a massive undertaking. A screenplay isn't a novel, and, as such, things that we love in a book sometimes just don't translate to the big screen. Similarly, you have to be brutal in the editor's room. Even if Tom Bombadil is your favourite character, let's be frank, his inclusion in the trilogy would have just pleased fans and caused pacing issues instead.

Changing Arwen's role in meeting Frodo gave her more of an identity in her romance with Aragorn, so viewers could invest in them both more easily. Sam and Frodo essentially breaking up over Gollum added dramatic tension and raised the stakes when Frodo ventured into Shelob's cave by himself, and Aragorn struggling to embrace his identity gave the character growth and a personal journey to root for.

In short, Jackson's changes didn't damage the story; they made it fit for purpose in its new medium. The director kept the essence of the novel, and his alterations to Tolkien's plot simply let viewers experience all the dramatic ups and downs that readers did back in the day in the space of just a few hours. It's a stunning feat that rightfully led to Oscar recognition, and one of the most passionate fan communities around.

Modern Middle-earth

Once the rights for The Lord of the Rings fell to Warner Bros., the franchise-creating efforts really kicked off. I have a soft spot for the first Hobbit movie in Jackson's second Tolkien trilogy, for the reason that it adapted the novel (which is much shorter than The Lord of the Rings and was originally written for children) quite well. However, by the third movie, the new films were a jumble of new characters, cameos, a romance that didn't work, and Tolkien's appendices scattered around the plot.

While I'm also dreadfully excited about The Hunt for Gollum and will be likely watching more than once when it releases in 2027, the fact that its adapting a very short period of time covered in the book, also makes me nervous that instead of working in harmony with the source material like the original trilogy did, we are going to see another cinematic case of putting quantity over the art of storytelling. I'm very hopeful that, since it's planned as a single movie instead of multiple, we'll have another Tolkien adaptation to add to the list of the best fantasy movies of all time (fingers crossed).

Tolkien took decades to write his book; he defined fantasy as we know it today, and the movies that honored that and weren't concerned with prolonging a franchise or setting one up also ended up being some of the best films to ever exist. The original Lord of the Rings trilogy still makes my heart race – it fills me with joy and wonder as I witness the beautiful New Zealand landscapes and thrilling battle sequences.

I may be wrong in my assertion that we'll never see anything like them again. However, right now I can confidently say that they are the greatest adaptations in cinematic history and have set the bar extremely high, especially during a time when we've seemingly forgotten to write with the screen in mind rather than our "greedy Hobbitses" pockets.

The Lord of the Rings 25th anniversary re-release is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series. You can also head to our guide on The Lord the Rings timeline for more Middle-earth fan.

l'll admit it, I was kind of a weird kid. I grew up loving monsters, lurking endlessly in the horror section of our local video store (Center Video, a three-story mom-and-pop rental place), gazing into the eyes of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and too many other vicious killers and creeps to name.

Oddly though, one of the boxes that caught my eye again and again wasn't technically a horror movie at all, despite its proximity on the shelves: Jim Henson's Labyrinth, which is back in theaters for a limited engagement to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

In all likelihood, the video was in the next section over, but in my mind, it lives on among the horror movies that so captivated my young attention. And though the movie is undoubtedly a family-oriented fairy tale, I'm prepared to say my own childhood association between Labyrinth and the horror genre is entirely warranted.

Labyrinth is scary. A baby stolen by goblins, endless obstacles each weirder than the last, and a villain far beyond most kids' movies all add up to a film that, while undoubtedly presented in a kid-focused package, feels a lot like Baby's First Folk Horror.

That's not a criticism at all. In fact, I think that's a big part of the magic of Labyrinth that has held it strong in the minds of an entire generation.

The movie has served as an awakening for young watchers for 40 years, shaping our sense of fantasy, preparing us for navigating our own obstacles, and, in many cases, even influencing our sexuality thanks to David Bowie's hypnotically menacing Goblin King, Jareth.

Facing your fears

Labyrinth starts with Jareth's goblin minions stealing away the baby brother of Jennifer Connolly's Sarah, a scene that terrified many young viewers right off the bat thanks to Henson's remarkably creepy creature designs. But the horror of Labyrinth goes a lot deeper than Jareth and his ilk.

For me, the scene in which Jennifer Connelly's Sarah is forced to escape a dark hole lined with sentient, autonomous hands is particularly terrifying. There's also the crushing hopelessness of the Junk Lady and her ilk, peddlers weighed down with tons of trash strapped to their backs, who try to stop Sarah's quest by ladening her with her own belongings to divert her attention. And that's merely scratching the surface.

It all goes hand-in-hand with Labyrinth's other formative aspects, offering fans an easy way to dip our toes into the kind of stories that make us nervous and force us to confront our fears. It's a low stakes kind of scary, wrapping up in a moment of relief and joy rather than the often cynical conclusions of full-blown adult horror, and its spooky elements become more whimsical as we age.

Labyrinth is far from the only scary kids' movie. Its sister film, 1982's The Dark Crystal, is also heralded for the terror of its villains, the Skeksies. And there are more than a few Disney movies that have struck fear into the hearts of children. But part of what separates Labyrinth from its contemporaries is the human characters at the heart of the live-action film.

Like the Wizard of Oz before it, Labyrinth is all about a human girl who is thrust into a world of oddities and inexplicable strangeness. There's a lack of the separation between audience and film that is inherent to animation, allowing young watchers to insert themselves into the movie in a way that makes it just that much more intense.

Dance Magic Dance

Labyrinth remains a beloved film among people of a certain age (and their kids) for good reason. It's a beautiful movie, both emotionally and visually, a triumph of puppet artistry and practical filmmaking.

I'm lucky enough to live a relatively short trip away from Atlanta's Center for Puppetry Arts, where numerous puppets, costumes, and props from Labyrinth and many other Jim Henson projects are on display. Seeing things like the wall of hands, the goblins, and more of Labyrinth's iconic characters and sets is even more awe-inducing in person, reinforcing the childhood impact of the film rather than taking away its mystique.

In some ways, Labyrinth feels like a midnight movie, a cult classic that deeply affected those who grew up with it, exposing us to our first taste of more adult concepts without sacrificing the heart that undoubtedly makes it a family film. It's also proof that kids can handle intensity in movies and still be entertained, unscathed by scariness, captivated by drama.

Facing our fears and coming out the other side no worse for wear is a crucial part of growing up, an experience that proves to us we can confront anything, even unreal trials and terrors.

For some, those feelings evolve into a love of scary stories and monster movies, small tests of our courage. As someone who very much grew into a horror fan and a lover of film and filmmaking, I can thank Labyrinth for being an early stepping stone towards what has become a lifelong passion – and I know I'm not alone. Not a bad legacy after 40 years.

For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Happy new year, and happy new watching from Big Screen Spotlight! While 2026 may be bringing us major new superhero flicks like Avengers: Doomsday and Supergirl, and a new Christopher Nolan epic with The Odyssey, it isn't just blockbusters that should be on your watchlist this year.

We're always looking to bring you new recommendations and put different titles on your radar, which is why we've compiled a list of the best independent, international, and potentially overlooked films coming our way over the next few months. You'll find highly anticipated dramas, comedies, and thrillers from directors like Park Chan-wook and starring big names from Robert Pattinson to Josh O'Connor.

For more on what to watch this year, check out our guide to 2026's other biggest movie release dates and our wider look at the year's upcoming movies.

No Other Choice

Release date: January 23, 2026

The latest from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook is a satirical black comedy with its fair share of laughs and wince-worthy violence. Based on the '90s novel The Ax by Donald Westlake, Squid Game's Lee Byung-hun stars as Man-su, a successful employee of a paper company who abruptly loses his job. With his comfortable lifestyle at risk, Man-su turns to extreme measures to eliminate his competition in his search for new employment. It's been a hit with critics and made the Oscar shortlist as Korea's entry for Best International Film.

The Testament of Ann Lee

Release date: February 20, 2026

Amanda Seyfried swaps Mamma Mia for a very different kind of musical in The Testament of Ann Lee. She plays the titular character, who was the founder of the Shaker religious movement in the US in the 18th Century. The Shakers were categorized by their dedication to communal living, equality, and the pursuit of "ecstatic devotion" in their worship through shouting and dancing. Directed by Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote The Brutalist (and that movie's director, Fastvold's partner Brady Corbet, co-wrote The Testament of Ann Lee), the cast also includes Thunderbolts star Lewis Pullman and Captain America: Brave New World's Tim Blake Nelson.

The Drama

Release date: April 3, 2026

Before they venture to Arrakis in Dune 3, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya star in The Drama, a mysterious new rom-com. They play bookstore employee Emma and museum director Charlie, a couple whose relationship is shaken when one of them discovers some unsettling truths about their partner just days before their wedding. Intriguing…

The film is directed by Kristoffer Borgli, who previously helmed Dream Scenario, starring Nicolas Cage, and Ari Aster is on board as a producer, so it's safe to assume that things aren't quite as they seem.

Bad Apples

Release date: April 10, 2026

After turns in Steve McQueen's war drama Blitz and moving recovery drama The Outrun in 2024, we were missing Saoirse Ronan on our screens in 2025. This year, though, she makes a comeback in Bad Apples, a new comedy thriller. She stars as Maria, an elementary school teacher who finds herself going to extreme measures to stop her class being disrupted by one unruly kid. Interview with the Vampire's Jacob Anderson also stars.

Rebuilding

Release date: April 17, 2026

After starring as a boxer-turned-priest in Knives Out 3 last year and before he hits the big screen in Steven Spielberg's next major flick, Josh O'Connor will take center stage in Rebuilding. The film follows Dusty, a cowboy whose ranch is destroyed by wildfires, as he finds himself living in a federal emergency camp alongside his estranged ex-wife and young daughter. Amy Madigan, who terrified us as Aunt Gladys in 2025's Weapons, The White Lotus' Meghan Fahy, and True Detective's Kali Reis also star.

Rose of Nevada

Release date: April 24, 2026

Director Mark Jenkins is back with his first film since 2022's quietly discomfiting folk horror Enys Men. This time around, he's taking on sci-fi and time travel with Rose of Nevada, which follows a boat that returns to a village 30 years after it vanished. Callum Turner and George MacKay play two men who decide to join its crew in search of better fortunes, but end up travelling back in time after being mistaken for members of the original crew.

For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Sentimental Value is a film about a family, but it's also a film about a house. In The Worst Person in the World director Joachim Trier's latest, the dysfunctional Borg family and their Oslo home are inextricable from each other – it's been in the family for generations, through the Second World War, death, and suffering, and it takes on the quality of a haunted house. There are ghosts in these walls.

The film follows stage actor Nora (Renate Reinsve) and historian Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), sisters who are estranged from their father, acclaimed movie director Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård). He left Norway to focus on his career decades earlier after divorcing their mother, but unexpectedly turns up at their mother's wake with two things on his mind: he wants the house back, and he wants to offer Nora a job.

Gustav is working on a film inspired by his own family history, which will be filmed in the family home where he grew up, and culminate in his mother's suicide. He wrote the part based on his mother for Nora, but she refuses to work with him – or even read the script – on account of their difficult relationship. Gustav goes on to offer the part to Hollywood actor Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) instead, and her involvement helps secure funding from Netflix to make the film.

Mutual (mis)understandings

Despite seeing great success earlier in his professional life, Gustav hasn't made a movie in 15 years. His career isn't exactly booming, but neither is Rachel's – her last film bombed, and she's on the verge of quitting acting. They bond one night after being introduced at an afterparty at a French film festival and, on the surface, they make an unlikely pair. However, their friendship isn't so dissimilar from the one between their real-life counterparts, and Fanning tells GamesRadar+ that her and Skarsgård's shared experiences as child actors gave them a "mutual understanding."

As for their characters, "Gustav sees something in [Rachel] that ignites this light in her again," Fanning says. "She's felt a bit lost, and so having him see her, and feel like he really sees her, and then to ultimately give her this opportunity, it's a beautiful thing. And I think he's much more open to Rachel than he is with his own daughters."

Indeed, Gustav's personal relationships are at odds with his filmmaking, Skarsgård thinks. "He is capable of feelings, and he's capable of expressing feelings," he tells us. "He's excellent at it in his art, but he's clumsy in his personal life, and it's funny to see him trying. It's comic, and it's tragic at the same time. It's very funny, but you also feel that he really wants to do it, but he can't, and that's the key to him."

One particularly humorous scene that exemplifies this is during Agnes' son Erik's birthday party, when Gustav gives his nine-year-old grandson a copy of Michael Haneke's psychosexual drama The Piano Teacher on DVD. Baffled by the gesture, Agnes tells him, "We don't even have a DVD player." It's a clever and bittersweet moment that shows Gustav isn't just out of touch with his own family, but with the film industry more broadly.

"In spite of being the same age as me, he's of an older generation, and he's a 20th-century man," Skarsgård explains, before referencing a scene in which Gustav and Rachel are being interviewed at a press junket. "It's like the interview discussion when he gets the question, 'Will the film be shown in the cinemas?' 'Of course, where else would it be shown?' He doesn't quite get that Netflix might not show it."

Art imitates life

Discussing a press junket during a press junket isn't the only way art imitates life in Sentimental Value: Fanning isn't just playing an American actor in a Norwegian production, she was an American actor on the set of a Norwegian film. "There were aspects and scenes that I could understand very, very well, and were happening in real time around me. So you can't help but acknowledge and take that in," she says.

"It was fun to calibrate her just right and toe that line of her, because I think she could have easily slipped into a cliche, vapid Hollywood star. But Joachim is not interested in characters that are one-dimensional, and so I loved getting to flesh her out in the many layers of her."

It's not hard to imagine a version of this film in which Rachel is an unsympathetic character, but Fanning's performance and Trier's script make us feel for her wholeheartedly. Not only has she found herself on the outside of her industry during a fallow point in her career, but her supposed comeback role has put her on the outside of a family rift she can't ever fully understand.

If the Borg's home is a haunted house, Rachel is an unwitting visitor who doesn't quite grasp the price of admission. Still, she's integral to the eventual dismantling of its ghostly walls, whether she's fully aware of it or not, as Gustav's film tries to make sense of his painful past. Trier "had to audition many houses," Fanning says, to find the right one to play one of the film's most vital roles. "For me, it felt like a very special space."

Sentimental Value is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Earlier this year, Timothée Chalamet ruffled some feathers by announcing in front of a room full of his peers at the SAG Awards, that he was in "pursuit of greatness". For some, it was a moment of refreshing honesty: don't we all want to do something worthwhile with our time on Earth? Especially if we have the talent to back it up. These words could have come straight from the mouth of Marty Mauser, the cocksure ping pong champ that Chalamet brings to the screen with electrifying magnetism in Marty Supreme.

In fact, if you've been anywhere near social media in the last couple of months, you've probably already had a taste of Mauser's brash confidence thanks to Chalamet's unconventional publicity campaign for the film. Typically flanked by several people with "hardcore orange" spheres on their heads, and wearing Mauser-esque glasses, Chalamet has been talking up his "really top-of-the-line performances" over the last 7-8 years, declaring Marty Surpeme specifically "top-level shit."

There's a fascinating blurring of the lines between character and performer going on here because, like Chalamet, Marty Supreme has the ability to back up his self-aggrandizing statements. American ping pong's(!) blazing young star, Mauser ruffles institutional feathers by charging expensive rooms to the league, while putting on an unmissable show that draws in the crowds. That is, until he loses to a Japanese underdog with a new type of paddle – a shame that he hopes to rectify with a rematch.

Back in the game

That brief precis probably makes Marty Surpreme sound like more of a sports movie than it actually is. Set in 1950s New York, ping pong bookends the movie, but the mid-section is something else entirely. Much closer to a frantic 70s-era drama, and very much in keeping with the Safdie Brothers' agonisingly tense oeuvre (though Josh directs solo here, while Benny went off to make The Smashing Machine), it's a film about a resourceful schemer who's been dealt a bad hand skirting the law to claw back what he thinks he's owed.

One of Mauser's strangest money spinners involves a failed attempt to extort a dangerous gangster (played by Bad Lieutenant director Abel Ferrara) over the return of his dog, barely 24 hours after Mauser almost crushes both of them when he, and the bathtub he's sitting in, fall through the ceiling of a decrepit motel. From the moment Mauser arrives back on US soil after a humiliating world tour where he performs pleasant ping pong tricks for family audiences, everything goes wrong – a spiral of disasters that take Mauser further and further away from his dreams.

In the middle of it all, Mauser manages to become involved with a faded Hollywood star, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow, sporting a spot-on British accent). Stuck in a dead-end marriage to a pen magnate (played with reptilian menace by Kevin O'Leary), Stone is won over by Mauser's unassailable confidence as an escape from her husband, even if Mauser's bulletproof self-regard frequently tips over into arrogance. Outside of the MCU and Ryan Murphy projects, Paltrow hasn't appeared on screen since 2015's risible Mortdecai, but in just a handful of scenes, she reminds you why she was one of the 90s most in-demand stars.

Rule the world

Similarly beguiling is Odessa A'zion as Rachel. The Until Dawn star is a constant as Marty's chaotic love interest, who's looking for a way out of her loveless marriage to Ira (Emory Cohen). They're a perfect match – Rachel is as much of a schemer as Marty, and even more determined to find a way out of her hopeless situation. In a way, the film is a stealth love story, albeit one that opens with a microscopic view of Marty's sperm swimming to victory, soundtracked rousingly by Tears For Fears' 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World.'

But this is the Timmy show, and after nearly going all the way with his transformative performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, there's a very real chance that Chalamet will be holding a golden baldie aloft come mid-March. Chalamet learned to play ping pong to an impressively convincing standard as Mauser, and even though it's far from the focus of the film, when Chalamet has a paddle in his hand, Marty Supreme taps into the pulse-quickening thrills of a Rocky or a Rudy.

There's something undeniably invigorating about Marty Supreme. While there's a familiarity to its atmosphere and worldview – more so than The Smashing Machine, it's a continuation of the Safdie project, including esoteric casting choices, spiralling madness and lots of scenes featuring sweaty lowlifes shouting at each other about money – watching Chalamet dominate the screen is akin to watching a young Pacino. Chalamet is no longer in pursuit of greatness, he's already there.

Marty Supreme releases in theaters on December 25. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

45 years after it first hit theaters in 1980, The Shining is back on the big screen – and it's showing in IMAX for the first time, in what's bound to be one of the most intense cinema experiences you'll have this year.

The Shining follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), an aspiring writer who gets a job as an off-season caretaker at the remote Overlook Hotel. He moves there for the winter with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and young son Danny (Danny Lloyd), but his mental state quickly begins to unravel between the hotel's walls with violent, terrifying consequences. The film has become a cornerstone of pop culture, referenced by everything from The Simpsons to Breaking Bad, but it's had a mixed reception over the years.

Stanley Kubrick's movie is based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, but the author wasn't a fan of the adaptation. Kubrick and co-writer Diane Johnson's screenplay makes some changes to King's book, including Jack and Wendy's characterizations and the shift away from Danny's point of view. King has spoken out against the movie multiple times; in a 2013 interview, he said that Kubrick's Wendy is "one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film. She's basically just there to scream and be stupid." Duvall was also nominated for Worst Actress at the first-ever Razzies in 1981.

Fear factor

Of course, the movie has been thoroughly reappraised in the four-and-a-half decades since its initial release (although not by King, it should be noted), but there's one element of the movie that's still often unfairly maligned or misrepresented: Shelley Duvall's performance as Wendy Torrance. This is, in part, due to wilful misreadings of her acting and also down to internet mythology with misogynistic undertones that undermine her agency as an actor.

Because, contrary to King's opinion, I would argue that Wendy is there to do a lot more than "scream and be stupid" and, in fact, is the glue that holds the whole movie together. Jack Torrance is a frightening figure, but he wouldn't be half as scary without Wendy's role as the vehicle for that fear. If a tree falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it, it may not make a sound, but if Jack is rampaging through the Overlook with an ax and there's no one hiding in a bathroom, it's not nearly as spine-chilling. Horror, like most genres, needs its key players to work, and The Shining is no exception. There's no hunter without the hunted.

Duvall's performance was the result of a gruelling 56-week shoot that pushed her to her physical and emotional limits. The infamous staircase sequence, in which Wendy fends Jack off with a baseball bat, reportedly took 127 takes to film (although this has been disputed), for example, and it once held a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. That's a lot of stairs to climb.

"[Kubrick] doesn’t print anything until at least the 35th take," she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021. "35 takes, running and crying and carrying a little boy, it gets hard. And full performance from the first rehearsal. That’s difficult." She's often painted as a victim of Kubrick, but, in her lifetime, the actor only ever spoke highly of the director and their relationship, even though he put her through her paces on set. Never mind Kubrick's behavior – victimizing Duvall and disregarding her own narrative is pretty misogynistic in and of itself, in my book.

Scream queen

Speaking of which, let's go back to the "scream[ing] and be[ing] stupid." Wendy does scream a lot over the course of the movie, sure. But what else is a person meant to do when their husband is matter-of-factly telling them that he's going to bash their brains in? What else should a person do when they're trapped in a bathroom while their husband is cutting down the door with an ax?

Duvall's performance perfectly captures the nightmarish feeling of paralyzing fear. When she's trapped in that bathroom, unable to fit through the window, while Danny waits for her outside, you can feel her panic radiating off her in waves. It's as if the four walls around the viewer are closing in, too. Duvall's version of Wendy isn't as calm and collected as King's, no, but she exhibits a raw, realistic type of fear – if not one we've ever realized ourselves, then one we've certainly felt at one point or another in our lives. It's the feeling of sleep paralysis, of knowing you're having a bad dream but not being able to wake up, of sweating and freezing simultaneously under your bed sheets. I can't think of a better example of that intense, visceral terror being represented on screen.

So, what says "happy holidays" like unadulterated terror? If you're looking for an unconventional festive watch, I can't think of a better choice than the snow-covered Shining re-release. Duvall's Wendy paved the way for plenty of scream queens, but no one has yet to take her crown.

The Shining 45th anniversary re-release is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

The older I get, the more I just want to shut my brain off and watch movies where bad things happen to teenagers who wander into a house they aren't supposed to enter, or movies where the cast is led entirely by CGI animals who are smarter than the real-life humans they encounter. I rarely want to feel anything besides good ol' fashioned amusement… but I was almost delighted to be sobbing during and at the end of Julia Jackman's dazzling 100 Nights of Hero, which flips the tragic queer love story trope on its head and gives us all something new to believe in.

The story, based on the graphic novel of the same name, follows a woman named Cherry (Maika Monroe), who is facing persecution if she cannot produce an heir to the throne with her husband, Jerome (Amir El-Masry). Jerome, neglectful and also unable to consummate his marriage (due to being attracted to men), decides to leave her alone for 100 nights with a fellow royal named Manfred (Nicholas Galitzine), in the hope that Manfred will seduce and impregnate Cherry on his behalf. However, this plan isn't as easy as Manfred thinks, as Cherry's loyal maid, Hero (Emma Corrin), is in love with her – and blocks him at every chance by reciting parts of an ongoing, fantastical tale of three sisters who wanted more than just marriage.

That ye old 'make me an heir or else' trope that often pops up in historical fantasy has never really done it for me, even when it's under the guise of humor (and especially not when it's in a bleak, nightmare fantasy world like Game of Thrones). I shut my brain off at pointed hats and cool architecture, and it's possible that I've just become curmudgeonly as I've gotten older. However, 100 Nights of Hero is so much more than that, and it wastes no time in making itself known. Right from the jump, it's visually stunning, borrowing imagery and color straight from the graphic novel and adding those glimmery finishing touches (like the way the light catches on Cherry's cheekbone, or the beautiful medieval guitar that Charli xcx plays in the garden).

The film has all those little things I liked in fantasy stories when I was a little girl, like a quill scratching against parchment, stained glass windows that depict epic stories, shirtless muscular men dripping with blood in an attempt to show off their utmost heroism, beautiful women in dazzling cloaks and long hair that flows dreamily in the wind. But most importantly, it's quite literally a hero's tale, if the title wasn't a dead giveaway, and our Hero is a woman who dares to love in the face of a kingdom that wholly disagrees.

Queer stories are often tragic, and they either end with a devastating breakup (looking at you, 2006 teen drama series South of Nowhere, and 2013 erotic romantic drama Blue is the Warmest Color) or death (i.e. Lost and Delirious or A Single Man). I won't spoil anything, as I want you to head to the theater on December 5, but this one is different. There's magic here, and I'm not talking about the witches and spells and moons mentioned throughout the film. Cherry and Hero have a quiet magic between them that made me clutch my heart at nearly every turn – even in the most simple of moments. It helps that there is a chemistry between Monroe and Corrin that vibrates on a frequency I have not seen in a film in quite some time.

My favorite quote of the entire film (which has some of the most delightful and also poignant dialogue, mind you) might be simple, but it's the most earnest. Towards the end, Chery declares: "I was supposed to get married, have children, do needlepoint, I guess, and then die." May we all aspire to be more, to want more, and to push beyond the limitations that our families and society have put in place for us. May we all try to be a little bit more heroic in our day-to-day lives. Although I do kind of really want to learn needlepoint.

100 Nights of Hero hits theaters on December 5. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Pillion probably isn't the movie you're expecting. If you've read the source material (Box Hill, a modest, devastating novella by Adam Mars-Jones), you'll already have a preconceived idea of what the film's central relationship looks like. If you haven't, you may have seen reviews or social media first reactions dubbing Pillion a rom-com or "feel-good" film (which might raise an eyebrow if you're familiar with Mars-Jones' work). It's not quite either of those things, though, and it's all the better for it.

The film follows Colin (Harry Melling), a lonely, reserved parking attendant who still lives with his parents in the suburbs. After a chance encounter with biker gang leader Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) in a pub on Christmas Eve, Colin finds himself entangled in an intense dominant/submissive relationship that begins with oral sex in an alleyway on Christmas Day. Outsiders are baffled at what devastatingly handsome Ray could see in clumsy Colin, and Colin is, too, initially. "You sort of bring his qualities into relief," another member of the gang tells him.

Don't get me wrong, I love a rom-com, but putting Pillion into this category feels a little reductive to me: what romance and comedy there is here isn't anywhere near as straightforward as the genre usually requires. Colin and Ray don't have a conventional relationship: Ray promptly moves Colin into his house, where he cooks, cleans, and sleeps on Ray's bedroom floor. Ray gets Colin to shave his head and wear a padlocked chain around his neck, and the pair never, ever kiss. Colin thrives in this environment to begin with, but gradually starts to yearn for more from Ray, even if he doesn't know how to ask for it. At times, Ray is crushingly aware of Colin's inexperience, and it's uncomfortable to watch.

There are comedic moments throughout Pillion too, thanks to the hapless charm Melling brings to Colin, but they have a bittersweet aftertaste because of the uneven nature of the relationship, and first-time writer-director Harry Lighton makes sure that any humor is never at Colin's expense and, despite it all, we understand fully why Colin wants to stick around. It's a confident control of tone from a debut filmmaker.

Different contexts

Although it was published in 2020, Mars-Jones' novella was written in 1999, in the shadow of the AIDS crisis and the UK's Section 28, which banned the "promotion" of homosexuality, and a lesser-known case, Operation Spanner. This was an early '90s police crackdown on gay BDSM practices, which led to the legal precedent in the UK that you can't consent to actual bodily harm. Unlike the movie's 21st-century setting, the book sees Colin looking back from the late '90s at his relationship with Ray 20 years earlier.

"You end up, whether you know it or not, as an ambassador for your sexuality… And at this point, I thought, 'OK, let's go the other way," Mars-Jones said in an interview around the time of the book's release. With Box Hill, which has the subtitle 'A Story of Low Self-Esteem,' he said he wanted to write "the ugliest story that could still be described as a love story." Although the bones of the story are the same, there are some scenes of explicit sexual assault, and Colin doesn't take to his new role quite like the duck to water that Melling's version of the character is.

By shaking off this heavy historical context, there's a little less of this "ugliness" and Pillion is able to inject more light and humor into its script. Colin is a little older in the film than he is in the book, a little more sure of himself. His parents are more supportive, too: unlike in the novella, they know that he's gay (his mother even sets him up on dates) and they know about his relationship with Ray – although they don't quite know all the ins and outs of their dynamic.

A well-oiled machine

Watching Pillion, the audience isn't ever made to feel like they're gawping outsiders looking at the BDSM community from a safe distance. The other members of Ray's biker gang are played by people involved in the real-life Gay Bikers Motorcycle Club (who took to the Cannes red carpet in full leather earlier this year), and Lighton takes pains to depict this subculture with care and respect. Nothing is sensationalized, even in the film's riskier, more explicit moments.

Because Pillion doesn't shy away from sex; far from it. Melling and Skarsgård both give fearless performances, a term that's often thrown around but certainly applies here. Both actors embrace the vulnerability needed to make these characters feel real and lived in, echoing the vulnerability that's necessary to create a well-oiled BDSM relationship. That being said, the film doesn't gloss over the stickier parts of their relationship, either, and Ray's abuse of power is never romanticized.

Does the film endeavor to make Colin and Ray's relationship more palatable for a straight audience? I don't think so. In the film's final act, it has a chance to write off Colin's sexual proclivities as misguided or wrong, a blip in the wider story of his life, but instead it doubles down on the idea of sexual freedom as personal freedom. By the end of the movie, Colin knows exactly what he wants – and he's happier, more self-assured, and a better person for it.

Pillion arrives in UK cinemas on November 28 and US theaters on February 6. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

New drama Alpha is a change of tack for French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, who took Cannes by storm with her 2021 auto(mobile)-erotic body horror Titane and made waves with her debut feature Raw, about a teenage cannibal, in 2016.

It's much lighter on the body horror than Titane, which confronts the viewer with a graphic brain surgery scene right off the bat, but stays firmly rooted in the messy, upsetting, tender family dynamics that underpin her previous movie's otherwise outlandish, controversial plot points (car sex, anyone?). That being said, Alpha does open with an unflinching close-up of its titular 13-year-old protagonist (Mélissa Boros), blackout drunk and getting a tattoo at a house party using an unsanitary needle. The camera painstakingly follows the needle's movements in her skin, but that's the last time a squeamish viewer may have to avert their eyes.

When Alpha arrives home, she's in big trouble, but not for the reason you might think. Her single mother (Golshifteh Farahani), who's a doctor, is seized by panic when she spots the bloodied marks on Alpha's arm because a mysterious bloodborne virus is in the midst of pushing the French healthcare system to breaking point. Although it's not immediately obvious if a person has the virus, once contracted, their skin slowly begins to turn into a marble-like stone. As Alpha, who seemingly doesn't realize her tattoo could have gotten her sick, anxiously awaits the results of the blood test that will tell her if she's negative or positive, her life is further turned upside down by the arrival of her estranged uncle, Amin (Tahar Rahim). A heroin addict, Amin has had the virus since Alpha was a small child.

Fear spreads faster than disease

Just as she did with Raw's Garance Marillier and Titane's Agathe Rousselle, Ducournau nurtures a standout performance from her lead actor, newcomer Boros, who skilfully embodies the contradictions of a confused, complicated teenage girl: Alpha may smoke cigarettes and fool around with boys, but she's still just a kid who solemnly meows when her mother asks her to "do the cat" to get her to round her back for a medical examination.

Other than Alpha, the other patients we meet in the film are drug addicts and gay men: at first glance, the unnamed disease feels like an extremely thinly veiled allegory for AIDS that frustratingly refuses to name its subject matter, but as the film unravels it becomes clear that there's much more to it than initially meets the eye.

"If I had done a movie directly about AIDS, I would obviously have treated the symptoms differently; I would have named the disease, and I probably would have done a way more historically accurate film than what this is," Ducournau said in an interview with The Skinny. "The main disease that spreads in the film is fear."

Ostracized at school by her fearful classmates, who don't understand how the virus is spread, ignorance and mistrust are rife throughout the film. More so than fear, though, Alpha is a movie about families and the harm we do to the ones we love, whether we mean to or not. To say it's about "trauma" feels overly simplistic – it's a descriptor thrown around a lot these days about everything from "elevated" horror films to Marvel TV shows about AI on Disney Plus.

Family drama

Family is a knotty thing in Alpha. For one thing, they can't understand each other, in more ways than one. There's a generational and cultural roadblock between Alpha's mother and uncle and her grandmother, which is revealed through the film's flashback timeline that explores events from eight years prior: she won't, or can't, accept her son's addiction, and would rather ignore it than give him the help he needs. In the present-day timeline, Alpha feels like an island. Kept apart from her uncle at her mother's wishes, she doesn't recognize him when he first arrives in their home and assumes he's an intruder, which leads to her feeling angry that her mother kept her in the dark and upset that the equilibrium of their two-person household has been shaken when she's at her most vulnerable. Later on, she's isolated at an Eid celebration with her extended family as she doesn't speak Berber and her grandmother can't speak French. When her mother, who acts as her interpreter, leaves the room, she panics, isolated in a room of her own flesh and blood.

The film's non-linear structure slowly peels back the layers on the damage that addiction and disease – and the family's response to these things – has wrought on Alpha, her mother, and Amin. Some of the movie's reviews have criticized its dual timeline approach as confusing and unnecessary, flitting back and forth between Alpha's current predicament and her mother's strained relationship with her brother as he tries and fails to get clean when Alpha was much younger. But trauma and memory go hand-in-hand, and Alpha's structure is key to understanding its protagonist, her family, and just what her potential diagnosis means for those around her.

AIDS allegory or not, the packed-out hospital wards and sick, marbled bodies feel secondary to Alpha – both the girl and the movie itself. They play a similar role to cars and metal in Titane: the movie wouldn't be the same without them, but they matter much less than the complicated, broken people around them.

Alpha is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

What makes a life worthy of examination on the big screen? It's a question I've found myself mulling over since watching Train Dreams, the new movie from Sing Sing duo Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar.

Because Train Dreams' central figure, Robert Grainer, is no one special. As portrayed by Joel Edgerton (Warrior, The Great Gatsby), Grainer is a logger whose peripatetic worklife has him felling trees across the Pacific Northwest as part of the railroad's cross-country expansion in the early 20th Century. One day, Grainer meets Gladys (Felicity Jones, Rogue One), and they start a family. The Grainers have a perfectly pleasant life together, until one day they don't, and Robert is left to live out the rest of his days in contemplative solitude, only occasionally crossing paths with similarly sorrowful individuals, like Kerry Condon's forest worker Claire.

There is a Major Event in Train Dreams but, perhaps tellingly, it happens off-camera, as Grainer arrives home via train from his latest months-long stint in the wilderness. A different film would have Grainer running headfirst into danger to save his nearest and dearest, but Train Dreams is a film, in part, about how change is often beyond our control, and that life continues on regardless.

"I remember reading the script and thinking, 'Oh, Clint is going to do something really special with Train Dreams,'" says Jones, speaking to GamesRadar+ during the London Film Festival in October 2025. Noting that much of the film was shot on location in the shadow of towering pine trees in Washington State, with natural light illuminating a custom-built cabin that the Grainers call home, it's a film that has a Malickian relationship with the natural world. "I live in a very urban area, so I think I was slightly fantasizing about that – what would it be like to be in that environment, exploring the positive and the negative impacts of the life removed? It can be, at times, very isolating."

For Condon (F1: The Movie, The Banshees of Inisherin), the opportunity to explore her own relationship with the natural world through Claire proved irresistible. "I am big into nature," Condon says. "I love movies where nature is this big character, and they talk about having a respect for nature. I think those are important things for people to remember. Then the script was so beautiful to read… I knew he was going to pull it off in a beautiful way."

Out of the ordinary

What Train Dreams identifies is that the ordinary life of a turn-of-the-century logger is just as extraordinary as a typical screen hero at the center of seismic change. There's nothing special about Grainer, but that's what makes him special. He is a man who finds himself left behind by the march of progress and haunted by his past for much of the movie. It is a melancholy depiction of what a person does when they have nothing left to live for. But Grainer never gives up on life, and the uplifting final act of Grainer's story is a soaring sendoff, and one of the most moving sequences you'll see on screen this year.

An underutilized leading man, Edgerton does special work here. There is an emptiness and longing that the star conveys almost entirely through physicality, as Grainer is a man of few words at the best of times. Jones' Gladys represents something different for the film – the bright sun at its centre – but Grainer and Condon's Claire have a great deal in common. In fact, despite limited screen time, it's easy to imagine the camera wandering off and following Claire for a stretch and locating an equally rich story.

"There were a lot of similarities between me and Claire," says Condon, who rescues horses on a farm outside Seattle when she isn't acting in movies. "Her tomboyishness is quite similar to me. But her backstory is talked about in the voice-over, so that helped me understand where she was at and how to get to here."

Off the beaten track

A rare film with evocative, additive voice-over (the drawl of character actor Will Patton will be familiar if you've watched a western in the last 30 years), Train Dreams has a lyrical, meditative quality that won't be to everyone's taste. It would be somewhat generous to describe it as 'slow-paced', in fact. But succumb to its rhythms and Train Dreams is, well, a dream.

How the film will fare on streaming when it hits Netflix in a few weeks is another question – something tells me the second screen ecosystem won't be kind to a movie where a man frequently spends multiple minutes at a time staring out at the tree line in quiet reflection. But everyone involved knows they're a part of something exceptional.

"The reason that cinema is having such a great moment is that audiences are really enjoying distinctive viewpoints and quite a singular viewpoint, in some ways," says Jones, who most recently starred in another arthouse hit, The Brutalist. "This sounds really naff, but it's a palette, and you're one of the paints that they're using to put an idea into the world."

Robert Grainer may be no one special, but Train Dreams is quite the opposite.

Train Dreams is out now in theaters and streams on Netflix from November 21. For more, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series or our list of the best Netflix movies to watch right now.

Teddy Gatz is looking for an organizing principle. The lead character in Yorgos Lanthimos' latest movie Bugonia (played by Jesse Plemons) lives in his childhood home, empty except for his disabled and easily manipulated cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) and a few beehives in the garden, and he works an unfulfilling job in a local pharmaceutical packing warehouse. It's in his free time that he strives to find purpose, researching an alien race called the Andromedans who he believes are responsible for species decline on Earth – first, the bees, and, ultimately, humanity.

Years of planning have all been leading to the main event, which kicks off the movie: the kidnapping of Auxolith CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), four days before the lunar eclipse, when Teddy believes she will be able to contact her Andromedan mothership. After that, he's certain that she'll be able to get him an audience with the Andromedan emperor to negotiate a deal between the aliens and humanity and save the planet.

There are layers to his beef with Michelle, we learn. Not only is she possibly an alien responsible for Earth's destruction, but he's also an Auxolith employee – which also happens to be the company responsible for his mother's comatose state after a medical trial gone wrong. Teddy maintains that his mission is in service of the greater good, but it's impossible to disentangle the personal from the political.

Playing with expectation

Some of Bugonia's funniest moments are in its skewering of corporate culture. Michelle is insistent that her employees go home at 5.30pm to avoid burnout and foster a healthy environment, for example, but only if there's no more work to be done. Her cringe girlboss-esque persona is hammered home by a humorous needledrop of Chappell Roan's 'Good Luck, Babe!' and, in these moments, Bugonia is often as subtle as a (very entertaining) ton of bricks.

But, in other moments, it suddenly sharpens into something more unnerving and interesting. With Michelle's kidnapping the movie cleverly plays with our expectations around gender and class. Alien or not, we're constantly reminded that Michelle is an unscrupulous, uber-wealthy CEO, but the film weaponizes Stone's femininity and vulnerability – Teddy forces Don to shave her head because he believes her long hair allows her to be traced by the Andromedan mothership – to muddle where our sympathies should lie. When Teddy is violent towards Michelle, it's distressing to watch, but Michelle's company has been responsible for far worse violence, not just in Teddy's home but in the community as a whole. What are we meant to do with all that information?

Stone and Plemons are on top forms here, and they bounce off each other deliciously. Both are perfect with their roles, with their backgrounds in both comedy and drama allowing them to veer between absurdity and tragedy with an easy self-assurance. Bugonia marks Lanthimos' second collaboration with Plemons and his fifth with Stone, and he knows exactly how to get the best out of his actors.

Hard truths

Bugonia would make for an interesting double bill with another 2025 release: Ari Aster's violent madcap COVID Western, Eddington. Both movies are about angry people turning to the internet for meaning (and, in fact, Aster was a producer on Bugonia), but Bugonia is a less cynical beast. It's less actively anti-social media, for one thing; there's passing mention that Teddy first discovered the Andromedans on YouTube and that he "creates content" about the subject, but other than that there's little depiction of the internet or technology. It's not encouraging us to laugh at Teddy in the same way that we're meant to ridicule Joaquin Phoenix's unravelling sheriff, and instead we're forced to wonder just what, exactly, we feel towards him – and Michelle, and Don.

Both movies ask their audiences to examine what it means to live in a world where both everything and nothing is true, but, to me, Bugonia does this much more effectively by keeping us on our toes and not letting our sympathies sit too long with either of its leads. The great tragic irony of Bugonia is that it soon becomes apparent that no one can win, but that doesn't stop Teddy and Michelle going to any lengths possible to come out on top.

Bugonia is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

"I've heard so much about you, Mrs. Tesman," a detective admits to the eponymous character in the very first scene of Nia DaCosta's new sumptuous, feminist period drama. "Hedda is fine," she replies with a smile, though it's more of a statement than a friendly suggestion. Later in the movie, someone from her past refers to Hedda as 'Hedda Gabler', the maiden name she got from her late army-commander father, and she rejects that, too; DaCosta's protagonist isn't interested in being defined by men – and neither is the film itself.

Based on Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's classic work, Hedda swaps Scandinavia in the 1890s for 1950s England, opening on Tessa Thompson's lead and her new husband George Tesman (Tom Bateman) as they prepare to host a housewarming party. Their mansion was a gift of sorts from academic George to Hedda; an attempt to satiate his seemingly insatiable new wife – but tonight's shindig is as much about him schmoozing his peers and securing a high-profile professorship in order to pay off its colossal mortgage as it is Hedda showcasing her lavish p̶r̶i̶s̶o̶n̶ present.

In the source material, George's shot at the teaching job is threatened by Eilert Lovborg, a former colleague of his and Hedda's ex-lover. In DaCosta's take, Eilert is not Eilert, but Eileen, whose arrival at the get-together majorly shifts focus away from George's insecurities and kicks off a fascinating exploration of female desire and ambition. "It changed everything. It challenges George in a different way; it challenges [Nicholas Pinnock's cynical Judge] Brack. It challenges the men, in the sense they have to take these three women seriously," Nina Hoss, who brings Eileen to life, tells GamesRadar+.

Break a leg (and misogynistic stereotype, while you're are it)

"We do have examples of [the female ego], but probably not enough," says Hoss's co-star Imogen Poots. "We've spent a lot of time ruminating on the male ego. Not to call [Nina's] character a narcissist, but she's sort of 'the female narcissist', or like a female version of all of these male traits. It's not necessarily artist traits or human traits. I think that there's something very, very interesting about all of that. It's still seen as such an ugly word, "ambition", which is a real problem."

For Hoss, who played Gabler on stage in Germany in 2010, shooting Hedda felt like being a part of a theater troupe. All of the actors tended to stay on set and just make sure they were out of frame, rather than going back to their individual trailers between takes. To say Hedda is a menace to Eileen throughout the movie's runtime is an understatement as she encourages the recovering alcoholic to have a drink or hides her sacred manuscript, but the vibes off-camera couldn't have been more different.

"Whenever I work with women, it's always an amazing collaboration," says Hoss. "And that doesn't mean I like one more than the other, you know? We're all human beings with flaws and preferences or whatever, but when you work together as women, there's this collaborative feeling – not pitting against each other or whatnot. What these three women feel they have to do is the sad bit but how they fight their way through and how they try to come into their own is, I hope, interesting to watch."

The invisible women

While the film doesn't dwell on its main trio's queerness much, the era in which DaCosta sets Hedda feels important to its central themes – adding depth and unspoken context to Eileen's need to prove herself as a scholar or Thea's decision to leave her husband. Following the Second World War, the UK saw a significant increase in the amount of arrests and prosecutions under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which deemed gay relationships between men illegal. By 1954, a total of 1,089 men were in prison for homosexual acts, with the average sentence being 37 years. Female sexuality was such a peripheral subject that no one could even imagine that women could be attracted to other women, too. So often in the film, Hedda operates from the shadows, listening to the fallout of her master meddling through the crack of a door or stealing a smooch in a hidden corner – and there's both a playful quality and sadness to her invisibility and the idea that she's not yet realized.

During the fateful evening in which Hedda takes place, hidden frustrations come to the fore; both internal (Hedda beating herself up over not being bold enough to choose Eileen years ago) and external (Eileen urging the "brilliant" Hedda to stop coloring within society's lines and do something more with her life than marrying well). The former, it turns out, is gunning for the same role George is – but first she plans on publishing a book on womens' sexuality with her new faithful paramour Thea (Poots).

"You can really see Thea and Eileen as different parts of Hedda," DaCosta explains. "I thought that was really interesting, because for a character that is quite opaque and doesn't let people in and doesn't understand herself, I thought having these two other women who are, in some ways, parts of Hedda psyche would illuminate her in a way that was really helpful."

Enduring enigma

Some actors may be daunted by taking on a role that could rival Shakespeare's Hamlet in terms of how many times it's been interpreted, but Thompson was excited by the challenge of bringing something new to the silverware-adorned table. "One of my favorite things about my job is the amount of research that you can do. There are historic performances of Hedda, and I just decided to watch all those and internalize them. At first, I was like, 'Oh, do I watch the Cate Blanchett? Do I see the Fiona Shaw? We just leaned in. Then Nia met Fiona Shaw and told her, 'Tessa Thompson's gonna play her.' Fiona Shaw said, 'Does she want to have coffee?' And I was like, 'Yeah, I want to have coffee. I want to have a Hedda convention'. You know? Then Nia cast the brilliant Nina Hoss, and I loved talking to her about her approach. It was just so refreshing to embrace it all rather than be intimidated by it.

"I decided not to worry too much about how to make my Hedda individual, because I knew she would be. Anytime you funnel things through your lens, it's different and Nia made so many fundamental changes to the source material that we really were making our own offering," the Marvel star explains. "As soon as I really understood that, I worried less about the pressure. No one's ever played this Hedda before; I am the first and only, and I felt so supported by Nia and our incredible cast."

The fondness and admiration is mutual. "I had a completely new experience with this, and found it very liberating. I forgot completely about what I had done [as Hedda]," Hoss recalls. "I knew this production would be so different and was its own beast from the script, but I was just so curious to see what Tessa does with it, you know? To see everyday the choices she made with the material I knew very well. She's such a strong actress, I completely forgot about it all. I always say, 'No one owns Hedda'. You can't explain her. You have to make up your own mind what her motives are and that's very personal, and why I think she will always stay fascinating."

It's quite the wonder how Hedda is still such a mysterious figure, given the amount of times she's been portrayed – by performers as notable as Ingrid Bergman and the late Maggie Smith. In DaCosta's opinion, the reason she's such an enduring, interesting character is because she's like a mirror forcing audiences to think about their own impulses and less admirable qualities. Plus, she points out, there's a dearth of "bad" women on the big screen these days. "It's so gendered, right? No one says they don't like Silence of the Lambs because Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter isn't likeable", argues Thompson. Somewhere (or some-when), Hedda is rolling her eyes and nodding.

Hedda is in theaters now, and will land on Prime Video on October 29. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

The Mastermind may be billed as a heist movie, but that categorization does the movie a disservice. If anything, director Kelly Reichardt's latest is an anti-heist movie, with the heist being almost entirely beside the point: instead, she invites us into a historical moment not so dissimilar from our own to wonder just what the purpose of art is in times of upheaval. A rush of tension in the first 30 minutes or so quickly dissipates, and we're left to chew on the anticlimactic aftermath for the rest of the runtime. You'll either find it frustrating or brilliant.

Josh O'Connor, who's pulling double duty on the film festival circuit at the moment for The Mastermind and new Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man, stars as James "JB" Mooney, a man who's swapped a fledgling career in academia for a life as America's most useless househusband. Unlike his art thief character Arthur in last year's La Chimera, JB isn't motivated by love or beauty, though – it's ego and greed, and instead of tragedy we get subtly deadpan comedy in another standout turn from O'Connor.

Set in the early '70s against the backdrop of anti-Vietnam War protests, there's an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness in the air. It's in this climate that JB, listless, bored, and broke (and thoroughly uninterested in his wife and two young sons), decides to steal four paintings by abstract modernist Arthur Dove from his local suburban Massachusetts art gallery.

Not according to plan

JB isn't going to steal the paintings himself, of course: he's the titular "mastermind" behind the scheme (heavy emphasis on the inverted commas). I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that nothing really goes to plan for JB, and the rest of the film is concerned with the aftermath of the heist, a slow, ambling unravelling that takes JB across the country but no further away from his problems.

Reichardt has long been interested in people who turn to the wrong side of the law and their reasons for doing it: First Cow saw two men in 19th Century Oregon start a business using stolen milk, Night Moves follows radical environmentalists in the aftermath of a risky protest, and in Certain Women, Laura Dern plays a lawyer whose client, disabled by a workplace injury, takes a security guard hostage at his former company. With The Mastermind's JB, she's delving into perhaps her least sympathetic protagonist yet.

A vaguely mischievous jazz score idles away in the background of the film, always on the verge of something but never quite getting to its climax – a bit like JB and his grand plans. One scene, which has been the subject of a few bemused Tweets and Letterboxd reviews, sees JB painstakingly hide the paintings in a barn loft, taking each one carefully up a precariously balanced ladder. "Not even joking there’s a scene where the guy is climbing a fucking ladder for 10 minutes I can’t stress this enough do not go see this movie unless you are in need of a solid nap," one disgruntled viewer wrote on Twitter. JB goes to great lengths, not just in that moment, but throughout the film, but to what end? It's a quietly confronting scene that's a microcosm of the rest of the movie, one that almost teasingly asks us: what's the point?

This woman's work

Another criticism of the movie I've seen online claims that Alana Haim is "underused" or "wasted" as JB's long-suffering wife Terri, which again strikes me as missing the point. JB isn't particularly interested in her, so she remains on the movie's periphery. We don't even see her face in the movie's extended opening sequence, really, because JB is too focused on the gallery's Dove paintings rather than his family, who he's visited the museum with.

Gabby Hoffman's Maud, the wife of a friend JB visits later in the film, is afforded a similar level of regard: the men in The Mastermind don't have much to say to the women in their lives unless they want something from them, and the women just have to get on with it, for the most part. All of this just goes to paint an even more unflattering image of JB, a character we are not particularly meant to empathize with.

The movie's final shot, which I won't spoil, is particularly farcical. In the moment, it's ironically comical, but I found the closing image stuck in my head even after I left the theater (as the endings of Reichardt's movies are wont to do). Drawing particular attention to the futility of JB's ambitions and his impotency in the face of both his own circumstances and society at large, Reichardt seems to be wondering what the point of doing any of this is as the world falls apart.

The Mastermind doesn't signpost us to any particularly straightforward answers on that front, and it may well be saying that there's no point at all, but that doesn't mean it's not a question worth asking.

The Mastermind is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on October 24. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

By most standards – critical reception, Metacritic scores, becoming a witness with your own two eyes – there's never been a good Silent Hill film adaptation. Maybe it's that the anxiety of Konami's 1999 survival horror series is too lived-in to translate to a more passive, movie theater popcorn experience, or maybe it's because none of them can replicate the singularity of the film that inspired Silent Hill in the first place, Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne's 1990 horror movie Jacob's Ladder.

I'm inclined to believe the latter. With its new 4K restoration and theatrical re-release in the US, it's clear to me that the phantasmagorical paranoia of Jacob's Ladder remains at the heart of Silent Hill, even after decades of franchise flops and reinvention – and future Silent Hill installments, including the next scheduled Silent Hill movie, better not forget it.

It's good timing for Jacob's Ladder to return, opening at New York City's IFC Center on October 3 before rolling out nationally. Developer Konami just released its first original Silent Hill game in over a decade, Silent Hill f, on September 25, leaving the survival horror series' recognizable, gas station coffee Americana in the '90s and creating a nightmare version of '60s Japan. The (I think) powerfully provocative Silent Hill f yanks the franchise back from the cliff of icky slot machine and spin-off games that have marred it for years. It instead returns to the themes of Jacob's Ladder.

Recurring nightmares

The movie's protagonist Jacob Singer – much like infamous Silent Hill 2's James Sunderland – has what his wife, in a dream, calls "guilty thoughts." (Spoilers to follow.) The end of Jacob's Ladder reveals Vietnam soldier Jacob has been dying for the entirety of the film's runtime, having been viciously impaled by his brother soldier after being subjected to aggressive military drugs. But before this revelation, Jacob is in Hell.

Hell, it turns out, is New York City – which, by virtue of being an American dive bar epicenter, is also Silent Hill. Watching Jacob's Ladder after playing and replaying many of the games, obsessing over their aesthetics and preoccupation with monsters as a manifestation of guilt, guilt as a symptom of unhappiness, I'm floored by how many ideas Konami's franchise outright steals – to impressive effect.

Borrowed time

As Jacob lies under a painfully bright fluorescent lamp, dying in a makeshift medical bay in the jungle, he imagines he's alive in a million twisted ways. He sees himself living in Brooklyn with a woman who isn't his wife, literally named Jezebel (Elizabeth Peña), a mirror of Silent Hill 2's wild mistress Maria, who taunts James throughout his quest to find his sick missing wife Mary. Often, Jacob struggles to remember how to get home, at one point abandoning an almost empty subway car – there's a woman in it who won't speak to him, and a man with what looks like a skinless sausage for a penis – to find the Bergen St. station. He walks along the tracks, through puddles of rats and who-knows-what, to get there, only to discover the once again empty station has its exits blocked off with a metal gate; this entire scene, including the defaced subway station itself and its layout, was impeccably reproduced in 2003's Silent Hill 3.

But even this isn't as impressive as the hospital scene. 2001's Silent Hill 2 is something of a medical drama, with Brookhaven Hospital being one of its most memorable locations. Sludge practically oozes out of its once-white walls. Bubble Head Nurses bound in bloody push-up bras shamble through its halls, adding another layer of sick fascination to the scenario Jacob's Ladder lays out originally: thinking he just hurt his back, Jacob is strapped to a gurney, which doctors wheel from a pristine hospital wing through a hallway that looks as if it had been totally eaten by mold and a psych ward stained with blood. The wheels of the gurney knock into severed arms and other hunks of meat. A man with no legs and a bag over his head whips his face back and forth until it's a blur, another image Silent Hill 3 borrows from Jacob's Ladder for its eyeless monster Valtiel.

Born again franchise

The new Silent Hill f doesn't have as many of these copy-and-paste moments from Jacob's Ladder, by virtue of being set in a completely different place, at a completely different time. It has its own distinct visual identity – protagonist Hinako in her traditional school girl outfit, which gets more tattered and gory the longer you play, and all the red spider lilies spreading like hives on the earth. Still, Silent Hill f is a game about death, not knowing how it applies to you, not understanding where – in your zombie state – home is.

It continues Silent Hill's 26-year relationship with Jacob's Ladder in this thematic way. Now, I hope that director Christophe Gans is similarly called to Silent Hill tradition while creating his upcoming Silent Hill 2 film adaptation. Gans also directed the infamous 2006 Silent Hill movie of the same name, telling IGN that year that his movie leaves out any suggestion of Jacob's Ladder, since Silent Hill the game "exists by itself and without any obvious reference."

But I think references to the familiar are what makes Silent Hill palpable, like it could be right behind the next sheet of fog you see. Whether it's through a reference to small town, USA, Japanese folklore, or Jacob's Ladder, Silent Hill games make reality feel like mystery. As a great horror film, Jacob's Ladder does the same.

The 4K re-release of Jacob's Ladder begins on October 3 in US theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Back before there were cameos, multiverses, and age-appropriate casting, there was Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. The horror director, perhaps best known for Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, shocked the world when he decided to adapt the first-ever feature-length live-action Spider-Man movie. Even more shocking: he, along with screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, made a perfect sequel, one that blows the original film out of the water – something that is no easy feat. Twenty-one years later, Spider-Man 2 remains one of the greatest, if not the greatest superhero movie of all time. It's got wit, heart, and horror elements, not to mention some of the finest choreographed action sequences and the internal struggle of wanting to live a full life while simultaneously saving the world.

Hope dangles on a string

The year is 2002: Spider-Man (a movie that, at the time, felt like a massive risk for both Sony Pictures and Sam Raimi) hits theaters and becomes a worldwide phenomenon. The film, starring a 25-year-old Tobey Maguire as 17-year-old Peter Parker, secures an $825 million box office return and is immediately greenlit for a sequel. Filming would begin the following spring, with the new movie fast-forwarding to Peter's double life as a college student and superhero. His longtime love, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) has agreed to marry the successful son of his hated boss J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), and his best friend Harry Osborn (James Franco), still mourning the death of his father Norman, resents him for refusing to reveal Spider-Man's true identity. After killing the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) two years prior, a new supervillain, Doc Ock (Alfred Molina), is born right before Peter's eyes during a scientific presentation gone wrong. TLDR; things aren't looking up for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

And that's a big factor in what makes this movie great: Peter's guilt and anguish is something we can all relate to (despite being bitten by a radioactive spider), so much so that his plight of wanting to live a normal life rather than that of a superhero feels believable. Where superhero films are so fantastical that they provide an escape from our day-to-day, Spider-Man 2 is grounded in reality. In the present-day Marvel Cinematic Universe, superheroes are aplenty. They have other heroes to lean on, to reach out to for support, and if they don't feel like saving the day…someone else can do it. In Raimi's Spider-Man universe (Earth-96283, to be exact), it's just Peter against the world. No Avengers, no X-Men – in fact, this iteration of Spider-Man doesn't even have a Madame Web (the elderly comic book kind, not the Dakota Johnson kind) to give him guidance. Raimi built a world of isolation: there are no other superheroes, only supervillains.

The importance of being earnest

There's a strange and meta allegory at the center of Spider-Man 2: an 1885 Oscar Wilde play. Aspiring actor Mary Jane finally gets her big break, playing Gwendolen Fairfax in a Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest. The play concerns two men named Jack and Algernon, both of whom live double lives under the name Ernest in order to get out of certain social obligations while simultaneously wooing two young women. The first time Peter tries to see the play, he's late due to Spider-Man-ly duties, and the usher (none other than longtime Raimi collaborator Bruce Campbell) won't let him in.

As Mary Jane notices his empty seat, her scene partner asks, "Do you think we should forgive them?" Later, after Peter decides he'll "be Spider-Man no more," he surprises Mary Jane by showing up unannounced – and the second she notices him in the crowd, she stumbles on the word "hypocrisy."

Of course, as an eight-year-old child watching this in a theater, I didn't get it. In fact, I didn't get it until I saw the play myself. While it seems to be a widely overlooked feature when praising Spider-Man 2, it's one of my favorite things about the entire movie. It's so subtle, and so silly, but it ties everything together. Harry Osborn, Peter's former bestie, is also living a double life – while he sends congratulatory roses to Mary Jane and parades around as the new CEO of OsCorp, he spends his nights lying awake plotting to kill Spider-Man. There's also a revelation in the play that Jack's father, who he never knew in life, was in the military – much like Richard Parker. Coincidence, I'm sure, but it's just too good. There's also something rather Shakespearean about Harry using a dagger as his weapon of choice to kill Spider-Man – but I digress.

Brilliant but lazy

I won't spoil the entire movie (even though it's been out for 21 years), as some of you are heading to the theater to watch it for the very first time. I do want to note, however, that this movie is approximately 2 hours and 7 minutes long – and somehow gives us a villain's entire beginning and ending in a way that feels satisfying and succinct, all while having two small subplots, and still giving Peter Parker a day job. In 127 minutes, we see Spider-Man deliver pizza, get those pictures of Spider-Man to Jameson, and save the world. I don't know if this could be done today, especially not in a Marvel movie. The theatrical re-release, which opens on September 27, adds about 8 minutes of extra footage – including a different version of that elevator scene with comedian Hal Sparks, an extension of Peter's painfully awkward surprise party, and a scene where Jameson puts on the Spidey costume after it's delivered to The Daily Bugle.

Don't get me wrong: I love the MCU and thoroughly enjoy Tom Holland's version of Peter Parker – but Marvel movies are so jam-packed with absolutely everything all at once that sometimes the story either feels unconvincing or gets buried overall. Dr. Otto Octavius doesn't become Doc Ock until around 40 minutes into the film, and man, do we get one of the best – and dare I say the scariest – villain origin scenes in Marvel history. In the first Spider-Man, every scene with the Green Goblin felt like its own mini horror movie. In Spider-Man 2, we have just one, terrifyingly bloody scene, and it's truly enough.

I don't know how else to say that Spider-Man 2 is the greatest superhero movie of all time without giving you an in-depth, beat-by-beat plot analysis that repeats the phrase "so cool" over and over again… but you'll just have to take my word for it. Raimi created a world that was cut too short (as Spider-Man 3 was the critical failure to end all critical failures), and I'm so glad we got to visit it once again in 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home. Dashboard Confessional sums it all up in the song 'Vindicated,' which was written for Spider-Man 2 and plays over the end credits: "Hope dangles on a string / like slow-spinning redemption." All Peter can do is hope for the best, in spite of everything.

An extended cut of Spider-Man 2, titled Spider-Man 2.1, hits theaters on September 27. For more, check out our list of upcoming Marvel movies.

Avatar skepticism was at an all-time high during the run-up to The Way of Water's release in December 2022. After a 13-year wait for the sequel to the biggest film of all time, did anyone still care about Pandora and its blue-hued natives? Turns out they did, to the tune of some $2.3bn at the global box office. Doubt Big Jim Cameron at your peril.

And yet, Na'vi naysayers still found a way to downplay the film landing at #3 in all-time box office charts, touting the peerless technical achievements while claiming that the story and characters fell short. "No cultural footprint" is a common jibe.

I'm here to tell you that's dead wrong: Avatar isn't just a trailblazing technical achievement, it's contemporary cinema's greatest family saga, and The Way of Water left me a blubbering wreck that has me fearing what's in store for the Sully tribe in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

Sully loaded

It's almost redundant at this stage to laud the artistic achievements of Wētā FX in building Pandora. Heck, the 16-year-old Avatar still looks better than most pixel-powered movies released today. Avatar, and particularly The Way of Water, are so far ahead of the game technically that it's understandable why the immersive world-building gets the lion's share of the plaudits at the expense of Cameron and co.'s narrative nous. But the story engine powering Avatar is just as important and enveloping as Pandora's verdant rainforests and bioluminescent oceans.

Jumping ahead 16 years following the events of Avatar, The Way of Water picks up with human-turned-native Jake Sully now head of the Omatikaya clan. Alongside Neytiri, they are part of a growing family – sons Neteyam and Lo'ak, daughters Tuk and Kiri, and then there's family-friend Spider, the child of Col. Miles Quaritch. Thanks to a rather ghoulish bit of new tech, Quaritch returns from the dead here as a 'Recombinant' whose human memories have been implanted in a Na'vi Avatar body, so he can be the tip of the spear for a new RDA invasion of Pandora.

This is an elegant solution to a problem that could easily overwhelm Avatar – how do you maintain a personal focus in a story with (inter)planetary stakes? The Sullys' war is the war for Pandora in microcosm, as Recom Quaritch vows vengeance on Jake, Neytiri, and their family for his death. Evacuating to the coastal home of the Metkayina clan with Quaritch in pursuit, this time it isn't just Jake who finds himself a fish out of water.

It's during this aquatic second act that the film's rich character work comes together, as the film replaces the more archetypal stranger in a strange land hero's journey of the first film for something far knottier and rewardingly complex. The sibling dynamics are firmly established – big brother Neteyam is the protector, younger brother Lo'ak is the empath, 8-year-old Tuk is the baby, and adopted sister Kiri (memorably played by Sigourney Weaver) has a whole raft of secrets to be uncovered. Spider, meanwhile, is the wild card. Allied to Jake and the Na'vi, but of another world – it's a dynamic ripe with dramatic potential.

The film doesn't skimp on the world-building either. The Tulkun – a species of intelligent space whales – prove a thrilling and emotive new addition, and a far more effective McGuffin for the RDA-at-large to be chasing than Unobtanium. If you didn't walk away from The Way of Water having shed a tear over the outcast Payakan and his tender bond with Lo'ak, you're made of sturdier stuff than I.

Family despair

Despite clocking in at over 3 hours, The Way of Water wastes surprisingly little time moving the pieces into place for a sensational and devastating third-act showdown. At this stage, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Cameron can assemble a best-in-class battle sequence. What's maybe a little more surprising is that The Way of Water hits as hard as it does emotionally – by killing off one of the Sully tribe.

Sitting down to watch The Way of Water a mere three weeks after I became a father back in 2022 – an emotionally raw period for anyone – Neteyam's tragic death hit a little close to home. It's a beautifully rendered and agonisingly well-performed sequence (Zoe Saldaña should have got her Oscar for Neytiri's guttural cries of anguish here, not for being the single redeeming element of Emilia Pérez), but one I barely saw through streams of tears. Re-watching it almost three years later proved no less easy – its power undiminished by time.

The later image of Neteyam being cradled by Eywa as the Sullys say goodbye to their fallen son is a shot that has never quite left my mind. It transports me back to those early days when I held my daughter just that little bit tighter in my arms as I would rock her to sleep in the days and weeks after watching the film. The idea of Neteyam's hoped-for future being extinguished in an instant was almost too much to bear.

The catharsis of Jake and Neytiri taking the fight to Quaritch in their grief provides some essential relief, but the film doesn't underplay the significance of the loss. The Way of Water ends not on a bang, but in a quiet moment by a pond, as Jake and Neytiri revisit an early memory of Neteyam catching fish. It might be the most touching moment Cameron has ever committed to the screen.

For all the interstellar forces at play in the Avatar movies, and for all its technical razzle dazzle, The Way of Water works as well as it does because it puts family first. I fear where the story will go next after the cutthroat second instalment. But as long as Fire and Ash, and subsequent sequels, remember that spectacle only works when there's an underpinning story worth telling, Avatar will always be much more than a pretty picture.

Avatar: The Way of Water re-releases in theaters for one week only from 3 October. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Downton Abbey is coming to an end, and I feel surprisingly OK with it. To say the franchise has got me through some hard times is an understatement. Just a few months before the first movie came out in 2019, I'd moved back in with my mum and step-dad after my seven-year relationship ended suddenly. As the break-up was happening, I lost my grandfather unexpectedly. I'll spare you the gory specifics but looking back, it's fair to say I was feeling pretty untethered during that period of my life.

At the time, I was a freelance writer, and in need of some serious retail therapy one Monday, I blew a raspberry at my desk and went to my local shopping mall with my family. Inside – I'll never forget it – was a huge billboard for the Downton Abbey film, complete with the tagline: "The cinematic event of the year."

"Bold," I laughed to my nan, "in a year where Avengers: Endgame is coming out?" But the confidence of the ad stuck with me. Curious (and in awe of the audacity), I used my Odeon Limitless card – another heaven-sent thing in that woeful era – a couple of weeks later to see what all the fuss was about. It wouldn't cost me anything, right? If I didn't like it, there was no harm done. So I scheduled an unhinged double-bill of Jennifer Lopez's Hustlers and Downton Abbey and the rest, as they say, was history.

Despite not having any idea who was who (and spoiling some major plot points from the show for myself), I was immediately taken in by these well-to-do aristocrats and their staff, who all seemed to be very fond of one another, despite their differences in lifestyle and social ranking. It was delightfully bonkers; one minute the downstairs lot were fretting about whether or not they've got time to polish the silver before the King and Queen pop round, the next Allen Leach's Branson was thwarting an assassination attempt against the monarchs. Combine all that with fabulous costume design and a bunch of sassy one-liners from Dame Maggie Smith, and it was a perfect distraction.

Desperate for more, I started the series the following day – only nine years too late – and was more than happy to admit that it wasn't the stuffy period drama I'd written it off as but a silly, sweet soap opera with a cracking theme tune and a whole host of loveable characters.

Family bonding

It didn't take me long to devour the whole lot. With real-life events providing the backdrop for each season, urging the characters to adapt to their quickly changing world, the show was packed with memorable moments, from a Turkish diplomat suffering a fatal heart attack in Mary's bed and Lord Grantham splattering everyone in blood when his stomach ulcer burst at the dinner table, to Edith ignoring '20s' gender roles and becoming a publisher. Don't even get me started on Isis, the dog, being killed off. There was romance! Scandal! Even (human) death, and as my attachment to these characters grew, my heart became a little less numb. I felt stuff, for the first time in a long time. By the time Downton Abbey: A New Era came out in 2022, I was whole again.

I don't know if I realized it then, but I think the fact that it was about a family that all lived under one roof helped soothe me, too. I was a little embarrassed to have taken over my mum and step-dad's spare room at the age of 28 – but here were three generations shacked up together. They ate breakfast and dinner together every day (not that my family did that, but still) like it was the most normal thing in the world, and it felt validating to see.

When I wasn't watching the show, I was checking the release date of the movie's official companion book and eyeing up Downton Abbey Cluedo (no one gets killed, I feel I should clarify – you have to identify a thief). I used to daydream about taking a tour round Highclere Castle while sipping tea from the 'Ladyship' mug my enabling friend gave me as a gift or sink hours into YouTube, watching cast interviews and giggling away as if I genuinely knew these people.

There's just something about Downton Abbey that invites you in in that way, you see, and makes you feel like you're a part of the family. The other day I was rewatching the trailer for the new sequel Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale and scrolled to the comments section, and was struck by how many people were sharing their personal connection to the franchise; one man used to watch it with his mother, others discovered it with their loved ones during COVID, one woman comforted herself with the show after her son died.

I've never watched Downton Abbey with anyone else, but it never felt like I was watching it alone. "Your friendship has never been more important to all of us," Hugh Bonneville's Robert Crawley tells those closest to him in the teaser for The Grand Finale. You can say that again.

Time to say goodbye

Unlike those who tuned in to its premiere on ITV back in 2010, I've only had Downton Abbey in my life for six years – I've had much less time with it than most. That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not ready to bid it farewell.

I've not seen Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale yet but judging by the trailer, it's largely about three things: Lord Grantham putting Mary in charge of the estate, the family coming to terms with the death of Violet Crawley – primed to be a tear-jerking subplot following Smith's passing in 2024 – and Mary trying to navigate life as a newly divorced woman. I've obviously never been made the proprietor of a lavish manor (I write about Marvel fan theories for a living), but I know what it's like to find yourself unexpectedly single and lose a loved one. I have firsthand experience of juggling both at the same time, in fact, and it's quite eerie, really, to think that the final film in the franchise is going to tackle themes that echo what I was going through when I first fell in love with Downton.

I'm a very different person now than I was in 2019. I'm no longer in my parents' spare room and have met someone who has broadened my horizons more than I could've ever imagined, encouraging me on all sorts of worldly adventures (I wouldn't have the time to binge a six-season and three-movie series these days if I tried). Maybe Downton Abbey knows I'm finally strong enough to be without it.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

If you've made the excellent decision to rewatch Jaws anytime lately, you'll probably agree that it's hard to believe it's half-a-century old. But, five decades later, the iconic thriller is back on the big screen to celebrate the anniversary milestone.

Directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel of the same name by Peter Benchley, Jaws first hit theaters in June 1975 (this was Spielberg's third feature and he made it when he was around the age that I am now, which, of course, did not prompt any amount of personal existentialism when I worked this out).

The late Roy Scheider stars as Martin Brody, the police chief of Amity Island, a coastal town in New England. When the seaside community is rocked by a murder in the ocean, Brody is keen to close the beaches to prevent any further harm, but the money-minded mayor (Murray Hamilton) doesn't want to lose out on tourist dollars in the peak summer season. Predictably, more lives are lost, and an anti-shark frenzy grips the town… which means it's up to Brody to save the day, with help of eccentric shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) and oceanographer Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss).

Blockbuster blueprint

All in all, the movie made almost $500 million worldwide when it was first released, against a budget of just $9 million. For a short time, it was the highest-grossing movie ever, before Star Wars: A New Hope took the crown in 1977. In short, Jaws was the original summer blockbuster.

This was partly down to the movie's unprecedented advertising campaign, which included spending record amounts of money on TV advertising, a long press circuit, and the release of movie merchandise – still a relatively new concept in the '70s.

But it wasn't all down to marketing. Jaws' continuing success (the most recent re-release has already made over $10 million at the box office in the US alone) can mostly be credited to something much simpler: good ol' movie magic.

"Get out of the water!"

Spielberg didn't need a big budget to create one of the most suspenseful movies of all time. In fact, a lot of the movie's fear factor was a product of its limitations: the reason the shark has so little screen time was due to malfunctioning models that were meant to represent the deadly sea creature. And it's a much scarier movie for it – what's more frightening than something we can't see or, therefore, know? Of course, John Williams' iconic score also plays a huge part in setting the mood, with the film's theme becoming one of the most recognizable pieces of music of all time.

And then there's the dolly zoom. The camera technique (which involves the lens zooming in on its subject while the camera itself moves backwards, away from them) may have been used for the first time almost 20 years earlier in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, but Jaws may well feature the most famous dolly zoom of all time (although the one shot through a "webcam" in Amazon's new War of the Worlds might end up being a close second, for very different reasons). Spielberg wields this dolly zoom to hone in on Brody's face, emphasizing his shock when he realizes the shark has made its way to the busy Amity beach, and the dread when he realizes he was right all along.

Above all, Jaws is a cautionary tale about two things: mass hysteria, and a disregard for the needs of the people by those in power, both of which are universal themes that become increasingly relevant in any time of widespread crisis (Mayor Vaughn's call to keep the beaches open came back into public discourse and was frequently memed during the pandemic, for example, when some believed lockdown restrictions were lifted too soon).

It's not a didactic movie, however, and not one that overtly feels like it has a capital-M message. As with all good movies, you come for one thing and leave with something much deeper and more interesting – and it's always better to see that on the big screen.

Jaws is currently back in US theaters and UK cinemas for a limited time. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

There's never been a better time to be a Yorgos Lanthimos fan. Since 2023's Oscar-winning Poor Things, we've been treated to a new release every year, the latest of which is Bugonia. The conspiracy theory drama premiered this week at Venice Film Festival to a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, and stars Emma Stone as a CEO who may or may not be an alien.

However, before we get another dose of Lanthimos' deadpan, surreal exploration of human nature, I think it's worth going back in time to one of the director's earlier movies. 16 years back, in fact. 2009's Dogtooth wasn't Yorgos Lanthimos' debut feature film, but it's certainly the movie that put him on the map – and one that set the stage, thematically and stylistically, for what was to come in later hits like The Lobster, The Favourite, and Poor Things. Now, the movie is getting a new lease of life in UK cinemas with a re-release courtesy of Vertigo Releasing.

Dogtooth marked Lanthimos' first collaboration with writer Efthymis Filippou (who he'd go on to work with again on his more abrasive (complimentary) films: Alps, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Kinds of Kindness) and gained international recognition after it won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes Film Festival before being nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Oscars.

Family affairs

The Greek-language film follows an unnamed family who lives in an isolated walled compound: a married couple (played by Christos Stergioglou, who Brit comedy fans will recognize from Stath Lets Flats, and Michelle Valley) and their three adult children (played by Angeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, and Christos Passalis).

The siblings aren't allowed outside and have been told that they can only leave their home when they've lost a dogtooth (AKA a canine tooth), which will signal that they're ready to face the outside world. They're entirely ignorant of what lies outside their four walls; instead, their parents have molded their offspring's own reality, including their language. Their mother records vocabulary lessons for the trio to listen to on tape, one of which informs them that the sea is "the leather chair with wooden arm rests like the one in the living room." Good behavior results in meager rewards from their parents, while bad behavior is punished with violence.

This dysfunctional, abusive domestic dynamic is a thinly veiled – but effective – metaphor for fascism: the movie was released in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, when Greek fascist party Golden Dawn's popularity was on the rise amid the country's debt crisis. Lanthimos' later movies are also clear-cut in their politics: Poor Things' third act hinges on Bella Baxter's discovery of socialism, for example. And that's not the only area where Lanthimos sows seeds that he'd go onto harvest in later movies.

Discomfort viewing

Dogtooth is an uncomfortable viewing experience, and its uneasy tone is exemplified in its approach to sex. Despite being infantilized by their parents, the siblings' father pays Christina, one of his employees, to have sex with his son, an early iteration of the discomforting intimate scenes that would go on to punctuate Lanthimos' later movies like The Favourite and Kinds of Kindness.

The curiosity of the family's eldest daughter, unsuccessfully quashed by a controlling father, brings Poor Things' Bella to mind again, Stone's reanimated protagonist with an insatiable lust for life. Dogtooth's most iconic scene involves her performing the dance routine from Flashdance to her bemused family after she obtains a bunch of '70s and '80s VHS tapes from Christina, and disconcerting dance numbers have gone on to become somewhat of a staple of Lanthimos and Stone's collaborations.

In short, then, I can't think of a better way to gear up for Bugonia, the duo's latest team-up, than by revisiting Dogtooth. Lanthimos hasn't made a Greek-language movie in 14 years, but his English-language follow-ups bear clear signs of their forebears.

Dogtooth's anonymous family may be a dysfunctional nightmare, but the movies in Lanthimos' filmography, linked by the same artistic DNA, make for a much more enjoyable family dynamic.

Dogtooth is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

When Eminem wrote 'Stan,' he was thinking about the kind of fans that show up at your front door with a gun, or attempt to assassinate a sitting president in order to get your attention.

The meaning of the term 'stan' has evolved over the years, earning a permanent place in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a way to describe a fan who is "excessively enthusiastic" and "hopelessly devoted." Enter Lurker, a movie about a parasocial weirdo who sets his sights on an up-and-coming singer and alters his entire life in a messed-up quest to become his best, or rather only, friend. On the surface, it's a sleek psychological thriller. Underneath, it's an uncomfortable examination of self.

You're like my hero, man

Written and directed by Alex Russell (The Bear, Beef) in his feature debut, the film follows Matt (Théodore Pellerin), a seemingly harmless retail worker who lives with his grandmother. Matt's entire life changes when Oliver (Archie Madekwe), an indie pop artist on the verge of stardom, walks into the store where he works. Once Matt gets up close and personal with Oliver, there's nothing else in the world that he wants more. Suddenly, he's everywhere Oliver is, and he won't stop until he's his one and only friend.

It's a premise that immediately took me back to The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Oliver and Matt mirroring Dickie (Jude Law) and Tom (Matt Damon), or even Allie (Bridget Fonda) and Hedy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in Single White Female. But there's an important distinction to be made here: Matt doesn't want to be Oliver. He doesn't want his friends, or his house, or his record deal. He wants to be near Oliver. He wants to be as close as he possibly can.

And that's what makes Lurker so goddamn unnerving: we can relate to being driven by jealousy, to wanting someone else's life, and even thinking that we deserve it more. It's the complete and total obsession, the unwavering need to be close, that's so upsetting, because it triggers a part of ourselves that we don't ever really confront.

For me, it's right there in the first few minutes of the film: when Oliver walks into the store, Matt grabs the aux cord and plugs in his phone to play a song he knows (from vigorous internet research) that Oliver would like and respond to. It's something I've done more than once in order to grab the attention of a crush, and as I watched the scene play out, I realized I was squirming in my seat.

Snakes in the garden

"That's what I was trying to say," Russell tells GamesRadar+, when I ask if there's a little bit of Matt in all of us. "A lot of people make these little social calculations, or avoid saying something, or try to say the right thing, or make sure they're here at the right time. They'll meet someone and pretend they haven't seen a bunch of photos of them online or something. So I wanted to start it in a place of relatability so that people could kinda go on this ride and feel like, 'Oh, I wouldn't go that far, but I sort of understand what got us there.' And because the movie is so subjective and it's from Matthew's perspective and in his shoes, you really feel every sort of cringe moment and awkwardness and his calculation – [it] feels like we're going through it too."

It does feel like the viewer is going through it, to the point where I found myself a little sad whenever the members of Oliver's posse (Zack Fox, Wale Onayemi, Havana Rose Liu, and Daniel Zolghadri) were less than friendly to Matt, or when Jamie (Sunny Suljic), Matt's coworker and sometimes friend, gets chosen by Oliver to join the group. It's the mark of good writing and great acting, because Matt is wholly insufferable and irredeemable – and only gets worse as the film progresses.

"He doesn't start out in an irredeemable place," Russell says, adding that Matt's likability comes from there being a natural "kind of a sweetness" to Pellerin."Matthew starts out as someone on the outside of a group of people he wants to hang out with. So I think that in itself is relatable. Everyone's been in a room where they want to go from being anonymous to being liked by everyone."

Keep your friends close

It's worth noting that the film is, as Russell puts it, "a 2018 period piece," adding that "there's no TikTok, there's no COVID… even the iOS and the aux cords [are] all of these pre-2020 indicators." This is weirdly important to the film's believability: there's no blaming pandemic-induced isolation or increased accessibility via social media when trying to rationalize Matt's actions. While fandom culture does, of course, directly contribute to parasociality and can cause a fan to associate obsessive behavior with a sense of belonging, Matt is a lone wolf here. He doesn't want to share his obsession with anyone else, despite his friend Jamie also being a fan. He just wants Oliver.

And don't get me wrong, it's easy for the audience to see why Matt or anyone would be obsessed with Ollie. Madekwe is an effortlessly cool, R&B bedroom pop artist in the same vein as Dijon and Rex Orange County (who also wrote the songs that Archie performs in the movie). He sings love songs and has a charming English accent paired with a smile to die for – though we don't know much about him. As we move throughout the film, he slowly begins to break down, and the more he emotes, the more we as the audience begin to feel both sorry and scared for him. This has the opposite effect on Matt, who just feels more and more in control.

Though Matt's manipulative behavior starts to take a turn for the absolute worst around 30 or so minutes into the film, the third act is when things start to feel a little like Nightcrawler, or Whiplash (two films that heavily influenced Russell's writing and direction). The tension is so high that you can almost feel Oliver's heart racing, and Swett (Fox) and Bowen's (Onayemi) blood boiling. But it doesn't culminate in the way you think it would. The ending left me gobsmacked, and Russell only smiles when I ask why he chose to close out the story this way.

"I think the fact that everyone gets what they want in the end is meant to be interpreted," Russell vaguely states, careful not to spoil anything. "It's meant to ask a question. Why is this behavior rewarded? Why is this the inevitable conclusion of this story?"

Lurker is in theaters now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

There are anime movies, and then there are Studio Ghibli movies. It’s a particular kind of magic, one that can’t be replicated. Princess Mononoke, written and directed by none other than Hayao Miyazaki, is a historical fantasy film that, on the surface, is about a cursed prince who sets out to find a cure. Upon closer look, however, the movie serves as an allegory for the way humankind has and will continue to destroy the earth – but it’s not without a smidge of hope.

I watched Princess Mononoke for the first time on a tiny TV in my bedroom, back when Cartoon Network used to play anime movies late at night. Being only nine years old at the time, the themes of environmentalism and deforestation, the true crux of the film – it all went over my head. Instead, I was obsessed with San, a fearless, feral princess who was quite literally raised by wolves, and head-over-heels in love with Ashitaka, the dreamy and heroic prince. Even as an adult, I find myself thinking about a scene that takes place shortly after San and Ashitaka first meet – she holds a knife to his throat and is seconds away from ending his life…only for him to reply, "You’re beautiful." San immediately jumps backward, and the music changes to something softer and sweeter, signifying that something beautiful is beginning to form between them.

As a little girl, I was pretty mad that San and Ashitaka never kiss… but Princess Mononoke isn’t a movie about love, or even friendship. The film, which hit theaters in 1997, follows Ashitaka after he becomes plagued with a curse after defeating a malevolent boar god. After being told by the wise woman of his village that his curse will ultimately kill him, he sets out on a journey to the west in order to find a cure. Instead of a cure, however, he finds himself in the middle of a longstanding conflict between the industrial village of Irontown and the forest of the gods.

The conflict in question is an allegory for the way humans destroy the earth by tearing down ecosystems, creating pollution, and smog – with terrifying, tendriled demons who devastate everything in their path being a metaphor for deforestation. However, Miyazaki doesn’t present this as a black-and-white, good-versus-evil tale. There is selfishness and irrationality on both sides: as much as I want to side with the forest (and those cute little spirits with the heads that make a clicky noise), the animals are just as hate-filled as the humans. No one is willing to compromise, and the result is more violence and destruction.

Part of the reason why Princess Mononoke is timeless, despite being a period drama set somewhere between 1336 and 1573, is because we're still plagued by the same issues. In the nearly 30 years since the film’s release, the way we treat the environment has only gotten worse. It certainly doesn’t help that AI is slowly taking over, which uses high amounts of energy and therefore produces higher greenhouse gas emissions (Miyazaki himself even referred to AI as an "insult to life itself"). The film presents the idea of compromise, of working together to make the earth more inhabitable – but I don’t think many people in today’s society are concerned about their carbon footprint.

The other reason is the relationship between Ashitaka and San, which is what made little me fall in love with the film in the first place. Miyazaki knows how to write a love story, and he puts an emphasis on the respect and the connection, rather than what you might consider traditional romance (or the over-the-top kind that you sometimes see in anime). The dynamic between Ashitaka and San is not unlike the dynamic between Chihiro and Haku in Spirited Away – two very different individuals meet under strange and distressing circumstances, and form an unlikely, albeit beautiful, connection. Princess Mononoke ends with Ashitaka deciding to aid Lady Eboshi in rebuilding Irontown, and San deciding to remain in the forest. Though the two will live apart, they make a promise to see each other as much as they can... and it makes me burst into tears every single time.

Princess Mononoke is a visually stunning anime film that doesn’t shy away from exploring the inherent cruelty of human nature, and is truly unlike anything else we’ve ever seen. It’s not a love story, nor is it as dreamy and ethereal as other Miyazaki films. Despite being a tale of creatures and curses, it's firmly grounded in reality. It sets out to teach us a lesson about humankind, and while it offers us no resolution, there is still so much hope. Industrialization and deforestation will never stop, but if the forest and the people of Irontown were able to reach a compromise for peace... who's to say things won't get better for our own Mother Earth?

Princess Mononoke is now playing in theaters and IMAX in the UK and Ireland. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Alison Brie and Dave Franco have been married for nearly 10 years, but new body horror movie Together is the first time they've played a couple on screen. Their characters, elementary school teacher Millie and 30-something aspiring musician Tim (heavy on the "aspiring"), aren't married, though, much to Millie's chagrin.

She thinks Tim isn't motivated enough, in their relationship or his own life, and she's worried that they're only still together for convenience. He's been emotionally and sexually distant since a traumatic family incident, and Millie isn't sure how much more distance she can take. Tim has a pretty good idea of how she feels and resents her for it, but still, the pair decide to pack up their lives and move out of the city for Millie's new job in a rural small town. What could be better for a resentment-breeding relationship than forcing one party to pack up their life and start afresh somewhere they don't really want to be?

Trying to adapt to their new life in the countryside (and with each other), Tim and Millie go on a hike in the woodland around their new house. So far, so good, until the pair get lost in the rain and go tumbling into a spooky, sticky subterranean cave. When they eventually make it out and get back home, strange things start happening to their bodies with horrifying consequences.

Throw yourself in

The various images of merging body parts in the movie's marketing give us a taste of Together's fair share of gross moments – it is a body horror flick, after all. But it's also very funny, as you might expect with two actors at the helm with an impressive roster of sitcoms and studio comedies under their belts. "It's not a jokey movie. It's not like we're throwing out a bunch of one-liners," Franco tells GamesRadar+ when we sit down with him and Brie in London.

"It's more [that] our characters are in the most ridiculous scenarios you can imagine, and then we played it very straight and very grounded, and hopefully the comedy comes from that. It's nice when a horror movie gives you permission to laugh and be in on the joke, and isn't too self-serious."

Both lead roles demand very physical performances from their actors as Tim and Millie's bodies start to take on minds of their own, and Brie and Franco threw themselves into the challenge – literally. "My first foray into being more physical did start with physical comedy, and then I realized how much I love involving my body in my work and I've basically just amped it up ever since," Brie says. "In comedy and horror, there's no place for vanity. We're not worried about how we look when we're in these crazy positions. You really have to give yourself over to the stakes of the situation."

"It's really just about throwing yourself around with abandon and seeing what happens," Franco, whose body repeatedly ricochets off the tiled wall of a shower cubicle in one particularly wince-worthy scene, adds. "It's not like we choreographed these moments in very specific ways. It's more like, go nuts and let's just see how weird it can get, and I think that's the same with comedy… The more unpredictable it is, even to yourself, the better."

Bodily horrors

There have been plenty of great body horror movies made over the past few decades, but these have tended to be smaller, independent or international films like Julia Ducournau's Raw. Associations with the genre are still, for the most part, entangled with David Cronenberg's '80s heyday (think Jeff Goldblum in The Fly). But now, with The Substance getting a nomination for Best Picture at this year's Oscars, it seems like body horror is having a moment in the mainstream.

"Body horror is such an interesting genre," says Brie. "Your body is the one thing that you can never escape, right? A lot of people have very complicated relationships with their body. Our bodies are always changing and growing. We're getting older. There's unstoppable forces that are pulling at your body at all times. So while people think of it as a niche genre, I actually think it's so universal and relatable to everybody, and something like The Substance is so exciting because it really brought body horror into the contemporary conversation, whereas it kind of lived in the '70s and '80s prior to now."

Franco agrees, adding, "You can use these movies that are very extreme to deal with very universal issues, like with The Substance and aging, with our film and codependency, and you can just tackle them in a very visceral way."

And, ultimately, that's what Tim and Millie are: codependent. When Millie proposes to Tim during their going-away party in the movie's opening scene, he hesitates for several beats too many, mortifying her. When they call each other "babe", which is more often than you can count, the term of endearment has never felt so empty. At times, it seems like they can barely stand to be in the same room together. And yet, neither can imagine a life without the other.

As the film progresses, the couple are brought closer together (figuratively and literally) by their rapidly deteriorating situation, but it feels somewhat unearned: they're not overcoming their relationship issues; they're just distracted by a much scarier, grosser issue. But Brie hopes that audiences find something sympathetic in Tim and Millie's story, despite it all.

"I do think the trick of this movie is that even though these characters are at odds for the first half of the film, through the challenges that they face – to put it mildly – we do see how they can work as a couple," she says. "So I do hope that people are rooting for them."

"But," Franco concedes, "you're not wrong if you think it's dreadful at the end."

Together is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on August 15. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Directed by Petra Volpe, Late Shift stars Leonie Benesch (The Teachers' Lounge, September 5) as Floria, a nurse in the surgical ward of a Swiss hospital about to clock in for the late shift. What follows is the most nail-biting account of an everyday shift that you'll have seen on screen this year: it's a 92-minute demonstration of what it really means for a hospital to be "short-staffed."

Volpe's kinetic script doesn't recount Floria's shift in real-time, but it feels like it. The writer-director has spoken in interviews about wanting to honor the "athleticism" of nursing; Floria doesn't stop, because the job doesn't allow her to.

Overworked and understaffed

Only two nurses are working on the ward that evening, and Floria must juggle doing her rounds, taking calls from elsewhere in the hospital and from concerned family members, queries from anxious and disgruntled visitors, a nursing student who's proving to be not quite up to par, and a demanding private healthcare patient.

Pulled in a hundred different directions right off the bat, things start to slip through the cracks as the pressure mounts and an avoidable mistake threatens to derail her whole shift. What follows is a completely gripping film that I couldn't look away from. What's being depicted is only the ordinary day-to-day duties of a healthcare professional, and for anyone who works in a hospital, it might feel like it's stating the obvious. But as someone who's only ever been on the other side of the ward, so to speak, I couldn't look away. Benesch's natural, subtle performance is a major part of what makes this film so watchable: we barely know anything about Floria, but she feels like a completely real person.

Hospital wards have had their fair share of on-screen depictions over the years, especially on TV, from long-running UK soap operas to George Clooney's breakout turn in ER and recent HBO word-of-mouth hit The Pitt. But Late Shift differs from these episodic procedural dramas in that Floria's relationships to her colleagues are not explored – there are brief moments of conflict and solidarity, but mostly there's no time for any of that, which speaks further to the alienation faced by overworked employees.

Similarly, Floria's personal life is only alluded to: a long-term patient asks about a break-up she mentioned when she was treating her the previous year and, when she calls her young daughter on her fleeting break, she doesn't want to speak to her.

Do it all again

The movie ends with on-screen text showcasing some sobering stats about nursing: 36% of nurses quit within four years of starting work. Plus, by 2030, there will be a shortage of 30,000 nurses in Switzerland and, according to the World Health Organization, 13 million worldwide. Just before that, Floria's shift ends. She heads to the locker room and gets changed before boarding the bus home in silence, a mirror image of the movie's opening sequence.

As far as workplace dramas go, Late Shift is to hospitals what Boiling Point or The Bear were to kitchens – except the kind of healthcare depicted in Late Shift is actually a matter of life or death, and with a lot less shouting to boot. The hospital where Floria works is never quiet, with constant alarms, alerts, and cries of pain from patients, but there's a steely silence from the staff: there's no panic and no fighting, they just get on with it. As Floria makes her way home on an unremarkable bus, it's clear that this is just a run-of-the-mill day on the job: tomorrow, she'll do it all again.

Late Shift is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Sorry, Baby is the debut feature from Eva Victor, who writes, directs, and stars as Agnes, a young, solitary literature professor struggling to move forward after her life was turned upside down three years prior. As the film's official synopsis tells us, "something bad" happened to Agnes (we don't find out exactly what that is until about a third of the way through the film), but this isn't really a movie about the bad thing in question. It's about how life goes on after a bad thing happens, whether you're ready for it or not.

Naomi Ackie puts in a lively supporting turn as Agnes' best friend Lydie, who's known her since graduate school. They met on the same English literature program but, while Agnes stayed put in their New England college town to start teaching after their studies ended, Lydie moved to New York, where she found love, got married, and is now expecting a baby. It's no wonder that Agnes feels like her life is standing still while everyone else's speeds ahead.

Sorry, Baby captures the malaise of your late 20s and early 30s, that feeling of being stuck and moving too fast all at once, without ever resorting to self-indulgence. It's a film about how hard it is to be a person, but how it's always worth persevering, themes that have been explored on screen many times before but have rarely moved me as much as they did here.

Cathartic comedy

The movie's moments of hopefulness are thanks to Lydie, in part, (her and Agnes' friendship feels real and natural, and Victor and Ackie's easy chemistry makes you believe in it wholeheartedly), but also through Agnes' connection with strangers: an unlikely relationship with her neighbor, Gavin, played by Lucas Hedges, and an even unlikelier interaction with a sandwich vendor in a parking lot during a panic attack.

The movie exercises an extremely skilled control of tone: Victor's comedy background (they started their career writing for satirical publication Reductress before making videos for Comedy Central) and sharp insight combined with their honest, moving depiction of trauma means the movie never risks venturing into sentimental territory.

Victor cites Kelly Reichardt's bittersweet gem Certain Women, which stars Kristen Stewart, Lily Gladstone, Michelle Williams, and Laura Dern, as a key inspiration for Sorry, Baby. They also shadowed director Jane Schoenbrun on the set of their critically acclaimed horror movie I Saw the TV Glow, which is gut-wrenching in its portrayal of unwanted self-discovery, to prepare for the making of their own movie. But Sorry, Baby always comes back to life's most farcical, often ridiculous, moments which don't go away even in our darkest times – and that's when the film is often at its funniest.

"To be completely honest, I’ve tried to write really dramatic things, and I don’t always know how to land the plane," the writer-director said in an interview with Roger Ebert. "The most cathartic version of this story for me meant doing the thing I would use to cope with it. So much of performing comedy is about saying things that other people want to say."

Lots of people will find something in Sorry, Baby that resonates with their own life, whether they've experienced the same "bad thing" as Agnes or whether something else traumatic has put a roadblock on the path they thought their life was going down. As Agnes sits alone with Lydie's new baby in the movie's closing scene, though, it feels like new life signals new beginnings: life can start again at any point, you just have to let it happen.

Sorry, Baby is out now in US theaters and arrives in UK cinemas on August 22. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Harvest isn't a traditional folk horror movie, but it brings shades of rural dread to Greek filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari's latest feature.

Tsangari is no stranger to the weird and wonderful. She's worked as a producer on several of Yorgos Lanthimos' movies – including family psychodrama Dogtooth – and co-wrote her last feature, 2015's Chevalier, with Lanthimos' frequent collaborator Efthymis Filippou.

Set in a remote Scottish village in a vaguely medieval time period, Caleb Landry Jones plays Walter, a villager who's not quite an outsider but not quite a local. "Just a visitor who stayed," he tells another character at one point. A childhood friend and former manservant of the lord of the manor, Master Kent (Harry Melling), Walter arrived in the village after his master married a local noblewoman, and Walter left the manor when he also fell in love with a local woman. Now, both men are widowers, but their unequal friendship lives on.

The film establishes its pastoral setting in its opening sequence with hazy, golden hour shots on grainy 16mm film (Sean Price Williams, best known for his collaborations with the Safdies, was on hand as cinematographer). Walter roams the land alone in a contented daze with tactile, childlike fascination with the flora and fauna around him. This is immediately contrasted with a cut to the village's barn on fire in the middle of the night: peaceful greenery becomes darkness and chaos.

The latter sets the tone for the rest of the movie far more effectively than the former. In the light of the next day, we learn that someone burned down the barn and stole some of the doves inside. No one knows who did it and no one wants to own up, but the sudden arrival of several strangers soon provides the perfect scapegoat. This isn't a settlement used to newcomers – it's at least two days on horseback to the nearest town, so people don't just wander through.

Three of these strangers are intruders, spotted down by the loch, but the fourth is a guest of Master Kent's: Mr. Earle, who's been charged with mapping the land. He may be there by invitation of their lord, but Earle is Black, and the villagers still treat him with distrust (and, in some cases, disgust).

The line between community and exclusion is a thin one, and looks different depending on which side you're standing on. There's a violence to the tight-knit village in Harvest, made manifest by a strange ritual that involves the children of the community having their heads bumped, hard, against the settlement's boundary stones, "so they know where they belong."

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's recent re-team for zombie sequel 28 Years Later explored similar themes, giving the post-apocalyptic series a folk horror twist as the countryside of northeast England became a site of death and isolationism. The island where Jodie Comer's Isla lives with her young son Spike is cut off from the mainland where the infected roam and, therefore, safe, but it's also a place that feels claustrophobic, archaic, and glorifies violence (and, in the case of one of the movie's earlier scenes, violence carried out by children). Closing ranks, for whatever reason, always results in the exclusion of the other. And, as Walter learns eventually in Harvest, no one is really safe when we batten down the hatches.

Harvest is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

The vampire movie tends to be one of romance, or revenge. Robert Eggers' Nosferatu hones in on the darkly sexual nature of F.W. Murneau’s silent film adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic tale, while Gary Dauberman's take on Salem's Lot focuses on the ubiquitous nature of evil and defeating the thing that has already taken so much from us. Abraham's Boys: A Dracula Story, however, is about something else entirely: family.

Natasha Kermani's take on Joe Hill's 2004 short story is full of wooden stakes, holy water, and examination tables, but it centers mainly on the unwavering trust that a child has for their parent. After the death of Count Dracula, Dr. Abraham Van Helsing (Titus Welliver) moves his wife Mina (Jocelin Donahue) and his two sons, Max (Brady Hepner) and Rudy (Judah Mackey), out of Europe and into California in hopes of starting a new life away from the trauma of what he and Mina experienced all those years ago. For some 15 years the family has managed to live a relatively normal existence in a house on the hill, just outside of town and adjacent to the new railroad that's being built. Things start to change, however, when Mina begins to feel Dracula's presence in the house, but Max and Rudy don’t believe in vampires.

"It feels more like an art film. And, certainly, visually, it works that way," Welliver tells GamesRadar+. He's right: The film is set against the same picturesque backdrop where Little House on the Prairie was shot, tucked away in the hills of Simi Valley, California at Big Sky Ranch – and the beautiful, serene scenery directly contrasts with the horror that unfolds. He also reveals at a screening of the film attended by GR+ that There Will Be Blood also heavily influenced the film's overall aesthetic. "You don't have the vampires running around. You're not seeing fangs and spraying blood and things. It's much more subtle and psychological, and it kind of seeps into you as the audience. The boys are representative of the audience, so they're experiencing everything through the eyes of the boys. But they also have knowledge that the boys don't have."

The viewer believes Mina immediately, and her descent into madness is validated by Max's constant nightmares and visions of his mother being taken by Dracula – not to mention Rudy's insistence that he hears crying and scratching coming from inside the house. The boys, however, aren't so sure. They've come to accept that their father is a strange, strict man who stays in his locked office all day and has unconventional methods when it comes to healing the sick, but as Mina gets sicker, he becomes more impatient and cruel – and more insistent that the dead indeed walk among us. It's not lost on me that Max and Rudy go through a similar journey to that of Fenton and Adam in Bill Paxton's 2001 supernatural horror Frailty, which sees their father enlist his reluctant sons to become demon slayers. Though reluctant to do so, Max and Rudy feel as though they have no choice but to trust Van Helsing. Why? Max puts it simply: "Of course I trust you: you're my father."

"You have a parent, and they are the person that's supposed to keep you safe and do all those things, and that's what Van Helsing is. But if you had a chronic alcoholic or an addict parent, there's a level of unpredictability," Welliver explains. "And he's saying, 'I'll protect you, but this is what we're dealing with.' [His] two boys really depict that kind of loyalty and love and dedication, but also a resistance."

Resistance is the key theme throughout the tight, 90-minute film: Max and Rudy do as they're told, but not without immediate refusal and questioning. Van Helsing seems to refuse to listen to any logic or reasoning at any turn. Mina is sure that Dracula is present, even though nothing is creeping in the corner, or lurking just outside the window. At some point, it's hard for the viewer to discern what's truly going on: we develop our own trust issues. But at the core of the film remains two sons who want so badly to believe that their father's intentions are pure – even when said intentions become a little violent.

Van Helsing has always been portrayed as a strange and stoic man, but I can't recall the last time he's been portrayed as a father in media – but that’s what makes Abraham's Boys so unique: it grounds the film in reality, making the viewer almost question their own beliefs in the supernatural and the unknown. If the boys believed their father with no problem, and were more than game to aid him in his quest to hunt down those who are infected with 'vampirism,' it'd be a fantastical, horror fantasy. Instead, it's a dark and upsetting drama about the loss of innocence and how the people who are supposed to protect us from the horrors of the world can end up being the horror themselves.

Abraham's Boys: A Dracula Story is streaming now on Shudder and playing in select US theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

In movies like Pet Sematary or even Adam Wingard’s Blair Witch, the monster is grief. It’s the (rather human) unwillingness to move on and let go that results in a rapid, downward spiral that inadvertently gets everyone killed in the process. In David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, however, grief isn’t so much a monster as it is a sickness you can’t defeat. It doesn’t matter what tools, physical or emotional, you come equipped with: dead is dead. And as bleak as that sounds, the two-hour horror-drama is more of a beautiful reality check – and a reminder that we’ll be okay, as long as we don’t fight it.

The Shrouds marks Cronenberg’s 23rd feature-length film over a long and prolific career that spans over 50 years, and is without a doubt his most personal. Vincent Cassel stars as Karsh, a businessman and tech genius who, after his wife Becca (Diane Kruger) passes away from cancer, develops a high-tech burial shroud that acts as an underground live broadcast feed that allows grieving individuals to watch their loved ones decompose in real time. This, he explains, was born out of the desire to get into the coffin with his wife as they were lowering her into the ground. And if this isn’t enough, Karsh also has an animated AI avatar named Hunny (also Kruger) modeled after his wife that talks to him throughout the day, scheduling his meetings and going through his to-do list. This all seems helpful to some extent, but it doesn’t stop him from having vivid nightmares where Becca visits him in her autopsied form.

"I felt that Karsh would feel that it was too painful to be really communicating with an avatar that was so lifelike, like his dead wife. It would cause some pain," Cronenberg tells GamesRadar+ while discussing the film. "So he wanted it to be a kind of cartoony, emoji version of his wife so that he would have some distance from it. And the question is: will that be cathartic? Will it be therapeutic? Or will it just be endlessly painful because you will not be letting go of that person? And of course, the impulse is to not let go."

Technology is something that the filmmaker has visited time and time again, as this imperfect thing that we as humans reach for in order to satisfy our primal needs for connection. In Videodrome, sadism and overstimulation reign over the lives of Max Renn (James Woods) and his masochistic lover Nicki (Debbie Harry). In eXistenZ, video games are played via fleshy pods that extend from our spinal cords. Even in 2022’s Crimes of the Future, surgery becomes a voyeuristic trend that packs hundreds of people into one room. In The Shrouds, technology is used in order to try and cure an incurable ache, and proves once again to be something utterly flawed.

"It was always evident that technology is us. It's absolutely an extension of our bodies and our minds," Cronenberg explains. "And so, as we are imperfect, our technology is imperfect. And as we create beautiful things and also create incredibly destructive things, so our technology does that as well, because it is us. You’re never gonna get perfect technology, just as you will never get a perfect human being. That doesn't mean one should not explore what our technology gives us."

As we move through the film, things only seem to get worse for Karsh. Someone hacks the GraveTech technology and makes it impossible for him to see Becca’s body. Hunny begins to emulate the autopsied, amputated form of Becca that visits him in his dreams at night. It’s as if the technology he built to ease his pain has suddenly turned against him. Slowly, but surely, he starts to come to terms with the fact that she’s gone forever. This cuts especially deep for the viewer with the knowledge that the inspiration for the film came directly from the death of Cronenberg’s wife, Carolyn, in 2017.

"A lot of people say to me, you know, 'So has making this film been cathartic and helped you with your grief?’ And the answer is 'No,'" he says. "It doesn't help at all. It's not cathartic. I don't think of art as therapy. It's not therapy. It's a different thing." He goes on to tell me that he’s an atheist, an existentialist, and that body is reality: "To me, there is no afterlife."

This is evident in The Shrouds, as a movie so concerned with death somehow manages to make zero mention of what happens to the soul after. For Karsh, there is no after. And though Cronenberg is one of the most influential directors in the horror genre, there are no spooky or supernatural elements in his films. In his filmography, there is mutated flesh, exploding heads, giant talking beetles, and psychic premonitions – but there are no ghosts. Each film, no matter how delightfully absurd or visually disturbing, is grounded in reality, in a nearby plane of existence. The Shrouds paints a rather grim picture of the not-so-distant future: we can already use AI to turn old photographs into videos… why not use it to bring our loved ones back from the dead?

The Shrouds isn’t so much a meditation on grief as it is a reality check: it doesn’t matter what you do after someone dies. Death doesn’t care how you cope. Karsh puts himself as close as he possibly can be to his deceased wife, to the point where he can literally watch her body decompose in real time, and it doesn’t help him move on. It doesn’t make him any less obsessed. Though there are some comedic elements sprinkled throughout the film (with laugh-out-loud absurdity delivered by a frantic Guy Pearce), you might leave the theater contemplating your entire life and the ways in which you cope with devastation. You also might disable Siri on your phone, and shove the whole damn thing in a drawer for a while.

The Shrouds is set to hit UK theaters on July 4. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

It's been 30 years since Cher Horowitz was first declared "a virgin who can't drive" and, to commemorate the anniversary, the movie is getting a nationwide re-release on both sides of the pond this June.

Directed by Fast Times at Ridgemont High helmer Amy Heckerling, Clueless is loosely based on Jane Austen's 19th Century novel Emma, about a well-meaning but self-centered matchmaker.

In this version of the story, Alicia Silverstone plays Cher, a wealthy and popular high schooler with a talent for talking her way out of trouble. Unlike the stereotypical popular girl in a teen movie, however, Cher is a little different: she's likeable. She may be self-serving and selfish (as her "ex-step-brother" Josh, played by Paul Rudd, is always willing to point out), but she's also good-natured and optimistic, and discovers in the movie's first act that helping people out actually feels pretty nice when she engineers a meet cute between two of her teachers in an attempt to secure herself a better grade.

Certified classic

When "clueless" new student Tai (Brittany Murphy) joins her class, Cher takes it upon herself to mentor her in the ways of fashion, boys, and popularity – whether Tai likes it or not. When Cher's plan ends up working a little too well and Tai's popularity threatens to outshine her own, she's forced to do some soul-searching, which is further complicated by Tai admitting to a crush on Josh. Just like Emma Woodhouse in Austen's novel almost 200 years earlier, Heckerling's script allows Cher to develop some self-awareness and realize that she's been the clueless one all along.

The movie was a huge success when it was released in 1995, making almost $90 million at the global box office on a budget of $12 million, and it's achieved classic status in the three decades since its premiere. Its enduring popularity, like its protagonist's, is no wonder: Clueless combines tongue-in-cheek social commentary, a killer wardrobe, a razor-sharp script, and pitch-perfect performances in an irresistible cocktail that few filmmakers have been able to replicate in the teen comedy genre since.

Clueless was a breakout role for both Alicia Silverstone and Brittany Murphy: Silverstone, who was relatively unknown at the time, is perfectly cast as Cher, making sure the movie's good nature never descends into corniness, while it's hard to believe that this was only Murphy's second feature film role. She was only 17 during filming, but has a presence and charm on camera that can't be taught.

Ahead of the curve

Of course, you can't talk about Clueless without mentioning the costumes, and Cher's plaid yellow two-piece has become symbolically synonymous with the movie. Like the Winona Ryder-led Heathers before it, Clueless isn't afraid to get a little over-the-top with the wardrobes of its privileged teens, but it pays off.

By contrast, teen movies now often feel like homage by comparison, trying to emulate what's come before rather than forging their own path. Everything from commercials to music videos have directly referenced Clueless, and Netflix movie Do Revenge was one of the most recent films to honor the teen classic. It tries and comes close to doing what Clueless does, but ultimately doesn't handle its literary source material (Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train) with the same panache that Heckerling moulds her Austenian inspirations.

In the 30 years since it first hit the big screen, Clueless has remained a staple in any teenager's watchlist – and for good reason. Appetite for Cher and her outfits is still ravenous, as the movie has spawned a TV show, novels, and a stage musical adaptation, which opened on Broadway in 2018 and in London's West End just this year. When I rewatched the movie recently, for the first time in at least a decade, my main concern when I pressed play was that it wouldn't have aged that well. All I have to say to that now is, "As if!"

Clueless will be re-released in UK cinemas from June 27 and US theaters from June 29. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

In new drama The Way We Talk, sign language is a tool for both communication and community. Hong Kong director Adam Wong's movie, which had its world premiere at last year's London Film Festival, centers around three d/Deaf friends: Sophie (Chung Suet Ying), Alan (Marco Ng), and Wolf (Neo Yau). Alan and Wolf are childhood friends who met at their speech and language school, where Wolf, who was born into a Deaf family, was often in trouble for refusing to use spoken language.

Flashbacks to 2005 see him clashing with his teacher, with sign language penalized in the classroom, and on-screen text at the start of the film informs the audience that policy around using sign language in schools in Hong Kong only changed in 2010.

Cut to almost 20 years later, and Alan has a cochlear implant that helps his hearing. He and Sophie meet as they're both ambassadors for the implant, encouraging other d/Deaf people to undergo the surgery. This puts them both at odds with Wolf, who strongly believes that his lack of hearing is something to be proud of and not something he wants to change about himself.

Something different

Other recent movies about d/Deaf people or people experiencing hearing loss, like 2021's Oscar-winning CODA or 2019's Sound of Metal, starring Riz Ahmed, often only revolve around one main protagonist and, in the case of CODA, that protagonist isn't actually d/Deaf (the movie's title is an acronym for 'Child of Deaf Adults').

In Sound of Metal, Ahmed's character, Ruben, only starts to lose his hearing in adulthood, so it feels rare to see multiple d/Deaf protagonists on screen who have been experiencing Deafness or loss of hearing since childhood (if not all their lives, in Wolf's case).

Overcome or embrace?

"Amid the dilemma of 'overcoming deafness' and 'embracing deafness,' how can deaf individuals truly live?" Wong said in a statement about the film. "How can one's individuality resist being drowned out by prevailing societal trends?"

In one of the movie's early scenes, Sophie makes a speech for the cochlear implant organization that offends Wolf with its references to normality and eliminating d/Deafness. His outburst upsets Sophie, and she decides she wants to learn sign language – and for Wolf to teach her. New ways of communicating open up new ways of living for her, too: rather than trying to assimilate in a culture that tokenizes and others her, as her mother has always tried to make her do, she's able to find community and solidarity with other d/Deaf people.

The movie's dialogue is spoken in Cantonese, but most of its speech is communicated using Hong Kong sign language. The film's sound often distorts to reflect what its protagonists are hearing in the world around them, particularly when Sophie's cochlear implant begins to malfunction.

Although at times the script feels a little didactic in its depiction of d/Deafness, the movie for the most part feels like an honest portrayal of living with a disability: isolating and frustrating, but also joyful and companionable.

The Way We Talk is out now in UK cinemas. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

When it comes to cinema, love and death are the medium's bread and butter. New drama When the Light Breaks provides its own take on those two universal themes, offering one of the freshest and most honest perspectives I've seen on the big screen in a while.

The latest film from Icelandic writer-director Rúnar Rúnarsson, When the Light Breaks follows art school student Una (Elín Hall) over the course of 24 hours after she finds out that her boyfriend Diddi (Baldur Einarsson) has been killed in a freak traffic accident. Her grief is further complicated by the fact that their affair was a secret, and Diddi was on his way to break up with his long-term girlfriend Klara (Katla Njálsdóttir) when he died. Una spends the day that follows with a small group of Diddi's childhood friends – and Klara, who rushes to Reykjavík when she hears the news.

Una struggles with the resentment she feels towards Klara and the sympathy she receives, as well as the guilt of her and Diddi's infidelity and the weight of her secret – one that was previously shared, but now rests firmly on her shoulders alone.

"I just had to get it out of my system"

When the Light Breaks is dedicated to two of Rúnarsson's friends who passed away and, although the film is a work of fiction, it channels his own experiences of grief. "It's a relief. I just had to get it out of my system, one way or another," Rúnarsson said in an interview with Variety. "But when something, like a box, has been standing on a shelf for a long time and then you move it, it leaves an empty space. I managed to get rid of the box, and I am glad it’s gone, but nothing else will be able to replace it."

Ideas of grief and loss are examined further with a piece of music that recurs throughout the film: it's by the late composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who scored movies like Sicario and Arrival and died in 2018. The piece is one of Jóhannsson's first works, but it's never been used in a movie before.

Emotional debris

The thing that struck me the most about When the Light Breaks, though (other than its gorgeous cinematography, shot by Sophia Olsson, who captures both the Icelandic summer sunrises and the highway tunnel explosion with equal painstaking care), was its honesty. It doesn't seek out answers to the moral and emotional complexities at its core, nor does it attempt to moralize one way or the other. A more simplistic script would force us to empathize with Klara or demonize Una, but instead it invites us to sit with both women and their shared and separate grief.

A particularly moving scene sees the two women brush their teeth side by side in Diddi's bathroom: Una reaches for his toothbrush but, realizing she needs to feign unfamiliarity with the space, squeezes toothpaste onto her finger instead. When Klara joins her, she does the same thing in an attempt at solidarity, while the knowledge that Una has been in this exact spot many times before hangs heavy and unspoken over the pair.

When the Light Breaks is full of complicated moments like this – small, intimate acts between people trying to make sense of the worst day of their lives that carry as much irony and tragedy as they do hope and joy. Love and death are well-trodden topics for a reason: there isn't one right way to behave when your life blows up in real-time, but When the Light Breaks attempts to pick through the emotional debris.

When the Light Breaks is out now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

A movie satirizing the work of documentarians at controversial new media organizations may seem a little outdated – VICE News was launched in 2013, after all. But a quick look at its YouTube channel shows that videos are still uploaded regularly and get hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of views. That particular brand of journalism is still ripe for parody, then, even if it doesn't get as much attention outside of its own bubble anymore.

Creative Lab, the media company in Amalia Ulman's Magic Farm, is desperately trying to retain relevancy. Presented by Edna (Chloë Sevigny), produced by Edna's sleazy husband Dave (Blink Twice's Simon Rex) and incompetent Jeff (Hereditary's Alex Wolff), and filmed by the more well-intentioned Elena (writer-director Ulman) and Justin (Joe Apollonio), Creative Labs makes online documentaries about subcultures around the world.

Their next subject is Super Carlitos, a musician who dresses up as a giant rabbit and is based in San Cristobal. It's only once they've touched down in San Cristobal, Argentina, that the crew realizes that there are several towns with the same name in Latin America, and Jeff has booked them a trip to the wrong one.

Tongue-in-cheek

Unable to track down Super Carlitos (or Marita, the contact Jeff was originally speaking to when they were planning the doc), the group scrambles to think of a new pitch – and fabricate a zany subculture in a rural Argentinian town. Coming up with a new plan isn't their biggest problem, either: Elena is hiding a pregnancy from everyone but her best pal Justin, and Dave has to hightail it back to the US to deal with an unfolding sexual assault scandal. And that's before Jeff and Justin find themselves distracted by tentative romantic entanglements with a local woman and their hotel receptionist.

Elena is the only Spanish speaker in their midst and, like Ulman, she was born in Argentina but raised in Spain. She feels obliged to explain away her accent to the locals, and finds herself occupying a precarious middle ground between her New York colleagues and the subjects they're trying to capture. "I don't want to exploit someone just because they're weird," Elena says at one point. "Well, you chose the wrong job," Jeff responds.

Magic Farm isn't a straightforward tale of exploitation, though – a movie that veers down that path would fall into the same trap of the people it was trying to satirize. Instead, the people of San Cristobal, Argentina, give as good as they get, keeping their American visitors on their toes and making sure they never get too comfortable. None of it is malicious, though – in keeping with the movie's tongue-in-cheek tone, the locals' behaviour always keeps a wry and playful undertone.

Bigger picture

The surreal and bizarre nature of the situation is reflected in the movie's use of high-contrast colour-grading and wacky camera angles, which include putting the viewer inside a fridge and on the back of a dog running around the village. The Creative Labs crew is trying their hardest to manufacture something off-the-wall, but if they possessed any self-awareness, they'd see that their own presence in San Cristobal is providing the same entertainment that they're seeking out.

Jeff, Edna, and co. are so wrapped up in their lives and their inability to process their issues, though, that they're oblivious to the bigger picture around them. A refusal – or perhaps an inability – to look outwards means they miss the real story that becomes apparent as the film progresses: harmful herbicides, sprayed onto local crops by anonymous aircraft, are causing severe health problems in the community that they've forced their way into.

"The final feeling of the film is pretty much that we’re all fucked, all of us together, and we have to communicate," Ulman said in an interview with Vogue. "Nothing else we can really do while the earth goes to shit."

Magic Farm is out now in theaters. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.

Walton Goggins is at the height of his career, playing everyone from a gun-slinging Ghoul (Fallout) to an eccentric old man with megachurch money (The Righteous Gemstones) and a conman in Thailand (The White Lotus).

In the midst of all of this, his new movie The Uninvited almost feels tucked away – like a present you quietly unwrap. The soft and devastating indie comedy-drama is both a fairytale and a ghost story. It’s a meditation on regret and the things we leave behind.

The Uninvited is written and directed by Nadia Conners (Goggins' wife) in her feature-length directorial debut – and is based on a true story that occurred at her and Goggins' home in the Hollywood hills. In the film, retired actress and reluctant stay-at-home-mom Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) and her tightly wound agent husband Sammy (Goggins) set out to host a lush, lavish dinner party for Sammy’s movie star client Gerald (Rufus Sewell).

Things don’t turn out as planned, however, when a confused, elderly woman named Helen (Lois Smith) parks her little Prius in their driveway – and doesn’t remember how to get home, insisting that their house is her home. Their babysitter, Tracy (Kate Comer), immediately jokes that the old woman must be a witch, but as the movie progresses, you start to think that Tracy might be right.

Helen’s arrival creates a chain reaction of sorts, with Rose suddenly reevaluating her entire life, Sammy confronting his own dissatisfaction, and a series of revelations that more or less change the course of everyone’s lives. This includes two particular guests in attendance: Lucien (Pedro Pascal), an effortlessly cool actor and Rose’s old flame, and Delia (Eva de Dominici), a hot young actress rising to the top in Hollywood. In the midst of all of this is a phony fortune teller, taking photos of their auras in a rented photobooth, and a hopeful bedtime story about a glowfish told by Rose and Sammy’s bright-eyed son Wilder (Roland Rubio). The house itself is alive, becoming part of the history that Helen insists that she remembers – despite her memory coming in and out as the night goes on.

It’s wild that this is Conners’ first feature-length film, because it’s just so carefully crafted. Every inch of the movie is purposeful, from the gown Rose wears at dinner (which is meant to look like the drapes) to the theme of the play that Rose and Lucien starred in together so many moons ago. One of my favorite parts is the dialogue: not a single drop is clunky or awkward, and there are no throwaway lines – everyone speaks with purpose, even if they only have a few words to say. In fact, the film hits a point where almost every word out of each character’s mouth is something heartbreaking: a revelation, an admission of fear or guilt, a hesitant but strong "no." There’s something especially sad about Pascal’s Lucien, who, despite all of his fame, is so hollowed out and can’t help but confuse his own narcissism for complete sincerity.

"It was important to tell this story," Goggins said during our interview about the film. "I would imagine that there are there are elements of our relationships that are sprinkled throughout – elements of my wife's relationship with her mother, certainly, how my wife has felt at times about her own career and what she had to give up in the Sophie's Choice that she was faced with. And the loneliness, I suppose, that we all feel."

We get a pretty clear idea of who Sammy is from just the first few moments of the film: he's tightly wound, impatient, worried about his career - and unlikable from the jump. But as the evening goes on, Sammy starts to unravel - and, without giving too much away, we see the softer, more frightened side.

The Uninvited can be best described with one very specific line from a Sylvia Plath poem: “Something beautiful, but annihilating.” It’s definitely a “comedy of errors,” like the promotional material says, but it hurts. There’s no way to leave the theater without thinking about your own life, your own choices, and calling up your mother to ask if she, after all these years, is satisfied with her own. Whether you think the film is rooted in reality or has a sprinkle of magic, that Helen didn’t show up in the driveway by accident, and that nearly every cryptic phrase out of her mouth is an incantation, is up to you.

The Uninvited is out now in US and UK cinemas. You can find the complete list of theaters and showtimes here.

For more unmissable movie recommendations, check out the previous entries in our weekly Big Screen Spotlight series.

Last weekend, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith returned to theaters – and to say it was a triumphant return is an understatement. The re-release stormed the box office, netting the second-highest gross for a re-release ever, and even beating a brand new movie, The Accountant 2.

Just a few years back, this would've seemed unthinkable. While Revenge of the Sith has always been viewed as the best of the prequels, until not so long ago, that was a dubious honor. It's no secret that the Star Wars prequels have been derided since their release, and the backlash against them was even career-derailing for Jake Lloyd, Ahmed Best, and Hayden Christensen.

But, in recent years, the tide has shifted, and now the prequels are adored. Numerous factors have gone into this change in opinion: The Clone Wars (which itself wasn't so warmly received when the movie debuted back in 2008) deepening the trilogy's story, kids who grew up with the prequels becoming adults who aren't shy about their opinions, and the prevalence of oh-so-quotable prequel memes are just a few factors.

Where the fun begins

Naturally, being a Star Wars super fan (and a prequels kid) myself, I nabbed tickets for the re-release as soon as they went on sale. Revenge of the Sith is the first Star Wars movie I ever saw in the theater, taken along by my dad (something we repeated for the re-release), so I already had plenty of warm feelings for the film. But, what struck me as I watched it on the big screen again is just how damn good it is. As the credits rolled, I thought to myself, 'This really is George Lucas's masterpiece.'

The opening scene hurtles us straight into the action with Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi mounting a rescue attempt for Chancellor Palpatine in a dramatic space battle with VFX that looks brand new, not two decades old (General Grievous could have walked right out of a modern blockbuster). Then, it's back to Coruscant for a tale of sinister political intrigue, as the Jedi grapple with a corrupt politician seizing more and more power, unopposed in plain sight; a story that feels eerily prescient.

At the heart of it all is Anakin, plagued with visions of Padmé Amidala dying, whose quest to save his wife leads him into the arms of the dark side in a poignant narrative of a hero succumbing to evil. It's hard not to rewatch the film and hope Anakin will choose the right path this time, a feeling only amplified by the immersion of watching in a theater. The story is so tightly woven, though, that his fall carries a devastating inevitability throughout, culminating in that haunting moment Darth Vader takes his first breath.

Christensen's performance was harshly criticized all those decades ago, but he perfectly captures the brooding intensity, tortured indecision, and desperate fear of the Chosen One on the brink. Not to mention just how skilled he is with a lightsaber, brilliantly showcased in that fiery Mustafar showdown.

And Mustafar is the movie's jewel in the crown, a scintillating, 12-minute-long clash between warring brothers, with stunning fight choreography and the defining performances of the movie from a ferocious Christensen and a heartbroken Ewan McGregor. Back on the big screen, the fight was even more breathtaking – watching on Disney Plus just doesn't do it justice.

I challenge you, too, not to feel teary-eyed when the movie comes to a close on a message of hope, with Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker delivered to their new homes as John Williams's iconic score swells, and we end watching the twin sunset on Tatooine.

A legacy changed

Even before the re-release, I felt the prequels love everywhere at Star Wars Celebration 2025. Christensen's surprise appearance during the Ahsoka panel got the biggest cheer of the weekend, and I saw more prequel-era Anakin and Obi-Wan cosplayers than I could count. In a panel dedicated to Lucasfilm documentary Light & Magic season 2, Jar Jar Binks actor Best spoke about his experiences filming the prequels to laughter and applause (and yes, he broke out the voice).

Altogether, the past few weeks have shown me that the prequels love isn't just a fad reserved for those of us – like myself – who grew up with the trilogy and have always loved those movies. Prequels fever really has taken hold for good, which means their legacy, which once seemed set in carbonite as the so-called failures of the franchise, has been forever changed.

But this year wasn't just the anniversary of Revenge of the Sith. The Force Awakens also turned 10, though Lucasfilm hasn't done much to mark the occasion yet (the anniversary falls in December, so there's still time). The sequels have been divisive in their own way, too, spurring fierce debate within the fandom: particularly The Last Jedi, with its controversial depiction of Luke, and The Rise of Skywalker, with its much-criticized Palpatine resurrection. But if there's another thing the past few weeks have shown me, it's that their time will come.

Perhaps 10 years from now, The Force Awakens' re-release will stir up a similar storm; after all, the tweens who watched it in 2015 will be in their twenties by now. And, if the enthusiastic reaction to Daisy Ridley's appearance at Star Wars Celebration 2023 is anything to go by, people long to see these characters return. Rey is getting her own movie, after all, though updates are scarce.

I have no doubt that soon enough the sequels will be as publicly, uncontroversially loved as the prequels. It's only a matter of time. As Anakin himself says early in Revenge of the Sith: patience.

You can keep up to date with all the upcoming Star Wars movies and shows with our guide through the link.

For more unmissable movie recommendations, check out the previous entries in our weekly Big Screen Spotlight series.