Woman of the Hour (2023)Director: Anna KendrickScreenwriter: Ian McDonaldStarring: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zavatto, Nicholette Robinson, Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, Pete Holmes, Tony Hale Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour, dramatizes the chilling real-life case of Rodney Alcala and shifts the typical true crime focus away from the killer to the women whose lives … Read more

Smile 2 (2024)Director: Parker FinnScreenwriter: Parker FinnStarring: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kyle Gallner, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Raúl Castillo, Dylan Gelula, Ray Nicholson The original Smile arrived in 2022 as a compact, effective piece of commercial horror that managed to turn a modest budget into notable box office success. That film’s straightforward premise … Read more

Salem’s Lot (2024)Director: Gary DaubermanScreenwriter: Gary DaubermanStarring: Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Alfre Woodard, John Benjamin Hickey, Bill Camp, Alexander Ward Remaking a beloved adaptation of a classic Stephen King novel carries a heavy burden: fans expect reverence for the source material and enough fresh insight to justify revisiting the story. The track record of recent … Read more

Mr Smith Goes To Washington (1939)Director: Frank CapraScreenwriter: Sidney BuchmanStarring: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Arnold, Claude Rains, Harry Carey In dark or uncertain times, finding a guiding light can feel impossible — and yet hope persists. Sometimes we turn away from it, comforted by our melancholy. Other times, hope arrives unexpectedly: a … Read more

Sexual violence appears repeatedly across horror cinema, from Rosemary’s drugged impregnation in Rosemary’s Baby to the killer stalking sorority girls in Black Christmas. The slasher subgenre in particular is built around sexualised violence: a male villain stalks a group of young people, often women, and only one—often called the “final girl”—survives. She endures the worst … Read more

Jaws (1975) opens with a body: a clear, brutal sign that something in the water has attacked. The people of Amity Island, however, are slow to accept the implication. Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) stands out as the lone reasonable public official, uneasy on the beach and increasingly alarmed. Into this tense, sun-soaked community arrive … Read more

The Wild Robot (2024)Director: Chris SandersScreenplay: Chris SandersStarring: Lupita Nyong’o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Matt Berry, Catherine O’Hara, Ving Rhames, Mark Hamill, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu DreamWorks Animation’s The Wild Robot feels like a confident step into a new era for the studio. Directed and scripted by Chris Sanders and adapted from Peter Brown’s 2016 … Read more

From chainsaws and Deadites to boomsticks and cheesy one-liners, the Evil Dead franchise stands as one of horror’s most inventive and enduring series. Blending slapstick influences with gruesome, outlandish imagery, director Sam Raimi created the original cult classic when he was only twenty. With praise from Stephen King, Raimi and Bruce Campbell’s first feature film, … Read more

Whiplash — Ten Years On: A Dark Ode to Ambition It has been ten years since Damien Chazelle’s explosive jazz drama first hit screens, leaving many viewers exhilarated and unsettled in equal measure. Whiplash follows Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman, an aspiring jazz drummer at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory. When Neiman is selected for the … Read more

Known for hits like The Hangover and Joker, Brooklyn-born writer-director Todd Phillips began his career as a documentary filmmaker. In the late 1990s he rose through the independent circuit with documentaries about notable and tragic musicians. His transition to mainstream film came after director Ivan Reitman discovered him at Sundance and helped secure studio backing … Read more