The Best Films of 2025

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Year End, Year End ListsLeave a comment

Yes I know the list is late this year, while I was really behind on things and needed every last second to catch up, I also was waiting on a couple of films I had high hopes for to actually open in Seattle, so forgive the ask to look back on last year when we are already in February. On top of that an unexpected hospital stay delayed it even longer.

So how was 2025 for film? It was pretty damn good. While it may not live up to 2019 which I consider to be arguably the high-water mark for the century, I would consider this to be the best year since COVID permanently changed the landscape. This year had plenty of auteurs making big movies to help create a vibrant top end but also managed to survive some missteps from them (Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme being a clear example). I haven’t gone back to look at past lists, but this also seems to have been a banner year for documentaries with quite a few of them making the list. The list this year represents films from 8 different countries with special congratulations to Norway which had an all-time great year with 3 films making the cut. For as happy with my list as I am with this list, I’m a little disappointed in my volume this year. I feel well short of my normal goal of 100 new releases only seeing 90 this year.

The last thing that I like to check in on is the representation of women filmmakers in the scene as a whole as well as on my list. Looking at the top grossing films of the year only 9 of the top 100 were directed by women which is a down tick from last year and a pitiful amount. My year end list as always ranked much better with 9 out of 25 being directed or co-directed by women or non-binary people.

With my initial thoughts and stats out of the way here’s my year end list.

25. Materialists (Dir. Celine Song)

Starting off the list with a divisive one, I am a huge defender of Celine Song’s deconstructed romantic comedy coming off of her earnest romance Past Lives from two years prior. Materialists stars Dakota Johnson – who I believe is criminally underrated – as a matchmaker for wealthy Manhattanites. Song tries to keep the romantic comedy façade in place as long as possible which may have hurt the film in its initial reception as the movie is much more a commentary on the vapidness of the relationship industry. Johnson’s strengths as an actress is her ability to command dry humor (nothing will live up to her declaration of love for limes to which it turned out she was allergic), and Lucy is the perfect character for her to portray.

24. The Alabama Solution (Dir. Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman)

Composed of interviews from Alabama inmates and shot on contraband cell phones in secret, The Alabama Solution exposes the deadly coverups from Easterling Correctional Facility in Alabama. What began as puff piece on a religious meeting at the facility, once directors Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman were approached off camera by incarcerated men to discuss the conditions at the facility they began a journey that would lead to a years long investigation that took on a matter of life and death for the men in prison after the death of Steven Davis was covered up and lied about to the public.

23. The Perfect Neighbor (Dir. Geeta Gandbhir)

America is racist to its bone, and no film exposed the deep seeded racism inherent in the country more this year than Geeta Gandbhir’s The Perfect Neighbor. Composed of grainy cell phone and police body cam footage, The Perfect Neighbor chronicles Susan Lorincz, a white woman in a primarily Black neighborhood in Florida, as she repeatedly calls the cops on Black children for playing in the lot next to hers which they have every right to do. While the police thankfully don’t take her side and punish the Black residents, they also do nothing to curtail the inevitable tragedy that takes place when, after researching the state’s Stand Your Ground law, Lorincz murders a Black woman by shooting a shotgun through her closed, locked door.

22. Splitsville (Dir. Michael Angelo Covino)

Let it be known that I put a explicitly comedic movie on my year end list. While blunt comedies are not my normal cup of tea, the complete audacity of Splitsville managed to win me over. Absolutely packed with absurd jokes Michael Angelo Covino’s film succeeds not because every joke lands, but because when one fails another takes its place almost immediately. My major complaint with the film is that Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona are largely wasted as the film is much more interested with the men in the film, Kyle Marvin and the director Covino. And while disrespecting Dakota Johnson whom I’ve already gone to bat for in this list should be a criminal offense, Splitsville just worked on me for how extreme it was willing to go.

21. Love (Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud)

A late discovery for me in 2025 was The Oslo Trilogy from Norwegian director Dag Johan Haugerud: Sex, Love, and Dreams. The middle entry Love was something that it may be difficult to sell others on as it does not sound inherently cinematic, but it touches on a sweet spot for me: European (especially Nordic) films about adults experiencing adult situations. The film follows a doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), as they both explore the meaning of love to them in their relationships as adults who are uninterested with the idea of settling down and committing themselves to a traditional marriage role. There is just something refreshing about viewing true to life experiences on the screen in between giant spectacle movies.

20. Peter Hujar’s Day (Dir. Ira Sachs)

Ira Sachs is a director who I’ve always wanted to love but had never completely resonated with me before. That all changed with this year’s two hander Peter Hujar’s Day. Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall are two excellent actors to build a film around, and the contained nature of the film allows both of them to give remarkable performances with nothing distracting from their acting. This single conversation between photographer Peter Hujar and his writer friend Linda Rosenkratz is somehow both incredibly banal and endlessly captivating. The portrait of an artist is something that it is easy to glamorize even in the mundane and the trio of Sachs , Whishaw, and Hall do just that in this quite yet entrancing piece of film.

19. Predators (Dir. David Osit)

The secret third predator film to come out in 2025 after Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator: Killer of Killers and Predator: Badlands, Predators is not actually an entry into the sci-fi franchise but is instead a documentary on the legacy of Dateline NBC’s To Catch a Predator. Shot in three parts, the film examines the original series with an emphasis on the impact it had on the young adult actors who were “decoys” for the predatory men, the legacy of the TV show and the YouTubers who attempt to follow in its shoes, and on Chris Hansen, the host of the show and his feelings on the impact he had. Near the end of the film, director David Osit reveals that he was a victim of predatory exploitation and how that impacts his viewing of the infamous reality television show.

18. It Was Just an Accident (Dir. Jafar Panahi)

I almost worry that Jafar Panahi has made so many films while still technically barred from making them that the subversiveness of each film risks being undersold. It Was Just an Accident is an incredibly brave film for the oft incarcerated director to release. It calls back to the director’s own time in solitary confinement blindfolded while the government interrogated him. Panahi takes these experiences and exposes the atrocities of the Iranian powers while proving that despite the injustices perpetrated upon them, the revolutionaries refuse to fall to the same depths of depravity.

17. Cloud (dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a director I need to see more of. Cloud is only my second viewing from the Japanese genre director (I had previously only seen Cure), but it will definitely not be my last. From the first scenes it is obvious that Cloud will be some sort of genre picture, however, what that genre would end up being is harder to pinpoint exactly. Even when the film decides that it wants to be a thriller, Kurosawa transforms it into a mesmerizing action film. By constantly keeping the audience on their toes, the film is one of the year’s most entertaining views, and if it convinces some people to be less awful on the internet lest the people they slight organize together to kill them, that’s a plus as well.

16. 28 Years Later (Dir. Danny Boyle)

One of the biggest surprises of the year for me was Danny Boyle and Alex Garland reuniting 23 years removed to add on to their zombie franchise with 28 Years Later. While their original 28 Days Later is a classic that may be the best example of the early aughts, low-res digital cinema movement, the sequel (28 Weeks Later) in lesser directorial and writing hands was less artistically successful. Last year’s entry, however, brings back a real artistry to the franchise though in a very different way than the first film. Social commentary is very common in zombie films, but 28 Years Later tackles the human understanding of death in a way that other films in the genre have not despite the obvious connection.

15. Black Bag (Dir. Steven Soderbergh)

The first great film of the year was actually Steven Soderbergh’s second release of 2025 (Presence was solid but did not make this list.) Black Bag is an espionage thriller that largely “forgets” to include the espionage though that doesn’t lessen the thriller aspect in any way. What the film lacks in action it more than makes up for in pure sex appeal. Even fully clothed Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender assert their dominance as two of the sexiest people alive. The ooze sensuality through their smoldering demeanor, and Soderbergh plays that sensuality up to delectable results. Even if the food they make is lightly poisoned, it would be impossible to deny their request for a dinner party.

14. Dreams (Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud)

The second of Haugerud’s Oslo Trilogy to make the list – despite loving these two, Sex actually fell quite lower on my total rankings – Dreams was my favorite of the bunch, and I’ll admit that the sapphic central story definitely had something to do with that. A seventeen-year-old’s crush over her teacher becomes a scandal when she writes a novel length narrative of the relationship the two have and the yearning that first loves bring with it. An intriguing motif in frequent shots of stairways. They represent moving from one period of a life to the next, and without exception they are all brilliantly photographed often times in very eerie manners.

13. . Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk (Dir. Sepideh Farsi)

The penultimate documentary on this list is a devastating reminder that the world is still in the midst of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, and that the “ceasefire” is in name only. Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk centers around director Sepideh Farsi’s video calls with 25-year-old Palestinian, photojournalist Fatima Hassouna. Hassouna lives in Gaza and works sharing the destruction of the Occupied Palestinian Territory with the outside world. While she begins the film surprisingly happy despite her situation, as the film progresses hope leaves her eyes and she becomes distracted or dissociated on calls with increasingly worse internet. The end credits inform the viewer that this story ends the only it could have given the world’s collective turned blind eye.

12. Blue Moon (Dir. Richard Linklater)

I will happily admit that I’m a mark for a showy filmmaking gimmick, especially if that gimmick is done at the hands of Richard Linklater. Blue Moon is both a single location film, as well as a nearly one man show. Playing real lyricist (and real alcoholic) Lorenz Hart at the end of his working relationship with Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), Ethan Hawke reminds audiences that he is an exceptional actor, especially when working with Linklater. While Scott along with Bobby Cannavale as Eddie the bartender, Patrick Kennedy as E.B. White the author, and Margaret Qualley as Elizabeth Hart’s protégé whom he has a crush on provide Hawke different people and perspectives to bounce off of, Blue Moon remains a singular performance.

11. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Dir. Mary Bronstein)

This is where it gets really hard. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You would have been an easy top five film any other year, but in 2025 it can’t even crack the top 10. Mothers going through it has been a popular genre of film as of late (Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love just missed this list at number 26). Mary Bronstein’s entrant into this genre may be the most affecting one yet. Shot primarily in uncomfortably close close-ups or Linda (Rose Byrne), a mother being asked to single parent a high needs child while her husband is away for work, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is not for those with a weak heart. The film is significantly more stressful and horrific than any of the horror films released this year, despite the “comedy” genre the film is often labeled with. In any other year in the past decade, Byrne would be walking away with an Oscar for her phenomenal performance, but this year she’s in all likelihood destined to be runner up to a film higher on this list.

10. My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow (Dir. Julia Loktev)

The final documentary on the list was predestined to hit with me. A five-and-a-half our Russian documentary about a group of people resisting Putin’s regime just speaks to me. Julia Loktev makes the exact use of the long runtime in a way that I find most compelling. She manages not only to focus on the work that these people are doing in conflict with the Russian government, but also on their lives outside of work. The entire middle section of the film mostly spending time with the TV Rain journalists as they celebrate New Year’s Eve. Building this parasocial relationship with the reporters makes their impending exile hit all the harder

My extended thoughts on the film can be found here.

9. The Secret Agent (Dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)

A year after winning its first ever international feature Oscar for I’m Still Here, Brazil is in serious contention to repeat with Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent. Set in late 70’s Brazil during Carnival, the film centers on Oscar hopeful Wagner Moura as Armando or Marcelo, a man who is not inherently political though has managed to make powerful enemies, nonetheless. A favorite part of The Secret Agent for me is its willingness to meander down tangents without resolving them. The remaining mysteries left unexplained build a world that is endlessly fascinating. The hair leg is more powerful as a myth than had it been explained.

8. Sinners (Dir. Ryan Coogler)

Not going to lie, after Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, my faith in Ryan Coogler had fallen pretty substantially, but I will not doubt him again after this film which manages to be both contained and still worthy of the “epic” superlative. At times the film can feel overstuffed and a little bloated, but all that can be forgiven as the highs of the film are so high. The “I Lied to You” scene in particular will be used in montages explaining the power of cinema for the foreseeable future. Also, any film that dedicates as much time to the importance of cunnilingus as Sinners is an automatic winner.

7. One Battle After Another (Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

It is a little weird knowing that having the most recent Paul Thomas Anderson film at “only” number seven on my year end list puts me significantly outside the critical consensus. Like I said, this year the top of the list is packed! Equal parts farcical and thrilling, One Battle After Another is destined to win a bucket full of Oscars. There is so much to praise about the film, but I want to highlight two things in particular. Jonny Greenwood’s score is a perfect piece for the film, which would not succeed nearly as well with a lesser non-diegetic accompaniment. Secondly, despite being devoid of any real action, the climatic car chase is one of the tensest scenes committed to celluloid.

6. Marty Supreme (Dir. Josh Safdie)

Between the disappointing Ethan Coen film Honey Don’t! and the battle of the Safdie brother pictures, 2025 was the year we learned which brother in famous American directing pairs had the juice and which ones did not. While Benny’s The Smashing Machine wasn’t awful, Josh’s film Marty Supreme blew it out of the water. The Timothée Chalamet vehicle is oozing with the kinetic propulsion that made the brothers famous in the first point, and the somewhat episodic New York period piece captures it in a way that may be slightly less stressful than the likes of Uncut Gems and Heaven Knows What, but still manages to pack a significant punch in its slightly easier to digest package. It’s extremely hard for me to pick a best score of the year as 2025 had many brilliant ones, but Daniel Lopatin’s work here is definitely in contention.

5. Train Dreams (Dir. Clint Bentley)

Netflix has become a bit of a pejorative in film circles lately. The leaked information that they specifically request that characters in their films speak about the plot and what they are doing in the moment so that viewers can follow along while distracted with their phone is antithetical to an artistic vision of cinema. Train Dreams despite being distributed on Netflix has none of these second screen optimizations and is in contrast an extremely visual forward piece of poetry. Robert Grainier’s (Joel Edgerton) life feel eons away from ours even if we later see that it is closer in time than we thought. Still the emotions experienced by Grainier resonate throughout time.

My extended thoughts on the film can be found here.

4. Sorry, Baby (Dir. Eva Victor)

Since the beginning of the Me Too movement, cinema has been attempting to capture how “the bad thing”, as it is called in Sorry, Baby,leaves a lasting impact. Eva Victor’s take on processing the trauma of the event is innovative in structure and tone which allows it to paint a more complex picture of recovery. Between non-linear storytelling, extensive usage of levity and humor, and a gut punch of an ending monologue, they deliver a stupendous first picture that will justifiably clean up any and all debut feature awards.

3. Hamnet (Dir. Chloé Zhao)

While if you follow the same people I do on Bluesky you might assume that the field of film criticism is a bunch of women and David Ehrlich, in reality it is still primarily a boys’ club despite the progress that is being made. This boys’ club mentality made itself unfortunately known with the prevailing backlash to Hamnet online; specifically that it is emotionally manipulative. To that I say, fair, it is emotionally manipulative, but so are One Battle After Another and Sinners, they just manipulate different emotions. Hamnet being directed by a woman and being a romance means that it manipulates emotions that the boys’ club derides while they forgive Anderson and Coogler. Movies exist to make you feel things, and only one movie made me feel more than Hamnet in 2025.

My extended thoughts on the film can be found here.

2. Sentimental Value (Dir. Joachim Trier)

Despite loving Trier’s last film, The Worst Person in the World, and Elle Fanning being likely my favorite young actress, I still came into Sentimental Value with some hesitancy. Given its placement on the final list, that was obviously for not as I found the film to be utterly brilliant. A family drama at its heart, Sentimental Value relies heavily on the power of art as a theme for expressing feelings when other forms of communication breakdown. Maybe the most impressive part of the film to me was that at the half way mark, I thought the film was juggling far too much and that it would never be able to nail the landing, but it did with a brutal gut punch that left me rather stunned.

1. The Testament of Ann Lee (Dir. Mona Fastvold)

In 2024 my number two film of the year was a Daniel Blumberg scored epic about a European Immigrant being worn down by America directed by Brady Corbet and written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold. In 2025 my number one film of the year is a Daniel Blumberg scored epic about a European Immigrant being worn down by America directed by Mona Fastvold and written by Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet. In my opinion, The Testament of Ann Lee manages to surpass The Brutalist by managing to increase the spectacle of the 70mm behemoth by turning it into a musical, albeit an unconventional one. This film has etched its place in my soul and I assume it can only increase in my estimation as it sits as a part of me through the rest of the decade.

My extended thoughts on the film can be found in my review here.

Meet Your New Oscar King – The 2026 Oscar Nominations

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Year EndLeave a comment

My alarm went off at 5:10am on a random Thursday in January which can only mean one thing, it was Oscar nomination morning. While sometimes I let myself sleep in and play catch up, I’m glad I caught this one live because it was an eventful one!

As this title hinted at, a new film stands atop the all-time Oscar nomination count list. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners pulled out a staggering 16 nominations to surpass the previous high-water mark of 14 (All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land). While Gold Derby had it (and One Battle After Another) tying the record, a surprise Delroy Lindo supporting nomination (at the expense of Paul Mescal from Hamnet) proved to be the extra nod it needed to break the record. While I still believe that it is a long shot to win Best Picture out of the odds-on favorite One Battle’s hands, this morning was an undeniable achievement for Coogler and everyone else who made the film.

The biggest surprise of the morning had to be F1’s ascension to Best Picture nominee. While it was expected to pick up some below the line nominations, when it was named in Editing, I called out that the category was normally a Best Picture precursor and that F1 taking one of the 5 slots was odd. It turns out that The Academy has a higher “dad” contingency than I assumed and they were able to power the film into the top category.

Not to let it fall through the cracks, but One Battle After Another was not shut out or anything. While Chase Infinity was denied an Actress nomination to make room for Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue, 13 nominations is still nothing to be ashamed of, and it still must be considered the favorite to have the biggest night on March 15.

While I didn’t have much hope for Amanda Seyfried or Mona Fastvold getting recognition for my favorite film of the year, The Testament of Ann Lee, when the film was not mentioned in Costume, I knew that my disappointment would be greater than anticipated as it was destined to walk away without a single nomination.

While Blue Moon was extremely likely to get an acting nomination for Ethan Hawke, it also receiving an Original Screenplay recognition I found well deserved if unexpected.

What was expected was that Diane Warren would pick up her 17th nomination (and 9th in a row) for best original song, though between the juggernaut that is Golden (KPop Demon Hunters) and dark horse I Lied to You (Sinners) she will go another year without adding a trophy to her shelf.

International feature had a bit of an upset as The Voice of Hind Rajab overtook No Other Choice for the 5th slot denying Neon the 5 for 5 sweep of the category. I’m happy that it made the cut even though I have not yet had a chance to see it. Since Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk wasn’t in real contention for Documentary, it is nice to see The Voice of Hind Rajab get recognition to keep the world’s eyes on the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza the year after No Other Land’s historic win.

Almost lost on me was the fact that Wicked for Good was completely shut out of this year’s event. I noticed when Ariana Grande was not announced for Supporting Actress and when it missed Original Song, but it did take me a while to realize that it was completely shut out. Maybe splitting the movie into 2 parts isn’t always the best idea.

Sinners will take every headline this morning and for good reason. Its dominance was exciting to see unfold, and seeing a Black-made, original film with mass appeal go into the record books as the most nominated film of all time is something to celebrate.

1/21/2026 – The Testament of Ann Lee

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New Releases, Quick Daily Reviews1 Comment

In flipping The Brutalist roles with her husband Bradey Corbet, Mona Fastvold creates a feminine take on America’s poisonous soul that destroys creative or enlightened immigrant when they attempt to place roots here. While Corbet’s turn to direct focused on a fictional architect who felt convincingly real to the extent that many people questioned if he was, Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee depicts a real person who feels too fantastical to believe.

Amanda Seyfried plays the titular religious leader as a wide-eyed, curious, and approachable mother to her congregation. Despite her position atop the Shaker movement and the proclaimed second coming of Jesus Christ she doesn’t seek power, has no interest in controlling her followers for personal gain, and truly only wants to spread her beliefs and visions for the benefit of others. While some may criticize Ann Lee’s perpetual purity as the film lacking character development in its protagonist, in my opinion, that was not Fastvold’s goal. The film is less about the life of Ann Lee and instead about the bliss that she brings her believers as well as the world’s refusal to allow something so pristine and genuine to exist.

The Testament of Ann Lee takes no definitive position on the woman and the Shaker’s position that she was the rebirth of the messiah, though I have seen some critics impose their own assumptions of this crux of the film. While I assume that Fastvold is not personally a Shaker with those beliefs – the film’s credits inform that the Shaker movement is down to only two current believers – but to Fastvold’s purpose Ann Lee is a perfect symbol of the good in humanity for contrasting against the rigid and unaccepting world.

Not only does Ann Lee represent a purity which the patriarchal world she was a part of, that we still are a part of, feels compelled to destroy. It instinctively despises and uproots such a feminine ideal before it can spread or thrive. This femininity is not solely expressed by the gender of the film’s protagonist – though the 18th century Sharkers not only allowing women to preach but lead their church was a level of progressive feminism that it would take literal centuries to return – it is also expressed in the filmmaking. The Brutalist shot in gorgeous 70mm was a feast for the eyes though as the title implies, the views were rather brutal with lots of harsh lighting clearly showing every inch of László Tóth’s architecture. The Testament of Ann Lee was also shot in 70mm, yet it has a completely different feel to it. Instead of the harsh lights that consume the former’s film, Fastvold’s picture is lit with warm candlelight and creates a much more welcoming demeaner.

Though arguably the directorial decision that marks the film as the feminine alter ego of The Brutalist is that it is a musica, though not a traditional one. The film is peppered with the Shaker’s worship sessions, all of which include music and dance. Celia Rowlson-Hall’s choreography for the film is brilliant as different worships flow from improvisational (at least in appearance) to showy structured moments flawlessly. While the scene scored to “Worship” shows this fluidity the clearest, the “All is Summer” prayer on the boat to America is the standout. Fastvold uses Rowlson-Hall’s choreography with cuts between seasons to create a mesmerizing, singular number.

In addition to Rowlson-Hall’s choreography, these musical and dance moments fully succeed because of the contributions by composer Daniel Blumberg who is fresh off his Oscar win from, as one might guess, The Brutalist. His score uses the bones of actual Shaker hymnals to create the soundscape that floods the majority of the film. He taps into the inherently rhythmic essence of the Shaker’s prayers to propulse the film forward. Each individual aspect of The Testament of Ann Lee builds it into a pure cinematic experience. Blumberg’s score, Rowlson-Hall’s choreography, William Rexer’s cinematography and Fastvold’s direction all blend together into a singular piece worthy of one of the Shaker’s three-day marathon prayer partie

12/23/2025 – The Mastermind

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

In search of a contrast from yesterday’s extravagant blockbuster I needed to return to my independent roots with one of my favorite directors working today, Kelly Reichardt, for her new film The Mastermind.

Reichardt, known for her deliberate pace making her one of the current flag bearers for slow cinema, once again takes her turn in a genre of cinema that seems antithetical to her style. The Mastermind does for heist films what Night Moves did for ecoterrorist pictures, and Meek’s Cutoff did to the neo-western. In all three of the films, she deconstructs the genre removing it of all the glitz that normally attracts an audience and instead focuses on the characters and the impact that the inciting incident of the film has on their psyche.

James Mooney (played magnificently by Josh O’Connor) is a failed architect who feels emasculated by his parents Bill (Bill Camp) and Sarah (Hope Davis) who degrade him for being without work, and his wife Terri (Alana Haim whom I wish we saw more of), who provides for him and their two children. As an avid art connoisseur, James plans to steal four paintings from the museum with the help of a few friends. While the heist is initially successful, it is quickly pegged to James, and he is forced to leave his family and go on the run. While this seems like it would be a tense setup for a thriller, Reichardt does not focus on the active tension, but instead sits with Mooney as he comes to terms with his new reality.

Alana Haim as Terri frustratingly taking a call from James while at work

O’Connor plays the part of James as a lost soul who feels entitled to a life without working for it. He feels no drive to return to architecture but instead poorly plans a heist that is only initially successful because of security guards caught in a complete malaise and one of the people he hired to help with the heist brandishing a gun despite James asking him not to bring one. His entitlement around the theft is shown both by his borrowing money to pay his accomplices for the heist from his mother, and by his reaction upon having the stolen paintings in his possession. While his intension is to sell the paintings, he initially hangs them on his wall as if they should be his rather than in a museum full of people he thinks won’t respect them. Once he is forced onto the road this entitlement persists as he endangers his friends by staying with them, and then by first asking his wife to send money and finally resorting to stealing to fund his continued escape.

Josh O’Connor as James Mooney lost on the run

Reichardt enhances this feeling of masculine entitlement through the supporting characters James meets on the run. Other men give him the benefit of the doubt and want to support him while women resent his delusion and begrudge him for thinking they should help him. Additionally, the background of the setting (1970 America) calls out James’s privileged stance by including news footage of the time focusing on the terror that was the Vietnam War, and eventually this movement for peace and equality literally engulfs him to diminish his self-aggrandizing beliefs.

Reichardt has always been interested in gender dynamics, and she holds no punches in her takedown of masculine entitlement in The Mastermind. While the film is rather vicious in its subtext, it still manages to maintain that essential Reichardt calmness. She is not looking to spoon feed plot nor themes to the viewer, but instead she trusts that by using a well-known genre as a backdrop and filling it with contemplative moments an attuned audience is able to process the message behind the silence.

12/22/2025 – Avatar: Fire and Ash

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New Releases, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

Sorry that I disappeared for a couple of weeks. Life is never easy around the holidays. There was no way that I wouldn’t be back to talking about the only blockbuster of the year to which I was looking forward.

The thirteen-year gap between the first and second Avatar films represents me at very different points in my cinematic journey. In 2009, I was a college student who had recently been introduced to my first Kurasawa and Bergman films. Having my first taste of arthouse cinema, I was predisposed to be exceptionally snooty about Avatar. I saw it in theaters once and dismissed it for being a shallow story that had been told dozens of times previously. In 2022 when the Way of Water came out, my tastes had evolved. While I still tend to prefer an arthouse film over a blockbuster, I can appreciate a film that puts its craft before the screenplay as a piece of visual art. This led me to seeing Way of Water in the theaters three times because while James Cameron had not improved his screenwriting ability in the decade, seeing the visuals on the biggest screen and in 3D was a necessity for me.

Now three years later, I went into Fire and Ash excited to see what visuals Cameron would create to elate my eyes. While the Sully story is still not the strength of the films, I was also interested in some of the themes that Cameron was exploring and hoped that he would expound upon them.

With his third entry in the Avatar series, Cameron has distilled his skills to their purest form, and that is both a compliment and a criticism. To start with the negative, the screenplay to Fire and Ash is easily the worst of the three. Despite the three-hour plus run time, it still feels like the plot is rushing constantly, and many of the plot points that it is rushing to are rather groan worthy. It rehashes the exact same story between Jake (Sam Worthington) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) as in the Way of Water, and every character seems to be rehashing things from that film to some extent.

On the other hand, Fire and Ash is one of the most gorgeous pieces of celluloid I have ever had the privilege to see. Having never fallen for the gimmick of 3D outside of a few exceptions, the Avatar films are the only two movies I’ve seen this decade in the 3rd dimension and would highly recommend it to anyone. While just as full of CGI as the average superhero film, Cameron manages to bring depth to his images by shooting them in a more naturalist framing and lighting than the other blockbuster which use a heavy reliance on wide shots with flat lighting to make the CGI easier. Cameron has always been dedicate to his craft and the crystal clear picture with the depth of 3D in the various Pandoran biomes has never been more spectacular.

The last thing to touch on is a theme that Cameron has been developing I the three films so far. Cameron has been interested in exploring the theme that diverse groups are stronger together than apart. Specifically, that the Navi and Humans when working together can overcome either individually. In depicting this theme, however, Cameron has flirted with and occasionally crossed the line into a traditional white savior narrative. This was especially problematic in the first and while it never fully escaped that narrative in the second, the third does lean back into the problematic side.

James Cameron continues to be appointment watching, and while this does feel like the weakest of the three Avatar films, I still cannot help but endorse seeing it on the big screen. Blockbusters made from a place of passion and desire to create art simply don’t exist anymore outside of his hands. While I can quibble with this film’s story and themes, it is still the most visually spectacular thing that I’ve seen in theaters at least since The Way of Water. Cameron has made a lifelong fan in me and I hope that we do get the 4th and 5th entries into this series.

12/03/2025 – Irma Vep (1996)

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

I am still an Assayas neophyte having seen his two Kristen Stewart pictures and nothing else, but during last month’s Criterion Collection sale, I blind purchased Irma Vep on his name alone. This film deals with a lot of French cinematic history that despite my love for their films, I am still not the best suited to do, but I will give it my best chance.

Starring Maggie Cheung as a fictionalized version of herself, Irma Vep is loosely the story of a French director René (Jean-Pierre Léaud) choosing to remake the 1915 ten-episode serial Les Vampires with Cheung playing the lead Irma Vep, an anagram for vampire. The film follows Cheung a non-French speaking actress from Hong Kong, on set for a few days of shooting where nothing goes as one would expect. Supported by costume designer Zoé (Nathalie Richard) who develops an instant crush on Cheung, she is thrown from moment to moment with little control over the circumstances.

The original Irma Vep (Musidora) from 1915’s Les Vampires

The plot synopsis is rather brief for this film, because there is A. very little of it, and B. what plot there is has next to no importance to the themes with which Assayas is wrestling. Irma Vep is an exploration of the history of French cinema, as well as its place in the wider film world in the mid-90s. As I warned up front, I am not a scholar in this department, so while some of my assumptions may be off base from what Assayas was attempting to get at, I am going to share my reading of the film.

Simply by being about remaking one of the cornerstones of French film history, especially a few decades before all movies became nostalgic look backs, Irma Vep declares that it wants to have a conversation with the countries past with the medium. Of specific note, after her first day on set, Cheung goes home with Zoé for an after-work party that she is hosting and runs across a pair of filmmakers discussing a film of theirs that Zoé calls “new” when they insist that the film is 20 to 25 years old. This is a clear allusion to the French New Wave and that what was revolutionary at the time no longer feels like where the country was cinematically. There is mention that the two directors do not make political films anymore which further emphasizes this move away from the New Wave and its aggressively progressive politics. While personally I don’t know that I buy this argument as films like La Haine had come out just a year prior, it is undeniably true that the New Wave had ended.

Maggie Cheung as a fictional Maggie Cheung as Irma Vep

Cheung represents France importing other cultures filmmaking into theirs. I think when also considering that in the miniseries remake Cheung’s character is instead American both represent a piece of the culture that France was being influenced by. From America, the hyperviolent indie boom (think Quentin Tarantino), and from Asia, Cheung herself was famous at the time from the Police Story and The Heroic Trio films (the latter of which is even played by René implying that is why he sought her out) represent France’s movement from Auteurism to more Vulgar Auteurism. Assayas also seems to worry that France’s film industry may be left behind as once a new director takes René’s place and does not believe a Hong Kong actress should play one of Frances most classic roles, Cheung flies not home, but to New York and Los Angeles to meet with Ridley Scott (who the real Cheung never worked for) and then her agent. This seems to be Assayas believing that America is the new home for the transgressive cinema that France had a near monopoly on for decades.

Filled with likely hundreds of references that I did not pick up, Irma Vep is an extremely deep text for being less than 100 minutes. While I would never recommend the film for someone looking to turn their brain off for a movie, if you are interested in engaging with the history that Assayas is grappling with, then Irma Vep is a French cinema 101, 201, and 301 rolled up into one unique package.

12/02/2025 – Bone Lake

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

The last few days have involved some rather high brow cinema, so today seemed like a good chance to prove that I don’t only watch 5 ½ hour Russian documentaries and heart throbbing dramas from auteurs. Today I reached into my 2025 back log and pulled out an aggressively sexual, sleezy horror film Bone Lake.

Starring Maddie Hasson (who despite what I originally thought is not Florence Pugh’s alias) and Marco Pigossi as Sage and Diego a couple whose relationship is on the precipice of change as Diego leaves his job teaching to work on a novel full time. They escape to a remote mansion on the titular Bone Lake only to have their weekend interrupted when it Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) show up as well having apparently rented the same place.

Marco Pigossi and Maddie Hasson as Diego and Sage

Mercedes Bryce Morgan directs the film by bringing a decent amount of style from the directorial chair for the journeywoman director. Her experience with directing music videos shows as much of the style is reminiscent of that medium. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of her direction, however, is that she kept her vision untouched resulting in a film that is slightly gorier and substantially sexier than most films in this genre made today.

A significant amount of digital ink has been spilled in the last handful of years on gen Z’s disinterest in sex in movies. While I understand and respect the desire for more platonic stories in film, there is something to be said about enjoying some gratuitously horny cinema. Sex is a part of humanity worth capturing, and a titillating one at that. Bryce Morgan does not shy away from this piece of humanity and understands its inherent entertainment value.

Sage reaching for the showerhead in the bathtub

While Bone Lake won’t be brought up in the coming months as the awards conversation takes over Hollywood, it still fills a niche that has been increasingly shrinking in the current cinematic landscape. Bryce Morgan created a film that was first and foremost fun entertainment without resorting to endless flatly lit wide shots on a green screen. When so much of what makes it to theaters is $300 million blockbusters shot so safely that they risk nothing and $5 million arthouse gems (which don’t get me wrong I love), Bone Lake proves that pure entertainment does not have to be so safe it might as well be hermetically sealed.

12/01/2025 – My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New Releases, Quick Daily Reviews1 Comment

When films cross the two-and-a-half-hour mark, that tends to be the point at which terms like bloat and poorly edited come into play. However, there exists a second line somewhere around the four-hour mark where the running time becomes a feature of the film rather than a bug. When one is locked in a room with the same few people for such an extended period (and it is essential that films this long be watched in one day with no more than a few intermissions), they become less characters on the screen and more personal acquaintances or even friends.

Julia Loktev’s five-and-a-half-hour epic of a documentary My Undesireable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow is one such example of a film using its marathon length as an important part of the filmmaking. Through five chapters, the film makes a record of the last five months of TV Rain, the last independent, oppositional news organization in Russia, before they were forcefully closed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While a 90-minute documentary on this subject would be informative and if done well impactful, Loktev’s decision to be as expansive as she was brought a power with it by getting to know a wide array of characters intimately.

TV Rain employee “foreign agent” Anna Nemzer

Loktev is a Soviet-born American filmmaker who in October 2021 traveled to Moscow to create a documentary about Russia’s recent branding of oppositional journalists as “foreign agents” including her friend Anna Nemzer. Anna introduces Loktev to the contributors to TV Rain for which she has a show. The handful of journalists who originally were branded with the foreign agent label wear it with a combination of pride and fear and many use the required language they are required to include on every post for ironic purposes.

One of the genius decisions of the film is the chapter flow. Each individual chapter is presented in a cinéma vérité or slice of life manner. Most of the filming takes place in cars, the TV Rain studio, or people’s apartments, and each hour-long section seems most interested in giving the viewer a peek into the life of an oppositional journalist at that exact moment in time. When zooming out, however, the film takes a concrete shape. The initial two chapters provide a background for the people and the circumstances which they inhabit. The third chapter is a bit of a break from the intensity. Things are obviously still tenuous in each journalist’s life, however even as the walls close in they are able to enjoy the New Years holiday together. That moment is a welcome reprieve before the final two chapters leading until the very moment that the TV Rain employees are forced to vacate the soon to be under siege studio and exile themselves from the country.

Ksenia Mironova

My Undesirable Friends is an engrossing cinematic experience starring journalists whom having spent so much time with I feel intimately connected to. The film teaches about the horrible human rights violations Putin is behind while keeping things personal. I cannot wait to dedicate another five plus hours to the topic when part II is released.

11/30/2025 – The Fall

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While technically a re-watch for me, it has been 15 years since I last saw Tarsem’s The Fall, and this was my first chance to see the eye blindingly gorgeous film in 4K. Shot on location in 28 countries over the course of 4 years with next to no computer effects, The Fall is the quintessential cinematic passion project where quality trumps everything else.

Staring the young Romanian 6-year-old actress Catinca Untaru in her only feature role as Alexandria a patient in a hospital with a broken arm, and Lee Pace as Roy, a bedridden stuntman who she befriends, The Fall is a touching story of collaborative storytelling and the power that it holds over those who tell and listen to it. When Roy inadvertently receives a message that Alexandria threw out a window to Nurse Evelyn (Justine Waddell) she becomes quickly enamored with him and he feels as though through telling her a story, he might be able to use Alexandria to steal morphine for him. Through this initially transactional relationship, Alexandria eventually penetrates Roy’s depressive, nihilist mood as together they shape his fantastical story.

Tarsem employs a filming technique with Untaru that can easily backfire but works excellently in the film. Most of Untaru’s lines were unscripted, instead she was put in the scene with Pace and her natural reactions were what was used. Pace was even kept in the faux hospital bed for entire shooting days so that Untaru would believe that he was actually unable to walk. This leads to an unprecedented naturality in the young girl’s performance, and the occasional trailing off and losing of the thread is an acceptable tradeoff for the genuineness of the performance.

While the story and acting in The Fall are both very good, it would be disingenuous to call either the highlight of the film. Colin Watkinson’s photography, Robert Duffy’s editing, and Eddy Pearce’s location scouting are unmatched and should be studied for the rest of cinematic history. Tarsem used no sets or stages in the creation of the film, every single shot needed to be shot on location, including a South African mental hospital as the early 20th century Los Angeles hospital that most directors would be fine staging. Rather than resulting to any trickery, Tarsem would go to lengths of providing locals of the blue city Jodhpur with fresh paint so that the shots would pop rather than perform post shoot color collection. In reference to the editing, The Fall has the single most impressive fade that ever captured on film as seen below.

In the nearly 20 years since The Fall was released Tarsem’s nightmare for the state of movies has largely come true. Most movies these days tend to be shot entirely on green screens with each frame being shot wide and lit flatly so that computers can easily fill in all the empty space. Because of this, Tarsem’s visual masterpiece has grown in importance throughout the years, and the film which had notoriously been impossible to see previously now has an immaculate release as home viewing technology has evolved enough to truly appreciate The Fall’s beauty.

11/29/2025 – Hamnet

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New Releases, Quick Daily Reviews1 Comment

Holy Shit Jessie Buckley!

I honestly thought about making that my entire review for Chloé Zhao’s return from the Marvel verse with Hamnet; her performance was just that good. Stoping after that would both somehow undersell Buckley’s acting masterclass and be disrespectful to the rest of the cast and crew that makes Hamnet a uniquely special film so I shall continue.

Hamnet is a fictionalized telling of the love and grief of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Buckley) who is often known as Anne in history but in some records and this film as Agnes. Maggie O’Farrell adopted her novel of the same name with Zhao which tells the story of Agnes and William’s three children and creates a story for the circumstances that preceded the creation of Hamlet, filling in the gaps in history. While William is obviously the most famous character in the story, the film is primarily Agnes and her children’s story as long sections of the film take place while Shakespeare is in London leaving Agnes to take care of their first child Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and later their twins Judith (Olivia Lynes) and Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe).

Zhao’s unique directorial vision is used to create a poetic feeling to the film. She makes liberal use of unannounced time jumps, both large ones between scenes and short ones contained within a scene. While these jumps can be slightly disorienting to begin with, they are employed to bring the most important moments and shots to the screen. It is not necessary to see William walk to Agnes and lie down with her, cutting directly from a conversation to them lying together results in amplifying the direct cause and effect. She also uses repetitious shots of nature which call back to the rumors of Agnes being born of a forest witch and create a mesmerizing pace that keeps the audience entranced.

Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as Agnes and William

As not so subtly hinted at above, Jessie Buckley not only gives a career best performance, but the decade’s best performance as Agnes. She mixes bombastic yet true to life moments of pain and suffering, with subtle emotions captured in nothing more than a twitch from an otherwise still face in silence. Agnes is so much more than just the little known wife of the world’s greatest playwright. Under Zhao’s direction and Buckley’s embodying of the woman, William fades to the background (despite another excellent turnout from Mescal) and the story of this woman, her love, and her grief matter more in this moment than the dozens of eternal plays and sonnets.

Agnes (Jessie Buckley) at the Globe Theater

Behind an unmatched acting feat by Jessie Buckley, an engrossing story and adaptation by Maggie O’Farrell, and the directorial elegance of Chloé Zhao, Hamnet is an example of the power that cinema can impart. Equal parts engrossing and devastating the film is an emotional experience to behold that will leave an audience changed. My only advice, outside seeing the film as soon as physically possible, is to double, no triple the amount of tissues you think you need to bring along.