2026 – Rating Frames

Masters of the Universe Banks on Nostalgia to Revive He-Man and Friends for the Big-Screen

June 2, 2026June 2, 2026Arnel Duracak

Masters of the Universe preview screening provided by Sony Pictures

The last time I felt this head-scratchy about how a big budget fantasy adventure film got such a… well… big budget, my expectations were surprisingly surpassed. That film was Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023), and while it was based on a board game that’s revered by millions around the world, I couldn’t help but wonder whether an 80s animated show like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe could resonate with audiences in the same way. While a more formulaic adaptation compared to Honour Among Thieves, Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe (2026) is serviceable, sticking close to its source material and offering audiences both familiar and new, an alternative hero action brawler.

This isn’t the first time He-Man and friends have come to the big screen in live action form either, with a 1987 film of the same name starring Dolph Lundgren being the first foray, and there are callbacks to the original including a little cameo from Lundgren himself. But this version of He-Man (played by Nicholas Galitzine) carries less of that 80s machismo that characterised the 1987 film and many other classic titles like Running Man (1987), First Blood (1982), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and more. Unsurprisingly, all of those titles have gotten (or are getting) modern adaptations that have toned that machoistic vibe down while still retaining the stoic qualities of their ‘hero’ characters.

Knight’s Masters of the Universe builds a down-on-his-luck HR worker backstory to this version of Prince Adam of Eternia (He-Man) after he is sent crashing to Earth along with the Sword of Power following a takeover by Skeletor (Jared Leto). Having lost the sword while being teleported to Earth, Adam’s next 15 years on Earth are spent trying to locate it so that he can wield it and say some magic words that will help bring him back home. This involves him going out to dates that he makes weird by talking about how he’s from another planet and he goes to his soul sucking HR job where he spends time posting ads on internet forums to locate the sword. While he does eventually locate it and return home with the help of childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes), his home isn’t how he remembered it, with crumbling ruins and enslaved people under the rule of Skeletor.

Jared Leto stars as ‘Skeletor’ in *Masters of the Universe*.

Everything happens rather quickly once Adam is back on Eternia including just how quickly he becomes a brute thanks to the power of the sword. I’m sure Masters of the Universe fans don’t see this as out of the ordinary as it’s clear the sword gives him god like power and strength, but the speed at which Adam comes out of his shell and morphs from his scrawny physique —which doesn’t make sense as he looks huge under his pink shirt— into a Steve Rogers type beefcake, is jarring. I can appreciate Knight wanting to just get audiences into the thick of the fun and games, but it’s almost like a Rey Star Wars moment where she harnesses the force willy-nilly. The action that follows, however, is solid, even if the CGI that supports it can look quite washed out like when Adam rides his trusty green lion into battle or when he’s flying a little ship through a green forest — large set pieces just don’t blend well with the actors.

Most of the plot revolves around this Sword of Power, something that Skeletor uses Adam’s enslaved parents as leverage to obtain. It brings much of the action together including a big battle sequence in Skeletor’s lair above a sea of lava, and ties the closing act at Castle Grayskull together. The stakes ultimately don’t feel like they ever threaten to overwhelm Adam though, even after he is captured along with his friends. But that 80s charm does still shine through in moments, especially with the signature theme song serving to amplify each punch and tussle, with these nostalgia aspects being what Knight’s film rides on to be as faithful to people’s memories of the show while carving out its own place as a modern blockbuster.

Masters of the Universe opens nationally from 4 June.

This Power Ballad is Off Key

May 28, 2026May 31, 2026Darcy Read

Power Ballad preview screening provided by Madman.

Like the familiar restaurant on the corner that knows your order as you open the door, one knows what to expect coming into a John Carney film. A focus on the healing power of music. The power music has in mending frayed relationships as well as allowing new ones to bloom.

In Power Ballad (2026), Carney shifts into a contrasting mix of styles, with a more Judd Apatow American studio-comedy style pushing up against his sharp but enchanting Irish swoon. Carney’s characters are always down on their luck but never out for the count, an element that allows for some iconic screen performances over the last 20 years.

Enter Paul Rudd as the washed-up wedding band singer, Rick. Settled into his life in Dublin with wife Rachel (Marcella Plunkett) and teenage daughter Aja (Beth Fallon), Rick tours around local weddings performing the thankless task that has been swapped out to DJs in recent years. This is somehow not a pressing issue for a film that has a strange, outside-of-time quality that is destabilising, one of many aspects that slow the film down in its desperate search for greater drive.

Nick Jonas as Danny and Paul Rudd as Rick in Power Ballad. Photo Credit: David Cleary

The drama that pushes the film forward occurs when an ex-boy band member, Danny (Nick Jonas), gets up on stage and performs with Rick and the band at the wedding, which spirals into an all-nighter between the pop star and the wedding singer. The conversations are as you expect, without a hint of passion or interiority that is needed for these scenes to serve as the spark that allows a feature film to burn.

Desperate to be taken seriously, Danny steals one of Rick’s songs he plays for him late at night, turning it into his breakthrough hit, wielding the song’s lifetime of anguish and pain for his own gain, never fully grappling with the song he’s singing. There is a powerful thread Carney weaves throughout the film about the potency of original songwriting compared to the pop machine version of being given a song to sculpt, even if it never develops into much inside the film’s narrative. Upon hearing Danny’s version and his ensuing success, Rick is driven insane, especially as none of his loved ones can remember him ever playing it for them.

Seemingly built out of a desire for metatextuality with Nick Jonas’s casting, Power Ballad doesn’t seem all that interested in developing the film into a tale of two musicians, but rather of a faded musician and singer having what he views as his life’s work taken from under him. Carney seems completely unsure of the relationship we should be cultivating with Danny, leaving him for long stretches of the film where the crux of his emotional narrative is taking shape.

Nick Jonas as Danny and Havana Rose Liu as Marcia in Power Ballad. Photo Credit: David Cleary

When we finally do return to Danny’s story, the audience spends the majority of the scene playing catch-up with the film to understand the emotional context in which we find him. This never gives Jonas a chance to prove himself here or elevate the material, which is in desperate need of a great performance. While it’s charming to see Rudd settle into a role in a small-budget film with this and the wonderful 2024 comedy Friendship, the results are mixed. Due to the hacked-up nature of the film and edit, Rudd’s relaxed improvisational style gets no air to breathe in scenes compared to the Tim Robinson film, ending up in a bizarre mixture of languid pacing and disjointed scene shifts.

Coupled with these issues is the film being fuelled by a confounding engine of anti-drama. So reticent to enjoy the fruits of the music film genre tropes that we do not enjoy much of anything throughout. So when we eventually arrive at the climactic confrontation between Rick and Danny, the film rests its shoulders on, none of the legwork has been done to appreciate anything in the scene, falling completely flat.

There is no more egregious sin the film makes than introducing a fascinating relationship with Danny and Marcia (Havanna Rose Liu), only to break up this relationship through a choppy news clipping montage straight out of 2006. Do Carney and co-writer Peter McDonald not believe audiences are interested in that personal dynamic? Was this a studio note to cut down time? These are not questions that should be asked of a light dramedy of this scale.

Power Ballad is in theatres now.

Mortal Kombat II is Rollicking Popcorn Cinema 101

May 7, 2026May 6, 2026Arnel Duracak

Mortal Kombat II preview screening provided by Universal Pictures

Delivering the batters and the blows, Mortal Kombat II is an unhinged follow-up to the 2021 hit, Mortal Kombat. There’s combat, sometimes it’s mortal, but more often than not it’s downright bloody and brutal, and it makes you wonder where the last two hours at the cinema went. That’s usually a good sign as Simon McQuoid’s film wastes no time throwing you into the action and giving you exactly what the poster spells out.

Earth’s mightiest heroes are tasked with once again defending Earth from an external threat —I know, that sounds a lot like another franchise about superpowered butt kickers— but this time around they face a new threat: Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford). It’s in Johnny Cage (a brilliantly cast Karl Urban riding his success from hit TV show The Boys), the unlikeliest of heroes, that salvation for Earth might be found. Teased at the end of Mortal Kombat, this out-of-work former action star has been chosen by the gods as one of Earth’s saviours, much to his own surprise. Encouraged by the existing heroes like Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee) and others, he will form a crucial part in stopping Shao Khan from taking over Earth as its ruler.

That’s really the crux of the premise. There’s a secret amulet thrown in for good measure that grants immortality to its wearer, and Josh Lawson’s Kano is resurrected to help locate it (it turns out it wasn’t that far away, in his pocket), but beyond that the film is a pure action showcase with cheesy one liners, decently choreographed action sequences, and just everything a fan of Mortal Kombat might want in a film about Mortal Kombat.

(L-R) Max Huang as “Kung Lao”, and Ludi Lin as “Liu Kang” in New Line Cinema’s “Mortal Kombat 2,”

When it comes to the standouts, Lawson brings his signature larrikin humour with quirky observations and pop culture references aplenty (from Dumbledore to Voldemort, there’s no shortage). It brings added respite to the action which, while the CGI isn’t groundbreaking (look out for Karl Urban falling down some rocks in Hell and you’ll know what I mean), delivers all the pows and whacks that you’d expect. Speaking of Urban, he is charismatic and slick as Johnny Cage and really nails the brief of a has-been-actor turned real-life-buttkicker.

The same can’t be said for the remainder of the cast. The supporting performances feel quite stale and jaded in comparison to these two, which is owed to their one-dimensional writing (it’s like if the actors from The Bold and the Beautiful suddenly stumbled onto a real movie set). At the end of the day, great storytelling isn’t what one signs up for when going into a Mortal Kombat film; the stakes are as simple as: fight to survive. But it’s ultimately a shortcoming in the script that you can’t ignore and that leaves you really just hoping the supporting characters talk less and fight more.

With superhero movies having had their heyday and running a bit out of steam for the moment, it’s telling that video game adaptations are as popular as ever. Between the Mortal Kombat and Sonic franchise of films, A24 is producing a live action Elden Ring movie helmed by Alex Garland, The Legend of Zelda is being shot in New Zealand, and Street Fighter (2026) is around the corner. While Paul W. S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat (1995) will always hold a special place in my heart, Mortal Kombat II finds its strengths in not reinventing the wheel too much, but in letting its mayhem wash over you for a few hours while you chow down on your popcorn and coke (maybe with some Jack), and sometimes that’s all you really need.

Mortal Kombat II opens nationally from today.

The Sheep Detectives is a Breezy, Light-Hearted Murder Mystery

May 6, 2026May 6, 2026Arnel Duracak

The Sheep Detectives preview screening provided by Sony Pictures

While the film to beat for ‘most wholesome of 2026’ is still firmly Project Hail Mary, Kyle Balda’s The Sheep Detectives is a strong contender for second place. This Agatha Christie esque small-town-whodunnit is as full of charm and wit as one can expect from the man behind the equally charming and witty Minions films, delivering a clever little murder mystery that may well have Kenneth Branagh quaking in his boots.

Adapted from Leonie Swann’s bestseller Three Bags Full, screenwriter Craig Mazin (known for wordsmithing the less colourful worlds of shows like Chernobyl and The Last of Us) blends goofy humour with a solid head scratcher. He trades bleak wastelands for the lush green backdrop of a small country town in the UK, the fictional Denbrook, and captures the uniquely English aura that is commonplace for this genre of filmmaking.

Adding to the English aura are Emma Thompson and the voices of Sir Patrick Stewart and Brett Goldstein in an ensemble that is otherwise anything but English. The prime time name brought to put bums in seats is Australian icon Hugh Jackman as the swoony shepherd George Hardy draped in rugged farming attire, reminiscent of his look in Australia (2008). He tends to his flock, reads them bedtime mystery stories and gives them a self-made blue medicine to treat Orf. In other words, he’s the antithesis of some of his neighbouring Denbrook residents, like fellow rival shepherd Caleb (Tosin Cole) and local butcher Ham Gilyard (Conleth Hill). His presence is short-lived, however, as he is murdered late at night outside his trailer home leading a murder mystery to rock an otherwise quiet town.

Nicholas Braun stars as Officer Tim Derry and Molly Gordon as Rebecca Hampstead in The Sheep Detectives

Local police officer Tim Derry (a hilarious Nicholas Braun with a terrible English accent), the town’s only police officer, realises he’s got some work to do. But unbeknownst to him (and George Hardy before him), someone is already on the case: the sheep themselves. While photorealistic talking animals might not be the most embraced development in CGI in recent times due to their often expressionless designs —see Jon Favreau’s The Lion King (2019) or Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)— Balda has found a nice balance in how he incorporates them alongside the wider humans involved in the mystery. In other words, there is a genuine care with how much and how little to use the sheep.

Much of that care is owed to the voices behind the CGI flock. Julia Louis-Dreyfus voices the lead sheep, Lily, with an assortment of stars like the aformentioned Patrick Stewart and Brett Goldstein joined by Bryan Cranston, Chris O’Dowd, Regina Hall, Bella Ramsey and Rhys Darby. Each voice actor imbues their respective sheep with enough charisma to not leave any line or gag feeling flat. On the flipside are the humans, with Molly Gordon playing Rebecca Hampstead, upcoming He-Man Nicholas Galitzine playing Elliot Matthews, and Hong Chau playing Beth Pennock. It’s a well rounded ensemble that delivers Mazin’s script with flair and wit.

While the actual murder mystery part isn’t all that difficult to figure out before the end, Balda has done well at giving adults and children alike a modern Babe (1995). That might be as glowing a comparison as one can hope to receive for this sort of hearty comedy. The only real grievance one might find is that the deeper portions of the movie might be a tad too deep for children to grasp and a tad too obvious for adults to not eye roll at unless you’re vegan (like the reality check of ‘Meet Your Meat’). But this is a minor hiccup in an otherwise heartfelt, mellow and wholesome murder mystery that doesn’t overcomplicate its murder and mystery (meaning you may well end up feeling smarter than the sheep before the end) and does offer a breezy time at the cinema.

The Sheep Detectives opens nationally from 7 May.

The Drama Gives you Another Reason to Rethink Marriage

April 5, 2026April 7, 2026Arnel Duracak

Just how impressionable are first impressions and can they be the reason one might overlook the worst thing a person has done a few days before they’re due to marry? While one might respond with a resolute ‘yes’ if the person in question is Zendaya, Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama (2026) dares to push that idea to its limit, milking it out until all parties involved are beat up and broken or ready to call it quits.

That first impression comes when Charlie (Robert Pattinson) lays eyes on Emma (Zendaya) in a cosy coffee shop reading a book where, after snapping a photo of the book she is reading to give himself an opening, musters up the courage to do his best cute rom-com cold approach. Funnily, she misses half of what he’s said and awkwardly catches him mid “I’m not hitting on you” after taking one earbud out and confiding she is deaf in her other ear. They just as awkwardly laugh, she encourages him to have a do-over, and just like that, Borgli has you hooked to what you think has the makings of an endearing love story.

For what it’s worth, endearing is how The Drama unfolds, as Charlie and Emma get closer and eventually begin dating, and just as quickly find themselves a week out from getting married. Of course, like with any rom-com, the central couple is expected to endure its hurdles, but during a late night of menu tasting and drinking with their two friends, Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie), where they play a game of “what is the worst thing you have ever done”, Emma casts a shadow over her love struck fiance and burns some bridges with her friends. Her confession/answer is that disarming that her feelings toward revealing it are plastered all over her face as the camera lingers over her, giving you the impression that it was going to be Charlie’s confession that would speak to the film’s title, not hers.

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in *The Drama* (2026)

The haymaker with which Emma hits her fiance sends the film into a spiral that asks whether love can truly overcome anything, and while the answer is generally “well, like, if you’ve done X or X or X, then hell no”, Borgli’s film is ready to sell you on the opposite. That’s namely because Zendaya is so damn likeable here that, along with a some flashbacks that are peppered throughout for empathy and context, it’s quite easy to believe that Charlie would overlook just about anything for her. What no doubt stumps him is the impression that others (his close friends) now have of Emma, and whether he can reconcile his feelings towards her with the weight that this revelation carries for his own life. There’s a wider commentary on how this revelation is a tendency that no doubt exists in many people, but it’s not that convincing nor does it feel like it’s supposed to be.

As amusing as it is to watch this idea be used to throw a spanner in the works for a couple that is enamored with one another, much is left to be desired when it comes to Emma’s confession, with the flashbacks doing a really janky job that simply show a troubled young teenager and not much of substance beyond. That said, where the film mines its humour (and gets you the ‘com’ in the edgy ‘rom’) is in Charlie’s increasing anxiety as he threatens to derail the wedding and his own sanity to the point where there’s a hilarious moment of him getting spooked by Emma who is holding a kitchen knife asking if he’s ok. Much of the second half of the film is really about whether Charlie will overcome Emma’s confession as he struggles to take practice wedding photos with her and even finds himself breaking down at work, with the events that ensue coming to bite him back in the film’s final act.

The Drama is a tumultuous ride, one that might have you feeling like you’re laughing at the wrong time (I love dark humour so I couldn’t care less). That said, those who were expecting the first of the year’s 3 Patt-daya (just go with it) films to be a cute film about the turmoils of first love like Materialists (2025) or recoverable problems in the lead up to a wedding like Wedding Crashers (2005), will be utterly flabbergasted, but at least you’ll be left with the only right question to ask before you put a ring on that finger.

The Drama is in theatres now.

Dance For Your Life Brings the Docuseries to the Big Screen

March 29, 2026Darcy Read

The audition of a lifetime. 100 dancers, 1 contract. An expansion of the television docuseries Dance Life (2024), the documentary feature Dance For Your Life (2026) is an intimate look into the world of modern professional dance through two dance companies: Sydney’s Brent Street and London’s Shapehaus led by revered choreographer Dean Lee. 100 dancers will have the opportunity to prove they have what it takes to obtain the single contract up for grabs in the notorious London company.

The question Dance For Your Life asks across its 100-minute runtime boils down to whether this is an extended TV episode or a work of cinema. While starting on rocky footing with an extended first act in Sydney, the film blooms into a wonderful work of resilience and passion once the group of ten finalists arrive in London, which benefits from the space given by the feature-length runtime. All great works of documentary in this vein ultimately require compelling characters, something Dance For Your Life takes its time cultivating beyond simple introductions during the trial stage in Brent Street. Once we begin to see the Australian dancers interact and learn from Lee, the world begins to open up, and we see what these young artists are capable of achieving.

Spending the first 45 minutes locked in Sydney was crucial to establishing the world and stakes of the film before the lucky ten arrived in London. We are introduced to many impressive dancers, with the knowledge that only a few will make it to the final performance at the end of the film, so it is only once the final ten are selected that the audience can settle into which individuals to give emotional weight to.

Dance For Your Life sends ten Sydney dance students to London for the shot at a single professional contract. — Dean Lee (centre) and Brent Street dancers in *Dance For Your Life* (2026). Screener courtesy of Mushroom Group

What director Luke Cornish and cinematographer Geoff Blee understand about filming dance is the potency of a locked-off wide shot, allowing the dancers to power the scene. Like most creative subject documentaries, the film thrives when we are given space to watch these incredible performers do what barely anyone else on the planet can do. Dance For Your Life is given more space to breathe and explore the works in London, working through Dean Lee’s choreography that will be the basis for the film’s final performance.

The tension between personal gain and camaraderie is at the heart of the film and allows the competitive engine to keep the audience invested in the story and these dancers. In a climate of economic uncertainty in live performing spaces at scale, the stakes feel impossibly high for these young people trying to survive in a creative industry seemingly set up for them to leave.

Dance as a ruthlessly athletic medium of artistic expression is unlike any other art form, but is potently absent from the competition element of the film. When we watch the ten in these wonderful rehearsal scenes, we are not viewing it as an artistic pursuit but as a fellow judge, picking up on minimal mistakes and alterations from the group. When this shift in viewership excels, it is in the lead sequence as Lee is deciding between Max and Connor, watching the piece back to back, noticing what each individual brings to the part. Expressing themselves within the framework in place is electric to watch, with the knowledge that ultimately only one will be selected.

Dance For Your Life has Dean Lee at its heart. It works more effectively as an exploration of modern professional dance and those who are excluded and marginalised from that space, rather than a competition that ultimately feels secondary to the journey the dancers go on at Shapehaus.

The final dance performance, which the entire film has been building towards, is a feat. The access for filming allowed the sequence to excel beyond a simple documentary or competition television film. The medium of dance allows for a litany of great cinematic moments when performed at the highest level, something Dance For Your Life achieves in this finale.

There is a wisdom to not linger in the final contract decision at the film’s conclusion for long, knowing the audience has seen the growth of these performers across the film as more important than this one opportunity. While only one lucky person received the contract, no one walked away empty-handed.

Dance For Your Life is in select theatres from April 2nd.

Project Hail Mary is a Charming, Wholesome Buddy-Up Space Adventure

March 16, 2026March 15, 2026Arnel Duracak

Project Hail Mary preview screening provided by Sony Pictures

If you’re like me and you’ve recently added Andy Weir’s hit novel, Project Hail Mary, to your Audible library, thinking that listening to it beforehand or reading the physical version might be the best way to first experience this story, well the 2026 screen adaptation might just quell those thoughts. That’s because directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have taken a screenplay by The Martian (2015) screenwriter, Drew Goddard, and imbued it with their signature warmth and whimsicality to the point where this might be the only version of this intellectual property that you’ll need (and want) to experience.

After all, a premise about a school-teacher-turned-world-saving-astronaut who befriends a rock alien in the depths of space (who also happens to be on a mission to save his planet), isn’t really a hard sell, especially when Ryan Gosling is involved (think of it as an appetiser for the upcoming Mandalorian and Grogu film). But beyond that, Lord and Miller have managed to make a 2.5 hour runtime feel breezy and unique, especially at a time where films that take place out beyond our world have tended to play to familiar story beats — I’m looking at you, Predator: Badlands (2025) and Alien: Romulus (2024).

Of course, without Gosling’s signature charm and dry wit, the bright tone of this film would not shine through nearly as much. He plays science teacher Ryland Grace (referred to as Grace throughout) who we meet while he’s waking from a coma in the depths of an outer-space mission. From here, Goddard’s screenplay oscillates between the past and the present, giving us insights into how our protagonist found himself light years away from Earth. It turns out mankind is on course to being wiped out as the sun is being cooled by what is known as the Petrova Line (a line of radiation between Venus and the Sun) that is comprised of sun-eating “astrophage” or an organism that is, for reasons I won’t spoil, cooling the sun. So, yeah, things aren’t looking too great for Earth dwellers.

Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace and Sandra Hüller as Eva Stratt in *Project Hail Mary*

Cue Project Hail Mary, a secret mission that only the world’s top minds who have any familiarity with what’s at stake, are privy to. While much of his life is quite unexplored for the majority of the film (namely, why he’s without anyone significant in his life from family to friends), Grace ends up becoming central to the mission after being recruited by a secret government operative, Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller), with Lord and Miller finding a decent balance between showing you the events leading up to Grace’s being in space, and the being in space.

Grace’s mission is far from straightforward though as he is tasked with finding out why one particular planet some 11 years away is the only star in the solar system that isn’t being cooled by these infectious astrophage. Grace’s one saving grace (pun intended) is that he’s not the only one who has ventured out to this star, with a crab/spider shaped rock alien scientist (whom Grace fittingly names Rocky) also looking to see what’s coolin. It’s in their unusual connection that Lord and Miller’s film stops itself from becoming another by-the-books-Earth-saving-mission. For starters, Rocky is lovable and really grows on you to the point where you can’t help but buy into the idea of these two learning how to communicate with one another through some tinkering on a sophisticated translation software before becoming best buds.

Project Hail Mary brings to mind the great unlikely friendship films from history like E.T. (1982) and The Iron Giant (1999) and offers a wholesome, heart-tugging buddy-up adventure that leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy by the end. If there’s any criticism that comes to mind it’s that sometimes less is more, especially in the film’s closing sequence which feels like it could have ended at about 3 different points, but beyond that, Goddard’s screenplay and Lord and Miller’s knack for creating thought provoking moments amidst the craze of a situation is second to none. Sure, the significance of what’s at stake (the extinction of mankind) takes a backseat at times to just let you enjoy being in the company of Grace and Rocky, but it’s really through their friendship and “every little thing is gonna be alright” energy that Project Hail Mary finds its groove.

Project Hail Mary opens nationally from Thursday 19 March.

The Testament of Ann Lee is Revelatory

February 27, 2026Darcy Read

Melding powerful and emotive choreography with rhythmically propulsive music built out from recontextualised hymns, The Testament of Ann Lee (2025) is an intoxicating musical biopic like no other, creating a singular theatrical experience that will have you asking more from the genre. Centred on the fascinating movement of the Shakers, the 18th-century religious group known for their ecstatic dancing, Mona Fastvold’s exploration into humanity, ambition, and religion in a moment of turmoil and potential is an unexpected revelation in cinema this year.

The film operates as a probing look into personal religion and how it can be expanded into a community, with Fastvold exploding the potential of the story into a wild and emotive musical that feels grounded in the power of the Shaker movement through its choreography and music. At the heart of it all is the titular Ann Lee, the rare female religious leader whose story is easily worth an emotive and expressionistic biopic starring one of the industry’s best actors in Amanda Seyfried. Spurred by unimaginable grief and some notable, potentially queer subtext, Ann is devoted to becoming a prophet of the Shakers she has found herself the leader of, seeing the act of celibacy as a key tenet of driving away sin, even as the movement is built on the overwhelming sense of religious community born out of dance and bodily movement.

Ann’s decision to shift the movement towards celibacy can only be accepted for so long by the large community in Manchester, as well as her husband, Abraham (Christopher Abbott), a simple man who will walk with her to the edge of his faith, but not beyond his human desires. Staying by Ann’s side through it all is her brother William (Lewis Pullman) and close friend Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), who also serves as the film’s narrator in one of the best uses of lengthy expositional narration in years.

Stacy Martin and Amanda Seyfried in *The Testament of Ann Lee* (2025).

Remixed from Shaker hymns, composer Daniel Blumberg follows up award-winning work on Fastvold’s previous film, The Brutalist (2024), with a starkly different collection of music, combining beautifully with the ensemble’s choreography that always stays within the realm of absurd realism that the Shakers are known for. Seyfried allows the melodies to transcend the screen, using the repetitions of the hymns as a hypnotic bedrock to build out some exalted musical numbers.

Working previously as a co-writer on her partner Brady Corbet’s standout film The Brutalist, Fastvold’s film works as a fascinating companion piece of equal quality. Both Ann Lee and The Brutalist are fixated on ambitious figures that see potential in the pursuit of America, believing themselves to be called to a higher purpose in some form, with the faith that this purpose will shield them from the dangers that lie ahead. While Corbet’s film echoes its protagonist’s mode of deliberate architecture (as its namesake) to tell its wider story of faith, religion, and pursuit, Fastvold’s film moves with the grace of fresh silk and dance.

The Testament of Ann Lee transcends the bounds of its screen when the small group manage to obtain passage by boat to New York, with an extraordinary piece of montage, choreography and music as good as any you’ll find this decade. Fastvold’s exploration of the newly American striver through the unique lens of an upstart religious sect in England, stymied by the lack of progressive thinking at home, is swept up in the power of the musical genre at its best, with Seyfried commanding the helm with a mixture of mania and overwhelming grace.

Amanda Seyfried and Lewis Pullman in *The Testament of Ann Lee* (2025).

She contends with this part of the film in a complex understanding of many sides to the Shaker history of driven American conquest. The group see America as untoiled land, perhaps more accepting of a female preacher and of their unconventional worship practices. As they arrive in New York, however, they are almost immediately confronted by a slave auction, which Ann sees as barbaric sin; she is here to cleanse in her mission to expand the movement.

A story of finding divine ambition in community and connection, Ann Lee feels powerfully tied to many period-set ‘Great Men’ films like There Will Be Blood (2007), but shown through a woman’s lens. With a pivotal montage of the Shakers building their housing and village, we see Ann less as a wise prophet and that of project manager and architect, reflecting many scenes in The Brutalist, bathed in hopeful sunlight and warm wooden surroundings. Rarely have we seen such a powerful set of companion stories, especially ones filmed so similarly and with equal ambition.

But this is not just a film of personal ambition built on grief and personal turmoil; it is crucially a film driven by ideas of faith and religion. This may steer off many an agnostic cinemagoer in ways Fastvold and Corbet’s previous film didn’t (although that film is as Jewish in nature as this film is Christian); to open your heart to the story is no different than the task given to an audience in many films.

As difficult a proposition as this film is for audiences, the lack of Academy recognition Fastvold and her collaborators received this awards season is surprising. It is especially difficult to reckon with as The Testament of Ann Lee is a more intelligently woven story of ambition and grief than the walloping Hamnet (2025), which received eight nominations. For those crying out for individual voices still striving to work with Hollywood studios, you simply have to witness this fascinating and engrossing film from a truly singular voice.

The Testament of Ann Lee is in select theatres now.

The Secret Agent is a Biting and Playful Political Thriller

January 23, 2026January 23, 2026Darcy Read

Set in the Northeast of Brazil in the city of Recife in 1977, just as the country’s military dictatorship rounds third base, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s relaxed but probing political film The Secret Agent (2025) is like nothing else you’ll encounter in a cinema this year. Able to open a double feature with either Dazed and Confused (1993) or Army of Shadows (1969), the film wears many hats that in less assured hands would appear frayed and confused. Thankfully, Filho has levelled up as a filmmaker and storyteller, letting his playful tendencies heighten the moments of potent tension and violence that in less capable hands would beguile an audience.

Centring a former professor and widower with a political target on his back, Armando (an exceptional Wagner Moura) returns to Recife to collect his son from his in-laws, seeking refuge in the warm embrace of a small community of political refugees helmed by Dona Sebastiana, in one of the year’s best supporting performances by Tânia Maria that feels achingly real.

Wagner Moura’s work shifts elusively from room to room as Armando quickly surveys his surroundings to uncover how he needs to respond to each interaction. The highly regarded actor is given the role of a lifetime and is set to acquire several awards, as a man with a committed goal, but never stops living his elusive life, even as the violence around the corner draws nearer.

Wagner Moura as Armando in *The Secret Agent* (2025).

By placing this political and community-based struggle in the veins of a hangout film, Filho supports Moira’s performance with an outstanding cast that gives life to the past by giving a beating heart to this community of political refugees of his own country.

Echoes ripple through buildings, but the truth in history is something that must be searched for. Filho explores his country’s past and the people who inhabit those histories not as vessels for political tropes and ideologies, but as human beings who pass away long before their heroism is uncovered. The secondary narrative device of university students seeking to uncover the truth through tape recordings of our central story is surprising when it first appears, but it allows a dense exploration of ideas to occur. Filho’s way of shooting these scenes gives what could’ve been a contrived narrative crutch a potent level of emotional intimacy, allowing the film’s final sequence to sing.

In voicing The Secret Agent in the language of De Palma and Pakula, masters of the genre and time period the film is based, Filho is placing his film in conversation with the genre of political thrillers that most audiences are familiar with, allowing a discourse to occur across the screen between time and continents, ideas that are very much at the heart of the narrative. Alongside this, the film is a Cinema Paradiso (1988) level love affair with cinema itself, playing out in large swathes at a theatre, set against the backdrop of the sweltering summer backdrop of Jaws (1975) and the way it took the world by storm. Opening the film is the beguiling discovery of a leg inside a shark being studied at a local university, sweeping us up in the strange and playful mode Filho builds the world around, all while leading us down deeper and deeper with an unnerving sense of impending violence.

Like his previous film, Bacurau (2019), a rhythmic playfulness quickly sweeps an audience into a story, but a moment of visceral violence and aggression can pierce through that world like a stray bullet. With The Secret Agent, Filho’s eye is sharper and more directed, but playfulness is still the engine that drives his work. People do not stop living as the plots of his films take place; everything and everyone is transient, a poignant concept to maintain in a political thriller of this kind.

(From left) Robério Diógenes, Wagner Moura, and Igor de Araújo in *The Secret Agent.*

While the political thriller genre is defined by American filmmakers like De Palma and Pakula, peaking in the conspiratorial aftermath of Watergate and the Nixon administration, in recent years, the genre has been defined by international cinema. The Secret Agent asks much of its audience in terms of prior knowledge of Brazil’s military dictatorship, but in a modern climate of authoritarian spot fires around the globe, many audiences will see themselves in the images Filho shows us. Scenes of political refugees commenting on the limited groceries that are handed by a local farmer trying to assist them are as keenly observed as the moments of shocking violence.

Returning to the present day with the students weaving themselves into the stories of the past, we are in a constant meditation with ideas of bearing witness through aural recollection and the intimate but limited way of history being investigated. A pivotal scene in the film’s movement towards the thriller genre plays out when Armando and Elza (Maria Fernanda Cândido) discuss getting his family out of the country and the hit being put on his head, all while recording the conversation. This gripping scene is shown alongside Flavia (Laura Lufési), a heavily invested student, probing the moments we are shown, trying to glean insight into this moment and what may have occurred in that room outside of the captured audio.

What does it mean to tell a story of such darkness with this level of lightness? The film’s Godardian level of bounce and freedom activates a unique form of scene-to-scene tension not often seen in the political skin that Filho’s film wears. But, while the tension of these genre moments is usually played for excitement, The Secret Agent conditions us to find these moments profoundly reflective, peering into these lives with an open heart and a wry smirk of the absurdity of buffoonish political violence. A high-wire act that appears shockingly relaxed.

The Secret Agent is in select theatres now.