With 2024 having drawn to a close, Rating Frames is looking back at the past twelve months of cinema and streaming releases that have come our way. In the second of our series of articles, Darcy is taking a look at his ten favourite films of the year that was.
With a dense collection of titles with no clear standout, 2024 was the hardest year to rank recent releases in a long time. With a collection of new voices and revered personal icons, 2024 had a wide mixture of films that went head-on in tackling modern life, something that has felt lacking in the last few years. The only key omission to this list upon release is Ramell Ross’ Nickel Boys, a book I love from an exciting new artistic voice in the medium I’ve been desperate to see all year, which is releasing via Amazon at the end of the month. With that being said, I’m happy with how this list came together and hope these rankings get someone to check out a new exciting film.
10. Chime
I struggled with whether to include this short film by one of my favourite filmmakers Kiyoshi Kurosawa ahead of more ambitious titles (like The Brutalist 2024), but ultimately this sinister snapshot of reality was impossible to shake. In a year, and what’s shaping as a decade defined by crucial filmmakers reflecting on their lives and creative work, Kurosawa used multiple 2024 projects to open a dialogue with his early and defining work, even going as far as remaking his 1998 film Serpent’s Path with the same name but in the French language.
In Chime, Kurosawa continues his pursuit into modern perceptions of evil and the malice of life through a brief lens into a culinary school, with a student seemingly driven mad by a noise no one else can hear. What happens next is a remarkable level of cinematic dread that burrows deep into your skin, taking up space in your soul. Kurosawa’s ability to communicate complicated ideas within the short film format is astounding, making this film a must-watch whenever it becomes more widely available.
9. Perfect Days
In a year stacked with esteemed filmmakers returning with a work deep in reflection of their first works, none felt as complete as Wim Wenders’ Japanese-language quotidian reflection piece Perfect Days. Centring on a Shibuya public toilet cleaner, Hirayama, performed by screen legend Kôji Yakusho, Wenders’ film reflects his global curiosity and evolving perspective on humanity through humour and grace. It will be a film I return to often in the coming years.
8. Janet Planet
Janet Planet is a film that knows the smell and crunch of autumn leaves outside a family home that can define a childhood. Annie Baker’s debut work in the cinema space (after years as one of Broadway’s great unsung playwrights), inhabits the in-between with an honest curiosity.
Centring on a wonderful child performance by Zoe Ziegler as the 11-year-old Lacy and her mother Janet (a gravity-altering Julianne Nicholson), Janet Planet is keenly aware of the way a child can refract the adults around them, revealing new parts of a parent and child that is rare in its respect for both sides.
7. Red Rooms
No film crawled under my skin more in 2024, where it continues to remain. While Canadian filmmaker Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms contains no violence, it is the most violently confrontational film you’ll encounter from the last year. At once a spiritual successor to David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) and a keenly modern devolution of how the internet has isolated and festered our worst impulses, Red Rooms is one of the great underground discoveries of the year, a chilling interrogation into modern life through the lens of true crime, dark web violence, and modern voyeur culture.
At the front of the lens of the film is Kelly-Anne, portrayed by Juliette Gariépy as an all-time thriller character on the level of Patrick Bateman. A statuette beauty who spends her time modelling, crushing people in online poker, and obsessively attending the trial of Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), a serial killer of adolescent girls who uploads his extreme violence to the dark web for those who wish to see, can. With Vincent Biron’s dexterous and compelling camera, we are intoxicated by a mesmerising oscillation between extreme unwatchability and an engrossing thriller, caught in a spiderweb where escape is too late. Achieves a lot from very little.
6. Evil Does Not Exist
The best score of the year can be found in Ryuichi Hamaguchi’s follow-up to this decade’s best film Drive My Car (2021), Evil Does Not Exist (more than halfway through the decade these lists should be beginning to solidify), with its elegiac jazz progressions that evolve into a haunting rapture from Eiko Ishibashi.
As a tale of eco-modernism that leaves room for the farcical ways contemporary metropolitan life seeks to corrupt what remains of the natural world which displays Hamaguchi’s breadth and quality as a writer. When consultants for a work retreat glamping company seek to operate within the small village of Mizubiki, they are confronted by an uncooperative community.
Like its overwhelming musical compositions, Evil Does Not Exist climaxes in a confounding but engrossing final moment that lingers and provokes long after you leave. Ishibashi and Hamaguchi are carving out a place as the composer-filmmaker collaboration which the industry should be measured up against.
5. Anora
The unexpected hit out of Cannes, making it the first American film to win the Palme d’Or since Tree of Life (2011) on top of being a Best Picture contender, Sean Baker’s eighth feature Anora is larger and broader than any film he’s made before while still capturing his uptempo yet sobering look into the contemporary American underbelly.
The modern chronicler of contemporary fringe America maintains his scepticism-bordering-on-cynicism about his homeland throughout his filmography, which is stretched to a compelling breaking point here. The internet has explained the film as a modern-day Pretty Woman (1990) by way of Uncut Gems (2019) with a Goodfellas (1990) like structure, but Sean Baker and star Mikey Madison are more interested in exploring how Ani is placed within different worlds than how the world changes her. Anora is a fully realised character that still carves out space to surprise us in moving and memorable ways.
4. The Seed of the Sacred Fig
A film with a backstory as compelling as its on-screen drama (filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, the cast and creatives were forced to flee during production due to a warrant out for their arrest in Iran for filmmaking that goes against the regime), Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig speaks generationally about the modern Iranian moment through the language of family drama and genre filmmaking.
Through the use of social media footage from a recent student protest that turned violent—surprisingly a late addition in the editing process once they had fled the country—Rasoulof creates a certain surreality that arrives through this directness. This allows the simmering political drama to expand past the confines of the narrative into an explosive condemnation of authoritarian rule. While its final tonal shift won’t be for all audiences, it complicates and transforms the film into something larger and more elliptical than its humble and understated beginnings.
3. I Saw the TV Glow
In the days since the passing of the great David Lynch, much has been made about how modern cinema has increasingly lacked this effervescent feeling come to be known as ‘Lynchian’. But with the emergence of Jane Schoenberg and their second feature, I Saw the TV Glow in 2024, that essential Lynchian sensation that has defined indie filmmaking for 40 years has returned to breathe new life into our contemporary world.
With a close kinship to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) — in contention for best film of the 90s — I Saw the TV Glow ties 90s television fan nostalgia with the dissociative world of the adolescent trans experience that is willing to go to some deeply uncomfortable depths of the soul. Schoenberg’s modern reflection of the trans experience as a Lynchian world won’t place it within the awards season conversation, but alongside the extraordinary documentary No Other Land (2024), I Saw the TV Glow is the only essential film to arrive in theatres this year.
2. Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World
The funniest film of the year is also the hardest to wrestle with. Rade Jude is indie cinema’s great punk rocker, throwing rotten fruit at those that need it. After releasing what will eventually be seen as the definitive Covid satire, 2021’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, the Romanian satirist Jude returns to take aim at the capitalistic infrastructure of modern Bucharest, the gig economy, and the iron claw multinational corporations hold over even small production companies just trying to get by.
With Ilinca Manolache at the centre of his film as production assistant and part-time TikTok satirist Angela, Jude has the perfect muse for life in the Romanian capital, strained in every direction to get by, all for the financial security of a soulless multinational corporation, personified by a great cameo by Nina Hoss.
With its expansive 163-minute runtime, Jude holds many feet to the fire, concluding with a virtuosic yet simple long take for a workplace safety video which will prevent the families from suing the company for culpability, that both cements and brushes off its themes and frustrations like a poetic middle finger to the ruling class.
By culminating this long-form screed on modernity with a capitalistic nightmare version of Bob Dylan’s iconic music video for Subterranean Homesick Blues, with the family of a worker injured at work told to hold up blank pages meant to express their side of the story but will be written in post instead of in their own voice, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World cements Jude as the modern satirist to compare all others to. No one is doing it like him, but I wish more tried.
1. All We Imagine as Light
In a deep movie year with no real standouts like previous years have had, picking a number one was exceedingly difficult. That being said, no film expanded and deepened in my mind on rewatch as Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light. I was recently able to review this film properly since its showing at MIFF left me staggered. Kapadia’s soulful rendering of modern-day Mumbai is gorgeous and a must-see while it remains in theatres.
With a refined hand through documentary work, Kapadia flourishes in small moments. Whether it’s the embrace of a rice cooker given by a distant-slash-estranged husband working in Germany, or the small gesture of helping an older colleague move her things back to her old home after being wrongfully evicted, All We Imagine as Light embraces the aching emotionality of the quotidian, knowing these fleeting moments create a mosaic that reflects the light of human experience.
Honourable mentions: The Brutalist, Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus, Challengers, No Other Land.
For horror season, the Criterion Channel has crafted an eclectic and bountiful collection of iconic Japanese Horror films to immerse yourself in. From ’60s cult classics to the ’90s and early ’00s staples that exploded the country’s unique horror classics onto the world stage, this collection has something for both the cinephile horror fan and those looking for an entry point.
The genre is defined by old folklore and urban legends about Oni, invisible demons that potentially bring disaster and disease with them. A key form of Oni is Yūrei, or vengeful spirits, which we can see spread across almost all Japanese horror cinema. Perhaps the most well-known story of Yūrei is of Okiku, a young maid who was thrown down a well by a samurai after she refused his advances, returning as a vengeful spirit. Okiku is defined by her long black hair and hushed whisper, iconography burned into the celluloid of the country’s horror storytelling for generations, forming the immortal image that spreads across this entire collection.
Japanese horror storytelling thrives when these legends of Yūrei and other Oni are weaved into their contemporary settings, from post-civil war anxiety (Onibaba) to suburban anxiety and community suspicions (Creepy) and the encroaching dominance of technology in our world (Ring, Pulse, Tetsuo: The Iron Man). This creates a consistent cultural imprint that makes the genre so satisfying to engage with and return to.
So what better way to spend October than to binge through these and craft a ranking list from this well-curated list of classics from the fine folks at Criterion.
13. Ichi the Killer (2001) – Takashi Miike
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Extremist hyperviolence for the incels, industry legend Takashi Miike’s bizarre and underbaked screed Ichi the Killer, made two years after his brilliant film Audition (which will arrive later in this list), was banned in multiple countries for its approach to sexual violence and sadomasochism. Centring on the titular Ichi (Nao Ômori), an emotionally disturbed man who is just as likely to weep uncontrollably in the corner of a room as he is to violently murder those around him, most likely with a blade hidden in his boot. Pursuing Ichi is a sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), known for his brutality and Joker-like scars along his cheeks, who is impressed and tantalised by Ichi’s level of violence.
If that reads like a teenage boy fantasia of hyper-violence and extremity at the expense of taste and storytelling, that’s because it is. The only skippable film on this list, Ichi the Killer sees the chaotic filmmaker indulge in all his worst impulses which were weaved in more creatively in his other films.
While the film and the manga it is faithfully adapting has clearly influenced a generation of filmmakers, particularly in manga and anime circles, its haphazard approach to storytelling centred on a hyper-violent incel creates an instant callous so thick, the proceeding depravity sparks little to no emotion.
12. Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003) – Takashi Shimizu
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Even as the lesser of the films in the franchise selected by Criterion, Ju-On: The Grudge 2 is not without its iconic moments that each film in the franchise achieves. Operating in a surprisingly quieter, more atmospheric horror register, Ju-On: The Grudge 2 centres its plot on a TV crew working on a reality show about ghosts set in the house of the original film.
The Yūrei at the heart of the franchise stems from a murdered housewife, cursing all those who enter the house to an inevitable demise. The horror set pieces in the film and the franchise grow repetitive in a hurry, but still manage a psychological stickiness through some impressive genre flourishes. The ghost’s death rattle sound remains one of the great noises in the horror canon that ratchets up tension faster than any convoluted plot.
Following the similar trajectory of the previous film with its nonlinear narratives inside character (read, next victim) focused chapters, Ju-On: The Grudge 2 has a more menacing air of inevitability that never feels oppressive. Instead, it makes for an easier watch than the first film, albeit with the same issues.
The time-skipping narrative in this film is more potent and evocatively tied to the whole story than the original, making its climactic final act wash over you in waves of sadness and melancholy, even with its bizarre final ten minutes.
11. Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) – Takashi Shimizu
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
The all-time ‘just leave the house’ franchise, Ju-On: The Grudge thrives in the unknown. The horror is a tightly contained, well-chosen horror house, a small collection of characters and a looming presence we are desperate to learn more about, even if the resolution ultimately lessens the experience in the film’s uneven conclusion.
Ju-On: The Grudge’s keen focus on sound design with its wall scratching, cat screeches, and the iconic death rattle heightens an unfocused plot, held together by its terrific horror set pieces, Hitomi’s (Misaki Itô) chapter especially. Japanese horror, and especially those centred on yūrei have these unexpected and often moving notes of sadness at the heart of the curse, something that can be felt even within the iconic stair scene at the climax of the film, largely through Takako Fuji’s performance as the ghost Kayako.
Ju-On thrives in its limitations as a micro-budget film shot in a tremendous house for a horror, which Shimizu puts great attention to laying out, but is bogged down by a serious lack of characterisation, opting instead for time skipping and short chapters that prevent the inventive filmmaking to thrive. Ultimately, these films have such aggressively passive characters stuck in these doom loops that while tepidly compelling, never excel as an overall experience.
10. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) – Shinya Tsukamoto
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Pure heavy metal cinema that some have deemed ‘migraine cinema’, the wildly feverish Tetsuo The Iron Man leaves a crater in the medium we can only hope to mine for future resources. With the self-awareness to hit the ejector seat after 67 minutes, Shinya Tsukamoto’s manic sci-fi nightmare about a self-professed ‘metal fetishist’ (Tomorô Taguchi) is driven mad (or already was), creating a sequence of events which include a graphic and hysterical sex scene, an incredibly tactile chase sequence, all culminating in a transcendent moment of mania you’ll be coming down for days after.
This Japanese Eraserhead (1977) crushes your skull with a relentless pace and style, truly fitting its design aesthetic of violent machinery bursting from limbs like the chest burster in Alien (1979). There is no Crash (1996) or Titane (2021) (and to a certain extent The Substance, 2024) without Tetsuo, placing it violently at the top of the heap of the cinema of extremity, even if its ideas arrive with a blunted edge.
9. Dark Water (2002) – Hideo Nakata
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
A tense and poignant drama of a family going through a divorce wrapped up in a ghost story, Dark Water is a melancholic look at childhood neglect and trauma with a beautiful and unexpected third act.
Directed by Hideo Nakata who thrust the Japanese horror genre onto the world stage with Ring (1998) —appearing later in this list— based on a short story collection by Koji Suzuki (who also wrote the Ring novels), Dark Water centres on a young mother in the process of divorcing her husband and rebuilding a life for herself and her young daughter Ikuko (Rio Kanno). The mother, Yoshimi (Hitomi Kuroki), rents a rundown apartment for her and her daughter where strange occurrences happen, localising around the water in the building.
Four years after his enormous success with Ring, Nakata is driven to a more potent emotional story of childhood neglect and a fracturing family, lowering the temperature of the horror, using the genre instead to heighten the dramatic storytelling rather than as a means to an end. The film succeeds as a sombre piece of atmospheric storytelling that weaves two unique stories together, the family divorce drama that gives remarkable attention to the young child’s feelings throughout, and the ghost story in the apartment.
Held together by a pair of fantastic performances by Kuroki and Kanno, with the latter giving an all-time child performance in a horror film, Dark Water sneaks up on you with its deceptively poignant storytelling and characters, culminating in the most emotionally resonant final act on this list. The horror genre, and especially ghost stories, excel in articulating a sense of longing and lost time, with those we love and those that need to be loved.
8. Creepy (2016) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
It is no mistake that Kiyoshi Kurosawa finds himself on this list three times, as the great master formalist makes a case for the most important voice in horror storytelling since John Carpenter. A film that understands the anxiety an audience gets from a whisper in a stressful situation, or a quiet interview in a frame full of people, Creepy brings Kurosawa’s doom scenario milieu to the suburbs, tracking an ex-detective Koichi Takakura (Hidetoshi Nishijima) forced to retire from the force and move with his young wife Yasuko (Yūko Takeuchi).
With a clear itching to return to detective work, as well as a heightened sense of danger and menace behind every door, influenced by a level of unresolved PTSD, Koichi becomes obsessed with a local cold case brought on by an ex-colleague, as well as being unnerved and suspicious of his neighbours.
Kurosawa’s formalism is well suited to the obsessive detective narrative, with the modern suburbia setting slowly pierced by the auteur’s signature sense of overwhelming dread and suspicion. His measured camera movements, at times unsettlingly ahead of the action, heighten the anxiety of any given moment, binding us to the experiences of his characters.
The legendary auteur is at his best when he can place the audience, alongside his characters, in situations where anything is possible. Like reality, not every moment is cause and effect, where potentially horrifying incidents can occur seemingly without motive or reason. This troubling, anxiety-fuelled sensation is where Kurosawa is more keenly tapped into than perhaps any living filmmaker, allowing his seemingly mundane character dramas to glide into some of the greatest horror moments of the past 30 years.
A bold perspective gearshift in the film’s second half almost derails the drama and tension Kurosawa so brilliantly establishes for over an hour, held together only by the filmmaker’s ability to reignite the dramatic flame for a memorable closing moment. While not in the highest tier of works, Kurosawa’s Creepy is as satisfying an unsettling portrait of suburban anxiety and destabilisation as you will find.
7. Ring (1998) – Hideo Nakata
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
The quintessential Japanese horror film, Hideo Nakata’s Ring is probably the most iconic film on the list, defined by its Yūrei antagonist Sadako (Rie Ino’o), clearly based on the Okiku legend, down to her horrific murder of being thrown down a well. It’s also the film that sparked a Western fever over the Japanese horror industry, rapidly adapting them into American versions of middling success (four films on this list have American adaptations), the best of the lot being Gore Verbinski’s impressive adaptation The Ring in 2002.
To catch those up to speed with the story of this blockbuster from Japan, Hideo Nakata’s Ring has the all-time horror premise of a mysterious VHS tape that, once watched, will have you scared into an early grave seven days after watching. Wonderfully blending Japanese folklore with modern society’s relationship with physical media and storytelling, all wrapped up in a moody yet propulsive journalism procedural centred on the brilliant Nanako Matsushima and Hiroyuki Sanada as ex-wife and husband pair Reiko and Ryūji.
Where Ju-On falters by being solely driven by its formula and inventive kills, Ringu thrives in its deep fascination with the looming spectre of Sadako, using the framework of the journalism procedural to uncover the reality that she is less a hostile ghost and more of an enraged victim.
The film elevates itself with an emotionally overwhelming moment in the climax, with Reiko warmly embracing the skeleton of Sadako, a graceful note in a film that until this moment thrived in its procedural meticulous storytelling. In a genre defined by outcasts reaping revenge on the world, this moment of tenderness pierces through the shroud of menace and cynicism, leaving behind a desperate mother letting her tormentor know it will be okay. Even though this moment is followed by a scene with the franchise’s most iconic imagery of Sadako crawling out of the television, it’s without question the film would be stronger for ending at this place (the TV crawl scene could happen at any point), perhaps moving it higher up this list.
6. House (1977) – Hideo Nakata
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
A destabilising horror experience, unlike anything you’ve seen before. With a feverish energy and imagination that removes an audience’s ability to anticipate an inch in front of their face —a crucial component of any great horror— Nobuhiko Ôbayashi’s House, playfully referred to as a psychedelic comedy horror, is the most unique film on this list that quickly became a global cult object.
A tremendously enjoyable film, House follows seven schoolgirls with names like Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) and Kung Fu (Miki Jinbo, MVP of the group once the mania starts), played by mostly amateur actors, who go on a summer vacation to a country estate owned by Gorgeous’ aunt (Yōko Minamida), an eccentric older woman. Strange occurrences and violent episodes begin to plague the girls at the house, shifting the film from a glossily bizarre romp into a clear ur-text for Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films while never losing its internal style and spirit.
Ôbayashi has made a film on such a different frequency to the rest of cinema, a feat that forces you to realign your senses to get onto its wavelength. But once you’re there, the results will astonish you. You’ll be so overwhelmed with a sense of dysphoria, oscillating rapidly between genuine glee and anxiety with its feverish editing style and use of stop motion and simple animations. In a secluded cabin where anything is possible, even a cat can become a nightmare.
5. Onibaba (1964) – Kaneto Shindō
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
The demonic nature of war and conflict which sows its violence into the very earth, Kaneto Shindô’s atmospheric and captivating 14th-century folk tale has perhaps the loosest attachment to the horror genre as anything on this list, earning its place through its deep connection to post-war anxiety, reflected through the prism of Japanese samurai cinema.
With her son, Kichi, away at war as a samurai, a woman (Nobuko Otowa) and her daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura) struggle to survive on their own in the outskirts of Kyoto, resorting to killing solitary samurai and stealing their swords and clothes to a local merchant for food. Upon the return of a neighbour, Hatchi (Kei Satô), who tells them of the death of the son, the trio begin a dance of seduction and connection fuelled by loneliness, jealousy, and desire.
Onibaba lives in the sound of nature in conflict with human violence, the aggressive rustling of grain and reeds, the coarse splashing of water on a riverbed as two nameless men fight, tying notions of human violence and horror to the very earth, better than almost any film has since. As the oldest film on this list, it is as crucial a watch as any in understanding the genre as a whole.
4. Kuroneko (1968) – Kaneto Shindō
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Such a wonderful companion to his previous film Onibaba it’s impossible to separate the pair, with its casting of Nobuko Otowa in near identical roles, mirrored visual motifs and narrative of the women left behind and left to rot in the burnt ruins of a world left by feeble men.
Opening with the brutal murder of a woman, Shige (Kiwako Taichi), and her mother-in-law Yone (Otowa), at the hand of a band of samurai that sets the tone for the rest of this haunted revenge thriller as the pair return to the world as cat formed Onryō, a more vengeful form of yūrei.
In many ways, this is the more overtly horrific film of the pair, but where Kuroneko really excels and where Shindō clearly improves as a writer is in the dramatic storytelling that is unlocked in the centre of the film with the return of Gintoki (Nakamura Kichiemon II), Yone’s son, Shige’s husband, and crucially, a samurai. This return creates a compelling internal battle for Shige and Yone, who have returned to the mortal world to seek vengeance on the samurai plaguing and overwhelming the land, but still harbour a great love and longing for the man who left them.
At its core, Kuroneko is a story of vengeance against the inhumanity of male violence, with its beautiful knots of human longing and connection in the face of great pain piercing the heart more powerfully than any fang.
3. Audition (2001) – Takashi Miike
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Recently ranked the 7th best horror film of all time by Variety, Takashi Miike’s second and much more successful entry on this list, Audition, moves as an anglerfish, enrapturing you in its romantic light, masking the dark monster lurking in the shadows.
Beginning with a beautiful three-minute prologue of a young family losing their mother in a hospital, Miike’s Audition blooms from a place of empathy and loss, creating a lush bed to destabilise us. Set seven years after this, Shigeharu’s (Ryo Ishibashi) son Shigehiko (Tetsu Sawaki) presses him to find a wife. Shigeharu’s friend Yasuhisa (Jun Kunimura), a film producer, devises a plan to hold an audition for a fake film project with the goal of Shigeharu choosing a wife out of the cohort.
Immediately, Shigeharu is enchanted, bordering on obsessed with one prospect, the quiet Asami (Eihi Shiina), and pursues her, even though Yasuhisa urges him to reconsider as he believes something is off about her. Miike uses his chaotic approach to editing and story structure that tipped over Ichi the Killer here as a piercing needle into the skin of this Vaseline-covered pulpy romance. It is in this needling contrast that the film thrives.
Miike has a profound eye for composition and lighting, transcending the material into a consistent wave of tangible emotion, never letting its characters or the audience off the hook he so delicately dangles. This lush style is wrapped in a discordant editing style once we meet Asami, reshaping any notion of the type of film we are watching from moment to moment, culminating in a wild final act that made the film legendary to horror fans.
2. Pulse (2001) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
The year is 2001 and the legend Kiyoshi Kurosawa is deeply sceptical about the internet’s promise to connect the global population more deeply with each other. In Pulse, at the turn of the millennium with the internet burgeoning into being, a creeping loneliness epidemic appears to be bleeding into people’s lives through their computer screens, leaving its victims in a fate worse than death.
In conversation with Hideo Nakata’s Ring with their relationships to media and technology’s place as the medium to our new folk stories, Pulse elicits a similar feeling the VHS tape has with its steadily increasing number of apparent ghosts taking form inside the internet, desperate to escape for reasons that become clearer at the film’s remarkably evocative climax.
Viewing the relationship between a rapidly isolating city and life through the lens of a small group of young people retreating into their own worlds via the internet is eminently recognisable in 2024. With a steady march towards depression tied to the oblivion of disconnection that Kurosawa achieves better than almost any living filmmaker, we are forced into the role of both protagonist and camera operator, refracting our modern life into this 23-year-old film. For this reason, alongside its depressive but uncynical atmosphere, Pulse is potentially the definitive work of cinema for our online, modern age.
The miracle of Kurosawa’s films is their ability to form a compellingly bleak drama without an overwhelmingly cynical worldview. While the film is defined by suicide and internet-driven malaise, Pulse is never driven by a contempt for the ghostly presences or the young victims like in the Ju On films. Even in the final, apocalyptic moments, the audience, with Kurosawa by our side, is hopeful for a potential step forward.
With all that said, what supercharges these ideas and propels them into a plane few films achieve is their ability to operate as a truly terrifying work of horror. Even in a horror collection that boasts iconic horror scenes like the ones in Ring or Ju-On, nothing is as bone-chilling and skin-crawling as the slow-moving ghost sequence, perfectly calibrated to destabilise our ideas of how our fears can be provoked in such a simple scene.
The unveiling of the Big Bang event at the film’s core as a deeply personal, isolating act of exposed self-annihilation is overwhelmingly emotional. The best horror films root themselves in empathetic moments of anguish that birth a larger malice to those in its orbit, which Pulse achieves better than anything on this list and in almost any other film in the genre.
1. Cure (1997) – Kiyoshi Kurosawa
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Perhaps the film I’ve thought about the most since watching it on a gloomy night in 2020, sliding ever higher up my all-time list, making its ultimate landing spot at the top here felt inevitable but still celebratory. Kurosawa’s best film, Cure, is the perfect blend of his obsessions of ingrained human anxiety and potential for violence, with his filmmaking influences, equal parts Andrei Tarkovsky and Tobe Hooper, flourishing at every turn.
Centring on obsessive detective Takabe (a colossal performance by Kōji Yakusho), with a deteriorating home life due to his wife’s (Anna Nakagawa) failing mental health, who is tasked with solving a series of seemingly random murders connected only by the assailants having carved an ‘X’ into the neck or chest of the victim. We are shown these violent attacks in Kurosawa’s familiar smooth camera movements, creating an unnerving balance that stems from the potential violence of everyday life.
Much like David Fincher’s Se7en (1995), a film deeply tied to Cure, our burgeoning obsession with true crime storytelling is being reflected back at us, forcing us to contend with our own impulses towards viewing violence in this way. Cure excels because Kurosawa is keenly aware of these impulses and genre conventions, understanding when to subvert them or allow them to play out at his own deliberate pace.
Cure’s greatest act of subversion comes from the crafting of perhaps the best horror character of the past 30 years, the black hole known as Mamiya, the man seemingly hypnotising people into performing these murders. Portrayed with a compelling aloofness by Masato Hagiwara that disarms both the audience and other characters, while also flooding the air with a palpable sense of tension and dread. Mamiya’s hypnotism scenes are extraordinary set pieces in magnetic genre filmmaking, focusing on elemental connections like the flame of a lighter or the meditative quality of washing over you like a steadily rising tide. The film transcends past its terrific villain and set-pieces due to our near-instant tethering to Takabe’s obsession with understanding these murders, propelling us deeper and deeper into the world and ultimately, Mamiya’s spell.
Takabe’s ultimate decision to give his ailing wife over to an asylum creates an absence inside him that allows him to reach the precipice of defeating Mamiya but directly asks us the cost of this sacrifice. In a world void of something to fight for, how does one look into the abyss and see anything but themselves? In a genre of scares and nightmarish atmospheres, these lasting questions and closing moments will have you questioning how you view humanity itself.
With 2023 drawing to a close, Rating Frames is looking back at the past twelve months of cinema and streaming releases that have come our way. In the third of our series of articles, Arnel Duracak is taking a look at his ten favourite films of the year that was.
In what was a year jam-packed with incredible film titles, a myriad of legendary directors continuing to deliver the goods, newcomers making their mark, and strikes that led to several delays for other anticipated releases, I only wish that I had spent more time in front of a silver screen.
Alas, I ventured to Europe for a good few months which limited my access to key titles early on in the year (though I did see Michael Mann’s 1995 classic Heat at London’s Prince Charles Cinema), but I was lucky to be able to witness some of the year’s best films at the cinema in the second half of 2023. There have been multiple other titles that I wish I had seen before the end of 2023 –––The Holdovers, Poor Things, Ferrari (which I will be reviewing for the site soon), to name a few––– but nonetheless I am satisfied with what I was able to see. Here’s to a 2024 with more of the same, happy watching!
10. Wonka
As I was looking at my ongoing 2023 ranking list, it turns out Wonka made the cut.
While I am a bit surprised, this film felt like the most deserving 3.5 star film from 2023 for me. It neither rocked my socks nor did it live up to the brilliance of Paul King’s modern classic Paddington 2 (2017), but my bar was set rather low for this title if not for the fact that it felt like an unnecessary foray into the background of one of cinema’s strangest characters, then definitely because I just wasn’t all that interested (Darcy will attest to that).
But being a King and Simon Farnaby screenplay, Wonka felt both fresh and unique, owing to the fact that it was imbued with the zany British humour that Paddington 2 excelled at, had an all-star cast who thrive as misfits and are just a joy to be around, contained some catchy musical set pieces (‘Scrub Scrub’ being a particular highlight), and never felt like it was trying to follow in the footsteps of the other two Willy Wonka films.
My only gripe would be that Wonka himself was less interesting as a character than any of the side characters. Whether or not that was because Chalamet’s performance was a bit overly boisterous or because 90% of the core cast meshed well with the British comedy by comparison, but Chalamet’s no Gene Wilder here (maybe for the best).
9. Oppenheimer
In what is perhaps Christopher Nolan’s most accomplished film for many (2008’s The Dark Knight still takes the cake for me), Oppenheimer is a magnetic feat in filmmaking that only Nolan could deliver at such a scale.
I’ve never been a big fan of the way that he writes dialogue, and Oppenheimer isn’t different in that regard for me as it tries to balance more heartfelt, interpersonal connections with more heavy handed themes and technical language (ultimately tailspinning into some less than convincing, at times eye-rolly back-and-forths). However, for a three hour film that is about one of history’s darkest periods, it flows rather well with crisp editing, excellent performances all around, a moody but effective score, and direction from Nolan at the peak of his powers. The film’s climax is one of the most cinematic this year and once cements Nolan’s status as the king of IMAX.
At the time of writing, it’s been about an hour since Oppenheimer swept up the Golden Globes, and if that isn’t a testament to just how deserving this film is to be on anyone’s top 10 list, then I’m sure the Oscars will have something to say about that.
8. Asteroid City
In what is a film of layer upon layer upon layer, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City is a film I’ve accepted I just have a love-hate relationship with.
Anderson, of course, probably has the most identifiable visual style of any working director at the moment, and he once again delivers incredible vistas in this desert doll-house diorama showcase. Asteroid City is also his most self-reflexive film, both on the art of being a storyteller and on the process leading up to the camera rolling.
Artifice and reality intersect on multiple occasions, with the film playing out through a series of chapters that pull you into the world itself, and then pull you back out to take a glance at how everything is coming together. At times the film can be beguiling, especially if you aren’t familiar with his previous stuff, but it’s also a rewarding insight into art of being a storyteller.
7. The Killer
Many (and by many, I mean Letterboxd users) have called David Fincher’s The Killer his most introspective, meditative film on the craft of doing your job, taking pride in your work and thinking you’re doing it so well to the point of perfection. I just think it’s his most comedic.
Michael Fassbender stars as the straight-faced, emotionless hitman who screws up a hit and now has to clean up his tracks and those that might wish to take him out for his shortcoming.
The Killer is a great study on the dissolution of identity, of a man coping with his inner thoughts and dismissing all empathy for those that don’t deserve it because he knows the game he’s playing and the players involved. As mentioned, I also think it’s a comedy or at the very least, unintentionally funny especially with various internal monologues by the character, describing what he sees and feels, that are followed by sharp interruptions.
While this isn’t Fincher’s best film or even in his top three, it’s a safe but well executed crime thriller that will satiate the desire of hardcore Finchonians who would wish to see him return to similar stories.
6. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
I’ve continually been surprised by just how good each Mission Impossible film has gotten.
Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise are like each other’s yin and yang as they seem to have found common ground since their first collaboration on Jack Reacher (2012) to the point where they’re willing to push the boundaries of what’s achievable on film at such a scale. Cruise especially is no stranger to putting his body and life on the line for an awesome shot, and in Dead Reckoning Part Onethere is everything from that iconic plummeting bike sequence off the top of a cliff to the creation and destruction of a whole train.
While Dead Reckoning Part One is pipped only by Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) in the franchise in terms of scale and death defying moments, it is pure action cinema that knows no bounds. I’m keen to see what Part Two will have to offer.
5. Past Lives
Celine Song’s debut feature is the sort of film that sneaks up and catches you off guard if you’re not prepared for its candid depictions of everyday people doing this thing we call life, and it leaves you feeling either optimistic or a tad wrecked by the time it’s over.
I generally gravitate towards fantasy, action and romance films, and I was pleasantly surprised that while this is a film about young love and looking back to move forward, it’s ultimately a film about reconciliation and friendship.
Song’s film cleverly captures how time passes in an instant; we try to hold on to the high points as much as we can, we’d put them in a bottle if we could, but that’s not how life works. In other words, things happen for a reason, but that doesn’t mean we have to forget the past, but rather learn to live with the present reality that we’ve been given.
The film is ultimately anchored by Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro who form the emotional centre that allows Song to deliver this story as effectively as she does.
4. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Across the Spider-Verse was one of the releases that I missed on the big-screen after going to Europe and only saw towards the close of the year on Prime Video.
I say that with a degree of sadness as this sequel to the Oscar winning hook-out-of-nowhere, Into the Spider-Verse (2018), absolutely floored me in just how creative it was in utilising the key moments of past Spider-man films and flipping them on their head to deliver an original, engaging, emotional and downright fun two and a half hours. The trio of writers, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham clearly understand this world and its characters, and it shows in all of its vibrancy.
Much has been said on the animation style of these films, and it once agains results in a colourful and unique display. Another Part Two I am ever so keen to see.
3. Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese has been there, done that and gone back again, but even I couldn’t believe the brilliance I was seeing with Killers of the Flower Moon––– even though brilliance is what we’ve always known with this cinematic titan.
Killers of the Flower Moon is another film that passes the three hour mark this year, but if it went for another three, I don’t think there would be many complaints. And that’s owed largely to just how precise Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing is, which paces the film very tidily with no loose moments that don’t add up to a wider whole.
It’s also a testament to Scorsese’s brilliant direction and he and Eric Roth’s approach to the screenplay which they flipped on its head and decided to tackle from an inside point around the film’s perpetrators. The result is one where we still see all of Scorsese’s signature mobster embellishments and themes of betrayal, ambition and greed, but they’re repurposed in a more Western setting and allowed to simmer for the film’s lengthy runtime.
I’ve said it elsewhere, but Killers of the Flower Moon feels like the sum of all the best parts of Scorsese’s oeuvre. By that I mean not just in the little tell-tales and visual cues that scream Scorsese, but more in terms of how this film balances tension, develops character, incorporates louder moments with more muted ones, communicates more heavy handed themes like greed and corruption in a digestible way, and all while feeling fresh in the process.
The fact that this isn’t his magnum opus tells you everything you need to know about him, so let’s enjoy this legend while he’s still around.
2. (How Do You Live?) The Boy and the Heron
From one legend to another, Hayao Miyazaki’s decision to un-retire and make The Boy and the Heron was met with wide gasps, especially since The Wind Rises (2013) felt like the perfect capstone to his illustrious career.
Yet there was clearly some unfinished business in the director’s life that he no doubt felt compelled to express, and in his latest he once again takes a deep dive into the phantasmagorical through various creatures, concoctions and imagery, but with existentialism at the forefront.
The Boy and the Heron might well be seen as Miyazaki coming to terms with the limitations of the physical form and seeking out answers, or at least seeking to provide certain tools that might lead to the answers around what this thing called life is all about. Darcy has described the film as a “deep meditation on life and grief” and I think that’s the basis for what Miyazaki is going for here, along with the idea of carving something from nothing and doing your best to hold it together for as long as you can.
For the young character Mahito at the centre of it all, he is there to try and help take this bleakness and turn it into something redeemable now that his uncle (a very obvious injection of self from Miyazaki), cannot. It’s almost a futile request as everything around him crumbles, but it’s enough to believe he will take this with him in his own life and attempt to bring some order to it that way.
1. John Wick: Chapter 4
It feels like a millennium ago that I saw the fourth instalment in Chad Stahleski’s thriving John Wick franchise, and yet nothing this year has toppled it from the peak of my list.
Don’t get me wrong, any of my top three could just as easily be sitting in pole position, but Stahelski’s final John Wick film is a sensory overload that I feel like was made for me. Shay Hatten and Michael Finch’s ability to up the ante and deliver a screenplay that not only ties everything from the first three films together, but adds some more and then blows everything out of the water in the third act is truly mind-boggling (it’s a crime they weren’t nominated at the Golden Globes for Best Screenplay).
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve long praised Stahelski for his understanding of actors and his ability to stage fight scenes, but in John WickChapter 4 he has once again managed to blend hand-to-hand combat and bullets galore with an appreciation for more grounded storytelling and the recognition that John Wick is the emotional anchor of this film even when he’s engaged in tense situations.
He’s not just a two-dimensional assassin or someone simply out for revenge, and Chapter 4 makes it clear that moving forward requires sacrifice. And this franchise has always been able to introduce anti-heroes and antagonists that are just as layered as Wick because they occupy the same space, under the same oversight, guided by the same principles ––– Wick just has the courage to stand against the system that has nurtured him and recognise the virus its rotten roots are spreading.
It feels like a fairytale ending that echoes the practicality and originality of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) while standing out from anything else that has been released since Fury Road in the action genre. I can safely say I am eagerly anticipating Stahelski’s adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima.
With 2023 having drawn to a close, Rating Frames is continuing to look back at the past twelve months of cinema and streaming releases which have come our way. In the second of our series of articles, Tom Parry takes a look at his ten favourite films of the year that was.
It’s been a most productive film-viewing period for yours truly. He began 2023 settled in Gippsland, with opportunities for cinema visits proving few and far between; but as the year passed its midway point, he found himself landing a new job and returning to his hometown of Bendigo, thereby allowing him additional time to see the newest releases and, better still, make more frequent journeys to Melbourne to see what he otherwise would not be able to in regional Victoria.
While this writer hasn’t viewed as many new releases as his contemporaries — and he’s still eagerly awaiting a chance to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things (2023) — he did visit the theatre more often than he did in 2022, meaning he can once more utilise the Top Ten format to which everybody is most accustomed.
10. Bottoms
Its synopsis reads like the plot of a seedy adult film: A group of lesbian high-schoolers start a Fight Club as a means to lose their virginities to cheerleaders. Yet look beyond this raunchy premise, and there’s a picture that subverts the “traditional” Hollywood teen sex comedy through its queer representation, message of female empowerment and left-field gags.
Neat gags they are too, with Bottoms (2023) being one of the funnier comedies to emerge in recent times; it also boasts a great soundtrack and fantastic cast, with Ayo Edebiri being the standout as co-lead Josie. While the screenplay could use more originality — its use of the juvenile, overdone “Liar Revealed” trope particularly frustrates — the film nevertheless remains one of the most energetic and refreshing comedies to emerge in recent times.
9. Past Lives
The romance genre relishes in the cliché of the Star-Crossed Lovers — a pair of individuals who are ideally suited for one another, yet destined never to be together. Such is the premise of writer-director Celine Song’s debut feature, which draws upon her own life experiences to craft a tender, stirring and beautifully-told narrative.
Song admirably refuses to adhere to the genre’s conventions, telling the story at her own pace and largely without conflict, all while eliciting a stellar performance from lead actor Greta Lee and brilliantly utilising natural light to bathe her scenes (as evidenced above). Though it is a gorgeous product, viewers must note that Past Lives (2023) is also a slow-moving film that takes some length to reach the crux of its story.
8. Elemental
At one stage, this feature-length animation looked destined to become Pixar’s first box-office bomb, owing to muted returns from the opening weekend of its theatrical run. But as the weeks passed, interest in the film remained steady as audiences found resonance with its tale of a migrant daughter struggling to meet the expectations of her parents, and the bond she forges with a young man whose personality could not be any more different.
Elemental (2023) is enjoyed best when viewed as a romantic-comedy — its tale of a mismatched duo who develop feelings for each other proves the most gripping aspect of what is, ostensibly, an allegorical examination of racism through a fantasy lens. Adding to the enjoyment is the beautiful score of Thomas Newman, and creative imagery rendered to the high standards of Emeryville.
7. Suzume
‘Twas a long wait for Makoto Shinkai’s latest feature to reach our shores, coming five months after its Japanese release and nearly 14 months after its world premiere. It sees the famed Japanese animator return to the fantasy genre once more, telling of a teenage girl who is tasked with preventing a series of supernatural calamities and delivering yet another compelling, wonderfully-told story in the process.
All the Shinkai hallmarks are present in Suzume (2022), including references to Japanese fables, natural disasters, adolescents pining for the affections of another, and trains. (He really does love his trains.) Yet there are also plenty of improvements over his previous works, including a rousing orchestral soundtrack, a screenplay filled with tension and humour, and Shinkai’s most detailed and cleanly-animated illustrations to date.
6. Saltburn
Having won Best Screenplay at the 93rd Academy Awards for Promising Young Woman (2020), anticipation was justifiably high for Emerald Fennell’s second directorial effort. Her follow-up takes place in England, where a scholarship student at a prestigious university (Barry Keoghan) befriends a classmate from an aristocratic family (Jacob Elordi) and is subsequently invited to spend the summer at their sprawling estate.
A beautifully twisted thriller, Saltburn (2023) possesses a sharper edge and level of savagery that Fennell’s debut feature sorely lacked. Her direction once again is confident and assured, her characters nuanced and complex, the performances great and the soundtrack fantastic. This author’s only issue with the film is that it doesn’t adequately explain or justify the actions of its main character.
5. Broker
First premiering at the Cannes Film Festival last year, it would be another nine months before this feature-length Asian drama gained a limited theatrical release in the Antipodes — a very apt length of time to wait, when one considers the subject matter. Broker (2022) follows a ragtag group of criminals who form an emotional bond while trading orphaned babies to infertile couples for money. Though the premise is somewhat cheesy, the final product is anything but, with director Hirokazu Kore-eda delivering a story which is equal parts charming and poignant.
Fellow Rating Frames scribe Darcy Read has long been a champion of this feature, having listed it in his Best of 2022 list and reviewed it glowingly and at-length back in March. There’s not much that can be added to his remarks; all that this writer can offer is a reiteration of Darcy’s praise.
4. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Seldom can a film series lay claim to having improved with each and every instalment; Mission: Impossible is one of the few. For the franchise’s seventh feature-length outing, the ante and excitement is upped once more as secret agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) faces his most threatening antagonist yet: a faceless, internet-borne Artificial Intelligence program that can not only predict his every move, but distort the truth as it sees fit.
Dead Reckoning Part One(2023) is filled with exhilarating action sequences, including a car chase through the streets of Rome, a duel of close-quarters combat in a narrow alleyway, fisticuffs on a runaway train, and plenty of throwbacks to the series’ past. In doing so, M:I7 eclipses the thrills of Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) to position itself as one of the greatest action movies of all time.
3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Not for the first time, Sony Pictures Animation floored all expectations with their latest feature-length release, surpassing the very high bar the studio itself had set four-and-a-half years earlier. The studio’s successor to the much-adored Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is an improvement in many regards, placing a greater focus on the struggles of Gwen Stacy (voice of Hailee Steinfeld) while also continuing with the narrative of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore).
There are many aspects in which Across the Spider-Verse (2023) proves a better film than its predecessor, particularly in the screenplay department — the story here is less clichéd and more original — and visually, with no shortage of lush images to gaze at. Impressively, the film does this while also sharing its precursor’s qualities, such as a talented voice-cast and awesome soundtrack.
2. John Wick: Chapter 4
Turns out that 2023 delivered not one, but TWO of the greatest action movies ever made. The more impressive example proved to be the fourth entry in the Keanu Reeves-starring John Wick franchise, which once again has the professional hitman seeking revenge against the figures who have wronged him, and simultaneously trying to avoid the network of bounty hunters who wish him dead.
Plenty of the franchise’s trademarks are present here, including the exceptional stunt-work, astonishing set-pieces, brilliant choreography, immaculate sound design and gorgeous lighting, all richer than ever. It’s best appreciated by those who have seen and enjoyed the three previous instalments — anybody walking into John Wick: Chapter 4(2023) without doing so is bound to be confused.
1. Oppenheimer
Since helming The Dark Knight (2008), Christopher Nolan has been revered by cinephiles as one of the artform’s best directors, his every film greeted with fervent enthusiasm. Subsequent releases have been met with overblown mania, such as Interstellar (2014), while others earned muted praise, like Dunkirk (2017). But for his portrait of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the hype and audience response is truly deserved.
Despite its three-hour length and multitude of secondary characters, Oppenheimer (2023) is never boring nor baffling — it’s enthralling from beginning to end. Within the picture is a fantastic screenplay dealing with complex themes, strong performances from the entire cast, a remarkable score from Ludwig Göransson, dexterous film editing, great sound design, incredible practical effects, and a surprisingly tense bomb-testing sequence.
What’s here is Nolan’s magnum opus; his crowning achievement, the picture which shall come to define him years from now. At the risk of being rash, it could well become this writer’s favourite film of the decade.
With 2023 drawing to a close, Rating Frames is looking back at the past twelve months of cinema and streaming releases that have come our way. In the first of our series of articles, Darcy Read is taking a look at his ten favourite films of the year that was.
2023 has been a bizarre but ultimately wonderful year in cinema. A film year that felt like a genuine rebound after multiple years of roadblocks — and that’s with long-running SAG and WGA strikes with impacts felt in the latter stages of the year but will impact next year more on the ledger — through the success of ‘Barbenheimer’ and the return of some of the best veteran filmmakers we have working. While none of these storied filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Hayao Miyazaki, or Wes Anderson delivered a film that will be the first project referenced in their obituary, all have produced work that will contend for the best cinema has to offer this decade.
As 2023 draws to a close, it is clear this year has the potential to enter legend status alongside calendar years like 1999 or 2019, with its combination of peaks and depth by creators both established and emerging, gifting us deeply personal works that have clearly resonated with audiences around the world. 2023 has been a wonderful year to write about for the site, and 2024 looks to be a fascinating year with the return of incredible artists like Bong Joon-ho, Steve McQueen, and Barry Jenkins to name a few. But before we get ahead of ourselves, here is my list of the best of cinema this year.
10. Oppenheimer
A vicious knife fight to land on the 10th spot on this list with a collection of wonderful films by veteran auteurs like Hirokazu Kore-eda and David Fincher, but the scale and power of the fleeting moments in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023) proved too difficult to ignore. Nolan has been on a manic kick in recent years, adopting a sound-focused filmmaking pursuit that is just catnip for me. Combining an all-time score by Ludwig Göransson with an elastic soundscape that never lacks emotional or narrative potency by the legendary Richard King, Nolan and emerging editor Jennifer Lame throw you into the subjective war zone that is J. Robert Oppenheimer.
The film is littered with flaws and strange moments that threaten to derail the three-hour tirade through the scientific pursuit of unprecedented destruction, but the rigorous nature of the film allows for some transcendent sequences that stack up amongst Nolan’s very best work.
9. The Eight Mountains
A serene indie film shot across stunning vistas of the Italian Alps centred on two men building a house in a plot of land owned by one of their recently deceased fathers, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains (2022) plays out like a contemplative short story across two and a half hours, a personal favourite flavour that is not a universal palette.
The earnestness of the storytelling about two complicated men seeking purpose through their past and into their present transcends into a reflective pool of emotion and intimacy with a mesmerisingly natural performance by Alessandro Borghi as Bruno. Grab some tea and warm up by the fire of this enchanting Italian epic that would work as a perfect double feature with Past Lives (2023), a film we will get to.
8. May December
A sticky, chewy meal of a film, May December (2023) is less interested in the central scandal of the story (echoing the story of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau) than in the modern societal structures around a tabloid scandal, with the insidious media ecosystem that invades lives for an increasingly uncertain gain and the human impact that ripples out decades later, as the scandal itself.
Casting director turned screenwriter Samy Burch is perfectly matched on the screen by the brilliant Todd Haynes, a filmmaker most comfortable getting into the weeds of a dark, complicated story and emerging with something equally compelling and repugnant. The trio of performances from Julianne Moore, Natalie Portman, and the emergence of Charles Melton present this knotty and potently transgressive story with a heightened tension of melodrama whilst never losing the humanity at its core that allows the film to shine.
7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
It took months for me to embrace the ‘to be continued’ nature of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), but once that hurdle is vaulted, the Jackson Pollock-styled explosion of creativity and narrative inventiveness on display in this sequel to the hit animated superhero film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) took hold.
Across the Spider-Verse’s first 20 minutes is the greatest example of riotous, shotgun blast openings to come across in years, miraculously blending art styles with raw emotion and vulnerability that created an avalanche of ideas to cascade from beginning to end.
6. Asteroid City
“Am I doing it right?” Anderson has long been known for his extensive production designs and air-tight dialogue, but what stands out in Asteroid City (2023) is the attention placed on the act of looking. These looks of longing and understanding permeate every moment and every character of the film. From June (Maya Hawke) and Montana’s (Rupert Friend) longing looks of romance tinged with the desire for understanding in an increasingly incomprehensible world, to the gazing scenes of Jason Schwartzman as both Augie in the play with Midge (Scarlett Johansson), and as the actor Jones Hall with the actress of his wife that was ultimately cut played by Margot Robbie – in one of the scenes of the year – Anderson reflects the modern world’s unease and uncertainty by displaying these feelings across the extended ensemble.
Schwartzman — who has never been better — wears layers upon layers of uncertainty about the future and how to feel in the present across his face, opening up like a flower in the final act. By penetrating the hermetically sealed world that Anderson and his crew craft here in Asteroid City with touchingly modern feelings of uncertainty and fear, the potency of the message burrows its way into the soul, where it has remained all year. “Am I doing it right?”
5. The Zone of Interest
The normalisation of genocide as a collection of active, domestic choices, Jonathan Glazer’s attentive formalism is a perfect match for this profound piece of art on the naturalism that real evil lives within. Based on a slither of Martin Ames’ book of the same name, The Zone of Interest centres on the young family of Höss, mass murderer and commandant of Auschwitz, as they live day to day alongside unimaginable horror. Glazer avoids almost all iconography of the camp and world inside of the walls, tightly focusing on the family mundanity through scenes of pool parties, teatime chats, and grandmothers coming over for a weekend as the black smoke billows constantly above them.
Glazer, alongside sonic collaborators Johnnie Burn and Mica Levi as sound designer and composer has crafted a piece of cinema that transcends the formal exercise it easily could’ve become, instead striving for an art film that lands close to a Nazi-based Jeanne Dielman (1975). There is no, and may never be, another experience like it.
4. La chimera
One of the great pleasures of following the career of an emerging artist is seeing them put it all together. In La chimera (2023), Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher perfectly blends the rich, textured grounds of Tuscan farm life of The Wonders (2014) with the magical realism and whimsy from her revered film Happy as Lazzaro (2018) to create one of the year’s best and most creatively rich films.
Set in 1980s Tuscany, we follow Arthur (an extraordinary Josh O’Connor) and his band of tombaroli — Italian looters archaeological heritage — as he returns to his long lost love Beniamina’s local town after a stint in jail. Rohrwacher’s seemingly limitless filmmaking inventiveness wraps around a knotty and evocative story of local heritage and ownership of the past shot gloriously on 16 and 35mm.
3. (How Do You Live?) The Boy and the Heron
Went with the original title for this entrancing and engaging gift of cinema, as it so perfectly captures the film in many ways compared to a seemingly rushed decision to rename this endlessly compelling feature from another old master Hayao Miyazaki. Not only is the title How Do You Live? (2023) taken from a beloved Japanese novel that Miyazaki has called an ur-text for him creatively — heightened by having the book play a crucial story beat with it being gifted to our protagonist Mahito by his recently deceased mother — but it works as the central thesis question for the film Miyazaki came out of retirement to ask. A question he gives no answer to, understanding that a life’s purpose is in the pursuit. The film operates as a deep meditation on life and grief from a world-weary filmmaker and as a goofy, playful Ghibli movie with its eccentric parakeets and Warawara’s that are sure to make their way into the heart of the recently opened Ghibli park.
What allows these larger ideas and themes to flow freely across this entrancing film is the work of longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi’s score, somehow in career-best form after all these years, echoing these thematic questions through his delicate strings, tense orchestrations, and loving piano melodies that wash over a crowded audience like an emotional wave. No film on this list has better potential to leapfrog up to number one than this film, probing for questions on day-to-day existence than any piece of art released in 2023, like only a true master storyteller can.
2. Past Lives
Saw this treasure of a film back in June at the Sydney Film Festival and remained top of this list for months, Past Lives (2023), the best debut feature of the year by Celine Song, has stayed top of mind for 6 months through its unique mixture of personal and romantic longing with a powerful trio of performances by Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro.
In Past Lives, the present is framed in a unique liminal space, an uncertain future result of past decisions and indecisions, more so than a real time experience, like watching Richard Linklater’s miraculous Before trilogy simultaneously across three screens. How Song is able to merge these ideas inside a tight 105-minute narrative feature is not to be understated, crafting the best screenplay of 2023 and one that will only expand and mature moving forward.
1. Killers of the Flower Moon
From my review for the film: “Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), a sprawling period crime epic based on the incredible best-selling nonfiction book of the same name by David Grann tracking the 1921 Osage Nation murders (potentially hundreds even though the reported count reached only 20), is the best film to arrive in theatres in years. An astonishing work, capturing the clashing worlds of empathy and cruelty, the legendary director Martin Scorsese alongside veteran screenwriter Eric Roth, set out to explore and probe the original sins of white exploitation and destruction that dismantled a once thriving community in the Osage Nation.
With a task as grave and serious about a community unfamiliar to their own, Scorsese and Roth’s script remarkably lands at a point of empathy and understanding they can reach as outsiders to this world. Scorsese’s self-reflective limitations as the person to tell this story are palpable throughout the film. This crime film’s capacity to tell a story of a community not his own arrives at a peak in a final sequence that may not evoke the same emotions in audience members as personal opinions of this vary. However, it is disingenuous to wholly dismiss this remarkable film on those grounds, just as it is disingenuous to wholly dismiss the air of white guilt and limitations as storytellers that frame Killers.”
My only five-star film of the year, Killers of the Flower Moon may not reach the Mount Rushmore of Scorsese’s career but is more than worthy of entering the discussion once the greatest living American director decides to hang it up.
Honourable Mentions: The Killer, Monster, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Barbie, Showing Up.
“Can you find the wolves in this picture?” As the simple Earnest (Leonardo DiCaprio) reads from a history book given to him by his uncle William “King” Hale (Robert De Niro) about the Osage Nation, to acclimatise himself to the new land in Oklahoma he has found himself in after returning from the war, we are not so subtly asked to investigate the frame of each scene. The land is almost entirely owned by the First Nations Osage community that, after being slaughtered and chased out of other states before finding themselves here, struck a reserve of oil on the land they had legal rights to, making them the richest per capita community in the world. And now their people are being brutally killed in careless succession, with the government nowhere in sight to investigate.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), a sprawling period crime epic based on the incredible best-selling nonfiction book of the same name by David Grann tracking the 1921 Osage Nation murders (potentially hundreds even though the reported count reached only 20), is the best film to arrive in theatres in years. An astonishing work of the clashing worlds of empathy and cruelty, the legendary director Martin Scorsese, alongside veteran screenwriter Eric Roth set out to explore and probe the original sins of white exploitation and destruction that dismantled a once thriving community in the Osage Nation.
Central to the story is Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone in the must-see performance of the year), and her family who were amongst the wealthiest in the community through their Osage headrights. From the opening moments of the film, the plan is established by the wolf Hale: set up his family to marry into and then assassinate Mollie’s family to gain their land through these headrights, with the newest entrant Earnest, Hale’s young (in reality Earnest was 19) nephew with nowhere else to go, to be placed alongside Mollie.
Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro, and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon
With a task as grave and serious about a community unfamiliar to their own, Scorsese and Roth’s script remarkably lands at a point of empathy and understanding they can reach as outsiders to this world. Scorsese’s self-reflective limitations as the person to tell this story are palpable throughout the film. This crime film’s capacity to tell a story of a community not his own arrives at a peak in a final sequence that may not evoke the same emotions in audience members as personal opinions of this vary (more on this later). However, it is disingenuous to wholly dismiss this remarkable film on those grounds, just as it is disingenuous to wholly dismiss the air of white guilt and limitations as storytellers that frame Killers.
The film is a surprisingly straightforward narrative story, using its 206-minute runtime to form as tight a compulsive story as is possible with Grann’s sprawling book, with the marriage of Earnest and Mollie at its core. There are many changes in structure and perspective to the book, with the most crucial being the shift in storytelling philosophy with the character of William Hale. In Grann’s book, the revelation of Hale’s orchestration of the gaining of head rights through systemic murders of the Osage Nation plays out closer to a whodunit true crime thrill ride that concludes with the formation of the FBI and the men that uncovered the truth — a sharp contrast to how the story is presented in the film. By changing the storytelling style from a whodunit into a bottomless well of foreboding dread through our connection to his character, Scorsese is tying us to the poison in his veins, feeling the bounds of the American condition and original sin within this vile man more directly.
Roth’s original screenplay focused on a more procedural whodunit that would’ve subbed as a perfectly adequate recreation of Grann’s book, centring early on Mollie and following onto Tom White’s (Jesse Plemons) role in the FBI investigation. Scorsese, in his first co-screenwriting credit since Silence (2016), alongside Roth, altered the perspective of the script, maintaining focus on Mollie and Ernest. In Grann’s book, the primary question being posed is: who is the culprit of these hideous acts? In Killers, the power of the storytelling comes from pursuing the more unanswerable questions at the core of their relationship and marriage: How can you do this to someone you believe to love? And how can you not see the root from which all these horrible events are stemming from? The boiling frustrations that stem from these probing, emotional questions are allowed to simmer across the entire extended runtime of the film, evolving into a profound sadness that will last with you a lifetime. Very few films attempt this level of emotional connection with the viewer, and even fewer films achieve it.
Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon
What allows Killers to capture an audience’s hearts and minds across its extended runtime is the trio of performances by DiCaprio, Gladstone, and De Niro in one of the finest ensembles in Scorsese’s storied career. De Niro, in his best performance in many years, is nightmarish as the wolf Hale, able to talk and smile through both sides of his mouth, taking up residence as a haunting figure of colonial greed and arrogance in the early 20th century. Alongside him is DiCaprio in his Calvin Candie mode from Django Unchained (2012), a performance style he has grown more comfortable with in recent years. The choice of DiCaprio to play an individual some 30 years his junior is a fascinating one. It can be read as a director pulling his muse into another film for the central role, or as a compelling provocation to the audience of seeing the star portray a despicable and complicated person. The weight of Earnest’s wilful ignorance is also deepened when placed across DiCaprio’s face than a more age accurate performer. What allows the film to transcend however, is Gladstone, perhaps the most compelling screen presence to emerge in a decade, whether in a single scene in the great TV series Reservation Dogs (2022) or Certain Women (2016), she is simply astonishing. Gladstone’s chemistry with DiCaprio is established early and becomes the crux of the film, with each scene together tethered to an anchor of tension that remains all the way into their incredible final meeting.
There are arguments to be made that Gladstone is sidelined for too much of the back end of the film due to her illness, which is as much a compliment to her performance as a narrative choice. This element of the film is also forced due to the reality of Mollie’s poisoning and illness, a storytelling hurdle that would’ve been disrespectful to sidestep. Her powerful presence is felt on and off screen equally, her piercing eyes hold a deep well of humanity which buries into your psyche for the elongated runtime. To avoid this aspect of the real story is to avoid the real pain that was subjugated on each member of this community, something that was clear throughout the production as being integral to telling this story. This family of women, with Mollie at the centre, want for a normal, wealthy American life that should have been afforded to them, but the ingrained systems of racial vilification and capitalism — the two are intrinsically linked — force them into a victimhood they should have been able to avoid through their wealth.
The longer Roth and Scorsese worked with the community, listening to their stories and hearing their truth, the deeper the well of understanding was established which is felt in powerful sequences throughout the film. A key moment displaying this respect to the Osage Nation is in the profoundly moving sequence as Lizzie (Tantoo Cardinal), Mollie’s mother, passes on, holding hands with her ancestors as she walks, smiling and without regret, into the next life. The sequence is quiet, simply staged, and made with great respect, with the air of an Apichatpong Weerasethakul film. The sequence echoes Silence (2016), Scorsese exploration into his own faith late in life, through its stripped-down and respectful style, displaying the utmost care when dealing with the faith of the people portrayed on screen.
Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon
By saddling the audience with Earnest for much of the film, a man with absolutely no moral core in the centre of the frame, Scorsese seeks to probe and destabilise us in equal measure. We don’t have the comforts of a future-set flashback to reassure us of his remorse, nor do we have saccharine familial moments that give us an easy out of the atrocities portrayed in the film. The further and further we are stretched, the more determined we are to uncover some hidden truth in DiCaprio’s performance, but he is equally as withholding with us as he is with his own wife. Over 200 minutes, the greatest living filmmaker is asking us not to find the wolves in sheep’s clothing, but to ask how these wolves can live amongst sheep after consuming their families.
As an Australian, it’s impossible to ignore the echoes of our own history in this story, of The Stolen Generations and the arrogant dark seed of colonialism at its core. The pain in seeing the universality of these vicious and callous crimes is overwhelming, especially as it overlaps with this year’s referendum vote. It has never been easier to be wilfully ignorant of our past, dooming ourselves to continue them.
This dark cloud hangs over many aspects of the story of Killers. There is a deliberate air of inevitability to the murders and distressing moments of the story, shown through the edit and deliberately bleak sound cues that saddens whilst never veering into an unbearably solemn experience. Too often a film, especially an epic of this scale and runtime, will lose all propulsion as a compelling narrative in order to express the grave nature of the experience. This is a balancing act that is beautifully achieved, where the wealth of film knowledge of Scorsese and his long-time crew shines through to create this tremendous work of art.
Legendary musician and collaborator Robbie Robertson in his final work feels an inch off screen at all times, holding court on proceedings through his Stratocaster with a beautifully anachronistic score that brings to mind the famous Neil Young improvised score for Dead Man (1996). The real highlight piece for Robertson is the mournful guitar and vocal duet “They Don’t Live Long”, which seeps into your bone marrow through its mixture of seething rage and sorrow at the feeling of utter helplessness to these vile acts we are bearing witness to.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Martin Scorsese, and Robert De Niro on the set of Killers of the Flower Moon
There is a care taken to each death that is heart wrenching and overwhelming that builds across the film. These moments aren’t calloused, or moments of entertainment that Scorsese has been accused of leaning too heavily on in the past. They are stark and honest, allowing the pulverising emotion of an audience experiencing these brutishly evil acts without a guide rope.
There is a special kind of pain Scorsese is carving out of you through the ham-fisted manner in which these horrific crimes are taking place. Not only is no one properly investigating these crimes due to the collective apathy those in real power hold for the Osage, but that is understood by those involved. This is not some elaborate web of seemingly innocuous murders, but a collection of obvious crimes committed by a group that never thought they’d get caught due to the privilege they wield over this community. For the master of the organised crime genre in cinema to focus on this collection of brutish, disorganised crime figures is pointed and considered, a continuation of his previous film The Irishman (2019), which is present throughout.
The film concludes with a charming Lucky Strike-helmed 50s radio play — sponsored by the FBI, valorising and sensationalising their involvement in the events — performing the events that transpire post the film in place of the usual text over photographs that close many a nonfiction adaptation. In these final moments, Scorsese enters the frame in an emotionally charged note to Molly’s ending, emanating both a solemn goodbye and apology for the nightmarish life she had to endure. He is overtly surrendering to the material and the Osage Nation. Not in some Variety interview or for your consideration campaign spot, but in the very text itself. The greatest living American filmmaker – and perhaps the country’s greatest ever auteur – closing potentially his final film in this manner will resonate till the end of time.
Killers of the Flower Moon is in select theatres now and streaming soon on Apple TV+.
Arriving on our shores in 2020, the horror-centric streaming service Shudder has become the definitive location for the boundary-pushing genre that comes alive every October. Its library boasts entire collections from the decades-spanning series’ to the micro-budget international indies, all available under one roof that promises shocks, thrills, and subversive moments that get seared into the brain.
In recent years, Shudder has ramped up its original programming, in the states and across the globe, giving its devoted audiences the opportunity to discover some of the most interesting international and indie films of the 2020s. Here, we have ranked the 7 best originals Shudder has to offer, from the perverse to the exhilarating, these are ones not to miss.
7. When Evil Lurks(2023)
Evil lurking through a film with true malice, The newest Shudder original from Argentina arrives on this list with a dark heart that is certainly the feel-bad film of the year. Opening with its grotesque makeup designs that should only be seen at least an hour after eating, When Evil Lurks devolves into a series of purely chilling experiences in a world without a soul.
Demián Rugna has crafted a strangely dense piece of world-building on a post-religion Earth where evil and demonic possession are very real occurrences with a series of rules to keep the peace and protect the community. This film is not for the faint of heart, as its stark malevolence and propensity for child endangerment never form a callous in the mind.
6. Revenge(2017)
The brilliance of Coralie Fargeat’s Revenge is in its ability to consistently take the more compelling path, both narratively and visually, weaving through the obstacles of horror’s thorniest subgenre (the rape-revenge thriller) with a powerful ease. A film this forward does not move with grace but with the bombast and assuredness of a filmmaker driven by their convictions and choices.
Fargeat’s debut feature is defined by its extreme closeups of body parts, focusing our eye on the human body consistently, from the lurid to the violent extremity. With a potent sound design and score combination heightening both these closeups and spanning, otherworldly vistas of this Moroccan desert, Revenge is as good as it gets in this oft-misguided genre, with as tense a final 30 minutes as you’ll find on the service.
5. Speak No Evil(2022)(U.S. Exclusive)
The feeling of a knife slowly being twisted over and over and over again put to film. Speak no Evil is a profoundly upsetting film about our inability to speak up for the everyday evils we may face, centring on a Danish family that makes quick friends with a Dutch couple on vacation and takes them up on an offer to stay with them for a weekend at their remote home. A shockingly bizarre invitation to some, more normal for others, that devolves as these friendly strangers reveal themselves in time. Filmmaker Christian Tafdrup feels content sitting with the audience in a pure form of discomfort that veers slowly into dread that has rarely been captured so well on screen.
There is a hilarious moment halfway through the film where it appears the family will return home without harm and only a mild unease about their new friends, only for the husband Bjørn (Morten Burian) to turn the car around over the slightest thing. Tafdrup never sells this as a moment of triumph you’d find at the end of a horror film, knowing full well that the dread and banal claustrophobia that has been cultivated from the opening images is about to take a turn for the worse. Tafdrup’s complete control of the situation revels in the story he’s created, with the fearful exhilaration of being lowered into a seemingly endless well by someone with a tight grip on the rope.
4. Skinamarink(2022)
Wrote about the film back on the site in February, Skinamarink was a flash in the pan in terms of internet notoriety (that expanded into multiple sold-out sessions at indie theatres), but the style and lingering impact this film has on your subconscious is remarkable.
The effectiveness of the film’s horror is its depiction of a universal childhood fear shown from an actual child’s perspective. Filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball is tapping into primordial fears that dwell within all of us, using the constraints of his very modest budget to heighten the atmosphere of dread across its extended run time. The film is certainly too long for its narrow scope coming in at 100 minutes, but when Skinamarink is working, it is one of the most effective horror experiences in years.
Its central set piece, which involves Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) going upstairs into her parent’s room, is one of the most haunting film sequences in years. After 40 minutes of atmospheric buildup, completely unsure of where we are being led, you will be wishing to return to watching cartoons downstairs and staring at Legos. The extended long take in this scene ratchets up the tension to a boiling point, with your palms a sweating mess in a sequence that seemingly goes for eternity. This is no doubt the peak of the film, with only smaller moments in the proceeding hour that match its tension and atmosphere. Structurally, Skinamarink could’ve taken some notes from its predecessors Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch Project (1999), by peaking in its final moments, but the atmosphere is definitely more of the Ball’s focus than the bigger scares the film has. Unfortunately, this makes the film drag in its second half, even for a great lover of durational cinema as I am.
3. One Cut of the Dead(2017)
An ingenious adrenaline shot in the arm of the zombie horror genre desperately at the tail end of the 2010s, Shin’ichirô Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead may never terrify you, but it will have you in hysterics on the floor. With a unique format with its 40-minute intentionally sloppy long take to begin the film, unfolding into a hysterical love letter to independent filmmaking that is as sharp in its cinema satire as The Player (1992).
2. Flux Gourmet(2022)
The world of sonic caterers, a fascinating and beguiling location for the new film by the great filmmaker Peter Strickland, is full of deeply flawed but fascinating characters that potently satirise modern art collectives, musicians, and gastronomical cuisine inside of a wildly satisfying feature. With terrific performances from Gwendoline Christie (and her wardrobe), Asa Butterfield, and Fatma Mohamed, Flux Gourmet will floor you with its audacity and style that is merely the coating to a terrifically detailed and well-drawn world you’ll never question the validity of.
Viewing this world predominantly through the eyes of Stones (Makis Papadimitriou), a Greek hack writer just trying to make a living whilst wholly focusing his writing on his flatulence issues is a hilarious throughline that arrives at a chaotic conclusion you cannot predict. Strickland forces you to remain present within his films through the sheer force of unpredictability that is a defining feature of all great thrillers and horrors.
The wonderful combination of evocative culinary insert shots, mixed in with copious levels of guitar and synth pedals used by the performers (a flanger is a key plot point), realises Strickland’s uniquely bizarre world from the inside out. We are grounded in a story so fully realised, the comedy cannot help but ooze out of every orifice. This film was designed in a gastronomy lab to cater to my tastes and interests, but Strickland’s pure style and chops mean Flux Gourmet caters to all diets.
1. Saloum(2021)
A wonderfully wild and propulsive genre mashup of supernatural horror, revenge western, and mercenary action cinema, Saloum tops this list through its confident filmmaking by Jean Luc Herbulot and a trio of powerful performances, headed by Yann Gael who in a just world would be a certain star.
In a nimble 84 minutes, we track the journey of a trio of mercenaries escaping a coup in Guinea-Bissau, making a forced landing in a small community on the Saloum river in Senegal. Herbulot is able to shift style every scene while maintaining a guile and confidence that the destination will be worth the wildly entertaining journey. You will be begging for this tight indie feature to be expanded into a multi film series through the power and style of Herbulot’s craft and world-building, layered on a truly stellar cast that’ll you’ll never want to leave. This is the must watch original film on Shudder right now.
Arnie, Darcy and Tom recap the 95th Academy Awards, including everything from Ke Huy Quan’s extraordinary journey to win the Best Supporting Actor award; his fellow cast member Michelle Yeoh’s Best Actress win; the biggest winner of the night in Everything Everywhere All At Once; All Quiet on the Western Front‘s underdog wins; and Brendan Fraser’s Best Actor win to cap off his run of wins — we have it all.
Early contender for the strangest and most fun internet explosion curio in film circles of the year, Skinamarink (2022) is an atmospheric, extremely lo-fi creepypasta horror seemingly born out of a haunted VHS tape. This may be the hardest film to have a blanket recommendation for due to its upsetting atmosphere centred around young children, durational cinema tendencies, and an active refusal to follow cinematic conventions that will annoy many audiences. It may be easier to recommend Skinamarink to lovers of Apichatpong Weerasethakul or Chantal Ackerman films than horror fanatics looking for a low-budget thrill, a place I sit on both ends of.
The filmmaker, Kyle Edward Ball, has been making horror short films for years based on user-submitted stories about their nightmares on YouTube. There is a simplistic effectiveness to many of these videos, with a certain aesthetic formed that grew into Ball’s debut feature, Skinamarink.
Set one night in a family home, Skinamarink follows two young children, Kevin (Lucas Paul) and Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault), who have seemingly been abandoned one night as their father disappears without a sound. This childhood nightmare of abandonment is immediately heightened as the doors and windows to their home also begin to disappear, and there is a distorted voice seemingly coming from upstairs beckoning them.
The effectiveness of the film’s horror is its depiction of a universal childhood fear shown from an actual child’s perspective. Ball is tapping into primordial fears that dwell within all of us, using the constraints of his very modest budget to heighten the atmosphere of dread across its extended run time. The film is certainly too long for its narrow scope coming in at 100 minutes, but when Skinamarink is working, it is one of the most effective horror experiences in years.
Kevin (Lucas Paul) in Skinamarink. Photo Credit: Shudder
What has allowed Skinamarink to explode as a curio of indie horror cinema (including several in-demand screenings at The Astor Theatre and Palace Cinemas) is its experiential, durational cinema-styled horror that has a clear lineage in the genre, whilst feeling entirely new. Think Paranormal Activity (2007) but with actual aesthetic choices and storytelling ideas. Those films had some good scares scattered throughout the franchise, but the flat filmmaking in the name of realism makes them a chore to get through. The mixture of base human fears with an individual cinematic style that heightens digital noise and extremely low lighting, allows Skinamarink to feel familiar yet new, creating a deceptively compelling horror.
Its weaponisation of digital distortion is pretty special while still feeling familiar, turning one of indie cinema’s biggest issues (access to only cheap equipment), into its greatest strength. At its strongest moments, Skinamarink will have you questioning your own eyes, not sure if you’re seeing something that is not there or if Ball is manipulating everything on screen. Establishing an off-kilter immersion from the outset allows you to never be sure of that answer, drawing you further into each scene and the encroaching feeling of dread.
Ball gives us just enough narrative to get a sense of the family dynamic here before this fateful night. In a film centred around parental control, beginning with the four-year-old child Kevin apparently falling down the stairs (an act, like many in the film, we do not see but only hear) sets an early tone and has us questioning the children’s parents. The oldest child, six-year-old Kaylee, not wanting to speak to the mother further layers the themes of domestic issues and how they play a role in our childhood fears. In a regular horror film, a disembodied voice beckoning you to “come upstairs” would regularly have you questioning why our young protagonist would do such a thing, but here, we have an understanding about the likelihood this situation isn’t too far removed from their previous experience.
Photo Credit: Shudder
Its central set piece, which involves Kaylee going upstairs into her parent’s room, is one of the most haunting film sequences in years. After 40 minutes of atmospheric buildup, completely unsure of where we are being led, you will be wishing to return to watching cartoons downstairs and staring at Legos. The extended long take in this scene ratchets up the tension to a boiling point, with your palms a sweating mess in a sequence that seemingly goes for eternity. This is no doubt the peak of the film, with only smaller moments in the proceeding hour that match its tension and atmosphere. Structurally, Skinamarink could’ve taken some notes from its predecessors Paranormal Activity and Blair Witch Project (1999), by peaking in its final moments, but the atmosphere is definitely more of the Ball’s focus than the bigger scares the film has. Unfortunately, this makes the film drag in its second half, even for a great lover of durational cinema as I am.
A film sure to annoy and entice in equal measure, Skinamarink is a curious and mostly effective piece of atmospheric horror filmmaking from an interesting internet-focused filmmaker that is able to use his constraints to his advantage. Whilst not of the same quality as The Blair Witch Project, or the level of engagement culturally so far, Skinamarink is a more interesting and worthwhile horror experience than almost any found footage-style films in the genre.
With films returning to their native home of the theatre, 2022 delivered an interesting year of releases. Returning to some sort of cinema normalcy, even if the industry has been quite radically changed by Covid, the year has been full of quality films, including a large suite of self-reflexive stories from filmmakers old and new, to surprising and uber-entertaining box office hits, and the return to form for some incredible directors.
My 2022 list is surprisingly different to my most anticipated list from March, with Nope being on both lists, as my favourite works of the year came from unexpected places. This list includes two debut features (Hit the Road, Aftersun), a film from a filmmaker I’ve struggled with in the past (Armageddon Time), and a filmmaking blindspot I need immediately filled (Tár). While no five-star classics exist in this year of film, an impressive level of depth made this a difficult list to order and will no doubt change years from now. But for now, here is my list of the best films of 2022.
10. Hit the Road
A cheeky but politically and thematically resonant road trip dramedy of a young Iranian family attempting to smuggle their son out of the country to avoid military duty.
Panah Panahi, son of legendary filmmaker Jafar Panahi, is no stranger to the industry, but what he is still able to achieve on a debut feature is remarkable. Weaving in a deft political statement with a director well aware of where he is crafting his films, Hit the Road is elevated by a delightful and emotive family ensemble, centred by a lightning rod performance by Rayan Sarlak as the little brother.
9. Moonage Daydream
Filmmaker Brett Morgen, known for his wonderful 2015 documentary, Cobain: A Montage of Heck, declared this an experience about Bowie, not a biography of David Jones, and he truly delivered on this promise. Moonage Daydream (2022) is a deeply arresting piece of nonfiction cinema that operates as a mood piece that will be put up next to the very best in the genre.
The film weaponises its breathless propulsion in sly and interesting ways that sneaks up on you emotionally, much like Bowie’s very best work. It takes time to show its form to you, but once it does its effect is moving and profound. Morgen found something deeply relatable in his pursuit of capturing the figure of Bowie on film, unveiling a beautiful portrait of isolation for an artist that created community, showing us an image of the chameleonic legend that you won’t soon forget.
8. Broker
A master of humanist cinema, Hirokazo Kore-eda has crafted his most challenging makeshift family yet. Following a duo of child brokers of babies left at the local church’s baby box, Broker is complicated but deeply enriching in its portrayal of morality in the greyest of areas. Not of the same quality as Kore-eda’s Japan set masterpieces After Life (1999) and Shoplifters (2017), but is still one of the year’s best.
7. Nope
The film that grew on me the most this year. Peele has crafted a deeply engaging and entertaining riot of a sci-fi, Hollywood western that breezes through its first two acts to crescendo at a massive final act with a truly unique antagonist. While the film does lack in character work, its wielding of spectacle while also throwing those audience compulsions back in our faces is extraordinary, and is a brilliant use of the massive studio budget Peele is able to receive for these original stories.
6. Armageddon Time
Armageddon Time is emotionally devastating in ways that evolve beautifully over time, lingering long in the heart like a critical memory. What allows the emotion to thrive is the outstanding cast that could all individually contend come awards season. A gorgeous ensemble that introduced layers of nuance and understanding to each character over the runtime, highlighted by Banks Repeta and Anthony Hopkins.
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once
Floating along a constant stream of intertextuality, self-referentiality, and reverence to the films that paved the way to gift this film into audiences’ laps—The Matrix (1999), In The Mood for Love (2000), any Charlie Kaufman film—Everything Everywhere feels like a cinematic miracle that is at risk of breaking at any point.
Everything Everywhere is a technical marvel of small-budget filmmaking, from its mind-blowing costume and production design to its sound design and visual effects, but the real hero of the film is editor Paul Rogers. Rogers’ work here is nothing short of miraculous. Tasked with building a feverish momentum for over two hours while having each individual emotional moment land with as much impact as each comedic or absurdist one. Rogers moulds the filmmaking duo’s creative madness into a deeply resonant and enjoyable work, not just another overly ambitious indie that feels more like a creative dare than a work of art with deep truths. Don’t take for granted what an achievement this film is.
4. Aftersun
The debut feature of the year (in a uniquely stacked debutant class), Charlotte Wells’ memory drama of a young father bringing his 12-year-old daughter on a holiday to Turkey is so beautifully crafted, teeming with empathy and respect for the perspectives of both individuals’ experiences. Paul Mescal is enthralling in the year’s best performance as Calum, a tortured bird that must force himself to put up a front to protect his daughter. There are some ideas explored in Aftersun, like the fear of parents with mental illnesses handing it down somehow to their child, that will obliterate you. Wells wields a flexible script that is explored with care and restraint that is extraordinary for a first-time feature filmmaker, making her the director to watch in the next few years.
3. The Fabelmans
Spielberg’s whole heart is on the screen, warts and all. What makes The Fabelmans succeed is its lack of pure saccharine while still maintaining his signature warmth. The power of Spielberg’s clear-eyed and impassioned filmmaking, mixed with Kushner’s deft hand at profound characterisation, allows the audience to see themselves in every character. This is as much a film about Mitzi and Burt as it is about Sammy, with Kushner able to establish an extraordinary amount of emotional depth out of these personal stories for Spielberg whilst never feeling overly soft or cruel to their lives.
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
A densely compacted fable on friendship, breakups, art, passions, and how one chooses to spend a life, that is never less than wonderfully entertaining. A brilliant balancing act that consistently grounds itself in the earth of its characters, never allowing its more ethereal themes to float into wistful abstraction. McDonagh is at the top of his game both as a writer and director here, allowing the non-dialogue-heavy moments to shine as much as the musicality of his feckin’ barbs.
McDonagh has grown exponentially as a visual storyteller, allowing his sharp pen to relax and using the other aspects of cinema to communicate his themes and ideas in deeply rewarding ways.
1. Tár
In a year without a true five-star film, several films on this list could have made it to number one, and perhaps in a couple years this order will change, but as of posting, this film has a way of burrowing into my subconscious and bubbling up every other day. American films just aren’t like this anymore. A provocative thriller that has no easy answers that will have you enthralled over its long but rewarding 158-minute runtime.
Todd Field returns after a 16-year absence from the cinema with the year’s best film about a deeply flawed figure that’s warts are shown under a fierce precision, never allowing a scene to end with an easy answer. Tár is a tangled web of clashing ideas that have sparked some of the best film writing around an American film in who knows how long. Field has crafted a film of ideas that gives nothing to the audience easily, but rewards all who view this strange and entrancing object.
Tony Gilroy described the film as “hard and perfect on the outside. Mayhem brewing within. Masterwork.” These competing forces of interiority and external poise are the powerful tempest that builds throughout Tár, creating a singular viewing experience, and one of the year’s best films.
Honourable Mentions: After Yang, Barbarian, Crimes of the Future, Kimi, Top Gun:Maverick, RRR, The Northman, and Lingui
Rating Frames 