10. “Resurrection”
Inspired by the first 100 years of modern cinema, Bi Gan’s epic fantasy transpires over six distinct stories. The Chinese filmmaker works with his longtime cinematographer, Dong Jingsong, and production designers Tu Nan and Liu Qiang to fashion what seems like an endless avalanche of jaw-dropping worlds and images. Gan is aided by actor Jackson Yee, who plays five different, distinct characters, and Li Gengxi, who is utterly magnetic in an incredible chapter set on New Year’s Eve in 1999. The entire endeavor is so transfixing, so mesmerizing, that its 2-hour and 40-minute runtime will fly by like a dream. – GE [read our review]
9. “Sinners”
Horny, rowdy, and ferocious, Ryan Coogler’s 1932 Mississippi vampire epic plays like blaxploitation grindhouse turned prestige knockout—visually dazzling, perfectly lurid, unapologetically sexual, and still loaded with history. Michael B. Jordan anchors it in dual roles as twin brothers returning home, hoping to outrun their past, only to find a supernatural evil waiting to claim the town. Around him, Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O’Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, and Delroy Lindo form a full community chorus, each embodying a different survival strategy in a world built on extraction. Shot by Autumn Durald Arkapaw, the heat feels like pressure and the night feels like temptation; Ludwig Göransson’s score seduces and threatens at once, turning music into a spell. On the surface, it’s a rip-roaring good time—sweaty, bloody, grotesque, frequently hilarious in its nerve—but what it’s really doing is using vampirism as metaphor: who feeds, who gets fed on, who gets to rewrite the story afterward. Coogler controls tension like a master, letting laughs curdle into dread, and delivering catharsis without sanding down the rage. It’s a wildly ambitious meditation on American sin that never forgets to be a blast. – RP [read our review]
8. “The Secret Agent”
Set in 1977, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s thriller uses the backdrop of the Brazilian military dictatorship to chronicle the journey of a man who returns to his home city, Recife, attempting to outsmart the hitmen hired to kill him. As Armando (Wagner Moura) lives undercover temporarily, Mendonça opens the viewers’ eyes to the political refugees hiding in plain sight and introduces urban legends, such as “The Hairy Leg,” a mechanism for the press to report harassment in the city. Moura will joke that most viewers won’t know what’s truly going on for the first 90 minutes, but when Mendonça’s vision hits, it hits. And the epilogue afterward is more heartbreaking than you’d ever imagine. Notably, the film is so remarkable that it achieved a rare feat by winning two awards at the Cannes Film Festival. In this case, Best Director and Best Actor.– GE [read our review]
7. “Sirat”
Oliver Laxe’s masterpiece, at least in this critic’s opinion, begins with a father, Luis (Sergi López), and his young son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), arriving at a massive rave in Morocco. Seemingly out of place, Luis has journeyed across the Mediterranean to search for his adult daughter, who has been unreachable for months. When world events force the rave to end early, Luis and Esteban follow a chosen family of ravers across the desert in hopes of finding his daughter at another dance party deeper in the continent. Laxe collaborates with cinematographer Mauro Herce, production designer Laia Ateca, and composer Kangding Ray for a both rapturous and terrifying journey across purgatory. Laxe confronts the fragility of human existence with thunderbolts of Ray’s electronic score and the stark imagery of the Northern African desert. Nothing can prepare you for what Laxe has waiting for you during “Sirat.” Nothing. – GE [read our review]
6. “Sentimental Value”
Family is the four-letter word that never stops echoing—the scar of resentment that sits there like an injury that refuses to heal—and Joachim Trier turns that pain into something funny, melancholic, alive, bruising, and quietly unforgettable. Two sisters reunite with their estranged father, a once-renowned director who offers Nora the lead in his comeback film; when she refuses, he casts a young Hollywood star instead, and the old wounds begin to reopen. Renate Reinsve is astonishing again, those micro-expressions doing whole paragraphs of unsaid history, while Stellan Skarsgård is the GOAT as Gustav—equal parts charm and damage, a man who confuses artistry with absolution and wants his work to retroactively fix what he broke. The quiet revelation is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, luminous and grounding, and Elle Fanning, even in a smaller supporting role, reminds you why she’s one of the best actors of her generation, playing the American star not as a punchline but as a person with her own hunger and vulnerability. Trier’s great trick is emotional intelligence without exposition: he leaves you to intuit what isn’t said, letting subtle expressions carry the weight, and the family home itself becomes a living, breathing character—“sentimental value” as both comfort and curse, a witness to decades of heartbreak. The result is a disarmingly mature exploration of art versus connection, and it lands with that unmistakable Trier sting: you laugh, you ache, and you still feel the tenderness underneath. – RP [read our review]
