The Film Stage

Ghost Trail Review: An Engrossing Surveillance Thriller Haunted by the Syrian War 
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Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 Cannes coverage. Ghost Trailer opens in theaters on May 30. The wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated headlines for the past several years, yet receiving relatively little coverage...
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The Best Films of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival
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The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival has now concluded, with Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident taking home the Palme d’Or (see all jury winners here). While our coverage will continue with a few more reviews this...
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Cannes Review: The Chronology of Water is Kristen Stewart’s Elemental Calling Card for Directorial Greatness
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Book adaptations yield two kinds of films: those that transliterate and those that translate. While the former insist on keeping the source material’s spirit at the cost of a rendition so faithful it comes to stage things rigidly, like a...
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Cannes Review: Koji Fukada’s Love on Trial Gracefully Unpacks Idol and Agency
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What is love? For some, it is mutuality––a chemistry, care, and concern that blossoms into an equally supportive relationship. For others, it is devotion––a one-sided, obsessional affection that the lover finds selfless. Japanese idol group Happy Fanfare sing about love,...
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Cannes Review: In Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Crime is a Losing Game
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For the second time in three years, Cannes’ competition ends with a film in which Josh O’Connor plays a scruffy, late-20th-century man with some knack for pinching masterpieces. Following (spiritually or otherwise) Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera is Kelly Reichardt’s The...
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Cannes Review: Sylvain Chomet’s A Magnificent Life is a Saccharine Tribute to Marcel Pagnol
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It’s common for a successful artist to be asked about advice they’d give their younger self; one film from this year’s Cannes Specials selection does the opposite. In Sylvain Chomet’s animation A Magnificent Life, French playwright, filmmaker, and inventor Marcel...
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Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident Wins Palme d’Or; See Full List of Cannes 2025 Winners
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Juliette Binoche’s Cannes jury has unveiled their winners for this year’s edition, awarding the Palme d’Or to Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, marking NEON’s sixth Palme in a row. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value picked up the Grand Prize...
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The B-Side Ep. 162 – Clint Eastwood (with Mitchell Beaupre)
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Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.  Today we discuss Clint Eastwood, the director and the movie star....
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Cannes Review: Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a Triumph of Sheer Audacity and Exceptional Craft
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Few filmmakers with just two features under their belt can amass the passionate, cinephilic following of Bi Gan. His blend of surrealist storytelling, ultra-realist aesthetics, and a trippy play with time transforms rural China into a place of hypnotic beauty....
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New to Streaming: Vermiglio, Mickey 17, The Legend of Ochi, The Black Sea & More
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Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here. The Black Sea (Crystal Moselle and Derrick B. Harden) For most of its runtime,...
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