The Film Stage

Perspective is everything in Beth de Araújo’s Josephine, a stomach-churning drama focused on the loss of innocence and the ill-equipped guidance—both parental and bureaucratic—that can compound enduring trauma. We first meet eight-year-old Josephine (Mason Reeves, in a remarkable debut performance)...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 NYFF coverage. The Love That Remains opens in theaters on January 30. Hlynur Pálmason’s fourth feature marks a soft, Malickian left turn for the man behind the icy-bleak dramas...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 Cannes coverage. A Poet opens in theaters on January 30. Far removed from the mournful yearnings of A Quiet Passion––much less the quotidian, calming rhythms of Paterson––Simón Mesa Soto’s...

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 Berlinale coverage. Islands opens in theaters on January 30. Sam Riley stars as Tom, a washed-up tennis-pro-turned-coach at a luxury island hotel on the Canary Islands, in Islands, the...

The extended opening of The Incomer, written and directed by Louis Paxton, is very funny and engaging. That the film never reaches those heights again is something of an indictment. Far away and remote on a lonely, lovely Scottish isle,...

undertone (stylized all-lowercase) writer-director Ian Tuason staged his debut feature entirely in his Toronto childhood home with only two on-screen actors, with the other performances playing out in audio form only. After a Fantasia premiere last summer nabbed it an...

The best thing about Brydie O’Connor’s documentary Barbara Forever is how it functions an interesting, engaging movie on its own terms. It concerns the life of filmmaker Barbara Hammer, a pioneer of queer cinema and larger, cultural queer identity. And...

Since taking his debut feature Winter Brothers to the Locarno Film Festival in 2017, Hlynur Pálmason has gradually made his name as one of Europe’s most eclectic and exciting filmmakers. The Icelandic director’s four features to date have each used...

Nearly all of Hong Sangsoo’s films are funny—Funny Ha Ha does what it says on the tin—but it’s been a moment since the man released a proper comedy. This made word of last year’s debut What Does That Nature Say...

The thing about New York City is: it’s never as good as it was, yet it’s still better than anywhere else. The only thing constant is change, and the city is a paragon of that fact. There’s a dwindling number...