Back from the Croisette, Ella Kemp and her 2024 Cannes team have selected the cream of the crop to add to your watchlists, including an animated cat, an award-winning dog and an auspicious Bird. 6bd1z

Read more about our crew’s picks on Journal.

• All We Imagine as Light
• Flow
• Việt and Nam
• The Apprentice
• Anora
• Oh, Canada
• Julie Keeps Quiet
• Black Dog
• Emilia Pérez
• Bird

The full programme for the 2024 Sydney Film Festival, which takes place in Sydney, Australia, June 5 — 16.

Follow the Sydney Film Festival on Letterboxd and visit the festival’s website to book tickets.

• 200% Wolf
• About Dry Grasses
• Achilles
• Afterwar
• Agent of Happiness
• Alienoid
• Alienoid: Return to the Future
• All Shall Be Well
• All We Imagine as Light
• Among the Wolves

...plus 137 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The 25 most divisive Palme d’Or winners at the Cannes Film Festival as of May 14, 2024 (excluding films below 1,000 ratings). See the full list of the 100 Palme d’Or winners here.

1. Blue Is the Warmest Color
2. The Tree of Life
3. The Knack... and How to Get It
4. Titane
5. Elephant
6. Under the Sun of Satan
7. M*A*S*H
8. Blow-Up
9. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
10. Dumbo

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The 25 highest-rated underseen (under 25k watches) Palme d’Or winners at the Cannes Film Festival as of May 10, 2024. See the full list of the 100 Palme d’Or winners here.

1. The Given Word
2. The Tree of Wooden Clogs
3. The Ballad of Narayama
4. The Working Class Goes to Heaven
5. The Road
6. A Man and a Woman
7. Miracle in Milan
8. The Child
9. Pelle the Conqueror
10. The Mattei Affair

...plus 15 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The lineup for the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival, taking place in Cannes, from 14 to 25 May 2024, with thanks to Sean Liu for the original list.

Films are listed in the following order:
1: Opening Film
In Competition: 2-23
Un Certain Regard: 24-42
Cannes Premiere: 43-49
Out of Competition: 1, 50-54
Special Screening: 55-63
Midnight Screening: 64-67
: Closing Film

Critic’s Week
68: Opening Film
In Competition: 69-75
Special Screening: 68, 76-78
78: Closing Film

Director’s Fortnight: 79-100
Opening Film: 79
Special Screening: 100
Closing Film: 99

ACID: 101-109

Cannes Classics
Reminder!: 110
Events: 111-118
Documentaries: 119-120
Restored Prints: 121-132

Cinema de la Plage: 133-136
Screening for Young Audiences: 137-138

1. The Second Act
2. The Apprentice
3. Motel Destino
4. Bird
5. Emilia Pérez
6. Anora
7. Megalopolis
8. The Shrouds
9. The Substance
10. Grand Tour

...plus 128 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team’s highlights from the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, as selected by our correspondents Alejandra Martinez, Annie Lyons, Katie Rife and Jenni Kaye.

Read more about why these features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Dead Mail
• Desert Road
• Doin' It
• The Fall Guy
• The Idea of You
• The In Between
• Magpie
• Monkey Man
• A Nice Indian Boy
• Oddity

Every film playing at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, taking place from March 9 to 16 in Austin, Texas.

Headliners: 1-7
Narrative Competition: 8-15
Documentary Competiton: 16-23
Narrative Spotlight: 24-44
Documentary Spotlight: 45-65
Midnighters: 66 - 73
Visions: 74 -82
24 Beats Per Second : 83 - 92
Global : 93 - 97
Festival Favorites : 98 - 113
Narrative Short Competition : 114 - 134
Documentary Short Competition : 135 - 148
Animated Short Competition : 149 - 158

Our thanks to Alan French for creating the original version of this list.

1. Babes
2. The Idea of You
3. Immaculate
4. The Fall Guy
5. Monkey Man
6. Road House
7. Y2K
8. Audrey
9. Ben and Suzanne, a Reunion in 4 Parts
10. The Black Sea

...plus 148 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team’s highlights from the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, as selected by our correspondents Adesola Thomas, Alejandra Martinez, Katie Rife, Mitchell Beaupre, Rafa Sales Ross and Leo Koziol.

Read more about why these features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Between the Temples
• Daughters
• Freaky Tales
• Good One
• I Saw the TV Glow
• The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
• In a Violent Nature
• Kneecap
• Love Lies Bleeding
• Malu

...plus 6 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

In A Violent Nature is nothing less than a complete re-conception of the slasher movie, a film that takes the subgenre’s well-established tropes and looks at them from a fresh point of view. First of all, most of the story is told from the perspective of our villain, undead masked killer Johnny. But In A Violent Nature also reimagines the style and structure of a slasher movie, placing arthouse influences alongside gory kills.

After the film’s Sundance premiere, writer-director Chris Nash has shared with Letterboxd a list of the films that inspired his slasher, and it’s as eclectic as you might expect. Nash’s thoughts on each title are included in the notes.

In a Violent Nature will release later this year from IFC Films and Shudder.

• Gerry

  Note for Gerry, Elephant and Last Days:

  I was still in school when these films were released, and it was a very influential time for me as a wannabe filmmaker. Although I grew up deeply entrenched in genre cinema, I still had an appreciation for the cinema as a whole. However, growing up in rural Northern Ontario, I didn’t have access to a lot of avant garde/indie cinema. So the deliberate and methodical pacing of these films, in which the audience is invited to follow and observe the characters as they casually interact through their specific environments—whether that be a sand desert, high school, or aged Victorian country home—was revolutionary for my understanding of what filmmaking and cinema could be at the time. I wondered if genre cinema could use the same style and techniques of these films, and what that would look like—and that birthed the initial ideas of In a Violent Nature.

• Elephant
• Last Days
• Elephant

  This movie feels like a 40-minute gut punch. The mechanical sterility through which Alan Clarke has us follow a series of complete strangers through lengthy stretches on their way to kill other (seemingly) complete strangers feels just as powerful today as it must have felt when it aired on television (!) in 1989. The viewer isn’t given any reason for these murders to hang their hat on, which makes the acts sit even more unsettled in their stomachs. And we did our best to approach Johnny’s kills with this same forced detachment.

• Angst

  Early on, when I sat down with my producers to talk about our thematic approach to In a Violent Nature, Angst was a premiere influence. As we follow the protagonist through his day, picking off people one by one, we get the feeling that we might as well be watching a letter carrier deliver mail. He kills as if it’s his job. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself, and the audience shouldn’t feel sorry for him, either. Although we did include a moment that could be considered the briefest flutter of pathos, this was broadly how we conceived of Johnny in our film.

  Much like the protagonist in Angst, we didn’t want to create any sympathy for our murderer, Johnny. Although we stick with this character for the vast majority of the film, we are never meant to root for him or feel sorry for him. He’s not misunderstood. He’s not Frankenstein’s monster. He’s just a monster.

• Friday the 13th

  Note for Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives:

  Growing up a genre kid, it goes without saying that In a Violent Nature was influenced by the Friday the 13th series as a whole, especially in its iconography. However, if I were to pick two films out of the series that act as stand-outs, they would be Part 1, which introduces us to the core series concept of campers in the woods getting picked-off one by one, and Part 6, which introduces us to zombie Jason. And zombie Jason is the most fun Jason.

• Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
• Long Weekend

  From the beginning we thought of our slasher, Johnny, to be a force of nature. He’s almost a reverse Golem—instead of being a monster created out of the earth to act as a tool for man’s revenge, Johnny is a monster created out of man for nature’s revenge. And Colin Eggleston’s Long Weekend is my favorite “nature’s revenge” film, hands down. I was directly influenced by the sequence of the characters in Long Weekend “escaping” the woods at night when I conceived of what could be considered the “final girl escape” near the last act of In a Violent Nature.

• Rituals

  Lately there’s been a lot more film production taking place in my region of Northern Ontario, but, back when I was growing up, that wasn’t the case. Movies shot in my neck of the woods were few and far between—however, Peter Carter’s Rituals was one of them. Generally considered to be a Deliverance ripoff (and it isn’t not a Deliverance ripoff), Rituals was shot in the same forests where we shot our film. While greatly different in tone, since it’s also a film about a “monster-man” hunting people through the Northern Ontario wilderness, it was impossible not to think of Rituals while we were getting devoured by mosquitoes and black flies shooting our movie.

Films playing at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival, taking place February 15–25.

1: Opening Film
1-20: In Competition
21-35: Encounters
36-65: Panorama
66-82: Generation 14plus
83-99: Generation Kplus
100-129: Forum
130-148: Forum Expanded
149-162: Forum Special
163-175: Berlinale Special
176-182: Berlinale Special Gala
183: Homage
184-205: Retrospective
206-216: Berlinale Classics

Our thanks to Sean Liu for creating the original version of the list.

1. Small Things Like These
2. Another End
3. Architecton
4. Black Tea
5. La Cocina
6. Dahomey
7. A Different Man
8. The Empire
9. Gloria!
10. Suspended Time

...plus 206 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films screening at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, taking place in Utah from January 18–28.

Official Selection:
1-10 | U.S. Dramatic Competition
11-20 | U.S. Documentary Competition
21-30 | World Dramatic Competition
31-40 | World Cinema Documentary Competition
41-46 | NEXT
47-66 | Premieres
67-74 | Midnight
75-76 | Episodic
77-80 | Spotlight
81-82 | Family Matinee
83 | Special Screenings
84-85 | New Frontier

1. Between the Temples
2. Dìdi (弟弟)
3. Exhibiting Forgiveness
4. Good One
5. In the Summers
6. Love Me
7. Ponyboi
8. A Real Pain
9. Stress Positions
10. Suncoast

...plus 72 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Presenting our twenty of the best of the 2023 fall film festivals. Read more about our choices and Letterboxd member reactions on Journal.

Selected by Letterboxd correspondents Kambole Campbell, George Fenwick, John Forde, Brian Formo, Gemma Gracewood, Ella Kemp, Leo Koziol, Katie Rife, Rafa Sales Ross and Adesola Thomas at festivals including Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, London, Austin and Beyond. 

• All of Us Strangers
• American Fiction
• The Beast
• The Boy and the Heron
• Evil Does Not Exist
• Fingernails
• His Three Daughters
• Hit Man
• Housekeeping for Beginners
• Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All the films playing at the 2023 AFI Fest, taking place in LA from October 25–29.

Our thanks to Tom for creating the original version of this list.

• Leave the World Behind
• Maestro
• Maxine's Baby: The Tyler Perry Story
• Albert Brooks: Defending My Life
• All of Us Strangers
• American Fiction
• The Bikeriders
• The End We Start From
• Fingernails
• Freud's Last Session

...plus 130 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Official lineup for Beyond Fest 2023, taking place in Los Angeles from September 26—October 9.

• The Creator
• Kill
• The Royal Hotel
• The Abyss
• Crash
• Spooktacular!
• Manhunter
• Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life Of Cliff Twemlow
• Caligula: The Ultimate Cut
• Enter the Clones of Bruce

...plus 46 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The official lineup for Fantastic Fest 2023, taking place from September 21—September 28 in Austin, Texas.

Thanks to chrishelgie for creating the original version of this list.

• 100 Yards
• Acid
• The All Golden
• The Altman Method
• The Animal Kingdom
• Animalia
• Baby Assassins 2
• Bark
• Blonde Death
• Blood Diner

...plus 148 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The official lineup for the 2023 New York Film Festival, taking place from September 29—October 15.

Follow Film at Lincoln Center on their Letterboxd HQ.

• May December
• Priscilla
• Ferrari
• About Dry Grasses
• All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
• All of Us Strangers
• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Beast
• La Chimera
• Close Your Eyes

...plus 92 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Our Festiville team’s ten picks of the best films seen at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival, held in Montréal, Canada, in July 2023.

Read more on Journal .

• Aporia
• Booger
• Divinity Gratis
• Femme
• Hippo
• New Life
• Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls
• River
• Sweet Tooth
• T Blockers

The official lineup for the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, taking place September 7—17.

Be sure to follow TIFF on their Letterboxd HQ.

• The Boy and the Heron
• Next Goal Wins
• Les Indésirables
• Seven Veils
• Concrete Utopia
• Dumb Money
• Fair Play
• Flora and Son
• Lee
• The End We Start From

...plus 170 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The official lineup for the 2023 Venice Film Festival, taking place from August 30—September 9.

Thanks to Sean Liu for creating the original version of this list.

1. The Commander
2. El Conde
3. Ferrari
4. Dogman
5. The Promised Land
6. Poor Things
7. Finally Dawn
8. Adagio
9. Maestro
10. The Universal Theory

...plus 113 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The official lineup for the 2023 EIFF @ Edinburgh International Festival, being held August 18 to 23 in Edinburgh, Scotland. A special edition with a hand-picked selection of cinematic goodness to keep the flame of independent cinema in the city burning bright.

View the program on the EIFF website, and follow their HQ on Letterboxd.

• Silent Roar
• Fremont
• Afire
• Art College 1994
• Choose Irvine Welsh.
• 45th Parallel
• Chuck Chuck Baby
• Femme
• The First Slam Dunk
• Is There Anybody Out There?

...plus 39 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The lineup for the 71st Melbourne International Film Festival, held August 3 to 23, 2023 in cinemas and August 18 to 27, 2023 online. Follow MIFF on Letterboxd.

Short films yet to be added:
Biliminal (dir. Alexandre Pariseau , Francis Drouin); Crushing Season (dir. James Ivor); Development (Dir - Rebecca Metcalf); Earthlings (dir. Jamie Lawrence); Geometry of Faith (dir. Sabina Maselli); Junglefowl (Dir. Kalainithan Kalaichelvan); Recombination (Dir. Julius Horsthuis); The Job (dir. Tatiana Wanda Doroshenko); This Is Not Here (Dir. Charlotte Mungomery); Trial (Dir. CLAUDE , Shin Hyejin). Walking (Dir. Caleb Ribates).

Thanks to Letterboxd member Ash for the original version of this list.

• 20,000 Species of Bees
• 27
• 48 Hours
• Aaaah!
• Abebe – Butterfly Song
• About Dry Grasses
• Absence
• The Adults
• Afire
• After Work

...plus 248 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The lineup for the 2023 edition of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, with thanks to Valentino Lasso for the list.

1-11 Official Competition
12-27 Screenings
28-34 Sneak Peeks
35-45 Contrechamp Films
46-54 Works in Progress
55-65 Open air, Annecy Anime, Classics, Midnight Specials

1. Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds
2. Lonely Castle in the Mirror
3. The Inseparables
4. Four Souls of Coyote
5. The Siren
6. The Inventor
7. Mars Express
8. Art College 1994
9. Kensuke's Kingdom
10. Chicken for Linda!

...plus 57 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The lineup for the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival, taking place in New York from June 7 to 18, 2023. Keep an eye on Journal and our social channels for rolling coverage. With thanks to Bpred for the original list.

1-8: US Narrative Competition
9-16: International Narrative Competition
17-28: Documentary Competition
29-52: Spotlight Narrative
53-78: Spotlight Documentary
79-86 - Spotlight+
87-98 - Viewpoints
99-102 - Midnight
103-107 - Escape from Tribeca
108: Opening Night
109: Centerpiece
110: Closing Night
111-113: Additional Spotlight Documentary

Note: This only contains the feature films that will premiere at Tribeca

Moderate this list

1. Bad Things
2. Cypher
3. The Graduates
4. Lost Soulz
5. Mountains
6. The Secret Art of Human Flight
7. Smoking Tigers
8. Somewhere Quiet
9. Boca Chica
10. Dead Girls Dancing

...plus 103 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films playing at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, taking place from May 16–26.

Our thanks to Sean Liu for creating the original version of this list.

1. Jeanne du Barry
2. Club Zero
3. The Zone of Interest
4. Fallen Leaves
5. Four Daughters
6. Asteroid City
7. Anatomy of a Fall
8. Monster
9. A Brighter Tomorrow
10. La Chimera

...plus 79 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team's top picks from the 30th SXSW Film Festival, as selected by our SXSW correspondents Annie Lyons and Katie Rife.

Read more about why these ten features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Bottoms
• Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
• Down Low
• Evil Dead Rise
• I Used to Be Funny
• Joy Ride
• National Anthem
• Problemista
• Satan Wants You
• The Young Wife

In its 26th year, the New York International Children’s Film Festival (NYICFF) has established itself as a crucial space for the next generation of moviegoers—and moviemakers—to hone their love and understanding of cinema.

As this year’s festival kicks off, taking place from March 3—19, we asked DIrector of Programming Maria Christina Villaseñor to share with us ten films that inspire the programming you’ll find at the fest, which is committed to rich and complex selections for children and adults of all ages.

Here are some words from Villaseñor on the mission of the NYICFF and the titles she shared with us:

“Comic, poignant, unblinkingly honest in their cinematography, illustration, and depiction of kids and coming of age themes, these are some of the films that are my lodestars for curating the annual New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Whether through gut-busting comedy or searing emotionality, these films remind us of the gorgeous brilliance of kids and their exquisite perceptiveness, the diversity of their stories, and the chops that it takes for a director to capture it all with panache.

If you’re into this list, check out our 2023 lineup page on Letterboxd that showcases the next gen of whip smart directors and films across our premiering features slate and Oscar-qualification eligible shorts section. Never grow up. Never stop being curious. Never stop sharing stories that you thought were singular to your kid experience. They’re always plural. And they’re the most important stories to share.”

Check out the list below to see films that inspire the NYICFF’s programming, and then head to their Letterboxd HQ page to see their 2023 lineup.

Tickets are on sale now at NYICFF’s website.

• Alice in the Cities
• Petite Maman
• Moonlight
• Beans
• Boy
• To Be and to Have
• Persepolis
• Mosquita y Mari
• The Spirit of the Beehive
• My Neighbor Totoro

All films playing at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, taking place from February 16—26.

Our thanks to Sean Liu for creating the original version of this list.

1. She Came to Me
2. 20,000 Species of Bees
3. The Shadowless Tower
4. Till the End of the Night
5. BlackBerry
6. Disco Boy
7. The Plough
8. Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert
9. Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything
10. Limbo

...plus 286 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films playing at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival, taking place from March 10—19.

Our thanks to Sean Liu for creating the original version of this list.

1-7: Headliners
8-15: Narrative Feature Competition
16-20: Documentary Feature Competition
21-38: Narrative Spotlight
39-51: Documentary Spotlight
52-59: Midnighters
60-65: Visions
66-68: Global Presented by MUBI
69-71: 24 Beats Per Second
72-86: Festival Favorites

1. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
2. Evil Dead Rise
3. Problemista
4. Flamin' Hot
5. Bottoms
6. Tetris
7. Joy Ride
8. I Used to Be Funny
9. Late Bloomers
10. Mustache

...plus 76 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team’s top ten narrative and top ten documentary features from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, as selected by our correspondents Annie Lyons, Rafa Sales Ross, Gemma Gracewood, Mitchell Beaupre, Adesola Thomas, Leo Koziol, Ella Kemp, Isaac Feldberg and Mia Vicino.

Read more about why these twenty features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
• Cassandro
• ages
• Past Lives
• Shayda
• Slow
• Sometimes I Think About Dying
• A Thousand and One
• You Hurt My Feelings
• Rye Lane

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Sundance Film Festival is back this year in-person and online from January 19–29. We’ve studied the lineup and tapped our sources to collate a preview of fifteen new films and fresh voices the Festiville crew are most eager to hear from. Read more about our pics on Journal, and follow Sundance’s HQ on Letterboxd.

• Magazine Dreams
• Polite Society
• You Hurt My Feelings
• Infinity Pool
• Mami Wata
• Eileen
• Cassandro
• Fancy Dance
• The Tuba Thieves
• Rye Lane

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The lineup for the 39th Sundance Film Festival: January 19 – 29, 2023. (Originally listed by Denis Eremeev.)

Official Selection:
1-12 | U.S. Dramatic Competition
13-24 | World Cinema Dramatic Competition
25-35 | U.S. Documentary Competition
36-47 | World Cinema Documentary Competition
48-56 | NEXT

Out of Competition:
57-70 | Premiers (Narrative)
71-80 | Premiers (Documentary)
81-88 | Midnight
89-91 | Kids
92-94 | New Frontier
95-99 | Spotlight
| Special Screenings

Short Film Program:
| Live-Action Short Films
| Animated Short Films
| Documentary Short Films

Retrospectives:
100-101 | From The Collection
| Special Screenings (Retro)

1. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
2. Sometimes I Think About Dying
3. Mutt
4. A Thousand and One
5. Magazine Dreams
6. Shortcomings
7. The Starling Girl
8. Theater Camp
9. The Accidental Getaway Driver
10. Fair Play

...plus 91 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Donkeys, puppets, conductors, oh my! Our globe-trotting festival squad gives you the highlights of the jam-packed fall season—listed in alphabetical order.

Head to Journal for our full story on the Best of the Fall Fests 2022.

• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Bones and All
• Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline
• I Like Movies
• The Inspection
• Master Gardener
• Saint Omer
• Sanctuary

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Every film from the TIFF 2022 lineup highlighted during Letterboxd editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood’s conversation with TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, Director of Festival Programming and Cinematheque Robyn Citizen, and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery director Rian Johnson.

Read the Journal story with edited highlights from the conversation for more details.

• Emily
• Riceboy Sleeps
• Hawa
• How to Blow Up a Pipeline
• Thunder
• Saint Omer
• Blueback
• Driving Madeleine
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Biosphere

...plus 19 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films screening at the 47th annual Toronto International Film Festival, taking place from September 8–18, 2022.

Secure your ticket package for first-access to the best and buzziest films of the year: tiff.net.

List cloned from TIFF’s Letterboxd HQ.

• Bros
• Glass Onion
• Brother
• On the Come Up
• The Woman King
• My Policeman
• The Fabelmans
• Catherine Called Birdy
• The Swimmers
• Alice, Darling

...plus 226 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films playing at the 79th Venice Film Festival, taking place from August 31—September 10, 2022

Our thanks to nedesi for putting together this list

Opening Movie: White Noise
Closing Movie: The Hanging Sun

Main Competition (1—23)
Out of Competition (Fiction) (24—33)
Out of Competition (Non Fiction) (34—42)
Out of Competition (Series) (43—44)
Out of Competition (Shorts) (45—48)

Orizzonti (49—66)
Orizzonti (Shorts) (67—78)
Orizzonti Extra (79—87)
Biennale College (88—91)

SIC (Film Critics' Week) (92—98)
SIC (Special Events) (99—101)
SIC (Shorts) (102—108)
SIC (Shorts Special Events) (109—110)

Giornate degli Autori (111—121)
Giornate degli Autori (Special Events) (122—126)
Miu Miu Women's Tales (127—128)
Venetian Nights (129—137)

N.B. Premiere status and screening date (for the public) in the notes
WP—World Premiere
IP—Italian Premiere

1. White Noise
2. Lord of the Ants
3. The Whale
4. L'immensità
5. Saint Omer
6. Blonde
7. TÁR
8. Love Life
9. BARDO, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
10. Athena

...plus 127 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Discover the best new films, series and immersive storytelling from around the world in cinemas around the UK 5-16 Oct and on BFI Player until 23 Oct - explore the full programme.

List cloned from the British Film Institute’s HQ page.

• Chile '76
• The African Desperate
• After Sherman
• Aftersun
• Aisha
• Alcarràs
• All That Breathes
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Allelujah
• Argentina 1985

...plus 133 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

We comb through the prestige names and indie sleepers coming to Venice, Toronto, London, Austin and New York, to hone in on our most-anticipated of the 2022 fall film festival season.

Read our crew’s in-depth previews on Journal.

• Blonde
• Women Talking
• Chevalier
• Master Gardener
• Stellar
• The Raid
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• The Fabelmans
• Don't Worry Darling
• Mister Organ

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

All films playing at Fantastic Fest 2022, running from September 22—29 in Austin, Texas.

Our thanks to Bobby Harris for creating the original version of this list.

• 12 Days of Terror
• Aatank
• All Jacked Up and Full of Worms
• Amazing Elisa
• The Antares Paradox
• Attachment
• Bad City
• The Banshees of Inisherin
• Birdemic 3: Sea Eagle
• Bones and All

...plus 75 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Films screening at the 60th New York Film Festival, taking place from September 30—October 16, 2022.

This list will include all sections of this year’s festival as they’re announced to the public. For information regarding es and tickets, click here.

List cloned from Film at Lincoln Center’s Letterboxd HQ.

• Aftersun
• Alcarràs
• All That Breathes
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
• Armageddon Time
• Corsage
• A Couple
• De Humani Corporis Fabrica
• Decision to Leave
• Descendant

...plus 62 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team’s top picks from the 26th Fantasia Film Festival, as selected by our Fantasia correspondents Katie, Aaron and Alicia.

Read more about why these ten features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• All Jacked Up and Full of Worms
• Country Gold
• The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra
• Goodbye, Don Glees!
• Happer's Comet
• The Harbinger
• Mercenaries from Hong Kong
• Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin
• Please Baby Please
• Shin Ultraman

The lineup for the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, with thanks to Sean Liu for compiling the original list.

1-10: US Dramatic Competition
11-20: US Documentary Competition
21-28: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
29-39: World Cinema Documentary Competition
40-46: NEXT
47-67: Premieres
68-72: Midnight
73-77: Spotlight
78-79: Kid
80: Special Screening

1. Alice
2. I'll Be Your Mirror
3. Breaking
4. Cha Cha Real Smooth
5. Dual
6. Emergency
7. Master
8. Nanny
9. Palm Trees and Power Lines
10. Watcher

...plus 70 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The full features lineup for the 26th Fantasia International Film Festival, screening in Montreal from July 14—August 3

• Alienoid
• All Jacked Up and Full of Worms
• Anime Supremacy!
• The Artifice Girl
• Baby Assassins
• Bingo
• Blue Sunshine
• Bodies Bodies Bodies
• The Breach
• Chilli Laugh Story

...plus 126 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team’s top picks from the 21st Tribeca Film Festival, as selected by our Tribeca correspondents Mitchell, Isaac, Annie, Jack and Flynn.

Read more about why these ten features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Butterfly in the Sky
• Don't Make Me Go
• God's Time
• Huesera: The Bone Woman
• The Integrity of Joseph Chambers
• Liquor Store Dreams
• My Love Affair with Marriage
• Nude Tuesday
• Pink Moon
• You Can Live Forever

The Festiville team’s top picks from the 75th Cannes Film Festival, as selected by our Cannes correspondents Ella and Isaac.

Read more about why these ten features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Aftersun
• Armageddon Time
• Broker
• Close
• Crimes of the Future
• Decision to Leave
• Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be
• Moonage Daydream
• Showing Up
• Triangle of Sadness

With thanks to Denis Eremeev for compiling this list and description:

The 21st Tribeca Film Festival: June 8 – 19, 2022. Line-Up:

Official Selection

1-10 | U.S. Narrative Competition
11-20 | International Narrative Competition
21-32 | Documentary Competition

Out of Competition (Highlights)

33-34 | Gala
35-50 | Spotlight Narrative
51-58 | Tribeca Online Premieres: Narrative
59-77 | Spotlight Documentary
78-85 | Tribeca Online Premieres: Documentary

Out of Competition

86-101 | Viewpoints
102-106 | Midnight
107-111 | Tribeca Critics’ Week
112-126 | Movies Plus
| Tribeca X: Features

Short Films Program

127-149 | Shorts Program: Narrative
150-161 | Shorts Program: Documentary
162-168 | Shorts Program: Animation
169-178 | Shorts Program: Music Video
179-204 | Tribeca Online Premieres: Shorts

Retrospectives

205-207 | Midnight (Retro)

TV & NOW

| Tribeca TV:
• Better Call Saul - S6 (cr. Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould / AMC / April 18)
• Menudo: Forever Young (dir. Ángel Manuel Soto / HBO Max / June 23)
• Bridge and Tunnel - S2 (cr. Edward Burns / Epix)
• The Bear (cr. Christopher Storer, Joanna Calo / Hulu)
• A League of Their Own (cr. Abbi Jacobson, Will Graham / Amazon Prime Video)
• Pantheon (cr. Craig Silverstein / AMC+)
• The End is Nye (cr. Brannon Braga, Bill Nye / Peacock)
• Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons (dir. Matt Tyrnauer / Hulu)
• Right to Offend: The Black Comedy Revolution (dir. Mario Diaz, Jessica Sherif / A&E Network)
• ESPN Films Presents: The Captain (dir. Randy Wilkins / ESPN)
• Supreme Team (dir. Peter J. Scaletta, Nasir (Nas) Jones)

Tribeca NOW Showcase:
• The Green Veil (cr. Aram Rappaport)
• My Trip to Spain (cr. Theda Hammel)
• Off Fairfax (cr. Erica Eng)
• Teddy Bear (cr. Sara Shelton)
• Year Zero (cr. Zein Zubi, Billy Silva, Pol Rodriguez, Guille Isa)
• Cannabis Buyers Club (cr. Kip Andersen, Chris O'Connell)
Tribeca X Episodic:

New Media

| Tribeca Immersive: Main Competition:
• Evolver (Marshmallow Laser Feast, Jonny Greenwood, Meredith Monk, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Howard Skempton)
• Intravene (DARKFIELD (David Rosenberg, Glen Neath), Brenda Longfellow & Crackdown)
• Kubo Walks the City (Hayoun Kwon)
• Missing Pictures: Episodes 3 - 5 (Clément Deneux, Joseph Beauregard)
• Mushroom Cloud NYC/ RISE (Nancy Baker Cahill)
• Please, Believe Me (Nonny de la Peña)
• ReachYou (Katrina Goldsaito, Jonah Goldsaito)
• Zanzibar: Trouble in Paradise (Ashraki Mussa Machano, Steven-Charles Jaffe)

| Tribeca Immersive: New Voices Competition:
• Black Movement Library - Movement Portraits (LaJuné McMillian, Manuel Molina Martagon)
• Emerging Radiance: Honoring the Nikkei Farmers of Bellevue
(Tani Ikeda, Michelle Kumata)
• Iago: The Green Eyed Monster (Mary Chieffo, Josh Nelson Youssef, Camila Marturano, Julian Dorado, Kush Mody)
• LGBTQ+ VR Museum (Antonia Forster, Thomas Terkildsen)
• Limbotopia (Wen-Yee Hsieh, Chun-Lien Cheng)
• Mescaform Hill: The Missing Five (Adam Madojemu, Edward Madojemu)
• Planet City VR (Liam Young)
• Plastisapiens (Miri Chekhanovich, Édith Jorisch, Dpt.)
• This is Not a Ceremony (Ahnahktsipiitaa)

| Tribeca Immersive: Best of Season – Out of Competition:
• Container (Simon Wood, Meghna Singh)
• End of Night (David Adler)
• Exhibition A (Allen Baldwin, Nick Hall, Janay Woodruff)
• Glimpse (Benjamin Cleary, Michael O'Connor)

| Games:
• American Arcadia (Out of the Blue Studios / Raw Fury)
• As Dusk Falls (Interior Night / Xbox Game Studios)
• The Cub (Demagog Studio / Untold Tales)
• Cuphead - The Delicious Last Course (Studio MDHR / Studio MDHR)
• Immortality (Half Mermaid Productions / Half Mermaid Productions)
• Oxenfree II: Lost Signals (Night School Studio / Netflix)
• A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asobo Studio / Focus Entertainment)
• Thirsty Suitors (Outerloop Games / Annapurna Interactive)
• Venba (Visai Games / Visai Games)

| Tribeca Audio Storytelling:
• Conference Call (Jeff Ward, Gregory Stees)
• Day By Day (Andre Fuad Degas)
• Divine Intervention (Brendan Hughes)
• The Hollowed Out (Brit and Nick Kewin)
• I Was Never There (Jamie Zelermyer, Karen Zelermyer, Wonder Media Network)
• Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature (Alexander Kemp and Winnie Kemp)
• Mother Country Radicals (Zayd Ayers Dohrn)
• Once Removed (Paul Kruse)
• Radiotopia Presents: My Mother Made Me (Jason Reynolds)
• Vapor Trail (Ken Urban, Knud Adams, Daniel Kluger)
• Mirage Diner (Lauren Shippen)
• The Big Lie (John Mankiewicz)
• The End Up (Will Weggel and Danny Luber)
• Gay Pride & Prejudice (Zackary Grady)
• Stolen (Connie Walker)
• Oprahdemics (Kellie Carter Jackson, Leah Wright Rigueur, Jody Avirgan)

tribecafilm.com

1. The Integrity of Joseph Chambers
2. The Drop
3. Four Samosas
4. Allswell in New York
5. Three Headed Beast
6. God's Time
7. Next Exit
8. The Year Between
9. Wes Is Dying
10. Good Girl Jane

...plus 194 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The feature lineup of the 2022 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, running from May 5—13, 2022. With thanks to cloakofqualia for getting the list started.

1–12: Narrative Features
13–20: Documentary Features
21–26: Special Presentations

1. Arisaka
2. Dawning
3. Dealing with Dad
4. Every Day in Kaimukī
5. Istikhara, New York
6. Leonor Will Never Die
7. Maika: The Girl From Another Galaxy
8. Raydio
9. Stay the Night
10. The Assault

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Our thanks to Sean Liu for compiling the list and keeping it updated.

1: Opening Film / Out of Competition
2-19: In Competition
20-33: Un Certain Regard
34-35: Cannes Premiere
36-40: Out of Competition
41-43: Midnight Screening
44-46 : Special Screening
47-: Not Confirmed

1. Final Cut
2. Holy Spider
3. Forever Young
4. Crimes of the Future
5. Tori and Lokita
6. Stars at Noon
7. Brother and Sister
8. Close
9. Armageddon Time
10. Broker

...plus 89 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team's top picks from the 29th SXSW Film Festival, as selected by our SXSW correspondents Annie, Isaac, Leo and Gemma.

Read more about why these eleven features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
• Bodies Bodies Bodies
• Everything Everywhere All at Once
• It Is in Us All
• Nika
• Slash/Back
• The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
• The Unknown Country
• X
• Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The Festiville team's top picks from the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival, as selected by our Berlinale correspondents Alicia, Leo and Gemma.

Read more about why these eleven features resonated with Letterboxd and our crew.

• Alcarràs
• Before, Now & Then
• The Quiet Girl
• Both Sides of the Blade
• Flux Gourmet
• Stay Awake
• My Small Land
• The engers of the Night
• Rimini
• Robe of Gems

...plus 1 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

The full lineup of the 2022 SXSW Film Festival, running from March 11—20, 2022.

With thanks to Denis Eremeev.

The 29th SXSW Film Festival: March 11 – 20, 2022. Line-Up:

Official Selection

1-8 | Narrative Feature Competition
9-16 | Documentary Feature Competition

Out of Competition

17-21 | Headliners
• Atlanta: Season 3 (cr. Hiro Murai / FX / March 24)
22-31 | Narrative Spotlight
32-50 | Documentary Spotlight
51-58 | Midnighters
59-66 | Visions

Additional Selection

67-82 | 24 Beats Per Second
83-87 | Global
88-98 | Festival Favorites

Short Films Program

99-120 | Narrative Shorts Competition
121-134 | Documentary Shorts Competition
135-146 | Animated Shorts Competition
147-155 | Midnight Shorts
156-163 | Texas Shorts
164-185 | Texas High School Shorts

1. Linoleum
2. Seriously Red
3. Nika
4. Slash/Back
5. A Lot of Nothing
6. I Love My Dad
7. It Is in Us All
8. Soft & Quiet
9. The Pez Outlaw
10. Mama Bears

...plus 174 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Ahead of this year’s Cannes, Rafa Sales Ross curated nine films to keep an eye on at the Croisette, including a tropical noir, a Céline Sciamma script and new dramas starring Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi and Barry Keoghan.

With several strands in its official selection plus a handful of parallel sidebars, it can be hard to keep track of all the films that kick-start their festival journeys on the Croisette.

In between packing her bags and anxiously dwelling on schedules, Rafa Sales Ross brings you a list of some of the films we are most excited to see at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival this year. Read more on Journal.

Our Cannes correspondent George Fenwick tries to make sense of the divisive first responses out of the 77th annual festival to Francis Ford Coppola’s mammoth ion project, Megalopolis. 5h2y46

“In a stroke of visual poetry, the Letterboxd ratings curve for Megalopolis now looks like the skyscrapers of Coppola’s ‘New Rome,’ with the most popular results either one or five stars at the time of writing,” George Fenwick writes, in his Journal report from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Hit the link to continue reading.

“I often feel like I’m a horse and I just need a plough and then I want to work the field. Or a dog. I just want to run for the stick. But somebody needs to throw it.” —⁠Bird actor Franz Rogowski on his connections with directors. 3k1f1u

Actor Franz Rogowski sat on the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Critics Week jury and has starred in previous Cannes lineups including Great Freedom and Michael Haneke’s Happy End.

This year, he returned to the festival with Andrea Arnold’s Bird, which throws Rogowski into the British suburbs (near Dartford, director Arnold’s birthplace, to be precise) as his orbit enters that of twelve-year-old Bailey (breakout star Nykiya Adams) while she aims to both take care of and take flight away from her fractured, dysfunctional family. 

In conversation on the Croisette with Ella Kemp (who also took the portrait above), the actor lifts the curtain on just a couple of secrets while on the Croisette, starting with tears, ending with tea, and leaving it all in the air. Read it all on Journal.

In an already stacked year for animated excellence, Kambole Campbell recaps the highlights of 2023’s enlivened edition of the best animation film festival in the world—paper airplanes, big feelings, rabbits and all.  63m4j

Annecy Festival, one of the oldest and largest animation film festivals in the world, has a thriving, idiosyncratic personality—one shaped by the young animation students who attend each year, engaging in goofy pre-screening traditions like paper-plane throwing competitions and audience cries of “LAPIN!” (said whenever a rabbit appears on screen in the short films which open every event). This year held a focus on Mexican animation as well as work by queer animation artists and filmmakers, manifesting across various s and masterclasses as well as pre-screening short films.

There was also a raucous, work-in-progress screening of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, directed by Jeff Rowe and Kyler Spears. The crowd was won over by its infectious style and charming performances, the success of which has paid off in a 3.8-out-of-five star average rating on Letterboxd since its US and UK releases. Soon after the screening, I caught up with Rowe and production designer Yashar Kassai to learn more about how they defined the visuals of the testudinate quartet.  

There’s never enough room, at any festival and especially at the jam-packed Annecy, to see everything you want—especially when it’s also a chance to spend time with the filmmakers—but even so, it was a delightful edition of the festival, with a far-reaching wealth of feature films to choose from. Here are some highlights and competition-winners worth adding to your watchlist—if they’re not there already. 

Read the full story and selections on Journal. 6w3n5b

From Killers of the Flower Moon to The New Boy, the 2023 Cannes Film Festival shines a light on the vital impact of telling Indigenous stories.  76zq

You never bet against Marty, but even he knows when he needs some extra advisement.Killers of the Flower Moon, the latest epic from the legendary director, has received a rapturous reception from its premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, including an outpour of ecstatic reviews on Letterboxd.

Chronicling the horrific murders of the Osage nation in the 1920s, Flower Moon’s acclaim has noted the decision to place narrative perspective on the marriage of Ernest and Mollie Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone, both outstanding), using this relationship to interrogate both the collective and personal levels on which these crimes were felt.

At the press conference the day after the film’s premiere, Chief Standing Bear, leader of the Osage nation, described how that focus was vital to Scorsese’s telling of the story. “I asked Mr. Scorsese, how are you going to approach the story? He said, “I’m going to tell a story about trust,’” the Chief told the attendees. “Trust between Molly and Ernest, trust between the outside world and the Osage and a betrayal of those trusts, deep betrayal. My people suffered greatly, and to this very day, those effects are with us. But I can say on behalf of the Osage, Martin Scorsese and his team have restored trust, and we know that trust will not be betrayed.”

Meanwhile, on Friday, Cate Blanchett and director Warwick Thornton presented The New Boy, starring Blanchett as a nun whose faith is rocked when a nine-year-old Aboriginal boy is delivered to the remote monastery she runs. An exploration of how imported colonial faith eroded Indigenous spirituality, Thornton explained to Letterboxd the Australian cinematic language in which his film is situated.

“We make a lot of films about the fear of the landscape, colonizing the landscape,” he said. “Cinema about the space between where the English green grass that we have planted in Australia to feel like we’re in England ends and the bush starts—that transition, that veranda between two worlds… which is a great place to have conversations.” 

As issy notes, The New Boy is an “unflinching gaze back at what Australian cinema has already created,” asking, “what would this be from an Aboriginal perspective?”

Alongside interrogations of fascism in The Zone of Interest and Occupied City, the first weekend of Cannes illustrated the potential of cinema as political art; cinema as a call to learn, to , and to challenge evil. As Gladstone shared on Saturday, “why the hell does the world not know about these things? Our communities always have.”

Read more about how the Osage nation shaped Killers of the Flower Moon in Brian Formo’s two-part report from Scorsese’s CinemaCon conversation with Leonardo DiCaprio here and here. 

For a deep dive into the past and present of Indigenous cinema, Letterboxd’s Indigenous editor Leo Koziol takes us into films made in the 20th century and in the 21st.

—George Fenwick, London correspondent

(Pictured, left to right: stars JaNae Collins, Lily Gladstone, Cara Jade Myers and Jillian Dion in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’)

Acclaimed cinematographer Sean Price Williams discusses an American odyssey that turns hellish in his directorial debut The Sweet East, alongside stars Talia Ryder and Simon Rex at the Cannes premiere. 6kc6m

Talia Ryder descends into several circles of American hell in The Sweet East, the debut directorial effort from Good Time cinematographer Sean Price Williams which received its world premiere on May 18 in the Director’s Fortnight selection of the 2023 Festival de Cannes. Noted by the fest’s Q&A as a kind of feral Alice in Wonderland—a comparison Williams says wasn’t in his mind before, though “now it seems obvious”—The Sweet East assaults the senses, fucks with the form, and is, crucially, packed full of Letterboxd besties including Ryder, Simon Rex and Ayo Edebiri. So, obviously we had to stay seated, and listen. 

In the film, Lillian (played by Ryder with a captivating indifference) escapes a high school trip to Washington DC into an episodic rabbit hole across the eastern US, a journey in which she encounters anarchists, neo-Nazis and the set of a period drama. Williams wanted the film to include, well, everything. “It’s possible I’ll never get another chance to make a movie,” the director told the packed audience at the Théâtre Croisette, “so I tried to throw in a little bit of everything that I could think of. Once we weren’t stuck in a real world, then I think anything goes, and I wish more movies took advantage of that.”

As Lillian falls into the hands of various exploitative men, Ryder enjoyed how first-time screenwriter and former critic Nick Pinkerton’s script let Lillian explore ways to manipulate in return. “Part of growing up is realizing that most men around you want something from you, and it’s also okay to want something from them,” the actress said, defiant on stage. “I think Lillian takes advantage of that, and has fun with that.”

This crystallizes during a surreal stay with a polite academic, played by Rex—who also happens to be a raging neo-Nazi. Rex thought his casting as another “likable despicable character” was a direct result of Red Rocket, Sean Baker’s movie in which Rex reentered the spotlight for the 2020 Festival de Cannes, in the Official Selection. “I still am a little worried about it being too similar,” Rex said of his Sweet East character. “But this required me to be very verbose and fast, similar to that movie. I think I just had to apply the same thing, which is, this is a horrible person, why would anybody care if he doesn’t have anything redeemable or likable? I just had to make him charming.”

Williams, however, was swift to correct Rex: “I wanted Simon before I saw Red Rocket. I mean, Simon is Dirt Nasty. We love that stuff.” So do we Sean, so do we. 

––George Fenwick, London correspondent

Stanley Tucci shares with Letterboxd the singular food film that inspired him—and still makes him moan—as he reflects on his own culinary directorial debut, Big Night, at the Sands International Film Festival. 613d25

The power of a good meal—even the power of the sight of a good meal up on a big screen—cannot be underestimated, and nobody understands this better than food aficionado and beloved filmmaker Stanley Tucci.

At the Sands International Film Festival of St Andrews last weekend, Tucci was in attendance for a special screening of Big Night, the tender 1996 dramedy that he co-directed with Campbell Scott, co-wrote with Joseph Tropiano, and co-starred in as Secondo, the younger brother of Tony Shalhoub’s Primo. (Why yes, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fans, that Tony Shalhoub.) 

Big Night film lovingly maps the preparations and disagreements of the two brothers as they gear up to open the doors of their Italian restaurant in New York to one dining guest who could change everything. 

Feasting and moaning 3l735b

In St Andrews, Tucci ed festival director Anna Trzebiatowska and key festival er Joe Russo (yup, that Joe Russo) for a conversation about food and filmmaking after the screening. Beloved regional fests like this are brilliant for long conversations, and since we were there, we made sure to ask the peerless star about other movies about food that have inspired his filmmaking, and got his own culinary senses tingling. 

“When I was unemployed in New York, I would go to the movies all the time,” Tucci told Letterboxd. “I think Babette’s Feast—and I wrote about this in [my] book [Taste: My Life Through Food]—was significant for me.”

He recalled the superlative experience of watching Gabriel Axel’s 1987 Danish film for the first time in New York, among a particularly expressive audience. “I seeing it in this little theater that’s no longer there, on the Upper West Side, and it was so moving,” he said, before revealing the kicker: “This is going to sound terrible. It was like you were in a pornographic film because people were moaning throughout. The people were moaning throughout as [Babette] is preparing the food—it’s set against this very ascetic background which just heightens everything. It’s an absolutely brilliant film that was without question inspirational to me.”

Letterboxd far and wide agree, acknowledging the warmth emanating from the 1987 Best Foreign Language Oscar winner. Travis calls Babette’s Feast “a sumptuous spread of grace and mercy,” while Rafif includes the film as part of their #Ramadhan2023 marathon, on Day 20, writing that it “leaves you at the end just as satisfied as if you had partaken of the feast yourself.” 

And Letterboxd correspondent Isaac Feldberg calls Babette’s Feast “soul-nourishing”, adding: “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a film speak so eloquently to the divine power of good cooking and the spiritual balm of sharing a meal.”

It connects with what Letterboxd’s community has to say about Tucci’s own Big Night, regarding the relationship between food and primal human experiences and reactions. One Letterboxd member says: “It’s more than a food porn or a chef story; it’s more about the juxtaposition between innocence and avarice. It is a semi-deconstruction of the American dream as well as a celebration of an Italian culture that many people have forgotten.”

This is so fucking good I should kill you!  bi4d

Elsewhere in the eloquent and wide-ranging conversation that followed the special Big Night screening, Tucci reflected on his late, great co-star Ian Holm. In the film, Holm plays an Italian-American immigrant, rival restaurateur and “fucking guy” Pascal—but he had no Italian origins in real life.
 
It was a beautiful moment of symbiosis: Tucci nodded to the 1981 Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire—the opening scene of which was filmed on the glorious West Sands beach of St Andrews—as the moment he realized Holm was up to the task. “He seemed very British,” Tucci said of his initial impression of Holm, before noting the actor’s performance as real-life athletics coach Sam Mussabini, who was of Syrian, Italian and French descent. 

“This is going to sound terrible, but he’s one of the only people who isn’t Italian who plays Italian who I thought, ‘I believe he’s Italian.’ Marlon Brando is the only other one. Everyone else I go, ‘Nope. Not Italian.’” The highest compliment for the very English knight. 

What’s the last movie that made you moan? The most recent, visceral cinema-going experience that awakened the senses and reminded you of the simple pleasures of life? Spill the sauce, and let us feast. 

‘Babette’s Feast’ is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel and Max in the US, Curzon in the UK, and more. ‘Big Night’ is currently streaming on Paramount+ in the US, and available to rent on demand. 

—Ella Kemp, London Editor

Pictured: Stanley Tucci in Big Night; Stéphane Audran in Babette’s Feast.

Related: Letterboxd’s Lunchbox Showdown, celebrating the best films about food. 

As we pack our bags for the Croisette, Ella Kemp scans the initial programme announcement for this year’s Festival de Cannes and spots record-breaking female directors, Todd Haynes, Cate Blanchett as a renegade nun and more. i1a1z

What has one new woman in charge, two Wim Wenders films, three Midnight screenings (including one Letterboxd member – hello Kennedy director Anurag Kashyap!), four Special Presentations (Brazil is back with Retretos Fantasmas), five “movies” in one section which include The Idol (!), and a grand total of six women in the Official Selection? It could only be the 2023 Festival de Cannes. 

We’re gearing up to make our way over to the Croisette for another beautiful edition, and the initial programme announcements have got us all kinds of excited. I’ll be your Letterboxd editor on the ground this year, taking our beloved microphone, my trusty camera and a heart full of hope for a huge range of new movies to get you hyped for. 

Today, General Delegate Thierry Frémaux (the festival’s mouthpiece and poster boy for a long time) shared with us the films set to compete in the Official Selection, as well as those Out of Competition, in the Midnight screenings, the Special Presentations and one of the festival’s sidebars, Un Certain Regard. Frémaux did say that more titles would be announced (teasing, strangely, animated movies specifically on the horizon—an Annecy collab, perhaps?) and still to come are the full lineups from sidebars Directors’ Fortnight (past titles there including God’s Creatures, The Lighthouse and Climax) and Critics Week (which last year premiered the one and only Aftersun—plus, with Happening director Audrey Diwan leading the jury over there, this is, categorically, the one to watch.) 

Frémaux was ed in this morning’s press conference by Iris Knobloch, the incoming President of the Festival taking over from Pierre Lescure who held the position for the past eight years. Knobloch told us—in sporadic moments of English, for some reason breaking up her native French monologue—that she sees Cannes as a “gamechanger” in the life of a film. “There is a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ Cannes,” she said, adding that this year’s edition feels like “back to the future” for the festival, braving new territory and welcoming a diverse range of filmmakers.

So, what will we be watching? After spending ten days in the sunny South last year with the likes of Park Chan-wook, David Cronenberg, Lukas Dhont, Baz Luhrmann, George Miller, Kelly Reichardt and so many more, expectations grow ever higher each year, and this edition is already, to borrow from the latter director’s beautiful 2022 Cannes entry, really showing up. 

Out of Competition, in conversation   4t6j5v

We already knew that a new Martin Scorsese t would await, and it’s been confirmed that Killers of the Flower Moon will receive its world premiere Out of Competition. It is amusing that Frémaux stressed that Cannes wanted Scorsese in competition, perhaps throwing a touch of shade at Apple for not releasing the film immediately in French cinemas post-festival, as the Official Selection requires. “We like that he took the time, for once,” said Frémaux of Scorsese and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s process. Do we, Thierry? 

Also Out of Competition, in what we might call the Top Gun: Maverick slot, we’ll be blessed with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny directed by James Mangold, as well as the first part of Sam Levinson’s star-studded TV drama The Idol (which Frémaux politely, or curiously, called “the start of a movie”). Jeanne du Barry, festival favorite Maïwenn’s film starring Johnny Depp, completes the category and will open the festival.

Every title in this category is certain to ruffle a few feathers and animate discussions, but the opener is already ripe for conversation, as Maïwenn recently made headlines after being charged with assault by a French journalist, while the parameters of Depp’s “comeback” since his widely-publicized libel case with ex-wife Amber Heard remain ever murky. But would it really be Cannes without high stakes? 

Special presentations from overachieving men  o4l2r

The great ambition this year brings back Bacurau co-director Kleber Mendonça Filho (who also happens to be a Letterboxd member!) with Retretos Fantasmas in the Special Presentations category, where he’ll be ed by Steve McQueen, who finally makes his long-awaited debut on the historic steps of the Palais des Festivals with WWII documentary Occupied City. The two remaining Special Presentations speak to the ambitious and somewhat subversive nature of this year’s festival, with Wim Wenders’ Anselm Kiefer documentary Anselm and Wang Bing’s Man in Black—both filmmakers also have titles in the Official Selection this year.

Official Selection, officially a few more women  2f144d

Finally, it’s the official selection! These films will be competing for the coveted Palme d’Or as well as the Jury Prize and a whole host of filmmaking awards. It’s a relief that, whether it’s thanks to Knobloch’s vision (which she promises aligns with Frémaux’s) or just an embarrassment of riches that simply met all the deadlines on time, a record total of six women directors are presenting new films in competition this year.

Highlights include Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, which comes on the heels of her Oscar-nominated Le Pupille—and, crucially, stars Josh O’Connor as a young archeologist in the 1980s opposite Isabella Rosselini. Like Rohrwacher, Cannes darling Jessica Hausner returns with Club Zero, starring Mia Wasikowska as a school teacher (Miss Novack, please) in this psychodrama. I’m also fascinated by Ramata-Toulaye SY’s debut feature—premiering in competition off the bat? Beyond a serve!— the Senegal-set romance Banel & Adama. 

…as well as some good men, too 5f606

Now, it wouldn’t be Cannes without the most beguiling male filmmakers working today saving their movies for this little French provincial town. There’s Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, which hardly needs an introduction (and Frémaux agreed: “It’s a film by Wes Anderson, full stop”), plus another Hirokazu Kore-eda movie somehow with Monster, after Broker only hit UK cinemas a couple of months ago since its 2022 Cannes premiere.

We’ve also got Ken Loach’s long-awaited new one The Old Oak, following an English pub landlord in the mining community who strikes up a friendship with a Syrian refugee; Jonathan Glazer’s first film in ten years and first film in competition at Cannes, the WWII-set Auschwitz drama The Zone of Interest. Plus titles from Justine Triet, Aki Kaurismaki, the aforementioned second Cannes selections from Wang Bing and Wim Wenders, and May December, an unnerving romance from the one and only Todd Haynes, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. I’m out of breath. 

Things to come 68216q

It’s already an eye-watering selection of films, but over in Un Certain Regard three films are worth popping on your watchlist immediately—there’s the BFI-backed, SEO-friendly title How To Have Sex from debut filmmaker Molly Manning Walker, Firebrand in which Jude Law simply plays Henry VIII for some reason, as well as a casual new film from Warwick Thornton called The New Boy, with Cate Blanchett playing a renegade nun. I repeat, a nun, and a renegade one at that. 

Plus! We’re still looking forward to hopefully seeing some heavily rumored titles the party—including the likes of Richard Linklater’s Hitman, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel and Michel Gondry’s The Book of Solutions (a girl can dream). One final thing in Cannes to be thankful for? What’s been sadly promised as Takeshi Kitano’s final film, premiering in the Cannes Premieres selection, it’s the Ken Watanabe-led Neck. 

There are, once more, so many movies to look forward to—Letterboxd member Sean Liu as always is on it with a comprehensive Cannes list, with sections yet to be filled out as more announcements come. 

Until then, you can tweet me, @ me on Letterboxd with your own watchlists and hot tips for the festival—and when you spot the mic on the Croisette, do come over and say bonjour. 

The 2023 Festival de Cannes runs from May 16–26. Find out more about the festival here. 

—Ella Kemp, London Editor 5q6n5x

Related: Best of Cannes 2022

(Pictured: Scarlett Johansson in Wes Anderson’s ‘Asteroid City’)

As TIFF’s younger sibling gears up for another edition, Ella Kemp asked filmmakers in the 2023 Next Wave programme to reveal their personalities through four favorites, and pair their own films with dream double features. x2l1j

This weekend, Toronto gets an annual look towards the future of film as decided by the youth. 

TIFF’s Next Wave Film Festival, founded in 2010, is led by the TIFF Next Wave Committee, a group of twelve students between the ages of fifteen and eighteen (ten of whom are Letterboxd : Honora, Simona, Norah, Faven, Tara,  Arjun, Maggie, Ellie Tripp, Celina and Keertan). 

They are tasked with planning teen-oriented events at TIFF Bell Lightbox, starting with the Next Wave Film Festival, where they select nine movies to premiere to a hungry and open-minded audience ready for discovery—and under-25s are able to attend for free. 

This year’s nine choices include Egghead & Twinkie, which currently has a 4.1 out of five star rating from its few festival appearances so far; and the Crystal Bear-winning Adolfo, which is similarly charming audiences with its offbeat tale of two people and a cactus. 

In the same spirit of discovery as Next Wave itself is built on, we asked this year’s filmmakers two very Letterboxd questions in order to flush out some more film recommendations after we’ve watched theirs. In their dream double feature, what movie would they pair alongside their own film? And, which four films best represent who they are? Those who were able to reply while on their journeys to Toronto did so with gusto. 

Sadaf Foroughi, writer and director of Summer With Hope 4r2010

Sadaf Foroughi describes their personality with a little bit of help from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Interiors, La Haine and Marie Antoinette. Their Next Wave feature Summer With Hope follows Omid, a teenage athlete forbidden from a swimming competition for “bureaucratic reasons”. His story is entangled with the divorce of his parents and a burgeoning relationship with his open-water swimming coach. 

Foroughi sees Basil Dearden’s film Victim as a perfect double feature. “The story of Victim takes place in a social context somewhat similar to my film, although with a gap of 61 years between the two films,” Foroughi says. “In Dearden’s 1961 neo-noir thriller, as in Summer With Hope, the characters’ individuality and their fundamental human rights are attacked due to a series of false social conventions and beliefs, and the intimacy of the characters ( of the LGBTQ+ community in both films) and their sexual orientation become an excuse for extortion and violence against them.” 

So Yun Um, director of Liquor Store Dreams 6v71

So Yun Um, who appeared on The Letterboxd Show during Tribeca last year to talk about her debut documentary feature Liquor Store Dreams, finds her four favorites as a filmmaker across the shop: In The Mood For Love, Better Luck Tomorrow, 8 ½ and The Matrix.

Liquor Store Dreams follows two Korean American children of liquor store owners, and she would pair it with an American titan: Spike Lee. Nodding to Do the Right Thing in particular, So sees both films “in conversation” with one another despite being made 30 years apart. “Both films discuss topics of race relations in America and the different communities who meet at the intersection of them.” 

Sophie Linnenbaum, director and co-writer of The Ordinaries 522f2u

Sophie Linnenbaum’s personality in four films would be Dog Day Afternoon, Isn’t Life Wonderful, Dogville and The Great Muppet Caper. Taking Main Character Syndrome to the extreme, Linnenbaum toys with ing and leading roles in a meta-comedy for her debut feature, The Ordinaries. 

The filmmaker envisages her Next Wave film playing nicely alongside Overseas by Sung-a Yoon. A fitting companion piece, as that documentary “talks about problems in our society in a very light, funny but also truthful and warm manner”, which she hopes will match The Ordinaries. 

Zeno Graton, director and co-writer of The Lost Boys 2b4xg

Zeno Graton describes their vibe through the films Into The Wild, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, All About My Mother, and Monster. After a warm reception at this year’s Berlinale, where one Letterboxd member writes “my teenage me would have loved this even more” in their 4.5 out of five-star review, Graton is gearing up to bring their youth correctional facility-set coming-of-age film The Lost Boys to TIFF Next Wave. 

The filmmaker sees their feature in conversation with Jean Genet’s 1950 short film Song of Love, which one Letterboxd member writes “captures the toxic hypocrisy of the prison-state as a codified poisonous voyeurism, whose imprisonment of love and the torment it suffers is itself a way to get off whilst feeling angry, conflicted and superior” before calling the film “liberatory, in its making and in its viewing”. 

Sarah Kambe Holland writes that her film personality spans Stand By Me, My Neighbor Totoro, Chungking Express, and the peerless School of Rock. 

She sees her debut feature Egghead & Twinkie, a coming-of-ager about coming out of the closet, as sitting nicely alongside Jason Reitman’s Juno for a double feature. “Both movies have dry, sarcastic protagonists in Juno and Twinkie. You could certainly draw some parallels between Paulie Bleeker and Egghead,” she says, although the filmmaker highlights that the double feature would work specifically because of the differences. 

“The adolescent experience has changed dramatically since 2007, when Juno was released,” Kambe Holland explains. “Juno is wonderfully emblematic of indie coming of age movies of that era, from the quirky acoustic soundtrack to the fact that the boy gets the girl in the end. In contrast, I feel like Egghead & Twinkie is a reflection of growing up in today’s world, incorporating social media and text messaging into the bones of the story.”

Charlotte Regan, writer and director of Scrapper 2h3co

Scrapper writer-director Charlotte Regan encapsulates her film personality via retirees, vampires, hit men and runaways, in her selection of Some Kind of Heaven, In Bruges, Somers Town and What We Do in the Shadows. 

Regan’s debut feature frames twelve-year-old Georgie (a revelatory Lola Campbell) as she begrudgingly reconnects with her estranged father Jason (Harris Dickinson, of Triangle of Sadness Balenciaga/H&M fame). Scrapper won the Audience award after its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is currently sitting pretty on the Letterboxd top 50 of 2023.  

Regan wants Letterboxd to go and see John Wick 4 after Scrapper—she acknowledges it’s the “total opposite” of her film, but calls that a “good thing” in order to not see “two of the same”. 

—

TIFF Next Wave will also screen festival-opener Adolfo, directed by Sofía Auza, La Maternal from Pilar Palomero and Summer Scars, directed by Simon Rieth. The festival runs from April 14 to 16 in Toronto. Find out more here.

—Ella Kemp, London Editor

Pictured, top to bottom: Scrapper, The Ordinaries, Egghead & Twinkie.

SXSW celebrates its first Oscar best picture win and embraces its hometown’s legacy of weird as a rodeo, a joy ride, a fight club and a non-wedding wedding make our top ten of 2023. 1u5z6y

The headiest moment of this year’s SXSW didn’t technically take place in Austin. As the 95th Oscars ceremony broadcast live from LA, your Letterboxd SXSW correspondents watched the telecast in bits and pieces with a group of critics outside the Alamo South Lamar. Last year’s big buzz title, Everything Everywhere All at Once, kept winning award after award, hundreds of feet from where filmmakers with similar dreams were preparing to debut their labors of love. The energy was palpable. Anything could happen now.

It was the first SXSW world premiere to go all the way to Oscar glory, and the festival understandably owned Everything Everywhere All at Once’s wins, adding googly eyes to the festival bumper and playing a clip of Tilda Swinton saying “something feels different this morning” before every single screening for the next few days. It was a shot in the arm for the granddaddy of all Austin multimedia conferences, now a perfectly legitimate launching pad for future Best Picture winners.

Perhaps smelling the gold on SXSW, big name celebrities like Viola Davis, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Tilda herself all appeared in person to promote their films. We talked to all of them, with RZA taking our correspondents to film school and Ayo Edebiri sharing “exclusive” details about her process for playing Jenny the Donkey in The Banshees of Inisherin. Edebiri was there to promote the world premiere of this year’s big buzz title, Bottoms, which debuted in a prime Saturday night slot at the festival’s biggest venue—the Paramount Theatre in downtown Austin.

That film co-starred (and was co-written by) Rachel Sennott, the unofficial queen of this year’s SXSW with two films on our best-of list. Honorable mention goes to Megan Stalter, who starred in one marquee title (Cora Bora, Sunday at the Paramount) and featured in another (Problemista, which premiered on Monday). Later in the fest, Evil Dead Rise brought out a raucous, bloodthirsty crowd of horror fans—and one heckler, keeping Austin weird—and Air closed out the week with one last splashy red carpet event.

SXSW is primarily a showcase for American indie movies, but international titles make the grade and a favorite was Argentinian-American co-production Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, which won a prize named after late Beastie Boy Adam Yauch awarded “in honor of a filmmaker whose work strives to be wholly its own, without regard for norms or desire to conform.” In a city like Austin, where even the skyline is in constant flux, it takes a lot of work to stay ahead of the curve. This year’s festival felt like that work was paying off—and here are our ten best of the fest.

Head to Journal to read more on our selections from Katie Rife and Annie Lyons. 5v1b4c

Jenni Kaye and Annie Lyons strap on their Jordans and hit the red carpet to chat with Ben Affleck, Viola Davis, Jason Bateman and more.  2y1o6b

Collaboration was the word on everyone’s lips on the SXSW red carpet at the closing night premiere showing of Air, the fifth feature film directed by Ben Affleck. Telling the story of Nike’s pursuit of basketball rookie Michael Jordan to create Air Jordan, a partnership that revolutionized the world of sports and culture, the filmmaker is back in Argo territory when it comes to telling a panoramic tale with a robust ensemble cast. Bonus interest points for Boston boys, Air also finds Affleck (who stars in the film) directing his longtime best bud Matt Damon for the first time, with his childhood friend in the role of executive Sonny Vaccaro, the main man championing the push.

This isn’t just Vaccaro’s story, though. While Michael Jordan doesn’t necessarily have much of an on-screen role himself in Air, speaking with the basketball icon had a massive impact on the direction of the story, bringing much greater attention to his mother Deloris Jordan (Viola Davis). “That just changed the whole movie,” Affleck told Letterboxd’s Annie Lyons on the red carpet of his conversations with Michael. “It changed everything. It’s why you don’t presume to tell other people’s stories. Why people have to have a voice and authorship of their stories.” 

Giving people agency over the stories they’re telling was a major focal point for Affleck as a director, as he went on to tell us, “Part of it is people coming from different worlds with different points of view, and I need help with that. I need to listen to other people who can help me do that in an authentic way. You can’t have one voice in a movie that’s parroting through all these other characters. To me, it’s only interesting if all of those voices are authentic, and if that’s gonna be the case you have to work with artists and brilliant filmmakers/actors/creators like Viola Davis, like Chris Tucker, like Jason Bateman, like Matt Damon, who come in and inform it with something that I didn’t see or might not understand, and make it real.” 

Affleck said this is his favorite movie he’s made, which might sound like the usual spiel you get from an artist promoting their work, but Letterboxd at the premiere seemed to feel that energy radiating off the director. HunterGasaway says “when Ben Affleck introduced the film he seemed the happiest I’ve seen him in years, and now having seen it…it makes sense!” The director wasn’t the only one having a ball, as member Ben describes the film as having “sharp writing, breezy pacing, and every actor looking like they’re having the time of their life. Could have watched another two hours of this.”

Air was more than just a fun time for everyone to frolic around. When you bring an actor like Viola Davis to the table, you better make it worth her while, and Affleck did exactly that. “I feel like Ben is a filmmaker that believes in my talent, first of all. He sees me,” she told Lyons. “He is also a filmmaker that trusts his artists. He allowed Deloris and James [Jordan] to be absolutely who they were without manipulating them out of fear. I don’t think people understand what that is when you’re not on this side of the profession. Sometimes people will get scared of the character, so they’ll transform them—maybe make them prettier, funnier, whatever. He allowed them to be exactly who they were.” That recognition resulted in a standout performance from Davis, according to Michael Deluno. 

Even Air’s screenwriter Alex Convery had to shout out Davis, telling Letterboxd’s Jenni Kaye on the carpet that “the best line in the whole movie, Viola just improv’d it the day of. I was like holy shit.” For those who think a film about a shoe company might not interest them, Convery assures you that Air isn’t what it sounds like on the surface. Describing it as “a heist movie”, he said, “It’s not about a shoe. It’s about this guy, Sonny Vaccaro, who has this vision, has a dream and believes it and will stop at no end to get it. Then you have the Jordan family on the other side and Deloris, who isn’t just gonna take Converse’s deal and isn’t just gonna take Adidas’ deal. She knows the worth of her son and goes for it. It’s an “underdog” story, which sounds so cliche but it is on a lot of different levels.” 

Perhaps that triumphant underdog spirit is what’s led ratthew413 to state they “could easily see this becoming one of my comfort films.” Certainly that notion echoes for Jack, who calls Air an “old school heart-on-its-sleeves crowd-pleaser that hits all the familiar beats but does so with an electric ensemble and snappy dialogue. It’s essentially meetings and nerdy basketball talk for two hours yet is so propulsive and consistently engaging.” “It’s basically Moneyball meets Argo,” says J Brigham Holladay.

Worried this all sounds a little too inside basketball? Jason Bateman hits on exactly how the impact of what we’re seeing in Air transcends sports, telling Kaye on the red carpet, “Whether people know it or not, in America or around the world, they’re friends with Air Jordan. Michael Jordan, the shoe, the whole culture, that whole apparel thread—no pun intended. It’s in everyone’s home, it’s in their closet, it’s on their body and you forget that there was a start to that. The story of that start is of an equally intimate and personal thing. His mom was kind of his agent and championed all of the really important details of that deal. It’s interesting to learn about all of that stuff in this. You’d be surprised at how it makes for a compelling movie, and not just like a documentary.”

If that’s not enough to sell you, I’ll leave you with this from Matt Jacobs: “Chris Messina is disgustingly sexy as a corporate douche.”

Air releases in theaters April 5 from Amazon Studios.

—Reporting by Jenni Kaye and Annie Lyons (in Austin), additional reporting by Mitchell Beaupre (at Letterboxd HQ) 701xm

Annie Lyons speaks with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Lee Cronin and Lily Sullivan at the premiere for Evil Dead Rise and we get a first look at Letterboxd ’ reactions. j6f36

“I knew it was a film that needed to have a lot of liquid in it, a lot of carnage, a lot of expulsion,” director Lee Cronin told Letterboxd’s Annie Lyons on the red carpet moments before the premiere of Evil Dead Rise, his new entry into the landmark horror franchise. If reviews from are anything to be believed (and we’d like to imagine they are), he’s certainly delivered on that promise. According to AmandaTheJedi, “If you’re stoked for a bloodbath, this should satisfy your needs.” Sign us up! 

“No one prepares you for the blood,” said star Lily Sullivan on the carpet. “No one prepares you for the trauma off set. Shooting becomes like dancing, and it’s really fun and physical, but sitting off set and being covered in blood that sticks to your skin, to your clothes and to towels and anything you —it was a form of trauma, but also weirdly enough as an actor when you get stuck in period [films] and drama but then you get to do a horror, I’m just grateful for the dance and grateful for the full body expression that I don’t feel lots of women get to do.” 

If the star was looking for some guidance from the series’ original lead Bruce Campbell, now an executive producer, she was out of luck. “There’s no advice you could give ’em,” Campbell told us. “Nothing would matter. Not in the thick of it. There’s nothing I could say that would make it easier for them to be covered in blood. You’re gonna have to figure this shit out yourself.” 

Sullivan plays Lily in the film, who along with her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), finds an ancient book that gives birth to bloodthirsty demons who run amok in a Los Angeles apartment building. The focus on family was a key focal point for executive producer Sam Raimi when we asked him about handing over the directorial keys to Cronin: “His film The Hole in the Ground was so elegantly crafted, and I could see what a great writer he was. And when he came up with this idea for Evil Dead Rise to be centered on the family, I knew that his strengths as a writer would make that work really well.” The approach certainly worked for Merchant77, who says “It’s really about family, and that’s what makes it so powerful.”

Family holds some connective tissue with Cronin for the franchise, as he told us about how Evil Dead has been with him since a young age. “I grew up in a house where we watched a lot of horror movies, and my dad showed me Evil Dead and Evil Dead II back to back on VHS. I was eight or nine, so I didn’t know what I was watching, but I knew that I was watching something really special. Then in my teenage years, I was able to go back and watch those movies again with an understanding of their place in the culture of horror movies. How they’re like a cornerstone of American horror. They made a massive impression on me at a young age.” 

Sound designer Peter Albrechsten gave us some intel on how previous entries literally made their way into Evil Dead Rise. “I’m a big fan of the old Evil Dead films, so for me a big thing on this one was we actually had access to the sounds of the old films,” he said. “We took some of the sounds from the earlier entries and put it into this one, and for me that’s just the best way of bringing the old Evil Dead legacy to a new audience, and to old fans as well.” 

The reverence for the franchise shines through, as Andrew Pope writes, “I hereby declare this movie… groovy. It’s the big crowd-pleasing Evil Dead movie we were hoping for. Remixing the dark humor of The Evil Dead, the polish of Evil Dead II, and the savagery of the 2013 reboot, all blended together and perfectly paced in a 1930s tower block. It moves from darkly funny to utterly savage. The premiere audience went ballistic.” 

Not ones to rest on the laurels of old iconography, it looks like Cronin and company have created plenty of their own moments that are going to stick with viewers for a long time. “I’ll never look at a cheese grater the same again,” says Tyler Cole Kelly, a warning to keep the kitchen drawers closed when you get home from the theater. Zach Shevich shouts out another area of the home you might want to avoid, describing the film as being “like getting on the biggest coaster in the park and realizing it’s maybe more intense than you’d expect. Unrelenting horror madness with a couple particularly thrilling sequences (peephole one stood out to me).”

We’ll leave you with a promise from Sam Raimi, who lets you know what you’re in store for when Evil Dead Rise hits theaters April 21 from Warner Bros: “There’s lots of blood!”

—Reporting by Annie Lyons (in Austin), additional reporting by Mitchell Beaupre (at Letterboxd HQ) 1e2m2b

Smartphone companies, trans documentaries, Sydney Sweeney and Franz Rogowksi are among Rafa Sales Ross’ highlights from the 2023 Berlinale. 723t8

After two years of online and hybrid editions, it was not only the weather that was warmer in Berlin this February. Walking through the Potsdamer Platz surroundings, where the festival home of Berlinale Palatz resides, one could hear the joyful exchanges of old industry friends reuniting, their debates on some of the buzziest films in the selection punctuated by remarks on how much they missed being together in the German capital for two wintery weeks every year.

The festival reunited some of its darlings, too, with last year’s Silver Bear winner Hong Sang-soo showcasing his experimental in water in the Encounters strand, while Christian Petzold and his Transit and Undine lead Paula Beer were back with another hypnotic stunner in the Competition line-up. ing familiar faces were emerging voices such as Celine Song with her Sundance-hit Past Lives (currently the eighth highest rated film of all-time on Letterboxd from a woman director) and Lila Avilés’ moving exploration of familial ties, Tótem.

This year’s main jury, led by Kristen Stewart—who hit the red carpets with characteristically striking looks—gave the prestigious Golden Bear to On the Adamant, Nicolas Philibert’s comionate examination of a floating psychiatric center in the middle of the river Seine. The second highest award of the night, the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, went to Petzold, whose latest tells the story of a group of friends spending a long weekend in a holiday home by the Baltic sea as forest fires ravage their surroundings. Other main prize-winners included João Canijo’s Bad Living, Philippe Garrel’s The Plough and Angela Shanelec’s Music. Performance awards were handed to nine-year-old Sofia Otero for 20,000 Species of Bees and Thea Ehre for Till the End of the Night.

Fresh out of this year’s Berlinale, Letterboxd’s Rafa Sales Ross wrote about five standouts from the titles I caught at the fest, ranging from a group of Canadian geeks changing the course of history to an experimental documentary looking to the classics of the past to create a classic of the future.

Read the full story on Journal. 115z3d

On the fifth anniversary of his debut feature’s premiere at SXSW, filmmaker Jim Cummings reads Letterboxd reviews of Thunder Road. 403o35

Making a movie is tough work. Getting it out into the world is even tougher. But, perhaps, toughest of all is scrolling through the Letterboxd reviews once it‘s out for anyone to see. Yet at the same time, while it can be easy to focus on the negative reviews, there is always going to be a wealth of positivity shining through as well. Certainly that’s the case when you’re a filmmaker with the ion of Jim Cummings, a sheer love for making films that translates in every one of his features.

On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his debut feature Thunder Road, Cummings was kind enough to sit down and read some of your hot Letterboxd takes.

Watch the video above to see his reactions.

SXSW attendees hit their Letterboxd diaries after the premiere of Julio Torres’ Problemista, while Annie Lyons chats with the director and star Tilda Swinton on the red carpet. 1r2i3s

“One of the coolest, kindest and most observant films I’ve ever seen,” is how coleman spilde describes Problemista on Letterboxd, fresh from its premiere at the SXSW Film Festival. The directorial debut of Los Espookys creator Julio Torres, the film follows aspiring toy designer Alejandro (Torres), living in New York City on a work visa from El Salvador. When his visa runs out, he picks up a job as an assistant for an erratic art world outcast played by Tilda Swinton.

Swinton had been connected to the project for quite some time, enamored with Torres’ comedic gifts as a writer and eventually helping secure him the spot as director for the first time. Speaking with Letterboxd’s Annie Lyons on the red carpet, Swinton said, “It’s his world. He dreamed it up, and he invites us as a writer to go into his head. When we were looking for other directors, there was always the question of ‘Who can we inspire to manage Julio’s world?’ Then you go, well the best person to do that is Julio! And he’s done such an accomplished job, such a beautiful job. It has all his spirit, and he just took to it so easily.” 

Spirit is a word that can be felt when traversing the responses the film has received so far on Letterboxd, like in Ethan Rubenstein’s glowing five star review where he writes, “I’ve been a fan of Julio Torres’ comedy for a few years now and definitely thought I knew what I was getting into, but I wasn’t expecting it to be this profound and deeply moving. It’s both a showcase for his absurdist prop comedy and a thesis statement re-contextualizing his artistry in a deeper personal and philosophical context.”

“Such a special, inventive, and hilarious movie,” says Alejandra Martinez. “Manages to be earnest about chasing artistic dreams without shying away from how difficult it is for marginalized folks navigating the immigration system to get there.” Not hiding life’s thornier moments was crucial for Torres, who told Lyons at the premiere, “I think that I subconsciously seek challenges and problems and ultimately I think that most of the people in the movie are like that. And I feel attracted to people like that.”

It’s a very full world that Torres builds out in Problemista, with his background in television helping in his ability to make sure that even seemingly small characters have rich interior lives. “Everyone in this movie, regardless of whether you see them for one scene, has a fully realized life and fully realized problems,” he said. “That’s something that you feel a lot in cities, like living in New York. You run into someone and maybe they were rude. I like imagining what their life is like, why they were rude. I like imagining them going home to their roommates and hanging out with their friends. I really believe in fleshing out as many people as you can.” 

Even if you aren’t familiar with Torres’ name, you’ve likely found yourself in stitches from his work on shows like Los Espookys or his stint as a writer for Saturday Night Live which has earned him four Emmy nominations. “From the writer of the legendary papyrus sketch on SNL to this insane masterpiece,” hails Camille Wiltz. “Julio Torres, I want an encore!”

For Alec Swanson, Problemista was a reminder of something they find has been lacking in modern cinema, saying, “this movie is so funny and genuine and it made me that comedy movies are supposed to make you laugh and not just roll your eyes at nonstop one-liners for two hours.” According to nomey b, it’s one you’ll want to see with a crowd when it comes to theaters, as they share that “few times have I had the pleasure to sit in an audience with as uproarious a response to comedy as Problemista. Julio Torres has such a distinct comical style that plays on satire and absurdity with such a razor sharp focus on the topics at hand. To invoke such joy when discussing issues and obstacles pertaining to identity and belonging, it is a gift!” Although, unfortunately, you probably won’t have the full SXSW experience that emeryburk had, who “got to see it premiere at SXSW and [Torres] wore a little pyramid hat.”

4v291o

—Reporting by Annie Lyons (in Austin), additional reporting by Mitchell Beaupre (at Letterboxd HQ) 1e2m2b

We track the Letterboxd community’s first reactions to queer comedy Bottoms, while Annie Lyons chats with the director and stars at its SXSW premiere. 4vi1k

“Oh my god, it’s Letterboxd! My favorite app in the world!”, Rachel Sennott exclaimed to us on the red carpet at the SXSW premiere of Bottoms, her latest collaboration with Shiva Baby director Emma Seligman. The feeling is mutual. We included the film in our crew’s list of the top ten most anticipated for the year, and made sure to be in Austin the first time audiences were able to witness what the duo had in store.

“Did I just see my favorite movie of the year?”, asks Elena Weinberg on Letterboxd upon exiting the theater, while sabspo declares “it should be required of anyone with a pulse to see this movie.” Hail_storm echoes the sentiment, saying that Bottoms is “bloody, it’s horny, and it’s super gay! Dare I say… it’s perfect?!” 

Speaking with Letterboxd correspondent Annie Lyons, Sennott references her Letterboxd bio’s mantra of “I love movies where girls are walking around and doing stuff” to tease what audiences can expect in Bottoms, adding that these girls are also “kicking ass and beating the sh-t out of each other. And that counts as doing things!” 

Bottoms centers on PJ (Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two unpopular queer girls in their senior year who start a fight club to try to impress and hook up with cheerleaders so they can lose their virginities before graduation. On the red carpet, Seligman shared with us the four films that inspired her latest: Fight Club, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Wet Hot American Summer and Bring It On. 

“The most important thing is the comedy,” Seligman said on balancing the film’s tone when mixing absurd hilarity with violence and high school drama, “and then everything else can come after.” For co-star Kaia Gerber, starring in a queer comedy was a major part of the appeal. “I think we’re quite used to queer stories rooted in tragedy,” she told us, “but to see [this subject matter] be laughed about and getting to make light of it with such a talented, amazing group of people is so inspiring to me.” 

Ballmoss certainly felt seen, writing in their Letterboxd review: “Finally some representation for lesbians who were horny losers in high school.” Becca advocates for seeing the film in a theater, saying “the crowd at the Paramount was hootin’ and hollerin’ so much I actually missed some jokes… the best experience I have had watching a movie in a theater [that] I can . God, what a special film.”

Sennott gets a co-writing credit on Bottoms, collaborating with Seligman on the script. She told us they wrote the part of Josie with Edebiri in mind, pitching the role specifically to her voice paired with Sennott’s. As one might expect with the star caliber of these two (real life besties and Letterboxd : follow Sennott here and Edebiri here) leading the front, the cast of Bottoms is getting plenty of love already in Letterboxd reviews. “Rachel Sennott could read a dictionary out loud and I would be in tears from laughing so hard,” says kendall. Shane Slater describes the duo as “aces”, while Kevin L. Lee elects to use “dynamite”, before saying that “some people on this platform are gonna make this movie their entire personality.”

Bottoms will be released in theaters this year from MGM’s Orion Pictures, and Sennott offers a tease for Letterboxd reviewing the film: “I’m creeping all the time. If you post about me, I might see it. But say whatever you want! I’m there, and I love it.”

—Reporting by Annie Lyons (in Austin), additional reporting by Mitchell Beaupre (at Letterboxd HQ) 1e2m2b

Letterboxd’s Austin correspondent Annie Lyons surveys the 2023 SXSW lineup and discovers back-stories on Cheetos and Tetris, the return of Stephanie Hsu and Rachel Sennott, and someone called “Frybread Face”. 5t641n

The buildup to the 2023 edition of the South by Southwest Film Festival delightfully collides with the awards season victory lap of last year’s fest breakout, Everything Everywhere All At Once. The Daniels’ sci-fi tax comedy brought the house down on opening night a year ago, sending audience spilling out into the Austin streets with faces teary over googly-eyed rocks and plans to call their moms. The film has only grown in traction since that launch-pad moment and now has eleven Oscars in its sights, including the top prize.

This year’s entirely in-person SXSW runs from March 10 to 18. As I survey the program, I can’t help but have EEAAO on my mind—less so out of curiosity for which title could become a future awards contender and more so as a reminder for the fest’s propensity to give comedies top billing. Like Problemista, the sure-to-be-surreal comedy that sees Julio Torres in triple-threat mode as director, writer and star, and features Tilda Swinton as an eccentric art-world outcast who may just be a Salvadoran toy designer’s ticket to renewing his work visa. More comedies found in the Headliners section include Joy Ride, Bottoms and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (more on those titles in a minute).

On the non-comedy front, Deadites return in a big way with Evil Dead Rise, Lee Cronin’s Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell-approved reboot. (It’s worth noting that this entry seems to lean more into straightforward horror than the horror-comedy most associated with the franchise.) Also piquing our interest is The Young Wife, Tayarisha Poe’s intriguing “non-wedding” wedding film starring Kiersey Clemons and singer/Texas darling Leon Bridges in his first leading role, and Flamin’ Hot, Eva Longoria’s biopic about the man who claimed to invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos while working as a janitor at Frito Lay.

Below, we preview more highlights in this year’s program, plus some early trends that have already caught our attention.

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Fresh off the heels of Oscar night, ing actress nominee Stephanie Hsu is set to make a triumphant return to the Paramount Theatre, nearly a year to date after EEAAO’s bombastic world premiere. In Joy Ride, the directorial debut of Crazy Rich Asians co-writer Adele Lim, she trades her multiverse travels for a journey of a different sort. The movie follows a friend group of Asian-American friends whose international trip goes sideways, leading to comedic shenanigans both R-rated and heartfelt.

Also clocking in back-to-back SXSW Headliner appearances is Rachel Sennott, whose pitch-perfect line delivery of “I’m an ally!” has echoed in our heads since last fest’s Bodies Bodies Bodies premiere. Bottoms sees Sennott pair up with newly minted Indie Spirits winner Ayo Edebiri and reunite with Shiva Baby director Emma Seligman for a high school comedy with one of those “say less, please!” premises: Two unpopular queer girls start a fight club in hopes of hooking up with cheerleaders. The Sennott faithful can also catch her in competition feature I Used to Be Funny, giving a more dramatic turn as an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD whose former charge has gone missing.

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Bottoms isn’t the only comedy promising gay mess that’s caught our attention. In Cora Bora, comedian Megan Stalter (of “Hi gay!” acclaim) plays a struggling musician in an open relationship. When she senses the end might be near for her and her girlfriend, she moves back home to Portland to figure things out.

Holding things down in the “one wild night” category is Down Low, a comedy starring Zachary Quinto, Simon Rex and Lukas Gage, who also co-writes the script. There’s not too much revealed yet in the way of plot details but the film’s bare-bones description teases its key ingredients: “a deeply repressed man, the twink who gives him a happy ending and all the lives they ruin along the way…” Again: Say less!

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Prepare for bards, druids and paladins to take over Congress Avenue for opening night film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. The long-delayed reboot of the iconic tabletop role-playing game’s film series stars Chris Pine as the leader of a group of thieves and unlikely heroes. Frequent collaborators and Game Night whizzes Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley helm the fantasy adventure, a full circle moment for the latter since starting his career as a D&D aficionado on Freaks and Geeks. Plus, Hugh Grant makes an appearance as “Forge Fitzwilliam the Rogue”, because of course he does.

You’ll be forgiven for wondering if fellow headliner Tetris might see Taron Egerton hopping around brightly colored floating blocks. (Yours truly thought the same when she first heard the title.) Instead, the 1980s-set biopic is concerned with how the game became a global sensation, starring Egerton as the salesman who secured the video game’s rights amidst thorny legal disputes. A much more diabolical game takes center focus in Jake Johnson’s directorial debut Self Reliance, a The Lonely Island-produced comedy about a The Most Dangerous Game-style reality show.

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The 1990s provide a nostalgic backdrop for two coming-of-age tales. In Imran J. Khan’s competition title Mustache, a thirteen-year-old Pakistani-American boy plots a return to his Islamic private school after being enrolled in public school, all while dealing with the insecurities stemming from his newly sprouted facial hair.

Meanwhile, Billy Luther’s (Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo) Frybread Face and Me follows a young Navajo boy who reluctantly must spend the summer at his grandma’s sheep ranch on the reservation in Arizona. There, he finds a companion in his tough-as-nails cousin Dawn, aka “Frybread Face”.

The 2023 SXSW Film Festival takes place in Austin from March 10 to March 18. Badges are available to purchase now.

Follow us here at Festiville and on Journal for SXSW updates, previews and much more.

Header image: Lukas Gage and Zachary Quinto in ‘Down Low’.

From leaping luchadors to chaotic bisexuals, past lives to eternal memories, our Sundance team selects the highlights of this year’s fest. 1s2i2m

LIST: 20 FESTIVILLE CREW FAVORITES FROM SUNDANCE 2023

While titles from last year’s Sundance Film Festival like Nanny and Living continue to make waves during the current awards season, the tide is carrying in a fresh set of films we’ll surely be talking about for months to come. Park City was back to business as usual, while still including an online portion that opened the festival up to film professionals and lovers of limited means and accessibility barriers.

On the ground at the in-person screenings there was an undeniable energy among folks happy to be back experiencing the high altitude thrills of an Eccles Theater audience. Our intrepid duo of Flynn Slicker and Brian Formo were there, getting the Letterboxd microphone in front of people like Will Ferrell, Anne Hathaway, Ben Whishaw and Nicole Holofcener. Our festival correspondent Annie Lyons tracked Letterboxd reactions across the fest, scoping out your thoughts on gay dads and sexy Catholicism, deceitful fairies and Desi-coded action, and the big award winners granted by Sundance’s juries and audiences.

Now that we’ve taken stock and compared our responses to those from the wider Letterboxd community, we present ten narrative features and ten documentaries that were our highlights from Sundance 2023.

Read full thoughts on our picks in the Journal story. 12322t

Rafa Sales Ross previews the returning favorites, biopic bonafides, awards season victory laps, troubled Americans and powerhouse performances that make up the 2023 Berlinale lineup.  164436

Now that Sundance is done and dusted, the eyes of film lovers across the world turn 8,000km towards yet another winter festival where folks will be escaping the cold dreariness by snuggling into warm cinemas: the Berlinale, nested in the heart of the German capital. Waltzing back to an entirely in-person format for the first time since 2020, the Berlinale is gearing up to return to full steam for its 73rd edition, taking place from February 16–26. 

Opening this year’s festival is Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me, starring Peter Dinklage as a composer who finds the cure for writer’s block in a ionate one night stand with Anne Hathaway. Anne as the cure for writer’s block? Very relatable. Steven Spielberg, the recipient of this year’s Honorary Golden Bear, wraps up the fest with his autobiographical Oscar contender The Fabelmans as he heads into the home stretch of the 2022–2023 awards season.

Amongst the highlights in the Berlinale Special Gala strand is Superpower, Sean Penn and Aaron Kaufman’s long-speculated documentary on the war in Ukraine—playing on the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of the country; and Lydia Tár herself triumphantly returning to her beloved Berlin for a special screening of Todd Field’s TÁR. 

Kristen Stewart heads the Competition jury, which will have the arduous task of picking a winner out of an eclectic selection that includes Celine Song’s Sundance darling Past Lives; Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything, Emily Atef’s follow-up to Cannes tearjerker More Than Ever; a family of puppeteers in Philippe Garrel’s The Plough; plus new films by Christian Petzold, Margarethe Von Trotte and John Trengove.

Below, we highlight some of the noteworthy trends we’ve already spotted among this year’s selection.

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Those keeping tabs on the Berlinale program throughout the years will be very familiar with some of the names returning to this year’s edition, particularly the aforementioned German director Petzold and Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo, two festival favorites. Petzold plays in Competition with Afire, starring his muse Paula Beer, which tells the story of a group of friends grappling with the immensity of their emotions as the parched forest that encircles their holiday cabin catches fire. 

Sang-soo is back in Berlin for the fourth year in a row with Encounters title in water, following a young actor who decides to give up acting and make a short film instead, finding his story at the bottom of a mysterious cliff. A teaser for in water dropped recently, which seems to confirm reports that Sang-soo’s latest will be shot entirely out-of-focus, in a bravura stylistic decision from the director.

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Many films at this year’s Berlinale tell the stories of real-life people, from authors to politicians. (Maybe it’ll help them land an Oscar next year!) Margarethe Von Trotte returns to Berlin four decades after Sheer Madness with Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert, which plays in the main Competition and sees Vicky Krieps take on the role of the titular Austrian poet and author. The film dissects her relationship with Swiss playwright Max Frisch, played by Phoenix star Ronald Zehrfeld.

Within the Berlinale Special Gala slate, Dame Helen Mirren plays “Iron Lady of Israel” Golda Meir during the high-pressure years of the Yom Kippur War in Guy Nattiv’s Golda, and John Malkovich gives life to stoic Italian philosopher Seneca in Robert Schwentke’s Seneca – On the Creation of Earthquakes, focusing on the relationship between the philosopher and Nero, a former mentor who infamously accused the man of plotting his assassination.

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Hear me out: I don’t think American men in Berlin are doing very well. Letterboxd favorite Willem Dafoe reaches the end of his physical and mental ropes as an art thief trapped inside a penthouse after a job gone wrong in Vasilis Katsoupis’ Inside; Jesse Eisenberg is an expecting father lulled by Adrien Brody to a libertarian masculinity cult in the woods in Manodrome; and Glenn Howerton spearheads the male-dominated cast of BlackBerry, chronicling the rise and fall of Kim Kardashian’s beloved smartphone often credited with changing the way the world communicated — just to painfully lose its domain to Steve Jobs’ golden creation, the iPhone you are probably holding in your hand at this very moment. 

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German darling Franz Rogowski arrives in Berlin with two films. Ira Sachs’ ages, fresh out of its successful Sundance stint and playing in Panorama, sees Rogowski as narcissistic filmmaker Tomas, who unwillingly embroils two lovers (Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos) in a messy—and greatly erotic—love triangle. The actor then takes a sharp left turn with Giacomo Abbruzzese’s Disco Boy, a grueling of a young man who crosses Europe to the Foreign Legion in Paris. The film, playing in Competition, is described as “a visually striking work that is ripe in poetry and tension.” Sounds like a Rogowski-starrer, indeed.

Berlinale 2023 takes place in Berlin from February 16 to February 26. Tickets go on sale from Monday, February 13, at 10:00am CET.

Follow us here at Festiville and on Journal for Berlinale updates, previews and much more. Follow Sean Liu’s Letterboxd list of the full fest programme. Header image: Franz Rogowski in ‘Disco Boy’.

Annie Lyons discovers determined parents, poetic hugs and Persian spaghetti western music amidst this year’s Sundance Film Festival winners. 5f1v3q

Parents won big at this year’s Sundance—or rather, films about parents, as evidenced by the four big award winners in the dramatic competitions. On the documentary front, an experimental biopic and a tearjerking examination of memory took home the top prizes, while audience voters showed up for staggering hidden camera and on-the-ground footage.

Below, we take a closer look at the Grand Jury Prize winners and Audience Award winners in each of the festival’s four main competitions. Plus, here’s an exciting stat: Women sat in the director’s chair for seven of the eight following winners. Find the full list of winners here!

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Taking home the Grand Jury Prize, A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One paints a portrait of a family and the rapidly gentrifying Harlem neighborhood around them. The cup especially runneth over with praise for Teyana Taylor’s turn as a mother who kidnaps her son from the foster care system. “Taylor is such an indomitable force in this—so good that I don't really have words to describe it,” praises Nightrainlily, while A28 declares, “Let’s welcome to the stage THE triple threat: Teyana Taylor. She absolutely bodied this role that delves deeper into the fact that motherhood is so much more than blood.” 

Lief Nielson shares: “Every shot feels so personal, every moment feels like you’re sitting down at the table with this family as they traverse a system that fails them, as they reckon with their past and try to find hope in their future, while the city that never sleeps never lets them catch a break.”

Maryam Keshavarz’s The Persian Version won the US Dramatic Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award and, according to Casey Victoria, could fit into the call-your-mom canon: “Brb gotta go call my mom and tell her I love her.” The fourth-wall breaking, time-hopping dramedy explores the thorny relationship between an Iranian-American woman and her mother, complete with cultural specificity that thrills Omeed: “I love being Iranian American and I think The Persian Version captures the joy and challenges the diaspora faces. Also I have to show love to a movie that dedicated scenes to Googoosh and Ghormeh Sabazi!!” Omeed similarly proclaims, “At one point, the subtitles described the music as ‘Persian spaghetti western music.’ This movie was made for me.”

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Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson won the Grand Jury Prize for Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, their documentary tribute to the iconic Black American poet. The film combines present-day interviews, archival footage and cosmic imagery, and has Coiledview reflecting, “This film was a warm hug with an elder at a time we need it most!” “With organizing principles that feel like memories, it feels like we’ve entered the mind of the poet—and what an interesting place [to] spend 100 minutes,” observes Alexander Hadden. 

Andrew wonders: “Who am I to resist something so lithe and intelligent and warm and that embraces you like a warm hug? In a scene with her class, Nikki insists that artists don’t set out to teach us with their art but to share their love. And she’s right. This documentary isn’t a lesson. It’s just an expression of love.”

It comes as little surprise that Beyond Utopia received the Audience Award. Madeleine Gavin’s hidden-camera footage documentary about a family fleeing North Korea has debuted with a 4.1 average Letterboxd rating, one of the festival’s highest. Behind that number lies an outpouring of emotion. “The film generates so much empathy for these people that I was brought to tears a few times,” reviews Ndegwa45, while Paige Taylor shares, “Didn’t stop crying the entire time. This is what documentary is made for.”

“When the lights came on, everyone was in tears. One of the most remarkable experiences I’ve ever had. Holy shit I’m still in shock,” offers Wesley. Grady shares: “Pastor Kim is a fucking hero among men. I cried like a baby at this.”

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Hailing from the U.K., Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper earned the Grand Jury Prize—and more than a few comparisons to two other coming-of-age tales. As Leah notes, “I’m definitely not the first to connect this to Aftersun and The Florida Project but I think those are apt comparisons based on the empathy and care all three films have for their protagonists and their environment. I could watch Lola Campbell and Harris Dickinson for hours.”

That pair portrays a father-daughter duo learning how to live with each other that has Jack reflecting, “We really are just silly little people who need one another more than anything in the entire world :)” Shares Jack Jamieson: “Such a tender-hearted and comionate film that knows how to have fun with its characters without ever feeling like it doesn’t care for them.”

Noora Niasari’s Shayda scooped up the Audience Award for its exploration of an Iranian mother seeking refuge at an Australian women’s shelter with her young daughter. Zar Amir Ebrahimi stars as the title character, giving a very different turn than last year’s Holy Spider that has Matthew St. Clair proclaiming, “This is now a Zar Amir Ebrahimi fan .”

“Such beautiful casting and deeply affecting performances—the mother and daughter relationship feels genuine and I saw myself in them,” notes Amreen. H.I. Otis-Martinson reviews: “As a story of the ways in which women each other, it is beautifully understated and moving. In the end, however, the film comes back to a mother and daughter taking on the world together against all odds and uncertainty. And despite how difficult Shayda can be, I could watch those two face it for another two hours.”

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In a four star review of Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory, Keith Christen proclaims, “Oh this is gonna be a hit”, a prediction that has already paid off with the documentary’s Grand Jury Prize win. The Chilean documentary has stunned Letterboxders with its intimate observations of a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s. “As equally heartwarming and heartbreaking as you would expect,” writes Trevor Brandt.

Considering the film’s entwined reflections on personal and cultural memory, Melissa Tamminga shares: “The film takes on a unique quality and more complex subject in the way Augusto and Paulina’s relationship—the intersections they represent relative to love, memory, and identity—becomes a kind of tender and urgent metaphor for Chile itself, a country whose identity and history Augusto fought to preserve as a journalist, fighting Pinochet’s regime with his stories who Chileans really were and what they really wanted.”

“The word ‘harrowing’ is probably a bit overused when it comes to documentaries like this one covering tragedies on a massive scale, but I’ll be damned if I can think up a better descriptor,” says DarkImbecile of Mstylav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol, winner of the Audience Award. Like Beyond Utopia, the documentary landed to a 4.1 average Letterboxd rating. The film highlights raw, on-the-ground footage from a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped by a Russian siege that has left viewers speechless.

“I wish I had something to say about every film I’ve ever watched so that it would mean a lot more that for this one I have absolutely none,” reviews Coledeppe. From Griffin Hendrickson: “One of the hardest, haunting, and most important documentaries I’ve seen. (...) You can’t review a film like this, see it when you can.”

— Annie Lyons

Pictured: ‘The Persian Version’, winner of the US Dramatic Audience Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

Follow Sundance on Letterboxd.

Just past the halfway point of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Annie Lyons takes stock of deceitful fairies, a horny mess, rural youth and Peckham strolls. 1w29a

Sundance is properly underway! Now that every title has premiered, our on-the-ground team have returned from delivering trophies to Year in Review winners, and the at-home folks have started getting in on the fun, a merry onslaught of reviews is keeping us busy at Festiville HQ. We’re sifting through your reactions and searching for the crowd-pleasing hits, the unsung gems and whatever else is on your radar—Alexander Skarsgård cumshot, anyone? Let’s get into it!

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As festival fatigue sets in, a punchy comedy feels all the more vital to invigorate bleary eyes. Enter Rye Lane: Raine Allen-Miller’s romcom debut about two Black South Londoners has Letterboxders busting out the big smiles. “Rom coms are fucking back in the best way possible. Left me with a huge smile plastered on my face,” shares Allanah, while Emma notes, “My cheeks actually hurt from grinning ear to ear the entire damn runtime. May we all find the person who makes it feel like the world revolves around us.” Rye Lane remixes and uplifts familiar genre tropes, including an awkward meet-cute that has Jessica Vangel fantasizing: “I need to find a man crying in the loo! The writers saying they just wanted to make a Black joy film 🥹They accomplished that.”

Another London-set debut, Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society, also provided essential crowd-pleasing charm with its martial arts comedy and tale of two sisters. “Love the outrageousness of it all. So heartfelt and sincere but also so much fun! Very Desi-coded, which was an extra plus for me,” writes Abdullah. Alyce concurs: “So perfectly ridiculous, loved the dynamic between every character, how sincere it was even when it was being foolish.” The genre-blending Midnighter had Lyvie calling for “more of these fizzy, funny explorations of familial bonds, please—the more heightened action and chaotic humor, the better.” Erik Childress makes a similar request: “Put kung fu and heist plots into every movie.”

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“Gnarly and brutal”, “visceral”, “appropriately nasty”, “messy, gory, and a hell of a lot of fun”—even just a quick skim through the reviews for Talk To Me suggest why the story of some Aussie teens getting up to no good and conducting a séance has been making waves with the Midnight crowd. “Something went wrong in the great human experiment that someone was able to create this,” Ethan J. proclaims in a four star review. With the title snagged during Sundance by A24 for release, Dcortoi already has a prediction for its future reception: “Not sure what the discourse will be around this movie, but whether impressed or repulsed, people will absolutely be talking about it.”

Fellow Midnight selection In My Mother’s Skin, a World War II-set Filipino folklore horror that’s been picked up by Prime Video, has also pushed back bedtimes, especially thanks to what Ro calls a “near-perfect soundscape” that has Tilly buzzing: “I will never hear the croak of a cicada the same.” “My main takeaway with this film is that more often than not things are scarier when heard rather than seen,” writes Fragle. “There’s a gnarly shriek from the fairy, center frame and directed at the audience, that made me feel like I legitimately needed to run away and hide like a child (…) Rare for me but I think I’m gonna have to sleep with a light on.”

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One of the fest’s buzziest titles, especially after getting nabbed by Netflix in a $20 million deal, Fair Play has Letterboxders feeling stressed—in a good way. “Just thrums with tantalizing suspense. I had myself a good ass time,” reviews Jasmine Evaristo, while Michelle writes, “Packs such a punch, you’re forced to gasp aloud twice.” Raking in plenty of comparisons to Succession and Industry, Chloe Dumont’s feature chronicles the increasingly thorny relationship shared between two financial analysts. Aaron White proclaims that “it’s a slickly shot, tense, biting examination of power and gender dynamics in the workplace and relationships, too. More psychosexual than erotic, and full of sharply comedic moments. Laughing at assholes with weak egos never gets old.”

Ira Sach’s ages, featuring Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos, revolves around a love triangle that’s landing especially strong with those who revel in messy queer chaos. “I love beautiful people being absolutely horrible to each other.” (Iana, four and a half stars). “Complex, messy, gay European men having crises is my favorite cinematic genre.” (TristinBrown, five stars). “Shouts to Franz Rogowski’s banger fits—no one should look this thirst-inducing in a sweater.” (Poulomi, five stars). “I can’t quit Ben Whishaw either.” (Matt Jacobs, four stars). “Comment dit-on ‘fuccboi’ en français?” (Susannah Gruder, four stars).

And Martin shares the ideal way to get coffee in Park City: “After the screening I ran into Adèle Exarchopoulos on her way to the airport. We talked about the film while she had her coffee and a cigarette. She talked about how the film was a great reminder to not settle into relationships where she’s undervalued and that she would kick herself if found in her character’s situation. What a wonderful woman.”

You Hurt My Feelings explores the fallout from a little white lie, providing a more lighthearted look at relationship turmoil than ages—and it had Nicole Holofcener fans hollering. “Love a relational conflict that doesn’t have to be devastating. Love and [its] trials can sometimes just be contained in their own fleeting times,” Lizzy reviews. Says Josh: “Nicole Holofcener is just really good at making movies about grown ups with small problems that also can feel as big as the whole world.” Or, as Zach Shevich puts it, “It’s cozy Force Majeure.”

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Raven Jackson’s feature debut All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt has stunned, thanks to its deep sense of place and poetic unfurling of memories. “Having spent 20 years in Mississippi and every summer as a child, that opening fishing scene brought something back to me in a visceral way,” Melanie Addington reminisces, while Veronica Carr reflects, “Emotional, tender, gorgeously shot. I loved seeing this depiction of Southern Black life. At times I was nearly brought to tears because of how much this reminded me of my own childhood.”

Told via a nonlinear timeline, the film paints a portrait of a Black woman’s rural life through tactile vignettes, providing a welcome reprieve for Farah: “A film of many drops that each contain a river of meaning, feeling, sensorial luxury. Absolutely exquisite, an oasis in a week of extreme narrative saturation for me.”

Considering the film’s structure, Emma advises: “I’m going to encourage audience to go into this with the Inception side of your brain. People seem to struggle with complex timelines when they focus on life and domesticity, but magically find a way to grasp and enjoy it in sci fi. Look at time nonlinearly, allow yourself to flow in it—during this film and in your own world.”

— Annie Lyons

Pictured: Adèle Exarchopoulos and Franz Rogowski in ‘ages’.

Follow Sundance on Letterboxd.

Annie Lyons scans Letterboxd first reactions at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival to discover iconic queer luchadors, gay dads, sexy Catholicism and badass rock activists. 2q1n5w

Sundance is back, baby! Here at Festiville HQ, we’re eagerly scouring your reviews and keeping close tabs on the festival titles and trends making a ripple through the Letterboxd community. And with the first few days of the fest under our belt, one trend already warrants commentary. Maybe it’s the altitude, maybe it’s the feeling of in-person screenings, maybe it’s simply Sundance sparkle and lovely cinema that tugs at the heartstrings, but emotions are high.

What better way to keep warm in the Park City cold—or connected to other film lovers from home—than with some hot tears? Of course, there are other ways to keep warm: wrestling an exótico, or being that same exótico’s lover. As I dive into the Letterboxd reviews of Sundance offerings, I discover a fun fact: the festival’s founder Robert Redford storyboarded the sex scene in Cassandro!

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One of the final additions to this year’s program, playwright Celine Song’s feature debut Past Lives landed to rave reviews and even convinced Letterboxd member Nick Strauss to bend some rules. “I’ve not been rating Sundance movies so far this year… but I’ll be damned if I don’t express my strong feelings about this movie,” Nick writes in a four and a half star review, one of many ratings that all sit above three stars at time of writing (and that’s unusual for most films). Though, by many s, it’s a miracle that any reviews were even written amidst the flood of tears. “I saw this in a theater of 1,000 people and every single one of them was crying,” shares Grady, an observation that Brother Bro backs up: “By the end it seemed to have nearly the whole audience in tears.”

The romance incorporates in-yun, a Korean notion of fate and connection that also felt very much present in Eccles Theater. “Just a film that came along at the exact right time in my life and moved me just so much,” writes Thornton Cash, while Mikayla shares, “I’m truly convinced that I have in-yun with past lives, and I’m happy to be graced with this film in this lifetime.” Celestine affirms: “If in-yun exists, I’m so grateful to have it with this director, with this cast, with the audience of this premiere to experience this film, in this moment, in this lifetime.”

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It only takes a quick read of Fairyland’s synopsis to see why Andrew Durham’s film found a home in Utah—as Jason Bailey quips in a four star review, “Well now I can fill in the ‘get disproportionately emotional at a movie about a dad dying’ slot on my Sundance bingo card”—but an early outpouring of love (and more tears) show the reasons why we keep returning to such tales. “Over-lacquered, but in a way I hope will serve it well: the kind of film that will help a generation entering a new chapter of queer history to humanize the ones who didn’t quite get the chance to really live it,” Douglas Greenwood shares.

Scoot McNairy plays that dad in question, a single gay father raising his daughter in 1970s and ’80s San Francisco, and his rare leading turn satiated the appetites of a legion of Scoot-starved Letterboxders. David Gonzalez doesn’t mince words, labeling it a “career best” performance, while Peachfuzzcritic proclaims, “Scoot McNairy is sensational in this. He’s full of sensitivity, care, love, and warmth.” From Cat: “A really lovely performance from Scoot McNairy, who added so much empathy to a role that occasionally made it difficult to find.”

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Another gentle reminder that before our parents were our parents, they were people too, Patricia Ortega’s MAMACRUZ has resonated thanks to the specificity of its leading lady, a devoutly religious grandmother in Seville, Spain. “It’s easy to imagine an American version that flattened this into a thin geriatric sex comedy, but instead it’s a careful and generous character study of a religious grandmother [learning] how to connect to her mother, her adult daughter, and her own desires,” reviews Ivy. Or, as MaiaGolden simply declares, “the sexiest catholicism on screen since Fleabag.”

And in a testament to the festival magic of stumbling upon something unexpected and wonderful (and a review that has me expediting MAMACRUZ up my own watchlist), Laís Campos shares: “I can’t believe I did not have this movie on my list to watch here at Sundance. I was working my shift (which ended at 9:45) and at 9:20 my manager asked me if I would like to usher, and I said yes (because why not), and since everyone was already at their seats, I got to sit down and watch the movie with everyone. And it was incredible.”

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Alexandria Bombach’s documentary on the life of folk-rock activist duo Indigo Girls is landing as strong with those who haven’t heard of them as it is with hardcore fans. “I didn’t know anything about the Indigo Girls before watching this… what an amazing duo!” (Rosalie, five stars). “As someone who had never heard of the Indigo Girls before, I feel so grateful that I got to watch this film IN THE SAME ROOM AS THEM.” (Hannah, four stars). “As a nearly complete newcomer to the Indigo Girls, I had a blast learning about Amy and Emily and what badasses they are!” (Dillon, three and a half stars) “I can’t believe I’m just now discovering the Indigo Girls. They are so much more, like we all are.” (Rebecca Martin, four and a half stars).

— Annie Lyons

Pictured: Scoot McNairy and Nessa Dougherty in ‘Fairyland’.

Follow Sundance on Letterboxd.

From Jonathan Majors to Nicole Holofcener, these are the films and filmmakers we’re most excited to see at this year’s hybrid Sundance Film Festival. 503m40

After an intentionally all-virtual Sundance Film Festival in 2021 and a last-minute pivot back to purely virtual for 2022, some of us have our snow-boots and giant parkas packed, while others have our wi-fi and home entertainment systems ready, because Sundance is back this year in-person and online from January 19–29.

Unlike many festivals that have shifted exclusively back to in-person events, Sundance is maintaining their commitment to increased accessibility by putting a sizable portion of the festival slate online during the second half of the event. So while some folks will get to bathe in the Park City snow flurries, it is incredibly encouraging that film fans Stateside—and accredited media representatives globally—can also still in from afar.

The approach is aiming for the best of many worlds: capturing the indescribable energy that comes from being among the first to see some of the buzziest titles of the year, while seeking that sensation from the reactions of those attending from the safety of their homes. In any case, both groups will be sharing the hype worldwide via Letterboxd.

We’ll be there in both capacities, watching along at home and catching the shuttle between screenings. We’ve studied the lineup and tapped our sources to collate a preview of fifteen new films and fresh voices we are most eager to hear from. And we’ll be watching Letterboxd reviews closely for the buzz that brews along the way.

Read more on our most anticipated selections on Journal. 1e21t

Annie Lyons scours the program and eavesdrops on the Letterboxd group chat to find detachable wombs, leopard onesies, Sarah Snook and other independent treats to look forward to in the lineup for the 39th Sundance Film Festival.   5v2oc

Don your parkas, fluff up your couch cushions, and set your watches to Mountain Standard Time! As one year of film festival-going ends, another is poised to begin. And after two years of online-only programs, Sundance Film Festival will make its in-person return in Park City next month from January 19 to January 29. Home viewers, don’t fret—a selection of films will also be available online starting from January 24. 

As the 39th edition of the festival quickly approaches, Sundance has unveiled 101 feature films from the lineup. That’s 101 films to pore and obsess over in anticipation. For instance: What on earth is Ben Whishaw getting up to in ages? And in Bad Behaviour? Will Eliza Scanlen once again bring us to tears in The Starling Girl? Also high on our list is All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Raven Jackson’s poetic debut chronicling decades of a woman’s life in Mississippi. 

Below, we highlight more of the big hitters, interesting curiosities and connective themes that form this year’s lineup. Watchlists ready!

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Family and business might not always mix, as explored in Justin Chon’s music biz feature Jamojaya, but family and film make for a Sundance thematic staple. Scrapper, starring Harris Dickinson (Triangle of Sadness, Beach Rats) as an estranged father trying to reconnect with his preteen daughter, just might offer an answer to the Aftersun-shaped hole in our hearts. On the genre front, sci-fi The Pod Generation imagines a future where couples can share pregnancies via detachable artificial wombs and horror Run Rabbit Run sees Sarah Snook as a fertility doctor shaken by her daughter’s increasingly strange behavior. 

Directed and written by Maryam Keshavarz, The Persian Version traverses decades as an Iranian-American family gathers when their patriarch undergoes a heart transplant. ed by the similarly family-minded Shayda and Joonam, the film is also one of three selections from Iranian women filmmakers in this year’s lineup. 

Noora Niasari makes her directorial debut with Shayda, which follows an Iranian mother living in an Australian women’s shelter whose new beginnings get jeopardized after the arrival of her estranged husband. In Joonam, documentarian Sierra Urich investigates her own identity as she delves into her mother and grandmother’s pasts. 

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After churning stomachs and grating minds with Possessor, Brandon Cronenberg promises more surreal scares with Midnight selection Infinity Pool, a film that sounds like just the thing for anyone who’s ever wondered what White Lotus-but-make-it-body-horror could look like. (Plus: Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgård!) 

As an added bonus, Cronenberg is not the only filmmaker-progeny-filmmaker premiering a movie about a strange vacation. Alice Englert, daughter of Jane Campion, makes her directorial debut with Bad Behaviour. Art perhaps giving a nod to life, showbiz runs in the family for Lucy (Jennifer Connelly), a former child actor with a stunt-performer daughter who attends a spiritual retreat. 

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Sundance isn’t Sundance without a generous helping of good-natured and offbeat indie dramedies to keep hearts warm in the Park City cold. This year, the fest has Theater Camp, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s fittingly titled feature starring Letterboxd Ayo Edibiri and Patti Harrison. 

Rom-com lovers and Before… trilogy devotees can get their kicks on with Rye Lane. And though we can perhaps expect Landscape with Invisible Hand to be more acerbic in nature thanks to director Cory Finley’s two for two record of “Be Gay, Do Crime” movies, there’s sure to be some strange sweetness to his tale of teenagers saving their families after an alien invasion. 

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Following in the footsteps of Zola from three years prior, Cat Person promises to introduce another viral tale to the Sundance stage. Sure to be one of the fest’s buzziest titles, the film adapts the New Yorker story about a college student dating an older man that became a veritable lightning rod for discourse about writing ethics, dating and gender relations. 

Elsewhere on our Sundance bookshelf, Eileen tantalizes with its pairing of Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie as the leads of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel. In his directorial debut Shortcomings, Randall Park adapts Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel about a young Asian-American man dealing with his personal relationships. And Fairyland, produced by Sofia Coppola, draws from Alysia Abbott’s memoir chronicling her relationship with her father in 1970s and ’80s San Francisco. Writerly woes also play a part in You Hurt My Feelings, Nicole Holofcener’s latest anxiety-wringer, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a novelist who overhears her husband giving his unfiltered opinion of her new book. 

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With many plot details kept under wraps, the art of still selection becomes all the more important to transform curious eyes into rapt viewers. Case in point: the image of Jonathan Majors in our header graphic, draped in shadow, the contours of his muscles gleaming in the dim light, had plenty of us at Letterboxd HQ in a tizzy—and immediately piqued our further interest for Magazine Dreams. Directed and written by Elijah Bynum, the drama follows an amateur bodybuilder searching for intimacy. Also stepping into the ring is Cassandro’s leopard-print-sporting Gael García Bernal, playing a gay wrestler making waves with a new persona. 

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Escape, not just escapism, seems to linger in the mind of this year’s festival. In the US Dramatic Competition, two movies revolve around family kidnappings: A.V. Rockwell’s debut drama A Thousand and One sees a desperate mother kidnap her son from foster care, while Erica Tremblay’s (Seneca-Cayuga) Fancy Dance follows a Native American hustler who kidnaps her teenage niece from her white grandparents to take her to a state powwow.

Also in that competition, The Accidental Getaway Driver depicts a road trip that’s less hijinks than hijacking. Based on a true story, the feature revolves around an elderly Vietnamese cab driver who gets taken hostage by three recently escaped convicts.

Sundance 2023 takes place in Park City from January 19 to January 29, with a selection of films also available online starting from January 24, 2023. Tickets and packages are available now.

Follow us here at Festiville and on Journal for Sundance updates, previews and much more. Header image: Jonathan Majors in ‘Magazine Dreams’, Gael García Bernal in ‘Cassandro’, Sherry Cola in ‘Shortcomings’.

Donkeys, puppets, conductors, oh my! Our globe-trotting festival squad brings you the highlights of the jam-packed fall season. 5k471s

If you were at a film festival this fall, chances are you saw one of our crew on the ground, our microphone poking over the velvet rope to ask actors and filmmakers some of your most pressing questions. “I love Letterboxd,” Taylor Russell told us, not long after the one and only Cate Blanchett gave us a soundbite to end all soundbites. We even got the scoop from Aftersun daddy Paul Mescal on his four favorite films—he is a confirmed Blue Valentine fan, for the tortured romantics out there.

We snagged time for some in-depth conversations with the likes of Barry Keoghan, Park Chan-wook, Andrew Dominik, and the teams behind TÁR, Till and Aftersun (Paul Mescal, again? We are totally normal, people). On The Letterboxd Show we heard from directors Chandler Levack, Ti West and James Gray during their festival runs—as well as New York Film Festival’s assistant director of marketing, Jordan Raup.

We were there for spitgate. We saw Oscar prognosticators feverishly tallying the standing ovations of every film to see how it might impact their awards predictions. But most importantly, we saw the movies themselves.

With awards season quickly pulling into port, we asked our crew who were at Venice, London, Toronto, Austin, New York and Beyond to scour the Letterboxd reviews, jog their own memories, and highlight the best the season had to offer.

Read our picks on Journal.