An early-year release that had no business being as fun as it was.

Back-to-back not business being as fun as it was. At a cursory glance, it’s a shark movie. You think Jaws. It’s not. And it’s better for it.

Requiem For A Dream remains a top five movie of all-time for me; since then, Aronofsky’s been a director I’ve sought out somewhat religiously. (I even love mother!.) I went into this purposefully ignorant and found him… in his Guy Ritchie era?

Not even polarising, really, just universally panned. It’s not perfect, but there is a lot of stuff in here I had never seen before. If you just watched a trailer, you’d think it was a fuckboi-faux-auteur melange. It gets much further out there. I also find it very funny to watch Tyriq Withers in this and then see him pop up in Reminders Of Him trailers.

Two movies, split down the middle. Josh O’Connor might be my favorite actor to watch right now. Incredible here where a lot is required of him, stellar in Wake Up Dead Man, and was an overhand smash (you’re welcome) in Challengers. I want more of him.

See Josh O’Connor above.

Another mid-year horror release that had no business being this good, especially when they can release anything with “Final Destination” on it and people would go see it.

Skarsgård deserves a best supporting Oscar.

Do you give the Best Actress Oscar to Rose Jennifer Lawrence?

Do you give the Best Actress Oscar to Rose Byrne?

It was pitched as some kind of sexual sensory experience with the most beautiful woman in the world… and that is less than a third of the movie. It’s only one part of the in-depth metaphor Paolo Sorrente wrote about Naples, Italy, the “torrid, sexy, siren, chaotic beauty” of its origins part. As with most lost and nostalgic loves, its ephemeral nature evolves into a complicated affair, a real-life political mess of what things are and what others want them to be.

For an hour, I wondered if we were just going to watch another love story just in different clothing. By the end, it took everything in me not to sob uncontrollably.

A tiny, small-budget, independent, single-person showcase that sparked a bidding war, which A24 won, which I won because I learned about Eva Victor.

I watch a lot of horror movies and this one had some thing I had never seen before. I love when that happens. Also, rumour has it this was the first movie the Philippou boys wrote, but knew it would take more work from an audience. So they wrote and made Talk To Me — also great — and used their moment to do the thing they always wanted to do.

Mission: Impossible was a mess except the plane stunt, so I’m happy F1 stepped in and became The Reason You Go To The Movies.

Fairy-tale horror gone right.

You can inject any P.T. Anderson into my veins. From the minute I saw Boogie Nights, I was in love. When I heard he was making a movie based on Vineland, the Thomas Pynchon novel, I tried to read it and found it dense and jumpy and difficult to get through. Instead, Anderson found a way to cherry pick the perfect elements from the book and make a cohesive, funny, seat-gripping sprawl that we’ll be watching for years to come.

Warfare, a masterclass study in a locked-room narrative, perfected the realism of A Moment. I’m predisposed to love these types of movies where any facade is down and the moment is drawn for what it is, and war is already intoxicatingly surreal by its nature. Garland had the last act of Civil War under his belt from 2024; after seeing it, did he feel the same thing we all felt?