Christopher Machell

Challengers is, in the end, a fantastically well constructed film with a star-making performance at its centre. Not quite a masterpiece, Guadagnino holds back from fully embracing the potential of his film’s eroticism and style, but Challengers is nevertheless a worthy contender.

It’s not that Abigail is terrible: all its pieces slip together where they should, but its for all its excessive violence and gore it is a dull, lifeless experience.

Civil War, though imperfect, is a biting, satirical blockbuster that is as much about the alienation of modern media as it is about imagining a second American Civil War.

This biopic is a well-mounted and handsomely shot study of men obsessed by their work, but never fully hits top gear.

Like the best film noir, with which this in undoubtedly in dialogue, Trenque Lauquen is a film about affect and textural cohesion moreso than logic and catharsis.

Argentinian director Laura Citarella’s Trenque Lauquen is an enigmatic, semi-absurdist puzzle that defies the allure of narrative solution in favour of the liberation of loose ends.

In its depiction of a part of Europe struggling to keep up with neoliberalism, R.M.N. exposes the dark mirror of liberal, globalised western European metropolitanism.

More than a casual swipe at modern social trends, Rotting in the Sun exposes a kind of cruelty, alienation, and social stratification that is only as modern as the technology through which it expresses itself.

Past Lives, a film about love, friendship and fate, is an astonishing debut from South Korean-Canadian director Celine Song, and a devastatingly romantic one at that.

A pointed, revealing study of selfishness and an all-too familiar portrait of emotional indulgence, bolstered by three excellent lead performances.