I laughed, and was not alone in doing so, out loud, and repeatedly.
Eccentric lottery winner, Charles, dreams of getting his favorite musicians, Mortimer-McGwyer, back together. His fantasy turns into reality when the bandmates and former lovers accept his invitation to play a private show at his home on Wallis Island. Old tensions resurface as Charles tries desperately to salvage his dream gig.
(Country: UK; Year: 2025; Director: James Griffiths; Writer: Tom Basden, Tim Key; Stars: Tim Key, Tom Basden, Steve Marsh, Sian Clifford, Akemnji Ndifornyen, Carey Mulligan, Luka Downie, Kerrie Thomason, Arron Long)
Two best friends rally the neighbors in their tenement building to help them hide a dead body over the best/worst night of their lives.
(Year: 2025; Director: Ben Jacobson; Writer: Mo Stark, Ben Jacobson, Stefan Marolachakis; Stars: Mo Stark, Ben Jacobson, Liza Colby, Tony Drazan, Lina Rong Mei Chen, Genevieve Hudson-Price, Liz Caribel Sierra, Ajay Naidu, Richard Price, Henry Czerny)
The alchemy of film means that sometimes this amount of gold can still feel leaden.
A father and daughter accidentally hit and kill a unicorn while en route to a weekend retreat, where the father's billionaire boss seeks to exploit the creature’s miraculous curative properties.
(Year: 2025; Director: Alex Scharfman; Writer: Alex Scharfman; Stars: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Richard E Grant, Anthony Carrigan, Sunita Mani, Jessica Hynes)
A successful black businessman, haunted by his crumbling marriage and identity crisis, is drawn into a sexualised game of cat and mouse with a mysterious white woman on a subway that leads to a violent conclusion.
(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Andre Gaines; Writer: Qasim Basir, Andre Gaines, Amiri Baraka; Stars: Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz, Aldis Hodge, André Holland)
After getting laid off, a thirtysomething paralegal in New York starts babysitting his psychiatrist's three granddaughters and falls for their mother, an actress in a rocky marriage.
(Year: 2025; Director: Matthew Shear; Stars: Amanda Peet, Matthew Shear, Alessandro Nivola, Judd Hirsch, Bob Balaban, Andrea Martin, Zosia Mamet, Jessica Harper, Holland Taylor, Sheng Wang)
Any number of films try to sell themselves on inviting us to ogle outsiders like these. The difference with Fucktoys is that it’s made by people who actually get it.
A bubblegum grindhouse adventure through sunny and romantic Trashtown, USA.
The film is at its most effective when we feel the urgency of their boredom – the athletic one pacing in circles like a trapped animal – juxtaposed with the languid charm of their environment.
Three women live in a palace where all needs are met but they can't leave. They develop secret touch-signals and practice death rituals, believing it's their escape. Tensions rise as they struggle between comfort and freedom.
(Country: Poland; Year: 2025; Director: Helena Ganjalyan, Bartosz Szpak; Writer: Helena Ganjalyan, Bartosz Szpak; Stars: Magdalena Fejdasz, Helena Ganjalyan, Weronika Humaj, Daniela Komedera)
Four friends' post-college plans are derailed when a wrong turn traps them on a never-ending backroad.
(Year: 2025; Director: Alexander Ullom; Writer: Alexander Ullom; Stars: Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, Mitchell Cole)
I Really Love My Husband
A newlywed's tropical getaway to Panama takes an unexpected turn when she finds herself drawn to their charismatic rental host, leading her to make a bold proposition that could change everything.
(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: GG Hawkins; Writer: GG Hawkins, Madison Lanesey, Scott Monahan; Stars: Madison Lanesey, Travis Quentin Young, Sophia Amodio, Mitch Bisshop, Rohan Cutlip, Allexa D'Alessio)
Subtle observations about the racism that underpins this superficially idyllic society pepper a film which repeatedly forces its hero to question his assumptions.
A young literature teacher lives a peaceful life in Oslo until his estranged uncle from the Iranian part of Kurdistan unexpectedly arrives for a visit.
(Country: Norway; Year: 2025; Director: Brwa Vahabpour; Writer: Brwa Vahabpour; Stars: Peiman Azizpour, Hamza Agoshi, Sarah Francesca Brænne, Magnus Lysbakken, Theresa Frostad Eggesbø, Emir Hakki, Marko Lazic, Mohamed Chakiri)
It feels as if a collection of fantasy and dystopian science fiction archetypes have been poured into a blender and swirled around to produce the script and visuals.
A musical about a farm girl in search of her destiny. She travels to a strange and dangerous city where she meets her one true love and faces the ultimate test.
(Country: Brazil, US; Year: 2025; Director: Geremy Jasper; Writer: Geremy Jasper; Stars: Sadie Sink, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Murray Bartlett, Regina Hall, Mark Boone Jr)
When Cass is asked by an alluring woman to watch her 11-year-old daughter while she goes out of town, Cass is forced to confront the truth of their own tumultuous childhood.
(Year: 2025; Director: Elena Oxman; Writer: Elena Oxman; Stars: Asia Kate Dillon, Louisa Krause, Ridley Asha Bateman, Lea DeLaria, Daniel K. Isaac, Melinda Meeng, Allie Heng, Winter Dewitt, Safia Fredericks, Sedrick Cabrera)
It’s refreshing to encounter a multiverse film that doesn’t mess about.
Irene Kelly travels through parallel universes, repeatedly killing her daughter's murderer. As she becomes consumed by vengeance, her humanity hangs in the balance.
(Country: US; Year: 2025; Director: Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus; Writer: Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus; Stars: Derick Alexander, Raphael Chestang, Debra Christofferson, Jim Cummings, Minita Gandhi, London Garcia, Jeremy Holm)
After a life altering accident, Ryan struggles to fit in with old friends and family at a birthday luau but the celebration boils over when he uncovers the missing memory of when his life took a tragic turn.
(Year: 2025; Director: Yana Alliata; Writer: Yana Alliata, Amy Miner; Stars: Ryan Wuestewald, Hans Christopher, Nikki DeParis, Fabrizio Alliata, Makena Miller, Nyah Juliano, Michael Carter)
Director Siobhan McCarthy is adept at using the long-established visual language of the high school movie both to entertain and to show us the world from a perspective that’s relatively new to cinema.
Just before graduation, Alex and Ethan pretend to be trans to get into the girl's lockers. It's all a joke until Ethan realises that for her, it's true. The two must reckon with their changing friendship and the process of coming out.
Desperate to fit in, an insecure Chinese American teenager undergoes experimental trans-racial surgery to become white in order to secure her chances of becoming prom queen and winning the acceptance of her peers.
So carefully balanced is this that the film could almost have emerged as a romcom, and it’s that possibility, that clash between the absurdity that cinema has taught us to expect and the bitterness of real life, that makes it so effective.
When a chance encounter with her rock star crush leads 16 year old Rylee to discover that he's a dysfunctional drug addict, she takes it upon herself to help him, ultimately forcing her teenage fantasies into reality.
(Country: Canada; Year: 2025; Director: Emma Higgins; Writer: Emma Higgins; Stars: Justin Chatwin, Steven Ogg, Amanda Brugel, Herman Tømmeraas, Kate Hallett, Aya Furukawa)
