Reviews by Marko Stojiljkovic

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  The Spiral (2026)

  Review preview for The Spiral

  Up until the end laced with cheap pseudo-biblical references, this horror-drama serves as a fun and thrilling ride.

  A woman unexpectedly shows up at her daughter’s home to reveal the truth about their family.
• 
  Frost (2026)

  Review preview for Frost

  It shows Vučković’s growth as an auteur.

  A rational, emotionally distant female police detective investigates the disappearance of a girl in a region famous for black magic and pagan heritage. Her investigation gradually becomes a journey into a mythical world.
• 
  The Lost Son (2026)

  Review preview for The Lost Son

  Eventually, The Lost Son ends up as a mixed bag that serves as a portfolio of Štante’s technical abilities as a director, but shortcomings as a writer.

  A detective investigating a domestic abuse case who discovers that the perpetrator is his own brother, forcing him to confront the violence that shaped his childhood.
• 
  3 Days In September (2026)

  Review preview for 3 Days In September

  A dynamic, lean, but refreshingly lightweight viewing experience.

  When her fiancé’s mistress crashes Bianca's wedding day, she flees on a tourist train, launching a real-time odyssey of chaotic escape.
• 
  Hidden People (2025)

  Review preview for Hidden People

  One could imagine a global, English-language remake of Hidden People that could almost write itself, largely thanks to the universal and bulletproof story.

  Handcuffed and with no memory, two strangers build a raft to rescue their broken lives.
• 
  Feels Like Home (2025)

  Review preview for Feels Like Home

  Feels Like Home avoids the usual traps of a thriller-chamber drama genre combination such as unnecessary repetitions that are the product of laying out the cards too soon.

  A woman is kidnapped by a family who claim that she is their missing daughter. She must impersonate this other woman in order to survive while she tries to find a way out of her nightmare.
• 
  Mother's Baby (2025)

  Review preview for Mother's Baby

  The filmmaker who previously made her name with romantic comedy-dramas, proves to be a bonafide genre auteur, although it is her first attempt

  The family dream becomes a nightmare as 40-year-old Julia struggles to bond with her newborn child.
• 
  Four Minus Three (2026)

  Review preview for Four Minus Three

  Goiginger once again proves that he is a keen student of human nature, behaviour, interactions with society and the eternal pursuit of living one’s life in one's own way.

  A family of professional clowns is hit by tragedy.
• 
  Rose (2026)

  Review preview for Rose

  Apart from setting the tone and maintaining it, the strongest point of Schleinzer’s filmmaking is casting and directing the actors' interactions between one another and the environment.

  A woman disguises herself as a man in 17th Century Germany.
• 
  Adorable Humans (2025)

  Review preview for Adorable Humans

  For an anthology movie, Adorable Humans is pretty consistent both in the terms of style and substance.

  Anthology re-imagining the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
• 
  Don't Trip (2025)

  Review preview for Don't Trip

  Kugelman makes a cardinal mistake in the character development department and with casting choices.

  A struggling writer befriends a powerful producer's eccentric son.
• 
  The History Of Sound (2025)

  Review preview for The History Of Sound

  Most of the filmmaker’s passion, wisdom and wits is packed in the first half, while the second half represents pure “production” of content.

  Two young men in 1920 set out to record the lives, voices and music of their American countrymen.
• 
  On A String (2025)

  Review preview for On A String

  There is no grand adventure, no melodramatic pathos, no broad comedy, just life as an eternal struggle for survival and for the chance of thriving, but also with a sense of warmth.

  Fresh out of Juilliard, a young violist returns home to live with her parents in the heart of New York City. Now it’s time to play gigs in the homes of strangers and make art with friends - nothing can go wrong, right?
• 
  Sunday Ninth (2025)

  Review preview for Sunday Ninth

  De Pauw is great as Horst, a frail, but still-threatening presence bursting with volatile, even violent energy.

  An Alzheimer's sufferer is reunited with the brother he hasn't seen in 30 years.
• 
  No Comment (2025)

  Review preview for No Comment

  The trouble is that the whole thing is not exactly new for a viewer who has a clue or two about politics.

  A PM gets caught up in a scandal ahead of the election.
• 
  Veins (2025)

  Review preview for Veins

  There are a lot of traces of other filmmakers’ work in Saint-Jean’s body horror that is most reminiscent of an extended vintage monster-of-the-week-kind of episode of The X Files.

  In Saint-Étienne, an ancient forest village, a young woman uncovers the mystery surrounding the sudden death of her father.
• 
  Hungarian Wedding (2025)

  Review preview for Hungarian Wedding

  Unlike other movies, where the music and the dancing usually serve as a sort of ill.ustrative, colourful background, here they dictate the rhythmic backbone of the film

  András and Péter are two young men trying to make it big with their rock band in Budapest in the early 1980s. When the opportunity arises to attend the wedding of András’s cousin in Transylvania, they decide to take it as a chance to raise some money. Once there, they embark on an unexpected adventure.
• 
  Adam's Sake (2025)

  Review preview for Adam's Sake

  Drucker, who earlier thrived as a character or supporting actress, once again demonstrates that she has the authority for lead parts.

  Following a court ruling, four-year-old Adam is hospitalised for malnutrition. The head nurse faces a tricky battle to balance the competing interests of child, parent and hospital.
• 
  DJ Ahmet (2025)

  Review preview for DJ Ahmet

  The artifice takes over, making the desired authenticity completely fake.

  Ahmet, a 15-year-old boy from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia find refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and first love.
• 
  Romería (2025)

  Review preview for Romería

  Combining slick digital look with the look of various antique formats, from DV to super-8, Simón creates her very own smooth blend.

  Marina, 18, orphaned at a young age, must travel to Spain’s Atlantic coast to obtain a signature for a scholarship application from the paternal grandparents she has never met.
• 
  It Was Just an Accident (2025)

  Review preview for It Was Just an Accident

  The takes are usually long and static, but every cut and move is justified for the purpose of dramaturgy.

  What begins as a minor accident sets in motion a series of escalating consequences.
• 
  The Mastermind (2025)

  Review preview for The Mastermind

  Reichardt’s attention to detail is visible in every aspect, and the perfect casting is no exception.

  In a quiet corner of Massachusetts circa 1970, JB Mooney, an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief, plots his first major heist. But when things go south, his life is turned upside down.
• 
  Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due (2025)

  Review preview for Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due

  When the twist, or better said, something actually resembling a plot, arrives, it is too late and the mechanics of it are too illogical, while the ending comes abruptly.

  Third in the Mektoub, My Love trilogy sees a soap star and her husband thrown into the mix.
• 
  God Will Not Help (2025)

  Review preview for God Will Not Help

  An extremely unnerving viewing experience

  A Chilean woman acts as a catalyst in a Croatian shepherd family after she arrives claiming to be the wife of their dead brother.
• 
  Dead Lover (2025)

  Review preview for Dead Lover

  The expressionist feeling of early 20th century cinema is further enhanced by the specific colour scheme, resembling a very early version of Technicolor, while the sound recalls that of the early sound films.

  A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments, resulting in grave consequences and unlikely love.
• 
  Tales From The Magic Garden (2025)

  Review preview for Tales From The Magic Garden

  Serves as a teaching tool of sorts that bridges the gap between the generations and opens up a communication regarding some unpleasant topics that are very present in everyday life.

  Three children spend the night with their grandfather after losing their grandmother and discover the power of imagination.
• 
  Love Letters (2025)

  Review preview for Love Letters

  On the technical level, Jacques Girault’s usually hand-held cinematography keeps the immediacy of associated with that choice, but never slips into “chaos cinema” shakiness.

  Céline is expecting her firstborn. But she’s not the one who’s pregnant. In three months, her wife Nadia will give birth to their daughter. Under the gaze of her friends, her mother, and the law, Céline looks for her place and sense of legitimacy.
• 
  Love Me Tender (2025)

  Review preview for Love Me Tender

  Krieps operates at her usual level of greatness, and Anna Cazenave Cambet does her a favour by putting her in the spotlight.

  One late summer, Clémence tells her ex-husband that she’s having romantic relationships with women. Her life is turned upside down when he takes custody of her son. Clémence must fight to remain a mother, a woman and a free woman.
• 
  Sleepless City (2025)

  Review preview for Sleepless City

  The “star player” is the director of photography Rui Poças

  Toni, a 15-year-old Roma boy, lives in the largest illegal slum in Europe, on the outskirts of Madrid. Proud to belong to his family of scrap dealers, he follows his grandfather everywhere. But when demolition companies start closing in on their land, the family is divided and choices must be made.
• 
  Mama (2025)

  Review preview for Mama

  Sinai portrays the situations one might find quite common and “close to home” with precision and emotional clarity.

  After many years working far from home, Mila is forced to temporarily leave her seaside mansion - and her secret romance - to return to her family in a remote Polish village. But the long-awaited reunion is far from what she imagined.
• 
  Nino (2025)

  Review preview for Nino

  Nino offers a glimpse into an ordinary, possibly unfulfilled life and the psyche of a contemporary man trying to reconfigure things in the wake of a challenge.

  Seventy-two hours before Nino's chemotherapy, he must complete the two missions given to him by his doctor.
• 
  Peak Everything (2025)

  Review preview for Peak Everything

  Émond’s mastery can be best observed in her perfect comedic timing and the use of sex as a tool both for comedy and emotional impact.

  A borderline depressive finds himself falling for a woman on a technical support line.
• 
  The Girl In The Snow (2025)

  Review preview for The Girl In The Snow

  A handsome piece of cinematic work,

  1899. On a stormy night, Aimée, a young Republican schoolteacher, arrives in a snowy hamlet on the edge of the Alps. Despite the mistrust of the inhabitants, she is determined to shed light on their dark beliefs. As she blends into the life of the community, a sensual vertigo grows within her.
• 
  The Instinct (2024)

  Review preview for The Instinct

  Pereira and Cayo could probably carry a “two-hander” – which The Instinct is – with no trouble, but only if they had something real in their characters to work with

  A home invasion thriller featuring a dog trainer trying to modify a human's brain.
• 
  House Of Sayuri (2024)

  Review preview for House Of Sayuri

  House of Sayuri plays like a peculiar rather than fully accomplished movie

  A vengeful ghost decimates a family until a counterattack from a bold grandmother brings a startling new dynamic into the house.
• 
  The Home (2025)

  Review preview for The Home

  The real candy is the omnipresent densely uncomfortable atmosphere that comes on top of the richly detailed observations and conclusions in the film's lower layers.

  Many years after leaving, Joel returns home to move his mother Monika to a care facility for the elderly struggling with dementia. But as she starts to have terrifying visions, he begins to suspect something supernatural is at work.
• 
  Cadet (2024)

  Review preview for Cadet

  Yerzhanov opens the film strongly, using his trademark dark humour.

  A mother Alina tries to enroll her son, Serik, in an elite military academy, but he is bullied by his classmates.
• 
  The Black Hole (2024)

  Review preview for The Black Hole

  Powered by strong acting performances ... The Black Hole surfs through various genres smoothly.

  As aliens descend to study humans, the people caught up in their investigations face turning points in their own lives. Two women take part-time jobs being dissected by the cosmic visitors; a woman fleeing an abusive relationship takes shelter in a muscle mummy’s giant-spider-ridden apartment; and a young man begins an affair with the domineering, alluring woman across the street while his mother seeks fulfillment in an expensive vacuum cleaner.
• 
  U Are The Universe (2024)

  Review preview for U Are The Universe

  Given that U Are The Universe is practically a one-man-play, Volodymyr Kravchuk masterfully commands the screen combining his knack for humour with a strong sense for drama.

  In the distant future, a space trucker from Khmelnytskyi is trying to get rid of over three billion tons of waste. When he hears from a woman on a distant space station, he becomes determined to reach her.
• 
  Spermageddon (2024)

  Review preview for Spermageddon

  Nothing short of an instant cult.

  Two awkward teens are having sex for the first time, while Simon the Semen and his friends are on a quest to reach the golden goal, the Egg.
• 
  How To Be Normal And The Oddness Of The Other World (2025)

  Review preview for How To Be Normal And The Oddness Of The Other World

  It is a ride, okay, and it is a bit nauseating and therefore not sterile.

  Freshly released from psychiatric hospital, Pia moves back in with her parents to rebuild her life. In a world that feels as unsteady as herself, she juggles jobs, heartbreak, her meds and social stigma as she searches for equilibrium.
• 
  The Million Dollar Bet (2024)

  Review preview for The Million Dollar Bet

  The screenplay written by the filmmaker and Andrea Piva is a proper masterwork, from the basic plotting to the intelligent, insightful dialogue.

  A pair of pals find their friendship challenged when one of them decides to run three back-to-back marathons in 24 hours.
• 
  Mickey 17 (2025)

  Review preview for Mickey 17

  Bong loses the thread in numerous half-baked sub-plots whose inflation takes its toll on the bloated runtime.

  The unlikely hero, Mickey Barnes, has found himself in the extraordinary circumstance of working for an employer who demands the ultimate commitment to the job … to die, for a living.
• 
  Delicious (2025)

  Review preview for Delicious

  Manages to squeeze solid performances from actors and to infuse the run of the mill story with some dense and tense atmosphere set against the backdrop of the overall slickness of Frank Griebe’s cinematography

  A family's apparently perfect façade starts to crumble when an accident leads them to hire a maid.
• 
  1001 Frames (2025)

  Review preview for 1001 Frames

  A pretty empty and tiresome experience.

  In the studio of a well-known director, female actors audition for the role of Scheherazade in A Thousand and One Nights. But the women gradually realise that the director has more in mind than just casting the leading role.
• 
  The Incredible Snow Woman (2025)

  Review preview for The Incredible Snow Woman

  Without Blanche Gardin, who carries the whole film, The Incredible Snow Woman would be a mix of generic dramedy and equally generic comedy that simply tries too hard to send quirky and “subversive” vibes.

  A woman for whom an Arctic expedition holds no fear finds her personal life spiralling out of control.
• 
  Sandbag Dam (2025)

  Review preview for Sandbag Dam

  Sandbag Dam is powered by stellar, deeply lived-in performances by the young and budding actors.

  In a village threatened by flooding a young man's life is turned upside down by the rekindling of a forbidden romance.
• 
  We Believe You (2025)

  Review preview for We Believe You

  We Believe You works to perfection thanks to the dedication and stellar directing, acting and technical work.

  A mother does everything she can to protect her children from their father at a custody hearing.
• 
  Little Trouble Girls (2025)

  Review preview for Little Trouble Girls

  Along with Vladimir Gojun’s progressively rhythmic editing and Julij Zornik’s subjective sound design, the filmmaker takes us right into the protagonist’s, and therefore any and every teenager’s head.

  During a weekend of rehearsals with the school choir at a convent, an introverted teenager begins to view the world from a new perspective.
• 
  Where The Night Stands Still (2025)

  Review preview for Where The Night Stands Still

  Opting for the single-take scenes, usually in wider shots from a distance, signals artistic formal rigour.

  Three Filipino siblings, all domestic workers in Italy, meet in the villa that one of the sisters has inherited. Shared memories and buried grievances come to the surface and put their fragile relationship to the test.