MOVIES
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning drama about the mostly unseen effects of the Holocaust on the family of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss was not so much adapted from as inspired by the novel by Martin Amis. Starring Christian Friedel as Höss and Sandra Huller as his ruthless wife Hedwig, the film slowly builds a terrifying portrait of people pretending to be ordinary in the most horrific and extraordinary circumstances through the use of atmospheric music, jarring juxtaposition and implication to chilling effect.
Poor Things
Emma Stone’s Oscar-winning performance as Bella Baxter, the naive young woman brought back to life by Willem Dafoe’s unorthodox Victorian scientist and object of the desire of debauched lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) is the engaging centrepiece of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ macabre, visually innovative, steam-punk fable about sexual and personal awakening adapted from the novel by Alistair Gray.
The Holdovers
Paul Giamatti stars as the beleaguered and grumpy teacher at an upper-set boarding school, left to look after stragglers over the winter holidays, whose relationship with one precocious, troubled teen (Dominic Sessa) forces both of them to confront the hard realities of their lives in this ‘70s-set bittersweet return to form for director Alexander Payne.
Hit Man
In the year in which he became the internet’s favourite boyfriend, star Glen Powell was given free rein to exercise some serious acting chops in director Richard Linklater’s freewheeling comic caper based on the mad but true story of a Louisiana psychology lecturer whose part-time job as a consultant for the police takes a zany turn when he steps in to play the role of a hit-man for hire in undercover stings and falls for one of his marks (Adriana Arjona).
Challengers
Zendaya stars as a once-promising college tennis star who finds herself at the centre of a lusty love triangle with fellow players Mike Feist and Josh O’Connor in Luca Guadagnino's kinetically inventive drama about desire, unrealised potential, shattered knees and dreams. Scored with lively moodiness by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and featuring the most imaginative visual evocation of the game ever put on screen, it’s a film that oozes sex and desire without resorting to explicitly showing its underlying passions.
Dune: Part Two
Zendaya also starred in director Denis Villeneuve’s dedicated, spectacular second film in his three-part adaptation of the beloved sci-fi series by Frank Herbert. Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides continues his journey towards messianic prophet and freedom fighter in an instalment that turned up the quasi-religious themes and brought the key moment of riding a seemingly untameable sandworm to thrilling and ear-rattling cinematic life.
Rebel Ridge
Aaron Pierre proved himself a compelling and tough leading man in director Jeremy Saulnier’s smart homage to 1970s revenge films. Pierre plays Terry Richmond, a former marine with implacable steely blue eyes who, upon arrival in the small town of Shelby Springs, soon finds himself the object of unwanted and potentially lethal attention from local police and their cunning chief Sandy Burnne (Don Johnson). As Terry tries to pay bail for his cousin he soon discovers that in this town, things don’t work the way they should, placing him on increasingly violent course for a showdown with the chief and anyone who gets in his way.
His Three Daughters
Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen and Carrie Coon offer a trio of compellingly complex performances in director Azazel Jacobs' devastating chamber piece drama about three daughters brought together by the ailing health and imminent death of their father. Taut, tense and emotionally effective it’s a small, powerful film about family, grief and shared history that throws big life obstacles in the path of its ordinary but achingly real characters.
The Taste of Things
Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel star in director Tran Anh Hung’s visually sumptuous and seductive period drama about a cook and his assistant, the wondrous food they create together and the heartbreaking love they have for each other in this ode to the magic of fine cuisine, the sensuality of its patient preparation and its memorably emotional effect on those lucky enough to consume it.
Kneecap
Michael Fassbender cameos alongside the real members of Irish language rap group and activists, Kneecap in director Rich Peppiat’s rebellious, punk origin story comedy about three misfits joined together by their love of Irish, drugs and a healthily angry disdain for authority that offers one of the year’s most energetic and liberating cinematic experiences.
TV SHOWS
Shõgun
FX took a huge gamble on this lavish, predominantly Japanese language adaptation of James Clavell’s epic novel about violent ambition and political power-plays in 17th century Japan. Starring Cosmo Jarvis as the captain of a European ship marooned on the coast of Japan, Tadanobu Asano as the feudal lord who enlists him in his battle against greedy rivals and Anna Sawai as the translator with whom he falls in love, it proved some of the year’s most riveting and impressively realised entertainment and won a record 18 Emmys.
Baby Reindeer
Comedian Richard Gadd’s cringey, dark comedy series inspired by his real-life experiences with a dangerous stalker caused outrage and controversy when the real woman he alleged stalked him sued him for defamation. In spite of the real-world noise around the show, as a piece of dark comic drama it offered some of the most uncomfortable and hard-to-look away from intrigue in recent TV history and earned 6 Emmy’s for its efforts.
The Sympathizer
Master Korean director Park Chan-wook took on the challenges of adapting Viet Thanh Nguyen’s layered satire of the representational stereotypes of the Vietnam War with visually inventive aplomb in this darkly comic, absurdist show that featured four off-the-wall performances from Robert Downey Jr and offered a complex, intelligent re-evaluation of one of the 20th century’s most represented key moments to new and provocative effect.
The Penguin
Creator Lauren LeFranc took the dark noir world of Batman established in the 2022 feature directed by Matt Reeves and used it as the basis for this origin story of the unrecognisable Colin Farrell’s Ozwald Cobb in a smart, mob-world crime drama that presented a uniquely seedy and corrupt vision of a post-disaster Gotham racked by social division and criminal ambition. Pitted against the excellent Cristin Milioti's unstable, psychotic and deeply damaged mob-daughter, Sofia Falcone, “the Penguin,” emerged as a complicated and traumatised hustler who too many would underestimate at their peril.
Say Nothing
Lola Petticrew, Hazel Doupe, Maxine Peake, Anthony Boyle and Josh Finan excel in writer Joshua Zetumer’s sprawling, multi-character adaptation of the non-fiction book by journalist Patrick Radden Keefe about “the Troubles”, and the long-reaching moral and personally traumatic shadows left on nearly every inhabitant of Northern Ireland during its long and tortured civil war.
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