Unrelentingly funny, highly entertaining, and ridiculously absurd, My Movie Starring Paul Dano is, according to its creator, Joe Bartone, a tribute to the willful ignorance of independent filmmaking found in the late '70s in New York City. Developed through open discussions with the cast at the reading table, the mockumentary follows a delusional and fame-starved indie director, Herman Rumowicz, through the process of making his very first feature movie starring Paul Dano.

Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus is a beautiful, poignant, enraging, gut-wrenching, and heartbreaking film about the trauma and harm conversion therapy inflicts on young queer people. Even though its classification as horror holds, the emotional bond between the two main characters, Naim and Ryan, elevates the story into a realistic romantic drama on par with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Carolina Caroline follows Caroline (Samara Weaving), a bored young woman dreaming of escaping a small Texas town where nothing ever happens. When she meets Oliver (Kyle Gallner) at her workplace while he is conning the owner, she sees her perfect opportunity to get out. Their whirlwind romance strongly echoes Bonnie and Clyde, as the two quickly embark on a bank-robbing spree.

Stylish, slow, and somewhat standoffish, Human Resource examines corporate life from the perspective of a female HR employee as she interviews job candidates while also deciding whether to keep her newly discovered pregnancy.

Adapted from a 2014 novel by Atticus Lish, Preparation for the Next Life is the feature film debut of documentary filmmaker Bing Liu. With the help of screenwriter Martyna Majok, he paints a realistic and somber portrayal of Aishe, a Uyghur immigrant, as she struggles to make a living while undocumented in the United States.

My review’s title is a nod to Shakespeare and is entirely deliberate. The original movie portrayed the high-end fashion world as a brutal arena of plotting, backstabbing, and betrayal, and most Shakespeare’s plays depend on these plot devices. The Devil Wears Prada 2 uses the same formula, and is, plot-wise, almost identical. Once again, we plunge into the cutthroat world of Runway, where to get and stay at the top, you must let go of your principles and moral sense. The only thing different is that due to the digital era, Runway is not a print magazine anymore, but one that is running online.

From its visually stunning opening credits, which show women dancing through a forest to musical rhythms that sound almost primal, to its quiet, heartbreaking final frame, Mona Fastvold’s historical rendering of the Shaker religious movement is an experience that will stay with me for a long time.

As a huge fan of Sean Baker’s Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, I’ve wanted to watch Anora since before it even was released. But life got in the way, my watchlist grew, and honestly, the fact that it was marketed as a romantic comedy put me off. Even with all the critical praise and the five Academy Awards it won last year, I just kept postponing it indefinitely.

“Trust your gut" is one of the most common pieces of advice you’ll receive during your lifetime. And as a person inclined to trust my intuition above all else, it’s the most common advice I find myself giving in real life and in my online socialising. But what happens when your gut is trying to warn you that something is seriously wrong without you being able to identify what triggered it in the first place? How can you act on a feeling or make it go away when you don’t have a clue about what could be wrong? How can you trust your intuition when you don’t know what makes it act out in the first place?

One of the reasons I love watching movies is that, much like books, they serve as windows into other times and different places. Productions from around the world offer valuable insights into the history and culture of their respective countries. And just like literature, cinema can help us understand the present by showing us the past.

The genres of science fiction and fantasy are not exclusively masculine territory. Over the last few decades, female directors have brought to the screen some of the most visually stunning, intellectually daring, and deeply moving works of speculative fiction. From big Hollywood productions like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel to independent low-budget films, women filmmakers are making a name for themselves around the world.

Despite its aggressiveness, the Beef anthology series is about romantic love in all its forms. The final scene of the first season led us to believe that, despite the conflict, drama, and toxic traits, the main characters would end up together and, most likely, live happily ever after. The whole “beef” plot was the prelude to their love story.