Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 Cannes coverage. The President’s Cake opens in theaters on February 6. Among the best things in The President’s Cake are the colors. There’s the deep red of a rooster’s comb as it peeks out from a young girl’s carrying pouch; there’s the white decorations […]
The post The President’s Cake Review: All the Ingredients of a Breakthrough Directorial Debut first appeared on The Film Stage.
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 NYFF coverage. Scarlet opens in theaters on February 6. Across two decades of crafting animated features, director Mamoru Hosoda has made both intimate dramas like Wolf Children and high-concept films like the science-fiction spectacle Summer Wars. In 2019, his family fantasy Mirai was nominated […]
The post Scarlet Review: Mamoru Hosoda Simplistically Adapts a Timeless Tale first appeared on The Film Stage.
The shortest month of the year has a handful of cinematic highlights, including numerous films that qualified for awards last year but are now getting official roll-outs. Other notable releases include a contender for the funniest film of 2026, the latest from one of the most prolific directors working today, the long-awaited return of a […]
The post 10 Films to See in February first appeared on The Film Stage.
Gold is such an apt metaphor for greed. It’s shiny, it’s heavy, it’s superficial, and it’s obtained through someone’s hard labor. That labor is carried on the backs of the downtrodden and desperate while its benefactors maintain a comfortable distance. Gold prices are currently at an all-time high, a testament to the timelessness of its […]
The post Sundance Review: Ethan Hawke is Good as Gold in The Weight first appeared on The Film Stage.
Rock Springs works within a familiar genre framework––a family moves to a home in a town filled with strange people and is promptly haunted by spirits––to probe deeper ideas on the immigrant experience while exploring a Buddhist view of the afterlife. Divided into chapters, each from a different perspective, the film opens on Grace (Aria […]
The post Sundance Review: Rock Springs Tells an Ambitious Ghost Tale first appeared on The Film Stage.
After earning some of the finest acclaim of his career for May December, Todd Haynes was all set to embark on a 1930s, Los Angeles-set noir romance back in the summer of 2024. When Joaquin Phoenix got cold feet mere days before production was set to begin, the director had to go back to the […]
The post Todd Haynes to Shoot De Noche with Pedro Pascal and Danny Ramirez Starting Next Month first appeared on The Film Stage.
It’s now been over a year since the great David Lynch departed this Earth, and with his passing he left a number of unrealized projects. The major one was Unrecorded Night, a series set to be produced by Netflix but cancelled when the pandemic hit. While plot details are sparse, it was meant to feature […]
The post David Lynch’s Scripts for Unrecorded Night, Which Was to Star Toby Jones, to Be Published first appeared on The Film Stage.
An exacting, well-articulated portrait of a Kosovan family in crisis as they attempt to make ends meet, Shame and Money confronts anxieties in a life drowned by the demands of capitalism. Crafted with a documentary-like realism and scripted with the meticulous patience of a Cristian Mungiu or Nuri Bilge Ceylan film, Father and Exile director […]
The post Sundance Review: Shame and Money is a Pressure Cooker Drama About the Crushing Demands of Capitalism first appeared on The Film Stage.
There’s always been something sexy about the image of the cowboy, which has been praised as a portrait of good, old-fashioned masculinity as much as it’s been parodied. Queerness, of course, has expanded our idea of what a cowboy can/should be beyond that traditional coding, but for some, that notion of a John Wayne or […]
The post Sundance Review: Jaripeo is an Immersive Portrait of Mexico’s Queer Rodeo Culture first appeared on The Film Stage.
A Hong Sangsoo Berlinale premiere is no surprising development, but the first details on his 34th feature, The Day She Returns, are particularly exciting. Not least that the title would seem to directly signal perhaps his single greatest film, The Day He Arrives, connections to which may or not become evident shortly. Its premise is […]
The post A Scenario Multiplies In First Trailer for Hong Sangsoo’s The Day She Returns first appeared on The Film Stage.
