Nikki Baughan is Screen’s deputy reviews editor.
Best film
1. Love Lies Bleeding
Dir. Rose Glass
Glass takes a big swing after her 2019 debut Saint Maud, and knocks it out of the park with this queer romance set in the wrestling world of 1980s New Mexico. With blistering performances from leads Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian, the film is a blend of ’80s small town Americana, underdog sporting drama and feminist revenge narrative, flavoured with subtle hints of genre that build slowly to one of the year’s most cathartic climaxes.
2. His Three Daughters
Dir. Azazel Jacobs
Sensitively handled by writer/director Jacobs, this low-key chamber piece, set largely in the cramped New York apartment of a dying man, packs a powerful emotional punch thanks to three incredible performances from Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as adult sisters struggling to navigate the shifting sands of love, grief and guilt. A potent blend of comedy and tragedy.
3. All We Imagine As Light
Dir. Payal Kapadia
Life in modern Mumbai is fragile, complicated and entirely mesmerising in Kapadia’s lyrical film. Following three women through the bustling, anonymous city, Kapadia finds tenderness and beauty amid the turmoil and, while never glossing over the realities of life on the margins, builds her film into a celebration of the transformative power of love and friendship.
4. A Real Pain
Dir. Jesse Eisenberg
Eisenberg strikes a delicate balance between historical trauma — specifically, the Holocaust — and personal suffering, his screenplay effectively finding the pathos and humour in this story of two very different American cousins journeying to Poland to better understand their roots. Kieran Culkin puts in a masterful performance as a man only just managing to stay afloat.
5. The Balconettes
Dir. Noémie Merlant
Deep-rooted female fury has been at the heart of the year’s most memorable films and director/star Merlant sets her comedy/horror of rape and revenge against a sweltering Marseilles summer. Merlant and co-writer Céline Sciamma confront the issue of male violence, and rewrite the narrative in their own uncompromising, defiant terms.
6. Memories Of A Burning Body
Dir. Antonella Sudasassi Furniss
7. Salve Maria
Dir. Mar Coll
8. Emilia Pérez
Dir. Jacques Audiard
9. Anora
Dir. Sean Baker
10. A Different Man
Dir. Aaron Schimberg
No comments yet