Guillermo del Toro has delivered another visual marvel with Frankenstein, a film that distills Mary Shelley’s novel down to its most essential and enduring question. What does it mean to feel human, and who gets to claim true humanity. Del Toro approaches the material with a clarity of purpose that feels both bold and deeply reverent. The result is one of his most haunting and emotionally direct works.

Raoul Peck’s Orwell: 2+2=5 is a powerful, almost overwhelming documentary that treats George Orwell’s life and work not as historical artifacts but as living, breathing alarms. From its opening moments, the film radiates urgency. Peck draws a clear line between Orwell’s warnings and the political fractures of today, and the effect is both bracing and unsettling.

Nia DaCosta’s Hedda is a sultry, slow-burning drama that is far more interested in mood and power dynamics than narrative momentum. Loosely updating Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, the film situates its characters inside a decadent mansion that feels less like a home than a gilded trap. Everything here is polished, controlled, and faintly poisonous.

Kleber Mendonça Filho has never been shy about his love for Brazil. The beauty, the contradictions, the ghosts that never quite settle. The Secret Agent may be his most fully realized expression of that affection. It is a film steeped in atmosphere, humid with politics and memory, and directed with the confidence of a filmmaker who knows every street and shadow of Recife instinctively.

Anyone who has seen Damages or Bridesmaids has known for a while just what Rose Byrne is capable of delivering. But If I Had Legs I’d Kick You confirms it: she is undeniable and in this film, she’s at her career best. Visceral, raw, and hilarious, it’s the kind of performance that makes it clear just how rare true versatility is.

Hikari crafts a tender meditation on loneliness and human connection, elevated by Brendan Fraser’s soulful, understated performance in this years most crowd-pleasing efforts, Rental Family.

Sirāt is sonically overwhelming and visually hypnotic, the kind of film that floods the senses even when its story feels fragmented. Óliver Laxe creates a world where music has both a metaphysical presence and a physical weight, almost as if it is rising from the earth itself. The result is anxiety-inducing in all the right ways, a film that vibrates with an energy you feel more in your body than in your mind.

Scarlet is an engaging, wildly imaginative adventure that feels like it should not work nearly as well as it does. Set after the events of Hamlet, the film reimagines the tragedy through a gender-swapped lens, with Scarlet taking up the mantle of revenge and chasing Claudius into the Otherworld. It is bold, strange, and oddly sincere in its ambitions.

Bad Apples is the kind of comedy that makes you laugh first and then remember, a beat too late, that the thing you are laughing at is actually horrifying. Jonatan Etzler’s English-language debut has a refreshing, slightly unhinged energy that taps directly into a very real fear: children can be terrifying, and no one warns you enough about how chaotic they truly are.

With Amanda Seyfried delivering a performance of divine possession, The Testament of Ann Lee is a bold, hypnotic descent into faith, fanaticism, and ecstasy.

Richard Linklater has always had a gift for finding the quiet, delicate shadings of ordinary life, but Blue Moon might be the closest he has come to something openly devastating. The film drifts with a melancholy softness, yet every scene carries emotional weight. It is the kind of work that feels small until it suddenly isn’t, the kind that lingers long after the credits because it has tapped into something true.

Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine is an unusually conventional sports biopic that pulls some punches without much surprise. Johnson’s lead performance is safe and commendable but never a knockout.

A rom-com that prides itself in a high-concept execution of a fantastical world beyond our lives; Eternity is a surefire crowd-pleaser where love, life and loss all collide in a world in transit.

Thunderous in emotion yet ghostly in touch, Hamnet transforms the tragedy of loss into a haunting meditation on survival, life and love. Anchored by Jesse Buckley’s career defining performance; Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet is a gutting portrait of grief that will leave you breathless.

Train Dreams is a melancholy memory that is bound to devastate and encapsulate you. Joel Edgerton’s quiet silence echoes across generations; a story about the longing for a simple life at the turn of the century. Every frame will haunt you long after its final scene.

A fantastical sweat-soaked fantasy across the neon lights of Macau; Edward Berger’s newest feature is a foray into gambling hell - a misfire of epic proportions, an exponentially boring character study that wastes a great performance from Colin Farrell.

David Michod’s Christy is a sports biopic that straddles the safety of structure than reinvent the conventions. Christy Martin’s inspiring and tumultus story marks a bold new step in Sydney Sweeney’s career.

Dark, hilarious, and profoundly uncomfortable, No Other Choice refuses to let you laugh without consequence.

A cozy, character-driven crowd-pleaser, Poetic License finds humor and heart in emotional drift, generational echoes, and low-stakes romantic chaos.

Sentimental Value understands grief not as something that explodes, but as something that settles — quietly, unevenly, leaving cracks that time never fully repairs.

Renowned illustrator Tomer Hanuka discusses his approach to creating striking, narrative-driven artwork inspired by film. In this exclusive Layered Butter interview, Hanuka explores his use of color, composition, and storytelling to evoke emotion and reimagine iconic cinema moments. From his bold reinterpretations of classic films to his thoughts on the intersection of fine art and pop culture, Hanuka provides a rare glimpse into his creative process. Read on to discover how he brings cinematic worlds to life through his distinctive, award-winning style.

Layered Butter launching on Ko-fi!

Layered Butter x Stanley Kubrick

Joshua Oppenheimer's post apocalyptic musical, THE END is a dense emotional journey to the centre of the earth. A misfire of ambition and talent that feels more than a whisper than a showstopper.

Brady Corbet's The Brutalist is a perfect example of a cinematic, enigmatic voice pushing against the commercialism of the industry. Bold, brave and a visceral tour-de-force, we sat down with director Brady Corbet to discuss the intricacies of developing a film that goes against the rationale of the modern commercialism of the movie industry.