On release in 1973, audiences waited out in long lines for Warner Bros biggest film since The Godfather, a film which was reported to have some of the strongest audience reactions to this date. Various viewers reportedly fainted during sequences, a New York citizen was reported to have miscarried, and one man was carried out in a stretcher after only 20 minutes. Nausea was frequent, and Catholic viewers, including both people who had lapsed in their faith and current faith practisers, stated that they experienced spiritual crises before and after watching the film. In the UK, the film drew protests from the Nationwide Festival of Light, a Christian public action group, and once released on home video, the film was withdrawn from being available after the passing of the Video Recordings Act in 1984, which sought to ban so called ‘video nasties’. This film, which gained so much outrage and paranoia, is The Exorcist, director William Friedkin’s supernatural-drama based on screenwriter William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel of the same name. The Exorcist has become an iconic horror feature in the time since, spawning a franchise and influencing the future of the horror genre in subsequent years, after grossing $193 million worldwide, and a lifetime gross of $441 million after re-releases. The film spent decades as the highest grossing R-rated film (adjusted for inflation), until being de-throned by Stephen King adaptation IT in 2017, and became the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Blatty winning the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the production crew taking home the Academy Award for Best Sound.
William Peter Blatty’s original novel was inspired by the one of the very first cases of demonic possession known to the public, a phenomenon that would being more widespread in the years after the release of the Exorcist. Exorcisms, performed by the Catholic Church, were a low commodity in the years before Friedkin’s film, but cases reported to the Church became more frequent after the film’s release. It would even get to the point that demonic possession would come to the courts in 1981, with the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who claimed that he was possessed by the devil when committing murders. The trial would go on to be the basis of the third Conjuring film, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in 2021.
Behind the scenes of the Head Twist sequence in The Exorcist
Blatty’s basis would be a lot less mainstream than Johnson’s case, with the novel being based on a series of exorcisms performed on an anonymous boy by the attending priest, Raymond J. Bishop, and under the pseudonym ‘Roland Doe’ or ‘Robbie Mannheim’. It was claimed that the boy became possessed after coming into possession of a Ouija Board, which would become a small plot point in Blatty’s screenplay. So little was known about the case during Blatty’s discovery of the events, that it took until December 2021 for the American magazine, The Sceptical Inquirer, to report the purported identity of the boy as Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. Blatty’s signature drive to craft the novel came from seeing Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby in 1968, being drawn to the film’s ability to keep the audience unsure whether Rosemary’s concerns for the supernatural nature of her baby were genuine or unfounded. He was, however, unhappy in the ending, believing the reveals to be shlocky in nature, and was determined to craft a novel that bridged the world between realism and the supernatural convincingly.
The appearance of Pazuzu in The Exorcist
This becomes the route of the narrative thrust of both the novel and the film adaptation. The Exorcist follows the mysterious demonic possession of eleven-year-old Regan MacNeill, the daughter of a famous Hollywood actress. Her mother, Chris, pursues every angle to try and explain what is wrong with her daughter, and after scientific means fail her daughter, she recruits two priests to try and exorcise the demon. Those priests come in the form of Father Damian Karras, a priest who has lost his way after the death of his mother, and Father Lankester Merrin, who has done battle with the demon before. The novel and film retain the same basic plot developments, but Blatty’s screenplay narrows the focus down to the key plot points and characters that make up the narrative crux. The time frame of the events is shortened, and characters like Chris’ staff, Dennings and Regan’s father are removed entirely. A lot of the most horrifying content of the novel was also toned down in scripting, mainly the sexual aspects, once it was clear an age-accurate actress would play the eleven-year-old character. Blatty’s screenplay also foregoes the ambiguous nature of the novel’s perception of the supernatural events, with each occurrence of Regan’s supernatural abilities being paired with a reference to a real-world case where the root of the problem was revealed to be scientific in nature. Outside of Karras’ initial concerns over the validity of the claims, the film version removes the sceptical perspective entirely.
This lack of scepticism leads the emotional throughline of the film’s narrative, a mother’s pursuit to do anything possible to save her daughter. Chris is a famous actress and moves herself and her daughter to a new home for an upcoming role, and this movement leads to an isolation for her character instantly, and Blatty’s screenplay pairs the small-town drama aspect with horror perfectly. The film never gives the viewer a perfect answer for how Regan becomes possessed, it could be the Ouija board, but its never told for sure, and this mystery thrusts Chris into action. She takes Regan to every scientific expert she could think of, with the film displaying these scientific machines as cold and terrifying, with many audience members finding the angiography sequence to be the film’s most unsettling moment. When all the natural means fail her, the film crosses over into the supernatural with her, placing her complete faith in the unknown and to the two priests that could save her daughter. Ellen Burstyn delivers a moving performance across the film, capturing a vulnerability and an openness to a mother who will do anything for her daughter, and the slow-moving nature of the opening allows the audience to gain a connection to the bond between Chris and Regan, and even more so Burstyn and Linda Blair.
Jason Miller in The Exorcist
The balance between realism and faith also comes in the character of Karras, played by Jason Miller. Karras is a complex character, he is railroaded by his grief, losing faith in God after he seen his mother go through so much pain before death. It’s this pursuit of meaning to regain his faith which holds together his arc. He falls under the pull of his grief when Regan’s possessed self makes fun of his mother, but he ends the film allowing good to prevail. His fall from the window allows him to remove the demon from the mortal plane, and he knows that in his death, God will accept him once again. Miller’s performance matches Burstyn’s, he is calm and collected, the pain coming from his eyes and his facial expressions, but he conveys a sense of warmth and kindness. These two central performances convey why The Exorcist is such a compelling film, it bridges the world between horror and drama so perfectly, it’s a movie about a woman trying to save her child and a man trying to regain his faith, with supernatural undertones to compliment those narrative elements.
That is not to say, however, that The Exorcist is without its frightening scares. What once was known as ‘one of the scariest films ever made’, may feel less frightening to a modern audience who are used to supernatural clowns and nuns, but the film’s horror still works frequently. Scenes like the crucifix masturbation scene also works as a scene to both frighten and make the audience uncomfortable, shooting the sequence head on to make the audience feel like they are also in the room. Friedkin’s direction, who was hot off the success of 1971’s The French Connection, which he won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director for, makes the film feel like a pseudo-documentary. The audience feels like a fly-on-the-wall of the events taking place, as the natural lightning and authentic set design gives the film the air of realism. The supernatural aspects are aesthetically toned down compared to the novel, so when they do occur, they hit harder than if the scares were frequent and expected. The head twist sequence is a pure example of this, its terrifying because it is the only attempt at doing something so incredibly outlandish in the film’s runtime.
Spider-Walk sequence performed by stuntwoman Ann Miles
A similar experience was exercised from the film, a spider-walk sequence where Regan comes down the stairs in a creepy crawl, ending with a shot of Regan with a blood-soaked mouth. Blatty and Friedkin disagreed on various aspects of the film, namely the crucifixion masturbation sequence, and this was one sequence which Friedkin removed because of Blatty’s insistence. The scene stayed hidden for years, with many people arguing whether it even existed in the first place but was soon found by film critic Mark Kermode in the Warner Bros. archives when researching his book analysing the film, and the scene was reinstated in the 2000s director’s cut. The director’s cut was also used to re-emphasise one of the creepiest sequences of the film, the brief flash of the true face of the demon. The demon would not be named properly until the sequel, but his form would appear as both a face flashed on screen during Karras’ dream, and as a statue found by Merrin in the film’s prologue. The directors cut made use of this subliminal flash and placed it more commonly across the film, placed in frightening moments to give a more dream-like feel to the film.
Ellen Burstyn and subliminal appearances of Pazuzu in The Exorcist
The legacy of The Exorcist is a hard thing to describe completely, it was a wildfire of a film which proved that horror films can be taken seriously, making more A-list actors interested in starring in horror features. A massive trend followed the release of the feature, with studios allocating larger budgets to films that fit into a similar niche for the genre, namely 1976’s The Omen and 1979’s The Amityville Horror. Exorcism features would also become a trend in the coming years, a sub-genre in horror that still dominates the box office today, with The Conjuring franchise focused on similar genre tropes started by The Exorcist.
The film also spawned a franchise, followed by The Exorcist II: The Heretic in 1977, a film made without the involvement of either Friedkin or Blatty, and would stall the franchise for another 13 years after failing critically. In response to the negative response to the sequel, Friedkin and Blatty began work on their own sequel, which Blatty turned into his sequel novel Legion, once Friedkin departed from the project. Legion follows side characters, Detective Kinderman and Father Dyer, from the original novel, who become involved in a criminal case with a revived serial killer. The novel became the basis of Blatty’s screenplay for The Exorcist III, which he would also direct. Two attempts at a prequel following Father Merrin’s first encounter with Pazuzu would follow next, with Paul Schrader hired first and then replaced by Renny Harlin to replace him as director. Warner Bros would release Harlin’s Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004, and after becoming a critical and commercial failure, Schrader’s Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist would be released in 2005. The latest attempt to keep this franchise alive, after a two season TV adaptation on Fox, would come from Blumhouse, after acquiring the rights to the franchise for $300 million dollars, with the release of The Exorcist: Believer in 2023. The two sequels would be scrapped after its failure, and a Mike Flanagan-directed reboot is currently in the works for the studio. As a franchise, it seems that The Exorcist floundered, but it only proves how monumental the original is, it was a lightning in a bottle film, and that is hard to capture afterwards.
Ellen Burstyn returns in The Exorcist: Believer
Willaim Friedkin and William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is a tremendous undertaking of a horror feature, an important film that legitimised the horror genre for the mainstream public. It is a completely accurate adaptation of Blatty’s original novel, with a more streamlined approach that could be argued to make the story even better. What makes the movie work so well, and what the franchise since could not recapture, is the balance between the horror and the drama. The movie, at heart, is about the distinction between science and faith, and the human drama of a man losing his faith and a woman trying to save her daughter, wrapped in a horror story focused on a demon.
William Friedkin and Linda Blair behind the scenes of The Exorcist
Off the back of the release of Get Out in 2017, the horror genre has made another massive boom in relevance that has not been seen since the likes of the slasher trend in the 80s off the back of Halloween in 1978. As established through the term of ‘elevated horror’ during the post-modern legacy sequel Scream in 2022, horror has become meaningful and thematically deep once again. Horror franchises still exist and thrive, like the aforementioned Scream, or the forever relevant The Conjuring franchise that has dominated the 2010s, but as proved by the success of films like Longlegs and Sinners, original horror features with deeper metaphorical meaning and made with a director’s vision in mind has become the new hot commodity for the genre. Warner Bros has had a hell of a year so far with the success of both Sinners and Superman and entering the bidding war for Zach Creggers’ sophomore horror feature, Weapons, has landed them another certified hit.
The studio won the bidding war against other giants like Netflix, TriStar Pictures and Universal Pictures, most notably subsidiary Monkeypaw Productions, Jordan Peele’s production company, with the Get Out-director parting ways with his managers after their loss in the bidding war. Director Zach Cregger impressed immensely with his solo feature film debut in Barbarian, a smart thriller which played with its audiences’ expectations of the genre rules and put the former member of comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’ Know on the map as a new fresh voice in horror. This was not the first work the director-screenwriter had done for major studios, his comedy troupe were involved in the production of sitcoms Friends with Benefits, Guys with Kids and Wrecked, and co-directing with the late Trevor Moore on the panned feature film Miss March. This turn to horror put him on the map however, delivering a smart script which both thrilled and had deeper messaging around toxic masculinity and corruption, and this deeper exploration of themes only continues in 2025’s Weapons.
Julia Garner in Weapons
The marketing of Weapons has been very mysterious, with the unpredictability of the feature being one of its main marketing gimmicks, so this review will be as vague as possible when discussing this feature. Nevertheless, Weapons follows a mysterious tragedy that be-falls a small-town. Seventeen children mysteriously disappear in the night, all from the same class and taught by the same teacher. The film follows the town’s reaction to the unexplainable events, and the parent’s pursuit to find someone to blame.
When being pitched to the studios through the software app Embershot on January 23 2023, Weapons was described as a ‘horror epic’, and the film easily lives up to that hybrid genre promise. Compared to the Paul Thomas Anderson feature ‘Magnolia’, the film mixes the world of horror and the film epic, combining the thrills and terror with a massive cast of characters that intersect across a grand narrative. The film’s structure is one of its most rewarding aspects, splitting the narrative into chapters that focus around one of the many characters that populate the film’s incredibly layered narrative. Events in the narrative take place across a small window of time, essentially two days, and each chapter plays out like a small piece of a larger puzzle, replaying similar events that have new meaning when viewed through new characters’ eyes. Each chapter feels like a separate film, layering out different tones and characters that all work together in such a fantastically controlled script. The movie rides the line between so many genres, adding in comedy and drama aspects as well into the pile, and Cregger combines it all together in a cohesive whole that should not work. The mystery is layered out and articulate in the details it gives you, suspenseful and scary in all the best ways, and then boils over to a ballsy and hilarious closer.
Josh Brolin in Weapons
When initially put into production after being purchased by Warner Bros, the film recruited a heavy sum of talent, with Pedro Pascal, Renate Reinsve, Brian Tyree Henry, Austin Abrams, Tom Burke and June Diane Raphael making up Cregger’s cast. However, once the actors strike hit in 2023 and production was delayed, Pascal, Reisve, Henry and Burke bowed out of their leading roles, and would soon be replaced with Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Benedict Wong and Alden Ehrenreich respectively. Production delays can never be good for a feature, but here they worked out for the best, it is hard to imagine any other actors embodying their roles as easily as this cast featured here. Garner manages to convey many sides to her central teacher role, it’s a hard role to juggle, a character who is a victim because of the town’s pursuit of her being the perpetrator, but Cregger’s character don’t fall into perfect fundamental roles.
Austin Abrams in Weapons
Garner conveys a character who is unprofessional at times, and is a bit messy in her relationships, but the film shows she genuinely cares for the students she teaches. Brolin delivers a similar performance, playing a father who is wracked with guilt over his son’s disappearance and looking for anyone to direct his anger towards. It would be easy to make a character like this irredeemable or even completely innocent, but the script smartly does both, grief makes people do horrible things and an understanding of that comes from the audience. Benedict Wong and Alden Ehrenreich also do excellent work in their supporting roles, playing two characters that walk the line perfectly between hilarious and horrific in all the best ways. Austin Abrams’ performance makes a very stock ‘junkie’ character into an endearing and humorous part of such a talent cast, with his chapter serving as the film’s most comedic. The biggest standout of the cast however is newcomer Cary Christopher, who makes his film debut in such a crucial role here. For such a younger performer, Christopher handles a massive weight on his shoulders, the film would fall apart if his scenes were not nailed, the entire narrative forming around this one sympathetic performance.
This character also serves to bring across Weapons’ many central themes. There is so much going on across this film, and the true metaphorical meaning of some narrative choices and visuals will be analysed for years to come, but there is still some clear messaging here. Creggers’ previous film, Barbarian, built itself around three pillars of metaphorical messaging, toxic masculinity, male rape culture and police corruption. Two of three of these central themes continue to be prevalent here, Ehrenreich’s chapter serves to highlight police corruption as a theme, but also in the failings of governmental bodies that do not seem to care about the less fortunate and their missing children, with vigilante justice being the only way the characters may save the day. Brolin’s character builds around a smaller look at toxic masculinity, representing him as a troubled father who finds it hard to fit out of the box of ‘traditional’ masculinity, which then rubs off on his child.
Benedict Wong and Julia Garner in Weapons
The term Weapons used in the title seems to convey the idea that bad parenting, pain, grief, the failings of governmental bodies who are meant to protect us, can all lead to a child becoming a weapon of that pain and anger. It’s a film about generational trauma, where the sins of the older generation only serve to make the lives of the next become more desperate and worrying. Zach Cregger has also sought to squash rumours that the film is metaphorically about the aftermath of the school shooting, but it is hard to shake when the points all lead to that conclusion. The central plot being focused on a school tragedy, with angry parents looking to blame anyone, even the teacher for an unexplainable event seems to connect the dots, and a dream sequence even showcases a floating gun, which seems to at least confirm an attempt to connect the supernatural events to a tragedy such as a school shooting.
Cregger’s direction is filled with the thrills you would expect from this genre-bender rollercoaster of a feature, he has perfected the use of the tracking shot and the terror that comes from holding the camera still in long shots. Weapons is a tour-de-force showcasing of the talents of this director, a perfectly crafted film that should not work as well as it does, blending the genres of comedy, horror, drama and film epics in such a perfect way. Barbarian was the warm-up, and this is the true showing of his genius.
In the age of A24 and Blumhouse, the horror genre has made big names out of the most unlikely of faces. Jordan Peele, renowned director of such hits like Get Out and Nope, made his start as part of comedy duo Key and Peele. Barbarian director, Zach Cregger, began work as part of the comedy television troupe known as The Whitest Kids U’ Know, and Until Dawn director David F. Sandberg was discovered when making horror short films on video hosting website Youtube, with one short film turning into his directorial debut, Lights Out. Horror could easily be seen as gateway genre, built to debut entertaining and unique voices that no other genre may give a chance to, and one of those new key voices is the duo of Danny and Michael Philippou.
The duo gained their fame from starting off as Youtube celebrities, creating the channel RackaRacka in 2013, a comedy focused channel, where the brothers filmed humorous and sometimes horrific and violent skits. A love for horror could be seen all the way back then, and after working as crew members on the 2014 film The Babadook, they began work on their directorial debut. Talk To Me served as their directorial debut, a low-budget indie that took the world by storm once it was picked up by A24 after being screened at festivals, and soon became their highest grossing film, grossing $92 million worldwide against a production budget of $4.5 million. A bold new take on the possession genre, with fresh new voices breathing new life into a tired old genre, they became a notable name in the genre.
Sally Hawkins and Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back
Here, three years after the release of Talk To Me, the brothers have released their follow-up feature, still contained in the horror genre. In 2025, Bring Her Back serves as their return to the big screen, continuing their exploration into the possession genre, in a fresh new way that speaks in unison with their prior work. The film follows 17-year-old Andy and his partially sighted younger stepsister Piper, after the death of their father. Thrown into the adoption agency, they become adopted by a strange woman named Laura, who recently lost her own child, and wraps the two young siblings into a sinister occult ritual.
Bring Her Back serves as hybrid genre film, mixing the worlds of the horror-possession film with the thriller/woman’s film sub-genre of the psycho-biddy. Launched with the release of the 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, the genre conventionally focuses around a formerly glamorous woman who has become mentally unstable and terrorizes people in her vicinity. Continuing throughout the 60s and 70s, the films contained in the sub-genre became to be seen critically by film scholars, seen as offensive films that put down its antagonists as ‘hags’, showcasing their unattractiveness and their insanity. This 2025 reinvention of the genre stars Sally Hawkins in the role of the ‘hag’, but instead of forming the character a monstrous villain, Hawkins’ character is incredibly sympathetic.
Sally Hawkins in Bring Her Back
Hawkins’ career in the modern day has been characterised by a variety of heartwarming and human performances, from the family matriarch Mrs Brown in the Paddington films, or the mute woman who falls in love with an aquatic monster in Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water. Moving into a more horror-focused role, these soft-spoken and humanist performances has not been left behind, Hawkins’ plays the adopted mother character like she is still playing Mrs Brown. There is a sense of eeriness in each of her scenes, like there is something wrong under the surface, similarly to the grandparents in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, but there is something genuine and down to earth about her. She wears glamorous outfits and holds herself strong, in opposition to the 60s’ version of a similar character, but when that eventual ugliness does come out in the film’s final act, it comes out as more saddening and depressing than something horrific.
Sally Hawkins’ central performance holds the movie together, she is the centre piece, but Billy Barratt, Sora Wong and Jonah Wren Phillips all hold their own performance-wise, as aforementioned Andy and Piper, and Phillips as Hawkins’ Laura’s foster son Oliver. Barratt and Wong share incredible chemistry as stepbrother and stepsister, a believable relationship that is heartwarming to view, a dynamic that is a crucial part of making the film work. Phillips’ delivers one of the most frightening child performances in a horror feature in years but also subdues a small sense of heartbreak into that terrifying performance.
Billy Barratt and Sora Wong in Bring Her Back
It is hard to argue whether Bring Her Back is better or worse than the duo’s previous directorial debut, it is going to be a strong argument for fans of the duo. However, it can be seen easily that the films work complimentary to each other. Talk To Me uses the possession sub-genre as a metaphor for drug addiction, the possessing hand makes the film’s lead, played by Sophie Wilde, addicted to the activity. Her addiction leads her to putting her friends in harm’s way and making questionable choices for another go at being possessed. The film is rooted in an exploration into grief; Wilde’s character is rooted to a wish to speak to her mother one more time.
Grief appears as a complimentary theme for Bring Her Back, the siblings of Andy and Piper find it hard to get over their father, and Laura is dealing with her own grief around her daughter. This combination of grief should bring these characters together in collective mourning, but the unpredictability of the script allows a fresh exploration into the all-consuming feeling of grief, and the steps people may take to not feel those feelings once more. The Philippu’s also seem to be making clear messages around child endangerment and abuse and showing a concern around the adoption agency.
Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back
The film never reaches the terror of the scenes of hell in Talk To Me, but the more character focused storytelling leads the film into a tension-focused thriller. There is inclusion of VHS styled footage throughout, which seems to be a staple for A24 features at this point, off the back of films like Aftersun and Past Lives. The footage works however, crafting some creepy imagery, and explaining some of the film’s mysteries in a smarter way than just holding the audience’s hand through an explanation. Sound design works wonders as well in crafting some gross-out sequences. The Philippou’s have a strong control of the camera, with some fantastic editing that keeps the film tense and humorous at moments. There is a great montage set to a Yoko-Ono song which helps the film to bridge the gap between its sense of awkward humour and its tension-fuelled horror sequences.
Bring Her Back showcases an undeniable staying power for the youtube famous director duo, they show a great degree of control in balancing tone, with a mix of humour, horror and genuine sadness across the runtime. Bridging the world between the possession film and the psycho-biddy film, the film updates an older sub-genre to modern sensibilities, making the horror both gorey and filled with despair. Overcoming grief and the sense of never getting over that grief hangs over Sally Hawkins’ powerhouse performance, marking this as must watch for the 2025 horror summer season.
Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon in I Know What You Did Last Summer
The success of Wes Craven’s Scream in 1996 cannot be downplayed, the slasher revitalized the horror genre after the 80s slasher trend finished, and opened the door for more self-reflective features, with postmodern film references all over the filmic landscape in the modern day. One of the things it caused mainly however was a line of clear copycats, just like Halloween spawned films like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream spawned such features like Scary Movie and Urban Legend, continuing the new postmodern formula of Craven’s original feature. Probably the most famous film to come off the back of Scream is 1997’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. Based on Lois Duncan’s 1993 novel of the same name, the film took the mystery novel and turned it into a classic 80s slasher feature, a choice which some critics took issue with, viewing it as an out-of-date feature which falls back on the trappings of 80s horror rather than the positives that came from Scream. However, the movie owes its success to coming out a year after Scream, and even though fairing middling in critical reviews, the film was a box office success and has long since became a cult classic.
The film was even written by Scream scribe Kevin Williamson. Followed a mere year later, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was a box office success once again but essentially killed the franchise, receiving even worse critical reviews and being criticised for essentially feeling like a remake of the original. In the years since, there has only been small signs of life from Sony’s hopeful cash cow of a franchise, with an unrelated sequel coming direct to DVD in 2006, I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, and a streaming reboot series released in 2021 to Amazon Prime, which was cancelled after one season.
Lead Killer the Fisherman in I Know What You Did Last Summer
It is only naturally that after the success of the Scream franchise coming back to the big screen once again, with successful entries in 2022 and 2023 and another instalment in the works currently, that studios would attempt to bring back their own reflexive slasher properties. Hollywood star Marlon Wayans, and his brothers Shawn Wayans and Keenan Ivory Wayans, have been announced to helm another Scary Movie feature, and Sony has returned to make another I Know What You Did Last Summer feature. In typical legacy sequel fashion, the film is titled the same as the original, and began life in 2014 when Mike Flanagan, famous for his Netflix series like The Haunting of Hill House, and Jeff Howard signed on to reboot the property. Initially pitched as a complete reboot of the franchise, removed from any connections to the original feature or the novel it was based on, the project entered development hell once Flanagan and Howard left the project. Revitalized by a legacy sequel pitch from director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, the film has finally seen the light of day in cinemas now.
The 2025 legacy sequel follows a new group of friends who become plagued by a hook-wielding fisherman killer after they covered up an accidental murder. 27 years later after a similar incident, the friend group recruits original survivors Julie James and Ray Bronson to help them stop the killer.
Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie Prince Jr in I Know What You Did Last Summer
The film sees the return of franchise star Jennifer Love Hewitt to the big screen, with her mainly being seen on television for the past decade, with brief appearances on shows like 9-1-1 and Criminal Minds. A baffling scene in the third act sees the character state that nostalgia is overrated, when the entire backbone of this feature is nostalgia. The choice to see the return of Hewitt and Freddie Prince Jr to the franchise is done to harken back to the originals, the movie follows the legacy sequel trend that 2018’s Halloween and 2022’s Scream started. Hewitt takes the role of Laurie Strode or Sidney Prescott from the previously mentioned features, a background returning character that serves only to remind audiences of the original and appear for the triumphant third act.
Prince Jr continues the archetype started by the return of David Arquette’s Dewey in 2022’s Scream, a grizzled and saddened version of the character we once knew who returns to bring wisdom to the new characters and to inform them on the rules of the franchise. Just like every other legacy sequel, the film follows the exact same formula of the original, essentially acting as a remake but with returning characters. The newly added elements also just make the film feel like a spoof of Scream, the whodunnit nature is more present here, with various potential killers rather than just the one of the original. Red herrings are present throughout, and there is an attempt to have a postmodern conversation about nostalgia, but it all falls flat when the movie is falling back on nostalgia itself.
Freddie Prince Jr in I Know What You Did Last Summer
The movie is relatively safe in its narrative, if you have seen the original, then you have also seen this film. There is a bold attempt at subverting legacy sequel tropes in the third act, but it is choreographed well ahead of its reveal and will only serve to presumably annoy people who enjoy the original feature. Hewitt and Prince Jr give serviceable performance in their screen time, but the biggest pitfall of the newest legacy feature is how little it gives its new characters. Each new character is given an archetypal role that boils down their personalities and gives them very little else, giving newcomers Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders, Jonah Hauer-King, Tyriq Withers and Sarah Pidgeon very little to work with. When attempting to undertake a narrative like a whodunnit, it is important to make the characters memorable, and this film fails to follow through on that. They all feel like characters that would be found comfortably in an 80s slasher, whose only purpose is to become part of the body count.
Editing inconsistencies also plague this film throughout, the lead killer seems to be able to teleport in sequences where it is clear moments have been stripped away in the edit, and there are scenes where characters seem to be changing attire in the same scene. The end tease for a potential sequel also seems to be based around a removed scene that was in an earlier screening of the film, with this line inclusion now seeming out of place with that scene removed. The entire plot of the film also hinges on an accident that does not make much sense, with screenwriters Sam Lansky and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson writing themselves in a corner with how to explain the killer’s motivations and the guilt of its central characters.
Kills are brutal and creative throughout, with Robinson’s direction shining when making the use of shadows and making the use of impressive sound design in engaging kills. It is one of the clear standouts of a confused and middling script, but it cannot save a film which is struggling to stand out from the shadow of the Scream juggernaut. 2025’s I Know What You Did Last Summer feels like a late entry into the legacy sequel trend, a film irking of the success of much better slasher films in the last decade, and reflects the failings that can come from this once-dead genre.
Madelyn Cline, Chase Sui Wonders and Sarah Pidgeon in I Know What You Did Last Summer
The horror genre has consistently been a genre that has moved with the times, from the slashers of the 70s, the torture porn and found footage sub-genres of the 2000s, and the current trend of socially conscious horror spearheaded by A24 and Blumhouse. Tracking the movement of the genre, below are a list of the most important films to the genre:
Psycho (1960)
Janet Leigh in Psycho
Sometimes dubbed as the first slasher film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was a trailblazer of a film at its time of release. Based on the 1959 novel of the same name by author Robert Bloch, the film centres its narrative around embezzler Marion Crane, escaping from her job with a sum of money and hiding out on the road, leading to an encounter with Norman Bates, a seemingly normal man who runs the Motel she stays at. After a worrying encounter, the film shifts focus to Crane’s friends and family as they attempt to track down the woman and find out what happened to her. Director Alfred Hitchcock is easily one of the most influential American filmmakers, and this can be easily argued as his most influential feature. In a horror landscape where the antagonists were commonly monsters, vampires and creatures from fantastical regions, Psycho finds its horror in a rare case of humanity, setting up a long running obsession with Hollywood filmmaking around serial killers. Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins, would become the central figure of realistic horror, a man who can put on a façade to remain in society, but behind closed doors is a murderous killer with sexual impulses. Shocking subject matter for-the-time perpetuate across the feature, as star Janet Leigh is murdered in a violent manner, watched by both the voyeuristic Norman Bates and the audience in his point-of-view. The sudden death of Leigh would have been a shock to audiences, killing off the biggest star early on the feature and shifting focus was very groundbreaking material.
This comes with some of the earliest uses of the point of view shot for the genre as well, as the film puts you into the perspective of the killer, a slasher trope that would become synonymous with the genre come the release of Halloween in 1978. Norman Bates has also seen himself become a topic of discussion through Freudian psychoanalysis, with his close relationship to his mother and his need to keep her alive even after death, by perceiving her body and dressing as her, connecting him to the Oedipus Complex. He cannot separate himself from his mother and develop sexually away from this root, and this can be seen commonly across future slashers, most noticeably Jason Voorhees. Though received with mixed reviews at the time of its release because of its graphic subject matter, Psycho was rightfully praised in the years to come. It has slowly been regarded as the importance touchstone it is in the movement of the horror genre from Universal Monsters and ghouls to the realistic killings to come in the 70s with the slasher genre.
After his passing in 1980, Psycho opened the door to join its slasher family in becoming a franchise of its own, spawning three sequels, a remake, a TV film and a TV series.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Various actors dressed up as zombies in Night of The Living Dead
Shot through black-and-white photography to save budget, Night of the Living Dead would be the first film by director George A.Romero. Although only referred to as ‘ghouls’ across the runtime of the film, this first film by the influential director would become the blueprint for the rise of the zombie sub-genre. The film follows a group of survivors trapped in a farmer house as they attempt to survive the flesh-eating undead that are trying to break inside. Zombies had existed in popular culture before the release of this film, but commonly only linked to voodoo and black exploitation films, where the zombie was linked to magic rather than being distinctly undead. Though it is never explained in depth in the film how the zombies come to be, Night of the Living Dead is important in introducing many tropes that would become synonymous with the monster in the coming years.
The need to feast on flesh and specifically brains, the monster being undead and being able to bite and infect others and the concept of the slow-walking zombie all come from this important feature. Even the concept of man being the true villain in these apocalyptic scenarios come from this film, as the true drama comes from inside the farmhouse as the survivors turn on each other to survive. Though cast without skin tone in mind, the film would become equally important through it being one of the first horrors features to feature a black leading man in Duane Jones. The film ends with its lead being gunned down as the white mob confuses him with the zombies, connecting Romero’s zombies back to race. Many critics have compared the death of the film’s lead as like the at-the-time recent death of Martin Luther King Jr, and the current events of the civil rights movement, taking a critical look at racism in America by showcasing the white mob’s summarisation that a black man must also be a monster.
The film would launch Romero’s storied career with the horror genre, as he would return to make various other zombie features. His two initial follow-ups, 1978’s Dawn of the Dead and 1985’s Day of the Dead, served as continuing the narrative parallels to real world issues through the zombie sub-genre. The films tackled the current rise of consumerism, sexism and took on criticisms of the American armed forces. Before his death in 2017, the director also released three more, 2005’s Land of the Dead, 2007’s Diary of the Dead and 2009’s Survival of the Dead.
The Exorcist (1973)
Linda Blair in The Exorcist
Audiences left their local cinemas in 1973 calling The Exorcist one of the most terrifying films of all time, as it became synonymous with restrictions, namely in the United Kingdom, and for being seen as highly offensive by the Catholic Church. The film, directed by William Friedkin, and written by original novel writer William Peter Blatty, follows the possession of a young girl as her mother attempts anything to get to the bottom of what is wrong with her daughter. When general practices and science fail to help her daughter, she begs a disillusioned priest, a man struggling with his own faith, to come help her and exorcise the demon from her daughter. The aspect of The Exorcist that stands out the most from its competitors at the time is how human and relatable it feels, it blends the worlds of horror and drama perfectly. The horror of the picture comes from the home, as a woman desperate to save her own daughter nearly drives herself mad trying to protect her daughter in the new home and city she lives in. The priest does not believe in his own god, as he must come to terms with forgiving god for the death of his mother to save this little girl from harm.
The movie is slow and dramatic, almost proving the horror genre as something to be watched by critics and not something schlocky and played for audiences, as the film became the first horror to be nominated for Best Picture. The film is also deeply religious in its exploration of faith versus evil, Father Karris may struggle with his faith in the end, but it is only through his sacrifice after devoting himself back to the church, does good win the day. Even after getting her memories removed of her possession, the young Regan sees comfort in the Christian cross. Popularising a new horror sub-genre in the possession film, the film launched the concept of exorcisms back into the public consciousness and led to various calls to Churches to attempt to do them for real. Exorcism films would soon become a staple in the genre, with various haunted house features and possession films following the release of The Exorcist, namely The Amitytville Horror in 1979. The genre remains relevant today, with the Conjuring franchise being one of the most popular franchises in the 21st century, spawning an entire cinematic universe based around possession and exorcisms.
William Peter Blatty would follow his original novel with a sequel, known as Legion. The film sequel would not follow this however, returning Linda Blair as Regan as she takes on the demon again. Exorcist 3 would adapt the novel’s sequel, as the storyline would shift to a demonic serial killer being hunted by police officers. Two prequels would follow, and a direct sequel to the original was released in 2023.
Halloween (1978)
Nick Castle wears the mask of The Shape in Halloween
There were slasher films before the release of John Carpenter’s Halloween, namely aforementioned Psycho, but also Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 1974, but it is hard to argue against the fact that Halloween pioneered the sub-genre into the 80s. Following the killer Michael Myers, who murdered his sister as a child on Halloween night, the film follows the killer as he escapes from the mental hospital and travels back to his hometown of Haddonfield. There, Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, must survive the night while being stalked by this infamous killer. A low budget film that wowed audiences and set Carpenter onto a storied career in the world of horror, the film is essentially a blueprint for the slasher features that would come into the 80s and 90s. Namely, there was a slew of slashers based around certain national holidays after the release of the film, from Friday the 13th, to Prom Night, or even My Bloody Valentine. The final girl originated from this feature, with many slashers favouring to end with their killer bested by the holy girl, a final survivor who survives not just by her wits but her abstinence. Laurie is responsible in the film, she does her schoolwork, babysits the neighbour’s child, and even agrees to takeover her friend’s babysitting job when she goes to meet her boyfriend. Sex is something that is shown to be frowned upon by the film, people become victims to the killer because they have had sex.
The opening scene is young Michael killing his sister while she is naked, preferring to have sexual activities than to look after the young boy. The slasher film refers to abstinence as something to up your chances of survival, with the killer out for any who doesn’t abide to that rule. Though used in Psycho as well, the film makes the use of various point-of-view shots as the audience looks through the eyes of Michael and welcomes the genre to one of their first marketable masked slashers. Carpenter’s score establishes a central theme for the killer, linking a connection between music and the genre, establishing a killer’s theme would be important. The success of this film would spark a resurgence in the 1980s, with masked killers hunting sexually promiscuous teenagers being all the rage for the horror genre.
The slasher genre only becomes more popular with the continuation of its famed killers in sequels and franchising. Michael would soon become the face of a franchise that has spawned 13 separate features, with its latest feature being only in 2023.
Alien (1979)
Yaphet Kotto, Sigourney Weaver and Veronica Cartwright in Alien
During the slasher era of the 70s, where the horror genre was focused on small-town horror and killers wearing masks, the film that stood out more was Ridley Scott’s alien horror. Blending the world of science fiction and horror, the film stood out for its blending of genres, essentially grafting the slasher film into a galactic setting. The film follows a group of the spaceship Nostromo, as they investigate a mysterious alien planet and come face to face with a dangerous extraterrestrial. Clearly inspired by the likes of Jaws by Steven Spielberg, the film made the use of suspense as the alien picks off the survivors one by one, hiding the full design of the alien until the film’s climax.
Sigourney Weaver plays Ellen Ripley, who essentially serves as the film’s final girl, as she outwits the alien and survives past the stronger men to win the day, and the film continues the signature sexual exploration around the horror genre. Sexual imagery appears across the film, with the titular killer laying eggs in its victim’s chest as a face hugger, attaching on its victims’ face. The alien will then pop out of its victim’s chest once born and once separated from its host will form into an adult. This life cycle marks a comparison to phallic imagery, as the face hugger is like rape, while the chest burster compares itself to forced birth and appears phallic in structure. The combination of the worlds between science fiction and horror marks as a blueprint in how to make these sci-fi-horrors, grafting horror narratives and tropes into the mise-en-scene of science-fiction. After the release of this feature, a wave of science-fiction features that blended with horror became a promising trend, with the release of films like The Abyss in 1989.
Alien would spawn itself a franchise, spawning seven features in total. Across these seven features, the films would bridge the world between not just science-fiction and horror, but also action as well. Crossing over with its neighbouring Predator franchise, saw the release of Alien Vs Predator in 2004 and Alien Vs Predator: Requiem in 2007, which served as a bridge between horror, science-fiction, action and adventure features.
Scream (1996)
Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and Jamie Kennedy in Scream
Director Wes Craven joined the slasher boom in the 80s, with the release of his own supernatural slasher, A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. Come the turn of the 90s, slashers were becoming stale, stuck with releasing the same franchises again and using the same tropes that Halloween pioneered. Craven attempted something different with his return to Elm Street, with the release of 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. The director crafted a meta-narrative, where the film existed in the real world where the movies exist, as returning actors instead play themselves rather than their franchise characters, and Craven appears himself in the film. This would essentially be a proof-of-concept for the release of 1996’s Scream, a film that can be pointed out for being responsible for the revitalisation of both the horror genre and slashers themselves. The film follows Sydney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, and her high-school friend group after they must survive a costumed serial killer known as Ghostface, who attempts to murder the friend group on the anniversary or the death of Sydney’s mother.
The opening of the film showcases what the 90s was all about for horror features, as Drew Barrymore is quizzed on her horror knowledge while over the phone with Ghostface, only murdered because she misremembers Jason as the killer in the original Friday the 13th. What made Scream stand apart from its slasher peers is that the characters are like the audience, they know the tropes of a genre that had nearly been around for 20 years at that point, and they know horror trivia. The characters make references to various slashers, there is an entire scene where Randy comments on how to survive a horror film, stating that they cannot drink, have sex or take drugs. Various cameos appear across the film, from Linda Blair from The Exorcist to a janitor who wears an outfit like Freddy Krueger. When the killers are finally revealed, Syndey shouts at them for seeing too many movies, which the two killers reject, featuring a postmodern commentary on violence in the relation to film. Postmodernism refers to works that are aware of other art, self-referentially reflecting other works of art. This self-referential humour is very much part of modern cinema at the time as well, with films like the Marvel movies commonly making jokes about other films, with Spider-Man: Homecoming featuring references to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for example. In response to the release of Scream, the slasher film became a staple of the horror genre once again, with a prominent number of features featuring teenage high-school victims, self-referential humour and masked killers once again. From I Know What You Did Last Summer to Urban Legend, the slasher film was back and had a new film to base themselves off.
Each subsequent film would continue its meta-commentary on the genre, Scream 2 referring to sequels, Scream 3 to trilogy-closers, Scream 4 to the torture porn and remake era of the 2000s, and Scream 5 and 6 to franchises and legacy sequels.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Heather Donahue in The Blair Witch Project
Moving into the early 2000s, the horror genre was looking for a new cash-cow, a new sub-genre that would take the cinema going audience by storm, and that came in the release of The Blair Witch Project in 1999. Following a group of three college students that travel to Burkittsville, Maryland, the group are hoping to shoot a documentary about the local legend of the Blair Witch. Once they got lost in the woods, the legend becomes real as they must hope to survive. The film stood apart from its modern horror siblings because of its use of found footage, a term referring to a film which presents its filmmaking as camera-recorded footage that has been found and played for the world, commonly recorded through point-of-view shots of a character’s own camera. There had been found footage before released by Hollywood, most noticeably 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust and 1998’s The Last Broadcast, but the success of Blair Witch was unfathomed. Made for a minute budget, the marketing of the film allowed it to become a massive success, still one of the most profitable films to this day.
The film was one of the first features to make use of the blossoming marketing potential of the internet, launched an associated website which marketed the film as a true event, with each character in the film using the real actor’s names. The potential of crafting a film which could be made for a very small budget and see a return majorly from that, sometimes doubling and tripling that budget, was a rich promise that Hollywood took upon instantly. The late 2000s and early 2010s seen a sudden insurgence of low-budget found footage films, especially after the success of Paranormal Activity in 2007, an indie film that had the backing of Steven Spielberg. Movies like Cloverfield, V/H/S and The Last Exorcism became the newest moneymaker for the horror genre, rising to spawn franchises of their own, like Paranormal Activity.
The Blair Witch Project would become a franchise of its own with the release of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 in 2000. This film would dodge the found footage aesthetic and instead aligned itself with the metatextual commentary of Scream, featuring the original film as a film-in universe of the film’s narrative. 2016’s Blair Witch would return the franchise back to it’s found footage roots.
Saw (2004)
Cary Elwes in Saw
Found footage features were not the only new wave that came during 2000’s Hollywood filmmaking, as the release of the low budget feature, Saw in 2004, opened the door to the ‘torture-porn’ sub-genre. A sub-genre that emphasised the gross-out parts of horror, the sub-genre would indulge in all the blood and gore you would expect from horror but make that its entire focus. Rooted in the so-called ‘splatter films’, films which rooted their narratives around violence, gore, nudity, sadism and mutilation, it was very common for films that were labelled ‘video nasties’ in the United Kingdom. What stands these films apart from the modern ‘torture-porn’ is the difference in release, the original era of splatter films were independent features and commonly released on home video, while the modern variation had bigger budgets and widespread releases from major movie studios.
Saw is relatively tame compared to the franchise it would become, and for the films it would spawn. A low budget feature, the film was made after the screening of a short film that depicted on scene from the longer feature and was written by the duo of Leigh Whannel and James Wan, who would direct the feature. The film follows a non-linear timeline, as two men wake up in a rotten bathroom with no memories of how they got there and how they relate to each other. As they attempt to survive, the police hunt down the notorious Jigsaw killer, after a trial of bodies are found. The Jigsaw Killer serves as the original prototype killer for these films, a killer who places people in traps where they must take part in giving themselves immense pain to survive, in hopes of the victim becoming a better person. The violent nature of these films reflected the mood of the American people at the time, fresh of the heels of 9/11. Films became more violent and serious in tone, torture porn reflecting the fear of the time, reflecting the fear of the unknown and the distrust between one and another. Films which depicted people inflicting pain on each other to the most severe level was the big new thing, and the mistrust of society is palpable. Films that followed Saw emphasised this further, as films like Hostel explored the fear of foreign countries and people to American society, and the racism that comes from that.
Hostel was the first film that was labelled as a ‘torture-porn’ film, but this name was eventually referred to Saw. Saw has since become the poster child of the 2000’s torture-porn era of horror and has also lived past the death of this genre. With the 10th film released in 2023, the Saw franchise has staying power unlike any other.
Get Out (2017)
Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out
Coming into the 2010s, the horror genre had morphed again away from the torture porn and found footage of the 2000s and had opened the door to a new brand of horror. When released in 2022, franchise restarter Scream gave a name to the new trend of horror features as ‘elevated horror’, and it could be argued that the success of Jordan Peele’s directorial debut Get Out in 2017 has led to the new trend of ‘socially conscious horror’. Get Out follows a young black man, played by Daniel Kaluuya, who drives to meet his new girlfriend’s parents, only to find worrying signs about the family. The film features various social and political commentary on America throughout its runtime, exploring life for African Americans and how white Americans can make their life hard even if they are not meaning to. It features a full spectrum on commentary, not just exploring the harm of racism, but the pain that can be caused when people turn a blind eye to racism, claiming to be an ally when they are not committing to change. Even the girlfriend, who would commonly be the one good person in the family or a white saviour, is revealed to be the worst member of the family, dating black men as trophies rather than seeing them as a romantic interest.
Off the back of this film, Peele would make two follow-up films, Us in 2019, and Nope, in 2023, two films that continue thematic messages in their narratives. Get Out would not be the first successful socially conscious horror to be released in the decade but would be the one that would become the most successful, being one of the only horror films to be nominated for Best Picture at the 2018 Academy Awards. This success would inspire a movement of new features that would commonly be released from independent studios Blumhouse and A24. The former would become a famous film distributor moving into the 2020s, spawning various features that would highlight the horror medium of the modern day. Whether its commentary on the greed of the upper class in films like Opus in 2025, criticism of enforcing one’s beliefs on others in films like Heretic in 2024, or exploring grief in Midsommar in 2019, horror has now focused upon making social comments through its horror.
Amie Donald stars as the titular character, with voice work by Jenna Davis in M3GAN 2.0
3/10
No one could predict the success of Blumhouse Pictures’ surprise smash hit that was M3GAN, a killer robot film that went viral on social media app TikTok after a clip was posted of the title character dancing before her next kill. It is known since that the movie was reshot after becoming an internet sensation, transforming itself from a R-Rated feature to a PG-13 that would allow those that made the film viral to see the feature for themselves.
Internet popularity allowed the film to become a success, audiences witnessing a homage to films like Child’s Play or even The Terminator, as a killer robot terrorised its creator and the child she was assigned to help, and featuring enough campy and sensational moments across its runtime to match the internet sensation it became. As frequently it becomes when a horror feature becomes a smash-hit, its now become time to franchise out this new feature, and here we arrive at M3GAN 2.0.
Allison Williams stars opposite the killer robot in M3GAN 2.0
The sequel follows the events of the original feature, as Cady (Violet McGraw) and Gemma (Allison Williams) attempt to move on after destroying the titular killer. When a new humanoid robot, made by the military using M3GAN’s original code, goes rogue, Cady and Gemma must attempt to rebuild the murderous robot that plagued them in the past in a bigger and bolder new body. The three must now work together to stop a potential AI takeover.
If this plot sounds complicated, it is because it is. M3GAN 2.0 does not really know what it wants to be, and the script by director Gerard Johnstone, based on a story idea from original script writer Akela Cooper, is messy and overcomplicated. This follow-up feature removes the horror elements from the original completely in favour of becoming a straightforward action-science-fiction hybrid, feeling like an overcomplicated mismatch of stories told before, like the James Bond films, the Mission Impossible features and most clearly T2: Judgement Day.
Director Gerard Johnstone described the movement between M3GAN and its sequel to essentially be a homage to Terminator and its follow-up. What works there however just does not work in M3GAN’s sequel, the movement to action leaves so much what worked about the original out the door, the kills are replaced with sloppily edited action sequences, the personal story about dealing with grief as a family through a self-help robot is replaced with a over-the-top heist movie with sets and plots that feel ripped out of a Marvel movie. These elements that are missing seem to be replaced with elements that just double down on the elements of the first film that emphasised the internet sensation it became.
Ivanna Sakhno joins the cast of M3GAN 2.0
The original feature’s charm came from the film’s tonal inconsistency, the film was commonly hilarious and filled with campy sequences, but the film took itself seriously throughout. The sequel’s script, which features only a story-by credit from the original script writer, leans heavily into the camp to a detriment at times. The plot, characters and emotional beats struggle under the weight of a film trying to recapture the original, a film attempting to recapture the viral sensation of its predecessor. Jokes land every second in the film, but the fact that the film is attempting to be in on the joke instead of being inconsistent with that tone leaves the film feeling more ridiculous than camp.
Johnstone’s direction was easily the weakest part of the original feature, the film was not popular because of its technical prowess, and when this follow-up has nothing from the first film that particularly worked, that direction becomes more apparent. Scenes are frequently shot over-lit, especially during the first act where the locations look so mundane and visually comparable to a commercial, and when the film does become an action film in the second half, the action is shot so flatly.
Action sequences are hard to follow, shot in quick cuts where Johnstone fails to hold onto a shot for long, leaving a viewer disoriented and confused with what is happening. It is an action trope that feels like it should have long been removed from the genre after the Bourne franchise and franchises like John Wick reinvented long-take action sequences.
The film has not faired well at the box office, with producer Jason Blum already stating that Blumhouse over-emphasised the franchise potential that M3GAN could have had, and the change of genres seems to be a big point of contention. Doubling down on the campy nature of the film and reverting to an action film rather than retaining the serious tone and the horror elements of the original has served to create a film that seems like a pale imitation of its predecessor. Franchise potential this does not have.
Five years have passed and we have finally entered the mid-point of the decade, and below we will be ranking some of the most engaging and memorable films of the decade so far:
25) The Father
Olivia Coleman and Anthony Hopkins in The Father
Directed by Florian Zeller
A sad and sometimes uncomfortable film is how you can describe Florian Zeller’s directorial debut, The Father. Starring Olivia Coleman and Anthony Hopkins, the film follows the slow descent of a man living with dementia and how that affects his surrounding family. Based on the director’s 2012 play, La Pere, the film treats the situation with the honesty and care that it demands, but also attempts to convey the true horror that also comes from the situation. Hopkins puts in a dynamic performance in this emotional film, awarding himself with a second Oscar for Best Actor, becoming the oldest actor to ever have won the award, and the film walked away from the 2021 Oscar Ceremony with a second award in winning Best Adapted Screenplay. It is a must-see drama from this decade, lead by two great performances that convey each part of such a devastating topic.
24) Nosferatu
Lily Rose Depp in Nosferatu
Directed by Robert Eggers
1922’s Nosferatu served as the first adaptation of Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, even in an unofficial sense, with the film eventually being forced to be destroyed after a long legal battle. The original film is one of the most important horror features ever made, introducing long-running vampire features like the fear of light, and dwelling itself in the important film movement of German Expressionism. Robert Eggers’ has long teased his passion in creating a remake of this classic horror, and in 2024, when this film actually became a reality, he did not disappoint. Starring Lily Rose Depp, Bill Skarsgard, Nicholas Hoult and Willem Dafoe, the film explores the attempts by vampire Count Orlok to travel to Germany and reunite with the aue of his infatuation, a woman named Ellen. After releasing such acclaimed critical hits as The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, Nosferatu continues Eggers’ eye for time-period accurate set design and costuming, adding so much to the original narrative, making key changes to Orlok himself and the dialectic spoken through each character. Rooted in inspiration from the original, the film includes many German Expressionist staples, including the use of darkness and shadows. Eerie moments break from reality, as Orlok’s shadowy hand englufs the entire town, or Hoult’s character seems to float towards a carriage encased in darkness. It can easily be argued as Eggers’ scariest film, but also his most thematically rich, exploring sexual liberation, the vampire as a metaphor for sexual assault and the plague being brought upon by Orlok having a lot in similarity to the COVID-19 pandemic. It slowly became Eggers’ most successful film at the box office, marking a large success for indie’s darling of a director and finally rushing him into the limelight.
23) RRR
N.T. Rama Rhao Jr. and Ram Charan in RRR
Directed by S.S. Rajamouli
The Bollywood film that took the world by storm, its hard to classify RRR as any specific genre. It mixes the worlds of action, comedy, historical drama, musical and romance in such a way that it can only be classified as an epic. Starring N.T. Rama Rhao Jr. and Ram Charan as fictionalised versions of Indian revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju, the film follows their fight against British colonial rule during the era of pre-Indian independence. The film sees these two revolutionaries becoming fast friends, as they battle together through impressive and over-the-top action sequences, fantastically crafted musical sequences and even romantic moments with potential love interests. In what could become a film buckling under its own weight, the epic only excels in becoming everything and more, all wrapped up together with a clear political message against the British Empire. The film’s signature song ‘Naatu Naatu’ won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 95th Academy Award ceremony, marking this historical film as the first win ever for an Indian film at the Oscars.
22) The Batman
Robert Pattinson in The Batman
Directed by Matt Reeves
Attempting a fresh new take on such an iconic character like Batman is a hard task in the modern day, with so many actors donning the cape and cowl. Following Christopher Nolan’s well-received Dark Knight trilogy is an even more daunting task. Director Matt Reeves, famous for his work with both Cloverfield and the modern Planet of the Apes trilogy, however met these stakes and delivered one of the most unique blockbusters of the decade. Inspired by the works of David Fincher, namely Zodiac and Seven, the film takes the iconic superhero through a crime investigation thriller, as he attempts to track down the serial killer known as the Riddler. Robert Pattinson is the new actor that has put on the batsuit, and he leads a cast that includes big name actors like Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Andy Serkis, Jeffrey Wright and Colin Farrell. Portraying the narrative mainly through the superhero’s eyes and lacking many Bruce Wayne-moments, the film takes its time to dispel its mystery to the audience. Clocking in at nearly 3 hours, the crime-drama is smart and entertaining throughout, keeping its action grounded and realistic, seeing a young Batman being challenged by the own symbol he has created. The movie explores the meaning of vengeance, and how Batman must become a symbol of protection and not one of fear. This marks the film becoming a clear standout in the modern superhero boom, meeting the worlds of superhero action and the world of police procedurals into one cohesive whole.
21) The Last Duel
Matt Damon and Adam Driver in The Last Duel
Directed by Ridley Scott
Director Ridley Scott has been hard at work this decade continuingly crafting new features for audiences, from the middle-of-the-road House of Gucci, to the long-awaited sequel to Gladiator. However, his adaptation of the 2004 book, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France by writer Eric Jager, is the feature that stands high amount the rest. Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer and Ben Affleck, the film follows two knights who are drawn into a duel to the death after one is believed to have raped the others’ wife. The film is portrayed in three separate chapters, each displaying the same set of events but from a different characters’ perspective. This smart storytelling device keeps the audience guessing to the true nature of events, and to question their own preconceived notions of an event like this. The film is intense and can be hard to watch at times, dealing with a heavy subject like sexual assault and how that can be normalised in a world structured around men and so focused around misogyny. It is a thematically complex film which seeks to question its audience’s own perspectives, and stands out as a key film of Scott’s later works.
20) Sinners
Michael B.Jordan and Miles Canton in Sinners
Directed by Ryan Coogler
The newest feature on this list, Sinners is director Ryan Coogler’s first big-budget original film. The director gained notable attention after working with notable IP-hits like Creed and the Black Panther duology, and the studio put a lot of faith in the director being able to craft something original and crowd-pleasing. Sinners is that and more, following criminal twin brothers, Stack and Smoke, as they attempt to open a duke-joint back in their hometown of Mississippi Delta, until their night of debauchery is crashed by unexpected guests. Starring an impressive cast like Michael B. Jordan, Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Moskau and Delroy Lindo, the film proves the star power of its director through a truly moving narrative. What starts as a movie that emphasises drama and character-work soon become a living nightmare as the horror elements set in, and our characters are plagued by vampires. Action sequences are engaging throughout, and the film has some freakish sequences, but really stands apart is the usage of the vampire. Vampires have long-been used as metaphoric forces for a film’s underlying message, even dating far back as Bram Stoker’s original Dracula novel, where it can be gleamed as discussing around sexual liberation and taboo. Sinners sees the vampire become a hivemind, absorbing each person it bites into its web, absorbing their interests and culture until each vampire becomes one-in-the-same. Essentially, the film explores the vampire as a metaphor for cultural assimilation, but does so in an even smarter way. The lead vampire is Irish and is a similar victim to this cultural assimilation, removing any generic takes of white versus black that this could have easily fell back on. Removed from all that however, the film also just serves as love-letter to music and the power of song, delivering some exceptional musical sequences.
19) Past Lives
Greta Lee and Teo Yoo in Past Lives
Directed by Celine Song
A film focusing around what ifs, the concept of the ‘in yun’, the idea that any person you might in life is a potential other life opened for you, another romantic or platonic relationship that could exist in another life. Past Lives, Celine Song’s directorial debut, semi-based on her own life, deals with the concept of what ifs thoroughly. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro, the film follows two estranged childhood friends who were separated for 24 years after one emigrated to the states. 24 years later, they come back into each other’s lives, one single and one married, and they reconnect about their shared past and what could have been if they had stayed. This is a romantic-drama that feels honest and true, it involves a love triangle between our three leads, but they are all thoroughly fleshed out people who never outstep their roles or boundaries. A lesser film would demonise one of the characters to bring the estranged friends together but this film doesn’t, instead the film fleshes all three out and what they mean to each other, in this life and any others. The friends mean a lot to each other, they are all they have got to remind themselves of their past and the culture clash they feel now in the United States, but the film questions how important the past is when they have the life they have now. A film that’s bound to make you think about your own life, this honest look into relationships, what ifs and cultural dissonance is one of the decade’s finest romantic features.
18) The Worst Person in The World
Renate Reinsve in The Worst Person in The World
Directed by Joachim Trier
The closing film in director Joachim Trier’s Oslo trilogy, following 2006’s Reprise and 2011’s Oslo, August 31st, a trilogy brought together by the shared location at the heart of the features, Oslo. The Worst Person in the World takes place over a 4-year gap, following Julie, a woman lost in both her love life and her work life, as she attempts to take a hard look at herself and make crucial changes in her life. A Norweigan romantic-comedy that essentially subverts all regular tropes of these two genres, the film can be more easily classified as a drama at times, being both hilarious but deeply sad at the same time. It is a brutally honest look at being lost in life, mixing in all the bad and good moments that come from trying to discover yourself and figure out who you want to be in a romantic and professional length. Leading actor Renate Reinsve delivers one of the best performances of the decade, elevating the lost-and-struggling woman trope and filling that character with so much personality and ethos. She won the award for Best Actress at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, sadly missing out on any nomination from that year’s Oscars, a massive snub for one of the most memorable films of the decade.
17) Dune: Part Two
Timothee Chalamet in Dune: Part Two
Directed by Denis Villenueve
Following up David Lynch’s original attempt at the material would have been a daunting task for any big director, but Villenueve made the strong choice to split the original novel’s narrative into two distinct films. Both films released this decade, but Part Two is the clear victor of the two. Dune served as the set-up, familiarising audiences with this vast world and setting up a much action-packed follow-up, and Dune: Part Two delivers this premise masterfully. Starring big names like Timothee Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Zendaya and Austin Butler, the film follows the story of Paul Atriedes, one of the sole survivors of the assassination attempt on the House Atriedes by the Harkonnens. Surviving in the desert of the planet Arakkis, he is believed to be the deity known as Muad’Dib, and gathers an army to take his revenge. Based on the back half of the original Frank Herbert novel, the film ups the scale from the first feature, delivering exceptional action sequences and incredible action sequences. The action and scale are not the only things to be in awe of however, the narrative becomes equally more complex and compelling, as our own hero becomes someone to fear and question. The film explores the concepts of the novel through a true mature lens, exploring cultism, false prophets and revolution in a way that strikes fear in its audience, and really questions who is the true hero of this story. Timothee Chalamet delivers one of his finest performances yet, marking this as having the potential to be this decades’ equivalent to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, equally if Dune: Messiah hits the landing in the coming years.
16) Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse
Shameik Moore in Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson
Sony Pictures Animation challenged animated filmgoers in 2018 with the release of Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse, a film which buckled the trend of stock studio- animation styles. With its comic-book inspired animation style, and blending multiple different animation types, the film became an instant success and challenged other animation studios to also experiment with new forms of animation. Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse, the 2023 sequel to the Sony Pictures original, doubles up on the impressive animation quality and delivers easily the most ambitious animated film in decades. Starring notable names like Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Daniel Kaluuya and Oscar Isaac among an even more impressive cast, the film follows spider-hero Miles Morales as he bravely steps out of his own universe and into the multiverse in an attempt to stop a villain who may destroy the web that holds the multiverse together. Distinctively more ambitious than its predecessor, in both story and animation, with the film ending on a cliff-hanger to set up its 2027 follow-up, Beyond the Spider-Verse, the film could have buckled under its own massive weight but instead delivers a moving and incredibly impressive story. With scenes that include over 250 animated characters on screen at once, and blending multiple different worlds with visually distinct animation styles, the film cannot help to impress you as you watch. Blending all these parts with a moving story about finding yourself away from home and accepting who you are, and mixing it with comic-book references in a earnest way, the film stands out as a clear highlight of the superhero movie boom.
15) Bones and All
Timothee Chalamet and Taylor Russell in Bones and All
Directed by Luca Guadagnino
Director Luca Guadagnino has had a very busy decade, crafting film after film to commercial and critical success, from Challengers to Queer, the director has definitely made a mark this decade. For this list however, his romantic-horror road film Bones and All takes the cake as his best work this decade. Starring Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet, the film, based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis, follows two cannibals who fall in love across a road trip through the United States. The film is a notable piece of the director’s work, a film which blends the world between gross-out horror and earnest romance perfectly. Romance is a classic trope of the director’s works, the yearning, the look for connection, the sexual need and the feeling of loneliness purpurates across all his work, but never has it felt more earnest and innocent, even in a film featuring pure horror. The road-trip elements allow the leads to fall in love and meet fresh new characters, with their sense of belonging being connected to their ability to sniff out other cannibals, and also being tested by the dangers that can come from such a way of life. The film is equal parts creepy and earnest, blending the worlds perfectly to craft Guadagnino’s finest film of the decade.
14) The Banshees of Inisherin
Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin
Directed by Martin McDonagh
Following his memorable directorial debut In Bruges, Martin McDonagh delivered another perfect dark comedy in The Banshees of Insiherin. Set in a fictional island off the coast of Ireland, the film features Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two friends whose friendship comes to an explosive end when one decides he no longer wants to be friends, starting a domino effect of consequences between the two. Crafting a screenplay this hilarious and deeply heart wrenching based on such a simple premise is a massive achievement in itself, and its all wrapped up in a narrative about the power of legacy, the fear of loneliness and the fear of death and how we will be remembered once we are gone. Padraic, played by Colin Farrell, is a happy man who is willing to be remembered as just the kindest man in the village, willing to be remembered for his character and not for his work. Colm on the other hand, played by Brendan Gleeson, is bitter for how much time he has left and how little he has done, wishing to be remembered for not his character but his work in music. These two different views could be seen as the director making comparisons across the storied history of Ireland’s divisions, from the Irish Civil War to its long dealing with the Catholic Church, its all important to understanding McDonagh’s perfectly crafted film. Legacy and conflict seem to be one in the same in this film’s world, and that’s a message to think over when viewing one of this decade’s most finely crafted features.
13) Tar
Cate Blanchett in Tar
Directed by Todd Field
Never has a fictional film about a ‘real person’ felt like it was reality more than Todd Field’s Tar. Starring Cate Blanchett, the film follows Lydia Tar, a world-famous conductor, whose life falls apart when she is accused of misconduct. Blanchett delivers one of the finest performances of her career, crafting such an emotionally complex character, the film constantly leaving you guessing who the real Lydia Tar is, the person she is pretending to be or someone even more evil than that. The film seems to deal with the current trend of cancel culture, exploring how a celebrity deals with this trend and attempts to put things right, or double down on their behaviour. It is a film that is so confident in its messaging and narrative that director Todd Field never attempts to guide your hand in thinking a certain way, he just leaves you to make your own judgements about both the identity politics it plays with and the cancel culture it thoroughly explores.
12) Everything Everywhere All At Once
Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All At Once
Directed by The Daniels
Multiverse narratives are the new trend in Hollywood, with franchise features banking on nostalgia of long forgotten cinematic outings in films like Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Flash. However, the film that really stood apart in this trend was A24’S Everything Everywhere All at Once, a film exploring the multiverse concept in such a human way. Following a Chinese-American immigrant, who after being audited by the IRS, must travel the multiverse and join forces with different versions of herself to stop a mysterious enemy who is seeking to destroy the multiverse. Multiverse stories are a tricky gamble for sure, there is a vast amount of storytelling possibilities but they can threaten to fall apart if there is no cohesive storyline to ground the chaos. The Daniels made the smart decision to ground the narrative in a simple story of mother and daughter reconnecting, and wife and husband learning that there is nothing more important in the multiverse than being together. There are themes of depression, neurodivergence, generational trauma and identity that bring together the chaos of the narrative and the absolute creativity in crafting alternate realities, into becoming a human narrative. The film became a surprising Oscar winner for sure, winning the Best Picture Oscar at the 2023 awards ceremony, alongside best director, best editing and best original screenplay. The film is also equally important for finally marking a accolade in Michelle Yeoh’s career, winning best actress, and revitalizing Ke Huy Quan’s career, winning best supporting actor for a equally memorable role.
11) Barbie
Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling in Barbie
Directed by Greta Gerwig
Barbie captured a cultural moment on release in 2023, becoming the highest grossing film of the year, marking a big turnout for female audiences for Hollywood cinema. Directed by long-running and proven feminist director Greta Gerwig, the film proves there is still a future in franchise filmmaking, and in a feature that is both a toy commercial and an auteur-driven comedy. Featuring a variety of big performers, the cast includes such big names as Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Michael Cera, Simu Liu, Will Ferrell and Issa Rae. The narrative follows Barbie as she questions her own existence, travelling away from Barbieland to the real world in order to meet her creator and set her right. A hilarious comedy that appeals both to general audiences and the built-in audience from Gerwig’s previous work, the film delivers on being an appealing children’s film but also a product to market the Barbie world to the world. Filled to the brim with engaging themes around embracing female beauty through all shapes and sizes, the film also explores both toxic masculinity and toxic femineity. Through its breakout performance of Ryan Gosling as Ken, the film explores a need for men to stand up and be better, but also deserve to be loved and show love as much as the women that appear across the film. The release of Billie Eilish’s song ‘What Was I Made For?’, which was awarded the Best Original Song Oscar at the 2024 awards ceremony, marks the theming of the film, questioning why you were put on this earth and how you can love yourself with so.
10) Oppenheimer
Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Paired with Barbie, Oppenheimer became another cultural touchstone of the 2023 Hollywood film season, pushing audiences to the cinema to see both on the same day as a viral trend. The film became the highest grossing R-rated film at the time, grossing nearly 1 billion dollars at the box office, marking a rare time a historical epic became one of the highest grossing films of the year. Christopher Nolan has had a long-standing career across Hollywood, being under the Warner Bros studio partnership for a long-time. After the release of Tenet in 2020, a film which was released during the COVID-19 pandemic and was the centre of a falling-out between the director and his former studio, the director jumped ship to Universal Pictures. Here, he was given free reign and a massive budget to deliver one of his finest features yet. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus, the film conveys the timeline of events in its titular character’s life. Dramatic recreations of Oppenheimer’s studies, his work at the Los Alamos Laboratory and his eventual security hearing years later. Starring Cillian Murphy in the titular role, the film is one of Nolan’s narratively complex films yet, seeking to understand a man who essentially created death as a weapon. The Trinity Test sequence is one of the most compelling sequences of the decade, making the use of the IMAX filmmaking to its biggest degree. The film doesn’t seek to demonise or victimise its lead character, forcing its audience to decide what they think of the man who created the atomic bomb. The film was a massive success at the Oscars, winning seven of its nominations. This seen the film gain the most notable accolades for Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan, Best Actor for Murphy and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr. It is hard to argue against the fact that Oppeheimer could easily be seen as the most influential film of the year 2023.
9) Titane
Agathe Rousselle in Titane
Directed by Julia Ducournau
A French body horror, psychological drama film, Titane is one of the most outlandish picks for this list, but it’s a notable film for the decade. Following a near-fatal car crash, lead character Alexia gets fitted with a titanium plate in her skull, with the film then flashing forward to adulthood. As an adult, she becomes a car model and serial killer, dealing with a sexual obsession with automobiles. Similar to her film Raw, which followed a young girl dabbling in cannibalism, the director brings together a very human film through horror and some of the most disgusting scenes put to film. Through all the disturbing imagery, the film boils down to a simple narrative about a lost woman finding connection with an elderly firefighter who has lost his son. The mixing of absurd body horror and a simple human narrative, marks this as a very memorable feature from this decade.
8) Aftersun
Frankie Coro and Paul Mescal in Aftersun
Directed by Charlotte Wells
Memory is a key component that makes up the backbone of Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, Aftersun. Starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Coro, the film, inspired by Wells’ own childhood, sees an older woman looking back on her final holiday with her father when she was a child, watching her old recorded footage to try and find new meaning. Impressive in nature for a directorial debut, the film conveys its meaning through a mixture of traditional filmmaking and home-video footage. Paul Mescal portrays a struggling father, who the film never explains the fate of, and explores his daughter’s coming of age as she is unaware of her father’s struggles. Through the use of home-video footage, the film marks a connection between memory and technology, and explores the new found perspective people will have on their memories once they have aged with them. The film brings alive a natural look at British holidays, and conveys a child-like look at the world and the ambiguity that comes with the lack of understanding of adult topics when you are a younger age. There is symbolic meaning across the entire runtime of the film, and clues to draw the audience’s own analysis of the film and the eventual fate of Mescal’s character. This makes the film one of the most rewatchable films of the decade.
7) Anora
Mikey Madison in Anora
Directed by Sean Baker
Sean Baker’s film that finally awarded him the Best Picture Oscar in the 2025 award ceremony, Anora is a film of three halves. It begins as a romantic comedy, drawing a connection between a young sex worker and a rich son of a Russian oligarch, and then slowly transforms into a slapstick comedy in its second act. The final act opens the door to the true reality of the situation, matching the realness that comes from Baker’s previous features, and becomes a true drama. Mikey Madison became the first member of Generation Z to win the Best Leading Actress Oscar for her performance as the lead, playing a character which emphasises the positive aspects of sex work, a common aspect of Baker’s works. Baker emphasises lesser-known members of society as his leads, displaying them as three-dimensional characters through his empathetic direction, like transgender characters in Tangerine and single mothers in The Florida Project. Anora sees itself as a chaotic fun time, a comedy filled with entertaining characters and fun set pieces, most noticeably the search to find the oligarch’s son in the second act, turning the movie into an almost Three Stooges situation. Ending on a sad note however, as you learn more about how this comedic situation has actually left a lasting impression on the lead, Anora’s connection to sex as a commodity and a comfort welcomes a deeper message worth exploring.
6) Killers of The Flower Moon
Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone in Killers of the Flower Moon
Directed by Martin Scorsese
The Western genre has always been rooted in the promise of freedom in the west, the freedom for the cowboys across the open desert and plains. However, for the Natives of that land, that so-called freedom was instead fear and pain from the people that took their land, and sought to marry trhem and then murder them to claim their riches and land for their own. This is the central narrative crux of Martin Scorsese’s newest film, Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the novel of the same name by David Grann. Sometimes called an anti-Western, the film seeks to squash the beliefs of the American Dream and show the dirty and secret truth to the riches of America. The director has long crafted films about despicable humans and making no attempt to humanise them for their terrible actions, examples being The Wolf of Wall Street and Taxi Driver. The true villain of this film however is the pull of greed, the focus characters are evil because of their greed, they are big pillars of society but make their money through pain and misery, while pretending to be honourable and just. Starring actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, the film narrows the perspective of the book, from the birth of the FBI and the mystery around the killings, to instead being focused from the perpetuator’s perspectives and from the victims themselves as well. The narrow focus allows for a more focused narrative, and allows Scorsese to have a honest discussion about the horrors at play in America’s history, proving why the director is still one of our best working in the industry.
5) Poor Things
Emma Stone in Poor Things
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring actors like Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe, Poor Things, based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray, follows Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a young woman who is brought back to life with the mind of a child. Sharing much of its DNA with the classic tale of Frankenstein, the film’s science-fiction roots seek to question the meaning of life and is it sound to try and control death and life. Through its female perspective, the film also explores body positivity and sexual positivity, and how our development can be easily linked to our sexual development. The film broads the line between comedy and science-fiction, with its steampunk and almost German Expressionist set design and backdrops, with Stone’s heightened comedic body performance marking this connection even further. Stone received her second win as Best Actress for this film in the 2024 Oscar award ceremony, portraying the hilarious coming of age character in a way its never been seen before
4) The Boy and The Heron
English Voices of Luca Padovan and Robert Pattinson in The Boy and The Heron
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
A seemingly personal film from director Hayao Miyazaki, and a film that could mark his long-career working in Studio Ghibli, The Boy and The Heron became the winner of the Best Animated Feature Oscar in the 2025 ceremony. The film follows a young boy, who moves away after the death of his mother, and in the process of exploring his new home, discovers a strange Heron that takes him to another world. Originally announcing his retirement in September 2013, the director went back on his announcement soon after, and in order to create a film which is seemingly heavily rooted in his own childhood. Continuing a notable trend in his past work with the studio, the film explores the coming of age of its lead character through its fantastical elements, but also has deeper meanings behind its engaging visuals and incredible voice-acting. It explores themes of coming of age mainly through a life plagued by sadness and death, and exploring grief through the eyes of a young child. The signature director of such classic animated features like Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbour Totoro, marks a potential end to his career with one of Studio Ghibli’s very best.
3) The Substance
Demi Moore in The Substance
Directed by Coralie Fargeat
Following up her debut feature in 2017’s Revenge, a rape revenge film from a feminist perspective, was bound to be a big task for director Coralie Fargeat. Starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, The Substance follows an aging Hollywood starlet, who takes a mysterious drug after being fired due to her age, a drug which has the ability to create a younger version of herself. The film made history in the 2025 Oscars, standing out amongst all of its competitors as a body-horror film actually being nominated for Best Picture, and the first horror to do since Get Out in 2017. Directed with expertise from only second time director Fargeat, the film is inspired by the works of Kubrick and Cronenberg, and is edited in such an expressive way, it stays in your mind permanently. The film uses body horror to form some topical discussion around societal standards of female beauty and female aging, taking those pressures to their extreme in some effective body-horror sequences. Demi Moore received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress from this film, marking a moving performance, where the saddest sequence does not come from the squeamish body horror but a woman unsatifised with her appearance when attempting to go on a date.
2) Nickel Boys
Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in Nickel Boys
Directed by RaMell Ross
Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Colson Whitehead, the film was inspired by real-world incidents like the Dozier School for Boys, reform schools which were infamous for their poor treatment of African-American youth. Starring Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson, the film follows an example of one of these reform schools, as two young boys attempt to survive and eventually escape their own school. Continuing a notable movement in this decade of black storytelling in film, the film stands apart by being shot in POV shots for its entire runtime, seeing the pain and anguish through the eyes of our two protagonists. Constantly moving, the film explores untouched moments of American history and seeks to dwell not in black suffering, but learning from those lessons in order to create a better future.
1) Nope
Daniel Kaluuya in Nope
Directed by Jordan Peele
The third film by Get Out-breakout director Jordan Peele, the director took his own spin on the summer blockbuster and the UFO-film. Starring actors like Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun, the film follows horse rancher siblings, who in an attempt to save their business, attempt to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object that appears above their home. Inspired by Spielberg films like Jaws and Close Encounters of The Third Kind, the film takes the Hollywood blockbuster and re-evaluates it within the borders of Peele’s signature use of symbolism and metaphors. The film instead becomes an evaluation of people’s will to seek entertainment and thrills no matter the danger, African-American’s importance to the history of cinema and the abuse that animals can come under when being used as film props. Paired with some genuinely thrilling horror sequences, and the director’s signature style of comedy, the film standouts as one of the decade’s best blockbuster features.
Aaron Taylor Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later
9/10
The zombie sub-genre is at the height of its popularity in the modern day, with the frequent releases of Walking Dead continuations, but come the 2000s, the sub-genre was essentially dead in the water. Originally made popular by the release of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, and its following two sequels, zombies were a backbone of the horror genre in the 80s and 90s. The undead did not come back into popularity until the release of 28 Days Later in 2002. Danny Boyle’s entry into the horror genre stood out specifically because of the spins it took on the long-dead sub-genre, focusing on character-rather than specifically horror, introducing the concept of fast-running zombies and the specific focus on handheld direction that made it stand apart.
Followed 5 years later in 2007, 28 Weeks Later was released, a film which has become more synonymous with the general direction of the zombie sub-genre, focusing on action, kills and general horror of the zombies rather than what Days Later spearheaded forward. The film featured no direct involvement from original director Danny Boyle, or screenwriter Alex Garland, with Boyle and Garland leaving to work on their own projects, and 23 years later, they are back.
28 Years Later is the return to both the zombie sub-genre and the 28 Days Later franchise for both writer and director. The film seemingly ignores the events of 28 Weeks Later, with the 2007 sequel ending with the tease that the rage virus had reached Paris, taking the action outside of the United Kingdom. This film however confirms that the virus has been contained to the United Kingdom, ignoring the closing moments of the previous non-Boyle directed film. This film follows a group of isolated survivors who live on a small island disconnected from the mainland and from the threat of the mutated rage virus victims. When one member of the island must leave onto the mainland on a dire mission, the survivor must contend with the undead, but also with the wonders and reality of the world that once was.
This long-awaited threequel feels like a return to form for the zombie sub-genre once again, as it revives the character-focused direction the original film had focused upon, and brings alive the film through its directional choices. At times, it feels like an outlier in the modern swerve of horror content, feeling more stylistically connected to the original and the works of Danny Boyle since the release of that film, foregoing a generic tonal distinction and instead working as a chaotic, yet always working tonal collection.
At heart, the film can be boiled down to a family drama, about the relationship between a son and his parents, and about the world that the son has never seen, compared to the world that his parents have seen become destroyed. You have also all the horror and action tones you would want from narratives revolving around zombies, featuring some bloody kills, impactful jumpscares and freak-out imagery. All amongst that however, there is also genuine moments of heart and humour, moments that seem to stick out like a sore thumb in such a serious film, but become even more memorable and important because of this.
Aaron Taylor Johnson and Alfie Williams in 28 Years Later
An important factor of this film is its focus on humanity. Memories of the original Boyle film seems to be clouded in the modern day of zombie films, with memories of the film being overly serious when that is never the truth. The film is warm and humorous throughout, even ending with a over-the-top action sequence where the main character pretends to be a zombie to defeat a army of soldiers. A key sequence where the characters dance and laugh when robbing a supermarket, essentially roleplaying the life they can no longer live highlights the film’s focus on hope and positivity in the face of death and danger.
28 Years Later continues this theming, with characters reminiscing about the world that once was, teaching the young about items, places and people that they never knew. Killing the undead has become a sport and a way of life, balancing the danger of the situation with humanity, it is only human to find humour and positivity in the darkest moments.
The film deals with multiple running themes throughout its runtime, namely the importance of memory in times of crisis. However, it also questions, is it beneficial to try and recreate exactly how society used to be, or is it more beneficial to attempt to create something new and removed from those mistakes? Selective memory also comes into play in what is sure to be a controversial ending, dealing with our memories of the past and how we perceive what may have been bad as something that is good.
Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Comer in 28 Years Later
An emotional third act also hinges on the engaging family drama aspect of the film, as the film seeks to question what is the meaning of death in a world where nothing really stays dead? There is an importance to honouring death, a beauty in the finality of it that becomes the focus when looking at the performances from the core cast featured in the film. Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Aaron Taylor Johnson and newcomer Alfie Williams all deliver powerhouse performances that only continue to emphasise the importance of these themes here.
Danny Boyle’s directorial style comes ahead various times across this feature, the straightforward nature of zombie films is not present at all. The first act composes itself using a variety of archive footage to set both the tone of this world and give a sense of structure to the worldbuilding. There is a common use of both handheld footage and IPhone shots across this film as well, which is common to Boyle’s work, used to emphasise the effect of the kills. This really gives the film a sense of style, an authorship that is not common to something as stock as the zombie sub-genre.
28 Years Later is bound to not be a film for everyone, it is an outlier in a world where the most popular zombie project is currently The Walking Dead. Its chaotic, in both direction and in its classification of tones and genres, but the chaotic nature of it makes for a memorable experience that seems to compliment the film rather than hinder it. It’s follow-up releases, known as 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, releases January 2026, and is surely going to be a must watch after this release.
Alfie Williams, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes in 28 Years Later
Rhys Reviews 