Articles by Rory Sean O'Connor
Venice Review: Florian Zeller’s Bunker Is Bad Melodrama and Curiously Anti-Art
The most interesting thing about Bunker is a moment of visual repetition. Early on, a husband and wife, Miguel (Javier Bardem) and Julia (Penélope Cruz), snicker amongst themselves, as lovers do, at an art opening, amused at three abstract paintings that are uniformly black—a process, the Captain Jack Sparrow-styled curator explains, that involved covering already-painted still lives.
Venice Review: Hirokazu Koreeda Delivers One of His Best Films with Look Back
After a period marked by ambition and drift in his work since winning the Palme d’Or for Shoplifters in 2018, Hirokazu Koreeda has returned to a more intimate kind of cinema for his latest film Look Back, a crystal-clear tale about friendship and creativity that feels closer to the lineage of Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman.
Venice Review: Possible Love Marks a Triumphant Return for Lee Chang-dong
In a year of unknown quantities at the Venice Film Festival, Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love has delivered the triumph for which fans of the elusive director had been hoping. Lee’s first feature since Burning, a modern masterpiece that blew away the competition in Cannes eight years ago, is another novelistic gem, the kind of richly detailed and intricately scripted yarn in which alluring themes like class, sex, and sociology are always on the table to be picked at.
Venice Review: Burgundy Is a Light and Stylish Journey Into the World of Wine
Six years after The Truffle Hunters, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw have made a movie about wine. This makes sense: what’s the point in dedicating yourself to a study of fungal delicacies, after all, if you aren’t planning to knock it back with a decent glass of red? The filmmakers’ latest culinary caper is instructively titled Burgundy and takes place in and around that famed wine-producing region.
Venice Review: In Robert Greene’s Too Much Sugar , Filmmaking Is a Form of Therapy
Too Much Sugar is a movie about family, friends, and filmmaking—what’s not to like? It’s the latest project from Robert Greene, a regular collaborator of Alex Ross Perry (Greene has edited everything from Listen Up Philip to Pavements, as well as the Safdies’ Lenny Cooke). In his own work as a documentary filmmaker, he has always been fascinated by the healing potential of cinema, especially in places where fact and fiction clash.
Venice Review: Danny Boyle’s Ink Is a Rip-Roaring Look at the Rise of Sensationalism
There’s a lovely moment in Danny Boyle’s new film Ink when Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) and Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) crouch down to touch the pavement on London’s Fleet Street to feel the monstrous rumble of the printing presses below. The Australian proto-disruptor is fresh off the boat and has just poached Lamb from The Mirror, selling his Faustian bargain on the promise of a blank check and an even blanker canvas at The Sun.
2026 Sarajevo Film Festival Brings Woody Harrelson, Balkan Gems, and Ghosts of the Past
On my first evening in Sarajevo this year, I attended a party at the Spanish Ambassador’s residence. The get-together was in honor of Rodrigo Sorogoyen, whose latest movie, The Beloved, was set to screen at the festival’s storied open-air theatre that night. In all my years of coming to festivals, it was the first party of its nature that I’d ever attended, but it was only the second of three such invites I’d received that week.
Locarno Review: The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer Captures a Vital Portrait of Life on the Pampas
While long established as a launch site for adventurous cinema, Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present sidebar has recently become appointment viewing. Similar in structure to Cannes’ Critics’ Week, where only first or second features are considered, the last three editions alone have welcomed wonderful titles such as Sophy Romvari’s Blue Heron, Courtney Stephens’ Invention, and Ruan Lan-Xi’s The Plant from the Canaries into the world.
Locarno Review: Manhunt Is a Visceral Descent Into Modern Adolescent Masculinity
Are the kids all right? The latest movie to ponder this age-old question is Wayne Wapeemukwa’s Manhunt, an adolescent road movie told through the prism of true crime—or perhaps it’s the other way around. At times it can resmble a run-of-the-mill boys-trip movie replete with greasy diners, campsite encounters, and the occasional suggestion of sex. At others it more suggests something birthed from Harmony Korine’s EDGLRD stable, not least a late dive into washed-out, game-brained psychedelia.
Locarno Review: Nowhere to Lay My Eyes Finds a Reenergized Hong Sangsoo
Hong Sangsoo’s Nowhere to Lay My Eyes is, as his fans like to say, “a good Hong.” Now 35 features into his famously prolific career, that “good” can sometimes ring like faint praise, but Nowhere to Lay My Eyes feels like more than just a break from the norm.
Locarno Review: Albert Serra and Ingrid Caven Make a Fine Pair In Sixteen Moments from My Life
Albert Serra’s Sixteen Moments from My Life will perhaps go down as a minor addition to the director’s corpus, but it’s nothing if not a continuation of his career-long project of finding ways to capture flickers of reality within the framework of cinema, and vice-versa.
Locarno Review: At Night Is a Dreamy, Soothing Feature Debut
The best movie I’ve seen in Locarno this year is set in Paris after dark, on sleepy side streets, in fluorescent eateries and nocturnal cafes and bars. At Night plays at the unhurried clip of a Rachel Cusk novel, and with similar shades of that author’s displaced POV and melancholic allure. As its images wash over you, you get a sense of an artist yearning for somewhere else while remaining resolutely curious for what’s around the corner.
A Serbian Odyssey, the Film of the Year, and More 2026 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Highlights
As moments for holding your attention go, July 2026 is not making it easy. The first summer World Cup of the TikTok age, much to the awful delight of FIFA, is surely in the running for most-eyeballed event in human history, and with a certain Homeric epic currently commandeering the cinemagoing imagination, you’d be forgiven for not clocking that one of the world’s great film festivals had just held its 60th edition.
The Scene in Curry Barker’s Next Film That Confirms an Obsession Cinematic Universe
It looks like Obsession sickos won’t have to wait too long for their next fix. Curry Barker and his long-time creative partner Cooper Tomlison (he plays Ian in the movie, in case you didn’t know) wrapped filming on their follow-up, Anything but Ghosts, a whole month before Obsession went into theatres. Knowing how fast the duo work, we can optimistically expect this one to surface at some point early next year.
Cannes Review: Valeska Grisebach Returns with Spellbinding Noir The Dreamed Adventure
For some, the premiere of Valeska Grisebach’s new film was the kind of thing to be discussed in hushed tones. Here was the long-awaited return to Cannes, nine full years since Western, a singular film that, by now, is within its rights to be considered a masterpiece.
Cannes Review: Low Expectations Is an Accomplished and Bittersweet Debut
From A Star is Born to Vox Lux to Inside Llewyn Davis, cinema abounds with stories of jaded musicians who either burned too bright or never quite reached the heights they hoped. In the new film Low Expectations, a bittersweet tale from Oslo that arrives very much in the slipstream of Joachim Trier, that reliable set-up is given what I can only describe as a Gen-Z twist.
Cannes Review: The Man I Love Presents a Lovingly Detailed World and Lacking Lead Performance
In Ira Sachs’ last film, Peter Hujar’s Day, the director used a rigorous framing device––a purposefully banal interview that took place in 1974 between the eponymous New York photographer and the writer Linda Rosenkrantz––as a way of opening a window onto Hujar’s life and creative process.
Cannes Review: Sandra Wollner Meets the Moment With Sublime Everytime
In Everytime, a sun-dappled film about death and love that might be the best in Cannes this year, the terrible loss of a teenage girl’s life leaves her mother, younger sister, and boyfriend bound in mutual devastation. Set in present-day East Berlin during the balmy months of the year, this is a film that appears at first to be drawn from the same Berlin School approach as Christian Petzold and Angela Schanalec, but there’s little of that cohort’s minimalism or literary melancholy here.
Her Private Hell Review: Nicolas Winding Refn Makes an Underwhelming Return
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Cannes coverage. The film opens on July 24. Almost ten years to the day since The Neon Demon’s premiere, Nicolas Winding Refn returns to Cannes with Her Private Hell—a film wherein the Internet’s it girl du jour Sophie Thatcher is captured quite beautifully through the Danish filmmaker’s heightened, neo-noir style.
Cannes Review: Clarissa Provides a Formally Adventurous Showcase For Sophie Okonedo
It might not have the fervent awards chatter that’s followed Sandra Hüller’s current run of form, but for the London-born actress Sophie Okonedo, 2026 is already looking like a quietly spectacular comeback year.
Cannes Review: The Meltdown Is an Elusive Chilean Chiller
With the halfway point of this year’s Cannes Film Festival fast approaching, one of the best movies I’ve seen is a Chilean chiller called The Meltdown. The story is set in a snowy ski lodge high up in the Andes, where a precocious 9-year-old named Inés (a wonderful Maya O’Rourke) befriends a German skier who promptly disappears. This elusive mystery is set in 1992, less than two years after the democratic election of Patricio Aylwin marked the end of the Pinochet era.
Cannes Review: With Club Kid , Jordan Firstman Announces Himself as a Director to Watch
It’s never wise to assume anything. Promotional materials doing the rounds before Club Kid‘s raucous Cannes premiere this week suggested a New York downtown scene answer to Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, but Jordan Firstman’s funny, bittersweet, and tremendously moving directorial debut is as much a fresh reimagining of the stunted father subgenre that gave us everything from Kramer vs Kramer and Marriage Story to Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy.
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma Review: A Joyful Addition to Jane Schoenbrun’s Box of Mysteries
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Cannes coverage. The film opens on August 7. When asked about formative movie experiences, Jane Schoenbrun has spoken of the month spent watching all the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels at 11 years old. It’s tempting to say that the seeds of their latest movie, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, were planted over those four weeks—not least New Nightmare, Wes Craven’s proto-Scream deconstruction of a genre he helped to build.
Cannes Review: Kantemir Balagov’s Butterfly Jam Can’t Find a Rhythm
Without putting too fine a point on it, the 2026 Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes has kicked off with a bit of a dog. The latest from exiled Russian filmmaker Kantemir Balagov, Butterfly Jam takes place in and around the Circassian community in New Jersey—a diasporic milieu that will call to mind movies like Anora, Little Odessa, and Levan Koguashvili’s underappreciated Brighton Fourth, only with little of the texture or granular details that made those pictures feel so lived-in.
The Best Films at Cannes 2026
Frieze PublishingYes, email me reviews, offers, and opinions by artists, writers, and editors from Frieze Frieze EventsYes, email me Frieze Events Inc and Frieze Events Ltd’s global programme information including special offers and benefits Much of the chatter in the lead-up to this year’s Cannes Film Festival focused on whether the selection committee had turned their backs on the Hollywood studios or if it was the other way around.
Marxist Millionaries and Fungal Worlds: The Best Films of CPH:DOX 2026
A few weeks ago, I landed in Copenhagen for this year’s CPH:DOX in the early hours of the evening, still a little dazed from covering the Oscars the night before.
Isabelle Huppert on Becoming a Vampire, Ulrike Ottinger’s Timeless Touch, and Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales
Isabelle Huppert’s performance in Ulrike Ottinger’s The Blood Countess, a vampire fantasia set in Vienna (and co-starring no less of a local icon than Conchita Wurst) that marks the 158th credit of her remarkable career, got me thinking.
7 Easter Horror Movies That Will Make Your Blood Pressure Rise Again
Unlike fellow holidays, Halloween and Christmas, Easter has very few horror movies dedicated to its festivities. Considering the religious holiday is ultimately all about death, sacrifice, and resurrection, it seems odd that the genre pool isn’t swimming in Easter-set films. There are Easter horror movies to be found, but you have to know where to look, as they have a far lower profile than other holiday movies.
A New Version of Stephen King's The Mist Is Coming - Here's How It May Differ From the Original
Author Stephen King has written an incredible number of stories during his prolific career, and The Mist is one of his finest. Originally appearing within King’s anthology, Skeleton Crew, The Mist tells the story of David Drayton and a cluster of Maine townsfolk who seek shelter after a mysterious mist descends upon their town. After becoming trapped in his local grocery store, Drayton and those with him realise that the mist is hiding monstrous creatures.
Buffy: New Sunnydale Has Been Cancelled - Here's What To Watch Next
News that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot, Buffy: New Sunnydale, has been cancelled before it had the chance to air has left excited fans devastated. The announcement that the show was coming back and being directed by Oscar-winning Chloé Zhao, with the Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy, almost broke the internet.
Matthew Lillard: 14 Movies & TV Shows That Made Him a Cult Star, In Order
Most famous for playing Stu Macher in Scream and Shaggy in Scooby-Doo, MatthewLillard has a legion of devoted fans. Whilst he might not be at the top of the A-list acting pile, and Quentin Tarantino has spoken against him, there is no denying that Lillard is a cult hero. A regular fixture on the convention circuit, the announcement of the actor’s presence triggers chaos as fans desperately try to book a photograph or autograph with him.
10 Horror Movies That Were Snubbed at the Oscars
After being left out in the cold for years, horror fans finally have a reason to follow this year’s Academy Awards. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners has received a record-breaking 16 nominations, but it isn’t the only genre film to be in the running for an award. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein has been nominated for nine awards, and both Weapons and The Ugly Stepsister have received one nomination apiece.
Scream 7 Is the Perfect Film to End the Series (Even If It Probably Won't)
Wes Craven first attempted the post-modern horror movie with his A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, New Nightmare. Although a great film, its 1994 release was a tad too early for audiences to embrace. Undeterred, Craven continued to explore the idea of a self-referential genre movie, and after linking up with Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson, found the magic formula: Scream was unleashed into the world in 1996; now, 30 years later, comes the seventh movie in the series, Scream 7.
Why Critics are Calling the Indie Sci-Fi the 'New Terminator'
James Cameron’s The Terminator is a near-perfect masterpiece. The story, if you’ve somehow never seen it, follows waitress and student Sarah Connor as she finds herself the target of a killing machine from the future. This terminator’s mission is to assassinate Sarah before she can become pregnant with a child who will one day cause the downfall of the machine overlords of a future apocalypse.
Berlinale Review: My Wife Cries Is Another Poetic Tapestry From Angela Schanelec
Deep into the second week of another tumultuous (and freezing cold) year at the Berlin Film Festival, Angela Schanelec arrives with a welcome reminder of what summertime in the city feels like: a place where young people meet and chat and go for bike rides; a place where the uniform black and greys of winter outfits are exchanged for springtime hues; and a place where the relaxed stillness of a day can be punctured here and there by music or drama.
Berlinale Review: Home Stories Tells an Ambitious If Uneven Intergenerational Tale
In Home Stories, a young woman from the town of Griez in East Germany is selected to compete on a TV talent show—an opportunity that will require her family to do a rare bit of self-reflection. The writer of this conceptually rich idea is Eva Trobish, among the lesser-known directors to emerge from the Berlin School in the last ten years. In that time, however, she has been gradually building a reputation, winning Locarno’s Best First Feature award in 2018 for All Is Well.
10 Essential Movies from the 2026 Berlin Film Festival
On Saturday evening, the jury of the Berlin International Film Festival had the honour of handing out the Golden Bear for the 76th time in the festival’s history, and, in 2026, it went to Ilker Çatak's Yellow Letters. In previous years, this coveted prize has been taken home by the likes of Hayao Miyazaki (for Spirited Away), Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia) and Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility).
Berlinale Review: Sandra Hüller Proves Magnificent In Markus Schleinzer’s Rose
If period filmmaking’s credibility can be measured by the audience’s ability to imagine said person scrolling on an iPhone, Markus Schleinzer deserves recognition for his contributions to the genre. The Austrian director’s latest, a macabre, pseudo-folktale titled Rose, is set in 17th-century Germany.
Berlinale Review: Queen at Sea Sets Tom Courtenay and Juliette Binoche with a Thorny Moral Dilemma
Eleven years ago, Tom Courtenay arrived at the Berlinale with Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, an exquisitely observed study of emotional dilemma in which the British actor played a doddery romantic whose selfish tendencies threatened to get the better of him.
Berlinale Review: Prosecution is a Propulsive Investigation Into Far-Right Violence
Last week, the jury president of the Berlin Film Festival claimed that this year’s edition would provide an “opposite” to politics. If such a thing exists, it certainly doesn’t look anything like Faraz Shariat’s sophomore feature Prosecution—a narratively propulsive yet finely detailed procedural (all props to screenwriter Claudia Schaefer) that overflows with political statements, ideas, and fears.
Berlinale Review: We Are All Strangers Channels Edward Yang to Kitschy But Compelling Ends
The new film from Anthony Chen takes a minute to find its rhythm. For the first hour or so of its admittedly substantial runtime, I couldn’t help but wonder if an LLM, prompted to make the most normcore script imaginable, would be able to conjure a story of such modest simplicity.
Rosebush Pruning Review: A Maximalist, Muddled Attempt at Cinematic Transgression
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Berlinale coverage. The film opens on July 24. Moulding cruel or nihilistic characters into darkly attractive protagonists requires a deceptively delicate touch. We’ve grown so used to seeing it done effortlessly that a movie like Rosebush Pruning can perhaps be some useful reminder of how difficult it is to pull off.
Rotterdam Review: First Light is a Calm, Confident Debut
It’s rare for a film as good as First Light to slip through the cracks of the major festivals. This debut feature from Filipino-Australian director James J. Robinson premiered at the Melbourne Film Festival last August before traveling to Marrakech in December and IFFR last week.
The Misconceived Review: Incisive, Inventive Look at Contemporary Life
Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 IFFR coverage. The film opens in theaters on May 8. Seven years after collaborating on The Plagiarists, writers James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir return with The Misconceived—another incisive, inventive movie about the anxieties faced by the never-quite-made-it creative class.
Rotterdam Review: With Tokyo Taxi, Yoji Yamada Cruises Down Well-Traveled Roads
Forget misunderstood hacks and generational talents. There’s nothing quite like a consistent studio hand (with a solid 3- or 4-star batting average) who flies under the international radar for much of their career. Yoji Yamada was already approaching middle age (and his 16th feature) by the time Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, but it would take another half-century before international festivals and “contribution to cinema” committees started taking notice.
5 Movies & TV Shows to Get to Know the God of War Show's Kratos
An adaptation of the God of War video game has been in various stages of production for a number of years. Originally, the concept was visualised as a movie. But, given the reputation of video game films and the complicated world and story within God of War, studios were nervous as to how best serve the project. Then, thanks to the success of The Last of Us and Fallout as TV shows, God of War started to be developed into a series instead.
Movies & TV Shows Like The Beauty That Reveal the Body Horror of Perfection
Ryan Murphy continues to be one of the hardest-working people in television with the release of yet another show, The Beauty. After the critical mauling of his Kim Kardashian-starring tale of duplicitous lawyers, All’s Fair, Murphy has returned to safer genre ground. Based on a comic book, the premise of The Beauty is that there is a sexually transmitted disease that causes the infected to transform into a younger and more beautiful version of themselves.
10 Animal Attack Films That are Wilder Than Jaws
Johannes Roberts’ Primate hits UK cinemas at the end of January. Featuring rabid chimp Ben turning on the family that raised him and packed full of some truly gnarly gore, Primate really earns its 18 certificate.
The Love That Remains Director Hlynur Pálmason on the Preciousness of Time and Spontaneous Filmmaking
Since taking his debut feature Winter Brothers to the Locarno Film Festival in 2017, Hlynur Pálmason has gradually made his name as one of Europe’s most eclectic and exciting filmmakers. The Icelandic director’s four features to date have each used his native country’s breathtaking (and often overused) grandeur in novel and exciting ways.
Every Crossover Cameo
Based on the comic book of the same name by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, The Boys has gone on to become one of Prime Video's most successful television shows. First screening in July 2019, the series is a superhero property like no other. It follows an eponymous group of vigilantes determined to bring down egomaniacal Homelander and the company that created him, Vought International.
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