Writer-director Ari Aster (Midsommar) has made what has been called an “audacious, outside-the-box cosmic sociological Western thriller.” The film is set in the desert city of Eddington, New Mexico, during the COVID summer of 2020, and the first indication that it’s going to offer a major tweak of conventional wisdom is that the city sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix), is just about the only person in town who refuses to wear a face mask. In this conversation starter, Ari Aster sets out to capture the creeping unreality of what America’s become. (dir. Ari Aster, U.S., 2025, 145 min.)

In this much anticipated new film, by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, Brad Pitt stars as a retired Formula One driver who returns to the sport to mentor a rising star, played by Damson Idris. As Pitt’s character teams up with his protégé, he takes one last shot at racing glory. (dir. Joseph Kosinski, U.S., 120 min.)

The unclassifiable singer-songwriter Garland Jeffreys was a fixture of New York’s music scene in the 1960s and 70s, fusing rock, reggae, folk and soul. Despite never cresting into stardom, he was universally regarded as one of the best by peers including Laurie Anderson and Bruce Springsteen. Claire Jeffreys has made an independent, crowd-funded film that serves as a love letter to her husband. (dir. Clare Jeffreys, U.S., 2025, 70 min.)

A music-adjacent doc double feature set in parking lots. Hands on a Hard Body was made into a musical because of its operatic ambitions: 24 contestants compete in an endurance/sleep deprivation contest in order to win a brand new Nissan Hardbody truck. The last person to remain standing with his or her hand on the truck wins. An absurd marketing gimmick at first glance, the contest proves to be much more. (dir. S.R. Bindler, U.S., 1997, 98 min.) “The most hysterical and engaging documentary since Spinal Tap, only this was for real.” Film Threat. Plays with “Heavy Metal Parking Lot” (dir. Jeff Krulik, U.S., 1986, 17 min.), an endearing slice of life in the Landover, Md., Capital Centre parking lot before a 1986 Judas Priest concert. This is the joy of metal, and hedonism, and the power of power chords, and it has rightfully become legendary. “If you haven’t found some kind of fashion inspiration — whether a do or a don’t — by the time it winds up, then I’m concerned.” Nashville Scene

Set in British Hong Kong, in 1962, it follows Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung), a newspaper journalist, and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), a secretary at an import-export office. The pair live in adjacent apartments in a crowded building, where they gradually realize that their respective spouses are having an affair and attempt to figure out how it happened. Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai’s visually extravagant masterwork has been hugely influential, an art work emblematic of the era, a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching musical soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, The film is a ninety-minute mood piece that weaves together fashion, music, color, light, and form—a feat cinema can achieve better than any other medium. (dir. Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong, 2000/2001, 107 min.)

Secrets, and lies embroil a Broadway star in a mystery when old friends visit. One leads him deep into their mutual past, with the girl they both knew 15 years ago. And when she turns up, things become even scarier.

Cultural critic Lucy Sante’s celebrated I Heard Her Call My Name centers around Sante’s decades of gender dysphoria and her eventual coming out as a trans woman in 2021. In this memoir of transition, Sante shows how music played a vital role in her lifelong journey to becoming more herself. With her friend, writer Joe Hagan (Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine), Sante will host a record party spanning girl groups to Public Image, providing an aural accompaniment to the book.

Ari Aster’s visionary classic tells the story of a young American couple (Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor) who take a trip to a pagan festival in remote Sweden – things turns strange and then terrifying.

One of Miyazaki’s masterworks, it’s marked by its sweeping scope and grandeur, set in a devastated future world decimated by atmospheric poisons and swarming with giant insects. Nausicaä is a young princess with a love for all living things and a passionate determination to understand the processes of nature. (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 1984, 95 min.)

A community of magical shape-shifting raccoon dogs, tanuki, struggle to prevent their forest home from being destroyed by real estate developers in this landmark Studio Ghibli film. As in the best Miyazaki films, there is no pat resolution. But the crowning act of resistance is a glorious pageant of mystical figures through the city: one last stand for endangered animals and for the pleasures of enchantment against a bloodless industrial world. (dir. Isao Takahata, Japan, 1994, 119 min.)

After two semi-retired secret agents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) disappear, their children have to don jet-packs, slide on computer specs and save the world. (dir. Robert Rodriguez, U.S., 2001, 88 min.) “Whiz-bang, techno fun, with a touch of Latino flavor.” LA Weekly

James Gunn’s much-anticipated reboot of the classic series: Clark Kent /Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his adoptive human family in Smallville, Kansas. (dir. James Gunn, U.S. 2025, 129 min.)

Horror master Wes Craven achieved success with the likes of Scream and A Nightmare on Elm Street but for many, The Hills Have Eyes remains his masterpiece. Taking a detour whilst on route to Los Angeles, the Carter family run into trouble when their campervan breaks down in the middle of the desert. Stranded, the family find themselves at the mercy of monstrous cannibals lurking in the hills. The film is one of the defining moments in American horror cinema. (dir. Wes Craven, U.S., 1977, 89 min.)

Fueled by fear of aliens, a small town in Maine rallies to destroy a metal man who falls to Earth. But Hogarth, a clear-eyed boy, sets out to save this Iron Giant. An animated classic of our time, Brad Bird’s film is an exciting ride for the whole family. (dir. Brad Bird, U.S., 1999, 86m)

This genre-bending story – based on Stephen King’s novella – is told in reverse order from the end of life of an ordinary man –played by Tom Hiddleston– to the beginning, taking a cosmic approach to the idea of inner worlds. Both darkly funny and shattering, it pushes us to grapple with the end along with director Mike Flanagan. (dir. Mike Flanagan, U.S., 2024, 110)

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. The story of a family and a family business. Starring: Benicio del Toro as Zsa-zsa Korda, one of the richest men in Europe; Mia Threapleton as Sister Liesl, his daughter/a nun; Michael Cera as Bjorn Lund, their tutor. With: Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Mathieu Amalric, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

The SHAKER is the punk/folk/ambient noise project of singer/violinist Simi Stone, guitarist Philip Marshall & memoirist Nick Flynn. It doesn’t work, but it does.

A mother (Lupita Nyong’o) and a father (Winston Duke) take their kids for an idyllic summer getaway. When darkness falls, they discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves. (dir. Jordan Peele, U.S, 2019, 116 min.)