The White Lotus: Season 3 (2025) ***

Season 3 of Mike White's excellent series for HBO, this time set in Thailand.

Adolescence (2025) ***

Brilliantly directed British TV series about a strange murder.

Asura (2025) **

Japanese Netflix series directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda ("Shoplifters", "Monster"). It's a story of four sisters who discover that their father has an affair with a younger woman.

Heart Eyes (2025) **

Very effective slasher pic with convincing performances, clever touches of humour and plenty of thrills and suspense. But it's also quite predictable.

Mickey 17 (2025) *

Atrocious science-fiction flick set in a human colony on a distant planet. It's hard to believe that Ho Bong-Joon, who made such a great masterpiece as "Parasite" (2019), could stumble so badly with his very next project.

Top 10 Films of 2024

1. "Anora" (Sean Baker, USA)

2. "Kind Of Kindness" (Yorgos Lanthimos, USA)

3. "The Seed Of The Sacred Fig" (Mohammad Rasoulof, Iran)

4. "The Brutalist" (Brady Corbet, USA)

5. "Flow" (Gints Zilbalodis, Latvia)

6. "Babygirl" (Halina Reijn, USA)

7. "My Old Ass" (Megan Park, Canada)

8. "A Complete Unknown" (James Mangold, USA)

9. "The Substance" (Coralie Fargeat, USA)

10. "Lee" (Ellen Kuras, USA)

Other great films:

Ababouiné (Canada)

The Apprentice

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Better Man (UK)

Challengers

Civil War

Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (France)

Conclave

Dahomey (Senegal)

Deadpool And Wolverine

A Different Man

Drive-Away Dolls

Eight Postcards From Utopia (Romania)

Elton John: Never Too Late

Emilia Perez

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Australia)

Heretic

Hit Man

Joker: Folie à deux

Kalak (Denmark)

The Last Showgirl

Nightbitch

Nos belles-soeurs (Canada)

Nosferatu

The Room Next Door (Spain)

Saturday Night

September 5

Succubus (Russia)

Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (UK)

We Live In Time (UK)

Wicked

Top 3 Shorts:

1. "The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent" (Nebojsa Slijepcevic, Croatia)

2. "The Only Girl In The Orchestra" (Molly O'Brien, USA)

3. "Instruments Of A Beating Heart" (Ema Ryan Yamazaki, Japan)

Top 3 Music Videos:

1. "Espresso" (Dave Meyers, Sabrina Carpenter)

2. "Taste" (Dave Meyers, Sabrina Carpenter)

3. "Please Please Please" (Bardia Zeinali, Sabrina Carpenter)

Top Commercial:

"Bleu de Chanel" (Martin Scorsese, Chanel)

Other great commercials:

Like A Good Neighbaaa

TV Top 10:

1. "Sugar" (Fernando Meirelles, Apple)

2. "Landman" (Taylor Sheridan, Paramount)

3. "Shogun" (FX)

4. "Rivals" (Disney, UK)

5. "The Perfect Couple" (Susanne Bier, Netflix)

6. "Hacks: Season 3" (HBO)

7. "My Brilliant Friend: Season 4" (RAI, Italy)

8. "Cien años de soledad" (Netflix, Colombia)

9. "Fallout" (Amazon)

10. "Disclaimer" (Alfonso Cuaron, Apple)

Other great TV shows:

Ancient Apocalypse: The Americas

Baby Reindeer (UK)

Dating Naked UK (UK)

Evil: Season 4

Niepewnosc (Poland)

Squid Game: Season 2 (South Korea)

Top 3 Cartoons:

1. "Sing: Thriller" (Garth Jennings, Netflix)

2. "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" (David Silverman, Disney)

3. "An Almost Christmas Story" (David Lowery, Disney)

Other great cartoons:

Beurk (France)

Wander To Wonder (UK)

Top 3 VR films:

1. "Somewhere Unknown In Indochina" (Asio Liu, Feng Ting Tsou, Taiwan)

2. "Oneiro" (Milos Tasic Grof, Croatia)

3. "The Quest: Everest" (Alex Harz)

Top Stand-Up Comedy Show:

"Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer" (Jimmy Carr, Brian Klein, Netflix)

Other great stand-up comedy shows:

Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval

Weak films of 2024:

1995 (Canada)

Alien: Romulus

All We Imagine As Light (India)

Argylle

Dune: Part Two

Else (Belgium)

The Girl With The Needle (Denmark)

Gladiator II

Grand Tour (Portugal)

Una Historia de amor y guerra (Mexico)

I'M Still Here (Brazil)

Inside Out 2

Jour de chasse (Canada)

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes

Maria

Moana 2

Nickel Boys

The Outrun (UK)

Queer

A Real Pain

Sing Sing

The Six Triple Eight

Le Successeur (France)

Sugarcane (Canada)

Twisters

The Wild Robot

Weak shorts:

Anuja

Closing Time

I Am Ready Warden

I’M Not A Robot (Belgium)

The Spider

Weak TV shows:

Agatha All Along

Bridgerton: Season 3

Weak cartoons:

Beautiful Men (Belgium)

In The Shadow Of The Cypress (Iran)

Top 3 Musicals of 2024

1. "A Complete Unknown" (James Mangold, Searchlight)

2. "Emilia Perez" (Jacques Audiard, France)

3. "Wicked" (Jon M. Chu, Universal)

Anora (2024) *****

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Kinds Of Kindness (2024) *****

Another masterpiece from Yorgos Lanthimos, a constantly surprising cinematic puzzle of the highest order.

My Old Ass (2024) ****

A wonderful, magnificent film about love, but very different from a typical romantic comedy, although it is that too, but also so much more. A queer film about a young girl falling in love with a boy. A comedy about a 18-year old girl meeting an older version of herself at 39. A Canadian movie about a family that isn't fuck up at all, not even a little bit. A rare gem.

A Complete Unknown (2024) ****

Excellent biopic about a key period in Bob Dylan's career - 1961 to 1965. Great songs, great performances and a fabulous reconstruction of that era, when the American folk music would discover an electric guitar.

Flow (2024) ****

Fabulous animated feature from Latvia. It's the story of a cat whose life is upended by a massive flood, leading to an unexpected and touching alliance with a diverse group of animals: a capybara, a bird, a lemur, and a dog. Not unlike "Ponyo" (2009) and "Life Of Pi" (2012), but surprisingly different in a variety of ways.

The Brutalist (2024) ****

A very strange film that can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Babygirl (2024) ****

Excellent erotic drama starring Nicole Kidman as a masochistic CEO who engages in an adulterous affair with a young intern.