AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 307 – Oscar Predictions in a post-Venice/Telluride/Toronto World and ‘One Battle After Another’
Living in a post-Venice/Telluride/Toronto world means it’s time get serious about our Oscar predictions and that’s just what we’re doing this week. On episode 307... Read More
venice film festival
‘Silent Friend’ Review: Ildikó Enyedi’s Hypnotic Saga is One of the Year’s Best Films [A] Venice
In an edition full of surprises and films that moved and provoked audiences at the Venice Film Festival, Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend is perhaps the... Read More
‘Dead Man’s Wire’ Review: Gus Van Sant Crafts a Kinetic Dog Day Afternoon for Bill Skarsgård [B+] Venice
As he enters the office of Meridian Mortgages on a brisk February morning in 1977, Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) is visibly on edge, despite the... Read More
‘Marc by Sofia’ Review: Coppola’s Friendly Look at a Fashion Titan Leaves Some of its Seams Showing [B-] Venice
Sofia Coppola’s Marc by Sofia could only ever have been made by Sofia Coppola. On paper it is a straightforward proposition: a celebrated filmmaker turns... Read More
‘Back Home’ Review: In Barely an Hour Tsai Ming-liang Asks ‘What is a Home?’ [B] Venice
Tsai Ming-liang has become a progressively more esoteric filmmaker since he began his career three and a half decades ago. A lot of his recent... Read More
‘Elisa’ Review: Di Costanzo’s Film is a Story Lost in Its Own Silence [B-] Venice
Leonardo Di Costanzo’s Elisa is a deliberate and methodical exploration of guilt, memory, and the psychology of extreme acts of violence. At the center is... Read More
‘The Sun Rises on Us All’ Review: Cai Shangjun’s Latest is Often an Aimless Take on ‘Past Lives’ [C] Venice
The underlying theme of the 2025 Venice Film Festival seems to be the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by human beings: the implications of one’s... Read More
‘Late Fame’ Review: Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee Sparkle in Kent Jones’s Fizzled Fable [C+] Venice
Sudden fame would feel unnatural for anyone—let alone Ed Saxberger, an aging post office worker turned native New Yorker. One evening, he returns home from... Read More
‘Girl’ Review: Shu Qi’s Directorial Debut Finds Heart in the Face of Grim Oppression [B] Venice
Acclaimed Hong Kong-Taiwanese actress Shu Qi (known for her arthouse and commercial films including The Assassin, Three Times and most recently Bi Gan’s Resurrection) makes... Read More
‘My Father and Qaddafi’ Review: Jihan K Crafts a Moving Portrait of Living Under a Regime of Brutality [A-] Venice
Life doesn’t always give us answers – but that doesn’t mean the questions always linger, haunting us at every turn. There is a pain in... Read More
AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 345: Recapping the 79th Cannes Film Festival and Looking to the Awards Future 
‘The Beloved’ Review: Javier Bardem Makes a Meal Out of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Movie-Making Buffet [B] 
‘The Dreamed Adventure’ Review: Valeska Grisebach’s Observant Thriller Examines the Grey Zones of Morality [B+] 
‘Minotaur’ Review: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Timeless, Domestic Epic is an Unflinching Look at Putin’s Russia [A] Cannes