Justine Smith

The horror film Imaginary, more Ghostbusters, Sydney Sweeney as a nun in Immaculate, another installment in the Godzilla x Kong franchise and more.

Who would imagine that a studio horror sequel by a first-time feature filmmaker could be one of the best horror films in recent memory? Set before the events of the 1976 film The Omen, The First Omen takes place in Italy. As novitiate nun Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) is driven to her new home, a convent in Rome, the car passes student and trade worker protests. Young people fill the streets, and on the radio, Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra’s duet, “Some Velvet Morning,” fills the car. “The world is changing,” warns an older cardinal as the power of the Catholic Church is waning.

One of the iconic images of the first decade of cinema was the closing shot of The Great Train Robbery (1903). An outlaw faces the camera directly and unloads his pistol point-blank into the camera. Goodfellas, Breaking Bad and even James Bond pay homage to this moment. In a brief, almost unremarkable shot, Alex Garland’s

Monster-child horror thriller Abigail, Dev Patel’s action-packed Monkey Man, Jay Baruchel and Emily Hampshire in the new Caitlin Cronenberg film Humane and more.

In Late Night With the Devil, David Dastmalchian brings to life Jack Delroy, a late-night talk show host who can’t quite measure up. After a sprawling cold-open exposition presented as a leering TV documentary about his career, the film unfolds during a live taping on Halloween night 1977, during sweeps week. Delroy wants something spectacular to happen; he wants to finally beat Johnny Carson in the ratings. In the process, he (un)willingly invites demonic presences onto his sound stage and, through the TV, into the homes of Americans all over the country.

Radu Jude channels the zeitgeist in Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, via Andrew Tate, bad Instagram filters and more.

An interview with French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello about the inspirations behind his haunting film The Beast, set in three time periods.

It’s a movie that’s quite plainly about sex, and nearly every interaction between the three main characters feels underlined by overflowing desire. While Zendaya becomes the shared object of interest, the movie has even more interest in the eroticism of the male body. The camera frequently cuts to the bulging thighs, pulsing chests and hardening cocks. It’s a movie, in part, about the power (as well as the limits) of a big dick. Rarely has a film featured a character whose BDE has been so literal, so central and so complex. While our protagonists remain largely under wraps, there’s no confusing the subtext of their rivalry. One of the boys has a boyfriend dick, the other, in his own words, is not the marrying type — “that’s not what he’s for.”

An interview with the Quebec director about his first English-language film.

Luca Guadagnino’s latest film Challengers encourages critics to use superlatives — the movie is breezy, sexy and visceral. Everyone is beautiful. Tennis is sex; tennis is life. Critics with a sense of whimsy and a talent for wordplay are serving up their best puns, plays and rhymes to do with balls, games and courts. Guadagigno, whose films often indulge in elegance, pleasure and melodrama, invites all levels of hyperbole and grandiosity.