You're paid to win

A film directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Paul Newman and written by David Mamet—that alone writes it into history. The Verdict (1982) is a superb courtroom drama—one of the best of its kind. While the story itself is quite simple, the filmmakers have crafted it into a suspenseful, engrossing, and thoroughly entertaining film.

Satan controls everything

This completely replicates the concept and plot arc of the first film, Ready or Not (2019). But let's not let that bother us. For this, too, is a fun story—tinged with dark humor—about a twisted game where you must hide or die.

Died upon the gallows

The most cringe-inducing aspects of this film adaptation of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala, are its heavy-handed pathos, the over-dramatic music that drowns out the dialogue, and the performance of Elias Salonen as Kullervo. What makes the film a chore to watch, however, is that it is excruciatingly dull. Naturally, the director (Antti J. Jokinen) must bear the blame for this; while the visuals work at times, the storytelling falters. This film simply should not have been made. Around the one-hour mark, a white car can be seen driving along the opposite shore of the lake—a detail that inevitably undermines the credibility of a story set in ancient times.

What it takes to live

A heartwarming and very pleasant story. An English teacher goes to work in a politically divided Argentina in 1976 and happens to run into—and befriend—a penguin! And this penguin brings plenty of joy to the grey everyday lives of other people, too. The Penguin Lessons (2024), by Peter Cattaneo, is an incredibly beautifully crafted movie based on true events. 

Once in a lifetime alone

Film critics don't like these. Or they won't admit that they do. The general public doesn't necessarily like them either, but they're almost guaranteed to enjoy them. Renny Harlin has quite captivatingly combined a plane crash disaster with a struggle to survive with sharks. The plane crash part in particular is done so well that it is second to none! As a whole the movie is silly, but very entertaining silly. When Renny Harlin is given a suitable script, he and his wealth of ideas are unstoppable.

Nocturnal rendezvous

It's a boring thriller. A psychiatrist investigates the death of his patient who committed suicide, but there's still nothing exciting about this French film. The narrative is tinged with subtle humor, which further reduces the suspense. And the mystery of the story doesn't really hold up. Jodie Foster, who studied in an elite French-speaking school, does get to show off her French skills though. 

In the pocket of silence

Kes (1969) is one of Ken Loach's masterpieces. It's a coming-of-age drama in which a young schoolboy, Billy (David Bradley), finds immense joy in raising a kestrel named Ken in a bleak working-class town. A film with emotional weight that lingers long after viewing. These absolute classics of the film world.

Born to ramble

Cattle are being stolen and no one is eager to intervene. One man then has to fight off the heavily armed evil thieves! Thieves Highway (2025) is pure B movie entertainment. An action movie with a bit of an old-fashioned feel.

Paradox man

The second season of Bad Thoughts, which also features short, very cinematic sketches. This series, created by Tom Segura, is at its best a really funny and grotesque comedy, but then counterbalanced by really worn-out fart humor. The second season is more of the latter.

Night falls like an ambush

A plane carrying people - mostly young rugby players - crashes somewhere in the Andes. A large group survives the crash. But how do you survive in a region where there are only giant snow-capped rock mountains as far as the eye can see? And even the search for possible survivors is abandoned without any results! This true-to-life story from 1972 has been previously adapted into a film, at least by Frank Marshall in Alive (1993). But this 2023 J.A. Bayona piece is considerably more gruesomely detailed. One of the best survival films where despair and anxiety and extreme distress and hunger are beautifully depicted on the screen.

Stupidity has saved many a man from going mad

If you have to die and you are ordered to die, but you don't, who is responsible? Like the British soldier who jumps out of a burning plane without a parachute and survives without a scratch! This is something that needs to be resolved in a celestial trial! A Matter of Life and Death, by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is quite a masterpiece. For a 40s film, the technical execution is brilliant. The visuals are absolutely stunning.  And the story itself is absolutely gorgeous. A love story set in a wild cosmic setting. A timeless classic.

Close to the emptiness of existence

A dog kennel worker is a bit lonely. He desperately needs female company. He runs into a woman he knows from his college days and develops a morbid obsessive interest in her. And because she couldn't be less interested, he stalks her and finds a way to get her. And there are other reasons than simple passion. This woman needs to be caged! And tamed! A thriller built on one great twist that should be compelling but is just unspeakably boring and ridden with plotholes. 

Angels eat shit

Roman Polanski's quirky comedy about the super-rich in a Swiss Alpine hotel, where they celebrate the turn of the century in 1999, or even the end of the world in their Y2K frenzy. The film has a very farcical feel as Russian mafiosi, an aging porn star, a world-famous plastic surgeon, a penguin, and other eccentric characters feed their own desires and the hotel employees try to fulfill their wishes. Unfortunately, except for the very beginning, there isn't really anything very funny about the film's story. The cast includes John Cleese, Mickey Rourke, Oliver Masucci and Fanny Ardant. 

Beginners guide to anarchism

A beautifully created time period of the somewhat hipster Brasilia of the 70s, which was fundamentally a very politically and dangerously tense time. The left and the right clashed bloodily, the police force and political power were rotten to the core, dictatorship and paranoia prevailed, and dissidents were simply killed. But samba was playing even then, people enjoyed life as long as they stayed outside the political turmoil. For some, however, the fight for justice became a life mission. It's a shame that the film's story is told in a somewhat confusing and rushed manner, with characters scattered carelessly and only moments of thriller-like action and suspense.

Poison in the veins

Marcia su Roma (The March on Rome) was an organized mass demonstration in October 1922. It led to the Italian fascist party led by Benito Mussolini coming to power and beginning a brutal period of twenty years. Its impact was reflected far and wide in the world and those teachings are still being put into practice. Such documentaries are very educational, but unfortunately, one cannot ignore the power and brutality of man.

It's now or never

A melancholic but very realistic film by Aleksi Salmenperä. What's special about this is that one of the main roles is played by Tomi Lindfors, an amateur actor with limited mobility who lives in the Salvation Army's housing service unit in Helsinki. He actually uses a wheelchair and his speech is slurred due to alcohol addiction and a brain hemorrhage. It's also clear that he has no experience in acting, but how naturally he does it! And the chemistry with his co-star Tommi Korpela is wonderful to watch. Despite small touches of tragicomedy, the drama is quite heavy-handed in all its sadness.

This is nowhere

A film can leave a lot up to the viewer's own interpretation, but when everything is left unexplained and open, it's unreasonable. And a bit like in an escape game, the clues only lead to a new riddle. In Genki Kawamura's Exit 8, a man gets stuck in the corridors of a subway station, in some kind of mysterious loop, and must follow and implement precise instructions to get out. The film is a great idea and in places, excruciatingly awesome, but the plot and events are otherwise very thin.

Before the crimson bloom

Watanabe is told that he has stomach cancer and therefore only has about six months to live. For the first time in his life, he decides to drink and now regrets never having done it in his life. What other pleasures he has missed out on. Fortunately, there is still time to realize them. And what fun things there are to do! And what there is still to offer the world! The money he earned from his work and intended for savings has found a purpose. Stomach cancer made him think about life and realize its beauty only on the eve of death. Ikiru (1952) is Akira Kurosawa's thought-provoking masterpiece.

The shadow knows

A dog plays the lead role in this enigmatic and quite scary horror film where some kind of ominous supernatural element is ever-present. The film's uniqueness is more fascinating than the story itself, but it does meet the criteria for a perfectly decent horror film.

The rites and the rituals

A damn long movie, but could such a nuanced and enigmatic story be told any shorter? This is Rian Johnson's third installment in the so-called Knives Out series. And as in the previous ones, it's clear that the actors have had a hell of a time filming this entertaining and interesting murder mystery where a priest is murdered and someone close to him is suspected of being the culprit. Great acting from the whole cast, but Daniel Craig and Josh Brolin in particular stand out a bit in roles they are rarely used to.

Hear the grass grow

I can already say that this is the weakest movie I've seen this year. I simply can't come across anything this blatantly bad anymore. The script is a mess. Some of the initial side plot twists are left hanging in the air without any resolution, various characters are introduced into the story that seem like they have some kind of significance, but they are just forgotten. And the whole thing is smeared with some kind of Christian ideology. This apocalyptic survival movie is such an incredible waste of time that it almost needs to be watched again.

Plagued by doubts

Season 4 of Slow Horses. Three separate plots that you know will eventually come together, but following them was a bit challenging. But the action and excitement are so expertly crafted that it doesn't even bother much. And it's always a privilege to watch one of the greatest actors of our generation, Gary Oldman.

Silence calls the storm

The island of Tasmania has been transformed into a kingdom of zombie-like people thanks to a failed US military experiment. And now these poor, half-dead people need to be killed and buried. A delicious starting point for a zombie adventure and would probably work as a game too. It would certainly be much more fascinating with a bigger budget, but they bring their ideas to life just fine with this.

The hangman's ready

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is one of the landmark books of the 20th century, and this 1967 film by Richard Brooks is an excellent adaptation. In a story based on true events, two ex-convicts ruthlessly murder an entire family during a robbery. Simply because they can't leave any witnesses. As if destroying human lives were child's play. A very disturbed and haunting world of thought. You can get chills from the movie too.

An authentic hippie midsummer

Pleasantly close in atmosphere to Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973). In both films, outsiders are lured into pagan ceremonies in some remote corner of the world, where beneath the people's overflowing happiness, there lives some kind of inexplicable evil. And all the evil happens in broad daylight and in full view. No ghosts in the dark and no knife-wielding lunatics in masks. Ari Aster's Midsommar may well as well start to gain some sort of cult status because this is an extremely impressive film.

Big fish live in quiet waters

Hong Sang-soo's unhurried shooting style is gently pleasing to the eyes. This film is based heavily on dialogue, laconic humor and a very slow pace. So even though nothing is happening, the words keep the action and interest going. This naturalistic narrative also requires a slightly different approach from the viewer. 

Chaos is king

The dumbest movie in a long time. Luckily, people still manage to do these things - accidentally or intentionally. This was definitely done seriously, but you would think that everyone involved in this would have been concerned when making such a massive pile of shit. Everything here is ridiculously bad. But as I said, I'm happy to watch these. Unless it becomes a habit.

One day the devil's gonna follow you home

Somehow a very stylish - albeit bloody - horror story. Yet Ryan Coogler's Sinners still isn't quite worth all the hype. There's nothing particularly memorable here, and the story, for all its showiness, is just a vampire story ripped from old, familiar elements. Not bad by any means, especially towards the end, really entertaining, but just ok. Maybe the music and certain individual scenes could be highlighted.

Pouring burning poison to the dead

To her horror, a prison guard meets her son's killer in prison, who has been transferred there as a prisoner from another prison. She is blinded by her lust for revenge. And even though logic and reason are forgotten, she somehow gets a few of her revengeful ideas through. Gustav Möller's Vogter is too much of a one-idea affair, with barely any plot, and unconvincing overall. 

Needles in the sunlight

A Corsican goat herder refuses to sell his land to the mafia and these thugs get angry. This inevitably leads to violence, general discomfort and a manhunt. A rather simple story that doesn't really ignite at any point. But the setting, Corsica, looks damn gorgeous.

No person is without a shadow

Not the best detective reasoning in the first part of the Wallander film series. It seems that the entire Ystad police department, both young and veteran detectives, are stupid beyond belief. Logic at least is often missing. Maybe this is just a case of straightening out the curves, because Henning Mankell's stories tend to be chillingly great. However, the execution of this one was also decent enough. In the story, disciples who believe in the name of messianic cult leader Jim Jones commit a series of horrific crimes.

At the top of the dial

An English hitman is in exile in Los Angeles. He teams up with his new employer's son. To show him some manliness, actually. Then they keep killing. And it's so much fun. Reckon London Calling is some kind of buddy comedy. But it's exceptionally poorly acted - and not funny at all. 

Eclipsed by revenge

Somehow this feels fake and something doesn't add up. There are indications that this competition has been managed in some way by the production. Not as obviously as in the first season, but there is more than meets the eye. Survival is just a platform and the drama between the contestants feels fake. And it is tiring. Still once you start following it, it's addictive enough that you want to watch it to the end. 

Eat less slugs

These have been repeating themselves for a long time. Nowadays, they're always in the fucking Fiji. This is season # 48. There's no sense of danger that's needed to survive on a deserted island. No real hunger because there are food prize competitions all the time. No one is withering away from thirst or starving to death. The conditions are not excellent but rather easy and comfortable. The same annoying puzzles. In the good old days, we were in a real wilderness somewhere in a world, eating everything we could and falling over a campfire from exhaustion. Real survival. No joyful and playful competition. But still, Survivor is the best survival show. It looks good, you identify with the contestants when the drama arc is so skillfully created.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality

A feel-good film. Fortunately, the friendship between a 58-year-old undertaker and a mentally disabled man he meets by chance was not made into a difficult and taboo-breaking story, but Bernard Campan and Alexander Jollien's Beautiful Minds is a very nice film even though it deals with difficult topics - like death. But mostly, it's just about laughing and quoting Stoic philosophers. 

Save yourself from Hell

The initial cut of the film ran 130 minutes, and they say it was so violent that the test audience and the studio demanded it be cut. And you can see that. The film is too fast-paced, which makes it erratic and confusing. Still a fantastic sci-fi film brimming with claustrophobic horror, but not enough time is given to the narrative. This 1997 Paul W.S. Anderson piece stars Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Kathleen Quinlan, Jason Isaacs, and Sean Pertwee, among others.

Hope is not a strategy

A magnificent display of technical cinematic storytelling. All the things related to Formula 1 racing are made to measure, with an incredibly realistic effect. However, it's far from the truth that a 60-year-old guy would jump behind the wheel of a F1 car out of the blue and outsmart all the young professionals. On the other hand, that's exactly the idea of ​​this film. The only idea, unless you count a little narrative softness. An entertaining movie, though. 

Inventing reality

A thought-provoking exploration of Russian power dynamics and the mental landscape therein. Jude Law doesn't humanize his portrayal of Vladimir Putin, nor should he. He is excellent in his role. The other lead actor, Paul Dano, as Putin's henchman Vadim Baranov is also good, although his face starts to get boring over time, there's just too much of him in the film. And after the cornerstones, stumbling blocks, and various catastrophic twists of Russia's recent history have been quickly presented, the film's narrative begins to drag. Still, better than what is being said and written in the reviews.

Singing the sorrows to the swamp

One of the most important rules of entrepreneurship and product development: don't fall too much in love with your product. Two middle-aged sisters in a Finnish village who brew sahti beer have never heard of such a rule. They promise to brew 100 liters of sahti for a wedding and it turns into chaos! Teemu Nikki's slightly farcical comedy describes the Finnish landscape of the soul well. Even if it is a tad exaggerated.

We are old and still work

 

An easily spreading fungal organism turns people into deadly zombies and they must be killed. And the fungus isolated. Liam Neeson is one of the veterans specializing in bioterrorism and he knows what to do. Hopefully it's not too late because the preservation of the fungus has been handled a bit carelessly. Cold Storage is a really funny, entertaining and somewhat charming horror comedy.

Never desert a lady in trouble

An elderly woman disappears on a train journey and her traveling companion is led to believe that she is imagining the whole thing! Classic Hitchcock, his early production (1938), but undoubtedly one of his masterpieces! An interesting story interpreted and acted wonderfully, and the tension is present throughout the film.

What we leave behind

Maybe there is a category for these flicks that are educational and that arouse interest in history. Quite often that is the most important value of these films. After Patricia Font's The Teacher Who Promised the Sea, you want to study the Spanish Civil War and history before World War II. Yet it works perfectly as a movie as well. 

A first class cunt

This is actually pretty damn brilliant. You can say whatever you want about Take That or Robbie Williams or all that boy band crap, but you can't help but be moved by Michael Gracey's Better Man. A great story from obscurity to stardom and Robbie Williams is played by a CGI monkey, a wild idea that works brilliantly.

A rite of passage

It's quite disgusting to be chased by a sadistic serial killer. Of course, it would be easier if you could escape using logical reasoning. However, quite often in film art, that is impossible. Baltasar Kormákur's Apex (2026) stumbles upon infuriating little mistakes and goofs. It could be a very exciting survival film, in the style of John Boorman's Deliverance (1972), because the right kind of atmosphere has been sought here, but unfortunately the execution falls short.

Lord of ages

The idea is that a person could relive their life, go into the past knowing what they know now and change the future for the better. Of course, if the time machine has such a structural flaw that they go back to the past in a completely different body (and the wrong brain), that's a big problem. And what if you come back as a dog! Then good luck trying to make an impact on the well-being of humanity and the planet. After Us, The Flood by Finnish director Arto Halonen explores existential questions. The subject matter is very interesting and thought-provoking, but the execution is annoyingly lacking. In fact, this would have made for a great, opinionated and emotionally engaging film, but it would have perhaps stretched the story too far.

You need to look like a fucking burglar

Out of inspiration and sheer boredom, an author begins to follow people at random. Although he creates certain and relatively clear rules for his hobby, the activity is somewhat stupid, but also scary, why not dangerous. Especially when the following turns into breaking and entering. With his debut work, Christopher Nolan manages to tell a lot in an hour. The powerful and interesting story even has a clever ending.

We must forget if we want to go on living

A unique and epic courtroom drama about the Nuremberg war trials. One of the landmark works in film history. A three-hour masterpiece bursting with star power (Burt Lancaster, William Shatner, Richard Widmark, Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell) and powerful storytelling. One of those films that you have to see in your lifetime. Directed by Stanley Kramer in 1961.

Burnt to a crisp

Osgood Perkins has made some pretty good horror films. Not groundbreaking by any means, but engaging and unique. Like Longlegs (2024) and The Monkey (2025). Unfortunately, there's nothing really worth mentioning here. Painfully boring and incredibly uninteresting, pretty rubbish, almost amateurish horror. A weekend trip to a remote cabin turns nightmarish and then the story just stops there.

A time uncountable by days

Two little brothers are adopted. They are separated at such a young age that they can't remember anything about it. More than 30 years pass and when one of the brothers needs bone marrow from a close relative, the truth is revealed to the boys. And so is the fact that the other one got a better start in life. A longer stick, so to speak. Emmanuel Courcol's The Marching Band is sufficiently touching and warm-hearted French drama.

Curses are lifted

A previous work from Hokum creator Damian McCarthy from 2024. And like Hokum, stylish horror storytelling, very true to the genre and as horror films should be, it's scary and atmospheric. The stone house a couple is reconstructing is haunted, and a blind medium arrives there to investigate his sister's death. A stone house a couple is reconstructing is haunted, and a blind medium arrives to investigate his sister's death. And the house's dead spirits give no one a moment's peace.