This year's best films aren't lacking in ambition – either narratively or visually. From an exploration of polyamory set in the sweaty world of professional tennis to a feminist horror film featuring truly stomach-churning prosthetics, there's something fresh here for even the most seasoned cinephile.
The Room Next Door
Spanish maestro Pedro Almodóvar's first full-length film in English is dizzyingly poignant. Tilda Swinton plays a terminally ill war reporter who asks a friend from her youth (former Wallpaper* Guest Editor Julianne Moore) to be present – and in the room next door – when she ends her life. It's a tender meditation on life, death and maternal guilt that unfolds in a beautiful brutalist house that Swinton's character rents to make her final days serene and free from memories. The final act's audacious casting choice shows Almodóvar has lost none of his youthful playfulness.
Challengers
This stylish sporting romp follows an awkward quasi-throuple who seem to be edging each other (emotionally). Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist work up a sweat as tennis rivals whose friendship carries a strong sexual undercurrent, but an ice-cool Zendaya really calls the shots as the pro-turned-coach who comes between them. Luca Guadagnino's film yielded a seemingly endless stream of homoerotic memes, but it's best enjoyed as a complete piece. Every creative choice – from Jonathan Anderson's preppy athleisure looks to the relentless score by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor – is a well executed smash. Tennis has never been sexier.
La Chimera
Josh O'Connor also shines in this beguiling film from writer-director Alice Rohrwacher, who previously made 2018's excellent fantasy drama Happy as Lazzaro. Here he plays Arthur, a crumpled British archaeologist who keeps himself afloat by helping Italy's tombaroli – or tomb raiders – to uncover buried treasure. Arthur's talent with a dowsing rod seems almost preternatural, which gives La Chimera a veneer of magical realism, but Rohrwacher's film is too rooted in human fallibility to feel woo-woo. In his seasonally inappropriate linen suit, Arthur is a perpetual outsider on a quest to find his missing girlfriend and, perhaps, a little meaning along the way.
The Brutalist
For a film about an architect that's called The Brutalist, Brody Corbet's period epic doesn't feature that much Brutalist architecture. But there's no doubt it's a story about building on several levels – a new life, community, the American dream. Adrien Brody gives a richly empathic performance as László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who emigrates to America following World War II. When he receives a dream commission from a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce), Tóth's future seems guaranteed, but he learns the hard way that capitalism and art don’t always mix. With stunning production design by Judy Becker, The Brutalist is a monumental technical achievement underpinned by rock-solid emotional foundations.
The Substance
Most of this year's coolest Halloween costumes were inspired by Demi Moore's character in The Substance: either the sleek aerobics queens she begins the film as, or the monstrous mutation of human flesh she morphs into after abusing a rejuvenating elixir. Coralie Fargeat's bombastic body horror is grotesque as you consume it – the blend of prosthetics and CGI is a technical marvel – and devastating when you digest it fully. It’s a grim thrill ride that holds up a mirror to society's obsession with female youth and beauty.
The Bird
The fifth film from visionary director Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank, American Honey) is a bewitching blend of social realism and magical realism. Newcomer Nykiya Adams plays 12-year-old Bailey, who lives in a Kent squat with her chancer father Bug (Barry Keoghan) and little in the way of structure. When Bailey meets a mysterious drifter called Bird (Franz Rogowski), who claims to have lived in the local area years earlier, she has her eyes opened in deeply surreal ways. Part coming-of-age story and part fairytale, Bird is a strange, captivating film that soars thanks to the fearless imagination of Arnold and her riveting female lead.
Emilia Pérez
This daring musical crime comedy rooted in the trans experience – yes, really – is a future cult classic. Spanish telenovela veteran Karla Sofía Gascón plays the title character, a former cartel leader who hires a downtrodden lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to facilitate her secret gender transition while whisking her wife (Selena Gomez) and children to safety. Flawed but fascinating, Emilia Pérez operates at a point on the Venn diagram where Almodóvar intersects with John Waters and Bob Fosse. Fortunately, every big swing from director Jacques Audiard is sold by his trio of Oscar-tipped female leads.
Anora
Powered by a breakout performance from Mikey Madison, Anora unfolds like Pretty Woman with more grit and lurid glitter. Madison is absolutely luminous as the title character, a Brooklyn stripper who moonlights as a sex worker and prefers to be called 'Ani' – the first hint that there's a gap between the life she has and the one she wants. When oligarch's son Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) offers her $15,000 to share a hedonistic weekend, Ani accepts and the business arrangement barrels towards a boozy Vegas wedding. The final act is heartbreaking and formally audacious as it roars towards an emotional crescendo that will leave you floored.
All Of Us Strangers
Adapted by director Andrew Haigh from Taichi Yamada's novel Strangers, this gorgeous ghost story doubles as an allegory for queer loneliness. Marooned in a half-empty London new-build, Andrew Scott's isolated screenwriter Adam enters into a tentative relationship with his neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal). Meanwhile, Adam takes regular train rides back to the suburbs to visit the ghosts of his parents who were killed many years earlier. Played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, they're frozen younger than Scott's character is now, which makes the family reunion poignant as well as incredibly tender. Haigh's flawless production choices include filming a euphoric club scene at iconic LGBTQ+ venue the Royal Vauxhall Tavern.
Kinds Of Kindness
Yorgos Lanthimos' follow-up to last year's Oscar-winning Poor Things was never going to be straightforward. Deliberately and ambiguously undersold as a 'triptych fable', Kinds of Kindness is prickly, provocative anthology tells three freaky and loosely connected stories. One hinges on everyday domestic cannibalism; another follows a sex cult whose members fetishise human moistness. A dazzling cast led by Lanthimos regular Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and The Substance's Margaret Qualley play different characters in each instalment, which adds to the sense of finely calibrated chaos. But Lanthimos' firm narrative hand and consistently creepy vision means it never quite spins out of control.
