I’ll confess i’m skipping past a lot of Christmas films for this recap, because i’d seen most of them before and those memories are blanketed in a thick fog of advocaat and chocolate. Nevertheless: here’s — if not all — most of the things i’ve watched over the past couple of months.

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Perhaps i’m being unfair to a film that’s a rounding error away from a century old, but this was nightmarish in the literal sense. A terrifying parade of disconnected events where things just happen without rhyme or reason. By the end of it, i just wanted to wake up. (2/10)

Conclave (2024)

“If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts.”

Perfectly hits that Twelve Angry Men nerve in my brain. What i love about this, apart from the truly devious vape hits, is that rather than some grandiose, ancient, mysterious cabal, the Catholic Church is treated as exactly what it is: the world’s oldest bureaucracy.¹ (10/10)

Nosferatu (2024)

“I have seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother's womb!”

I’m playing a dangerous game here, because i watched this on the first of January, 2025 — meaning that, once again, there’s a good chance that my “favourite film of 2025” will have come out in 2024. Not that i’m complaining.

Robert Eggers hits it out of the park again in this incredible adaptation of an adaptation of Dracula. Visually, it’s immaculate, drenched in chiaroscuro, the Count himself heralded by a sudden desaturation to bluish silver. The actors bring their A-game all around: Nicholas Hoult, perpetually an up-and-comer, seems finally to be breaking out, and having long forgotten the trailers, the midway appearance of Willem Dafoe was a most welcome surprise. Plus, despite owing her career to a surname, Lily-Rose Depp brings it all to a role that in a lesser actor’s hands could have been yet another generic traumatised wife.

Tl;dr: Don’t go to Romania. (10/10)

Brazil (1985)

I have such a love–hate relationship with Terry Gilliam. His films are so inventive, so wonderful, in theory, everything i love. But they’re always coated in this layer of grime and ugliness that brings them down for me. Here, he finally puts it to good use, building a horrifyingly relatable surreal dystopia that’ll make any Brit who’s ever had to deal with the welfare system cry-laugh in how true it all is. Have you got a 27B/6? I’m a bit of a stickler for paperwork… (8/10)

Heretic (2024)

Talk about wasted potential. Heretic starts out brilliant — two Mormon missionaries are trapped in the house of a Reddit atheist, played marvellously by Hugh Grant, who knows how to make every conversation drip with tension. If it was just two hours of uncomfortable theological arguments, i’d be strapped in.

But, nope! The third act starts, they go into his eeeeevil basement, and there’s a creeeepy emaciated woman talking in cryptic breathy half-sentences!!! Are you scared yet??? (4/10)

Better Man (2024)

I forgot i saw this and had to quickly retract the blog post and edit it back in, which says just about all you need to know. It’s pretty good, and the monkey gimmick’s fun, but i’m not itching to rewatch it any time soon. (5¾/10)

Severance, season 2 (2025)

We are so fucking back. Ben Stiller and company haven’t missed a single step in the three-year-long gap. I’m tearing my hair out trying to figure out the mysteries over here!

The Name of the Rose (1986)

The main message i got from this was reinforcement that the mediæval era is, indeed, the least interesting (to me) of the three broad ages of history. Still, there’s stuff to like here: Sean Connery is always great, and there are so many weird-ass little guys in the monastery that you have to begrudgingly love the energy. (5/10)

The Zone of Interest (2023)

“I wasn't really paying attention… I was too busy thinking how i would gas everyone in the room.”

Behold, the anti–Schindler’s List: a quiet family drama where the head of the family just so happens to be the KZ-Kommandant of Auschwitz.

The magic’s in the sound. We never get to see what goes on behind the walls of the camp, but the implication is enough. Stacks of smoke. The noise of industry. Yelling of orders. Screams of pain. It’s enough to make anyone throw up. The music’s no respite: John Williams this ain’t; what little there is is harsh, discordant, pained.

Sandra Hüller is incredible as the commandant’s wife, a woman who cares much more about the stability of their marriage and financial security than anything her husband might be doing for a living. There’s a chilling conversation where her and her friends, gathered round for tea, chat idly about the clothes of liquidated Jews they won at auction.

Still, it’s a little disjointed; some fragments and branches never quite meet back up with the main trunk of the film. It’s a hard thing to rate… but let’s say (7/10).