An odd commonality with many of today’s films is that, because either their production companies have gone default or nobody really cares about them any more, you can watch them for free on Youtube in varying degrees of quality right now. Videos have been linked where applicable.

Her (2013)

Every baffling product that’s come out of Silicon Valley in the past ten years can be explained by this film. They’ve all seen it, and they all desperately want to make it real.

The Humane AI Pin? Joaquin Phoenix carries around a little camera doodad in his pocket that he talks to instead of using a screen. Windows Recall? Scarlett Johansson helps organise his computer. People grieving the loss of their AI girlfriends? You know it. It’s a marvel they haven’t tried to abolish our keyboards yet.

It’s generally a strange experience watching Her in 2025, because it was right on the money about so many things that it now barely registers as science fiction. Mr Phoenix and Ms Johansson’s robosexual relationship is meant to be beautiful, and it is ­— the most tender sex scene of the twenty-first century occurs entirely through voice — but you have to work to quiet that little voice in your head going “lol, this loser fell in love with ChatGPT.” (8/10)

Weapons (2025)

Weapons takes the Silence of the Lambs approach to horror, being more of a nerve-wracking thriller with some spooky bits in it than a traditional “horror movie”, and is all the better for it. Satisfying as that ending was, it still seemed to be missing a little extra oomph to me. (7/10)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

“This is the universe. Big, isn't it?”

My word, how had i never seen this before? Seeing nineteen-forties Britain in Technicolor would be worth the price of admission alone, but everything about this tale of heaven and earth is so touching, even when it suddenly decides to be about British–American postwar relations. An all-time classic. (10/10) (Watch now!)

Breakdown (1997)

The best kind of 6/10: a serviceable mid-afternoon action flick where Kurt Russell does his take on The Vanishing. (6/10) (Watch now!)

Dog Soldiers (2002)

Possibly the best werewolf movie we’re ever going to get? They do some brilliant stuff with what’s clearly quite a low budget. “I hope i give you the shits” is going in the movie one-liner hall of fame. (6/10) (Watch now!)

Matinee (1993)

From the director of Gremlins comes a nice little film where John Goodman plays a William Castle–type gimmick-horror director trying to promote his new B-movie in the shadow of the Cuban Missile Crisis. A wonderful watch, if a bit slow to get going — every second we see of Mant!, the fictional creature feature, is hilarious. (7/10) (Watch now!)

Lord of War (2005)

Great intro, good-but-messy everything else. It’s weird seeing a depiction of Ukraine in pop culture before it all got coloured by the war. Nic Cage delivers as always. (6/10)

Downfall (2004)

You know, this “Adolf Hitler” guy doesn’t strike me as a very nice fellow. (7/10) (Watch now… if you can speak German!)

Re-Animator (1985)

“And what would a note say, Dan? ‘Cat dead, details later’?”

Oh, this is glorious. It’s cheap and crummy, but in the best way possible. Every actor knows exactly the sort of film they’re in and delivers a performance to match. The special effects alternate between brilliant and hilarious. Watch it with your friends if at all possible! (7/10) (Watch now!)

Caught Stealing and One Battle After Another (2025)

These were the last two films i saw at the cinema, and they tread similar ground, so i thought i’d talk about them together.

“We’re in enough trouble with HaShem as it is without driving on Shabbas.”

The only other Darren Aronofsky film i’d seen before was π, and while my understanding is that the two are outliers in his filmography, Caught Stealing makes a great spiritual sequel, a stylish, high-octane, downward-spiralling crime caper squeezing every last drop of cosmopolitan flavour from its New York setting. Austin Butler is magnetic, and Matt Smith kills it in his role as the instigating punk, but the real star of the show is surely Tonic, the acting cat. Possible best-of-the-year material. (9/10)

“If you don’t give me the rendezvous point, i swear to God i will hunt you down and stick a loaded fucking hot piece of dynamite right up your fucking asshole.”

Of the two, One Battle After Another has been the better-received, rapturously applauded from all around as The Film Of The Year, a Very Important All-Timer Film with lots to say about The Issues. And while it is great, i can’t help but think… calm down? It’s not the Second Coming.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s excellence was already pre-assumed, but Benicio del Toro’s Sensei Sergio is surely the coolest guy of the twenty-twenties. Everyone else does nothing but larp, larp, larp about how cool and revolutionary they are (or how bvsed and rvdpvlled they are, in the antagonists’ case), but he’s out there quietly putting in the work to protect his little community without needing to brag about him. How can you not love a man with a secret ladder with a carpet that unrolls to hide the entrance? (8/10)