Unless you’re Quentin Tarantino, if you’re a really intensely celebrated filmmaker, sometimes you just don’t praise anything because it sometimes draws attention away from less work or becomes reductive absorbed. The great Stanley Kubrick once famously said, “I am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify and reduce the work,” when deciding to praise Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “The Decalogue,” regardless. Christopher Nolan is another one who kind of plays his cards close to the vest, heaping tons of praise on classic films, but is relatively sparing when discussing contemporary movies (also, there’s that English politeness where you don’t say anything if you don’t have anything good to say.)

READ MORE: The 21 Best Films Of 2023

But maybe Nolan is changing slightly in this regard.

Continue reading Christopher Nolan’s Favorite Recent Films Include ‘Past Lives & ‘Aftersun’ at The Playlist.

Here at The Playlist, we’ve written quite a few year-end, Best Of lists to close out 2022. Everything from Best Films and Best TV Series (obviously) to Best Posters, Best Cinematography, Best Scores, and even Guilty Pleasures. And to put the bow on the Best Of lists, we have one more to share with you, in podcast form, no less — The Breakthrough Directors of 2022. 

READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2022

For this episode of The Playlist Podcast, we have compiled a list of 20 (well, 21, technically) filmmakers who have had breakout projects this past year.

Continue reading The Breakthrough Directors Of 2022 [The Playlist Podcast] at The Playlist.

If you’re tapped into the world of Film Twitter, you probably noticed that social media exploded recently when Sight & Sound updated its Best Films of All Time list. People were debating for weeks about what films would end up getting booted out of the top 100, which would have huge leaps in popularity, etc… It was a whole thing. Now, the outlet has released its annual Top 20, and I’m sad to say, the picks are pretty on point, and thus, the discourse on Film Twitter will likely be kinda boring.

Continue reading ‘Aftersun,’ ‘Saint Omer’ & ‘Decision To Leave’ Lead Sight & Sound’s Best Films Of 2022 at The Playlist.

Music! It is the beating soul beneath a film’s imagery, visuals, and performance. And one of the things we love most about writing about the Best Scores & Soundtracks of the year, in this case, 2022, is how it just makes us understand a film all over again on a deeper, more intuitive-level, especially when you’re just listening to a score or soundtrack on its own, without the context of a movie, and it’s just communicating so much to you.

Continue reading The Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2022 at The Playlist.

Film Comment revealed its top 20 films of 2022 at a special live talk at Lincoln Center in NYC last night, as well as its top 10 list for 2022 films still without US theatrical distribution. Their best film of 2022?  David Cronenberg‘s “Crimes Of The Future,” with Jerzy Skolimowski‘s “EO” and Charlotte Wells‘ feature debut “Aftersun” not far behind.

Continue reading ‘Crimes Of The Future,’ ‘EO,’ ‘Aftersun’ Top Film Comment’s Top 20 Films Of 2022 List at The Playlist.

We all love actors, directors, music, and all of it, but cinema is obviously a visual medium first and foremost, and boy, do we love a handsome, nice-to-look-at picture. Cinematography usually gets turned into “pretty pictures,” what is the most colorful, the most sun-dappled, etc. And sure, some of that is represented here (“Aftersun”), but what represents “Best Cinematography,” to us, should be as layered, complex, and meaningful as cinema itself.

Continue reading The Best Cinematography Of 2022 at The Playlist.

2022 was a generous year for movie lovers: a new Sight and Sound list was released to stir the pot about the greatest 100 films of all time; film festivals around the world returned to in-person experiences; even the whimsical gibberish from Nicole Kidman and AMC Theaters about going to see a movie gave us something to bond over as things adjusted to a strange but safer normal. 

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2023

It was a year of cinematic memoirs, with Steven Spielberg, Alejandro G.

Continue reading The 25 Best Films Of 2022 at The Playlist.

It was a very good day for A24 as the mini-major dominated the film nominations announced for the 2022 Gotham Awards. In fact, the studio had two Best Feature nominees, “Aftersun” and “Everything Everywhere All At Once.” The other nominations in the top category are “TAR,” which landed five nominations overall, Sundance premiere “Dos Estaciones” and “The Cathedral” which debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 2021.

Continue reading ‘TAR,’ ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once,’ & ‘Aftersun’ Lead 2022 Gotham Awards Nominations at The Playlist.

Every moment makes a memory, one that’s finite and fading but also leaves a trace behind of who we once were and what we once knew. All that we recall of our experiences, what lingers of them, exists somewhere between reality and our perception of it: between what was said, what was seen, what was felt, and what could be understood only later. 

Looking back on childhood, especially, demands the reconciliation of certain temporal, spatial, and also emotional tensions: between a past that formed us in more ways than we realized and a present that affords us time and distance from which to remember, to forget, and perhaps to see things more clearly.

Continue reading Director Charlotte Wells On ‘Aftersun’ And The Accumulation & Artifacts Of Memory [NYFF] at The Playlist.

Two filmmakers renowned for recent works of autofiction, Mia Hansen-Løve and Charlotte Wells, are both riveted by the process of blending details from their lives together with invented artistic elements. At the 60th New York Film Festival last Saturday, the filmmakers convened inside Lincoln Center’s Francesca Beale Theater for an hour-long conversation about their NYFF Main Slate selections.

Presented within the festival’s buzzy Talks section, the “Crosscuts” event — moderated by Film Comment co-deputy editor Devika Girish, who co-programmed this year’s Talks with Maddie Whittle — packed the amphitheater. 

READ MORE: 2022 New York Film Festival Preview: 14 Must-See Movies

In “Aftersun,” Wells’ feature debut, an 11-year-old girl (Francesca Corio) vacations with her father (Paul Mescal) at a Turkish holiday resort in the late 1990s.

Continue reading Mia Hansen-Løve & Charlotte Wells Discuss Fact, Fiction & The Cinema Of Memory [NYFF] at The Playlist.

Despite being months and months away from when we should be revving up the Oscar chats, we’re officially in the season when people start them early. While September was a big month for film festivals, October continues the trend with ones such as the New York Film Festival as we continue to seek out the gems and buzzy options. This month sees the release of some of the buzziest films of the past few months, with returns from directors such as Claire Denis and David O’Russell, as well as a star-focused role for Cate Blanchett in Todd Field’s first film in over a decade. 

A lot of the upcoming releases will be seeing a theatrical run, even those produced by streaming services, though there will be some options for watches at home.

Continue reading 16 Movies To See In October: ‘Tár,’ ‘Aftersun,’ ‘Amsterdam,’ ‘Banshees’ & More at The Playlist.

“Normal People” heartthrob Paul Mescal has quickly parlayed his breakout popularity on TV into a burgeoning film career. After appearing in last year’s “The Lost Daughter” from first-time director Maggie Gyllenhall, he’s now the star of another feature debut from a female filmmaker on the rise.

“Aftersun,” a sensitive drama about family and memory, was conceived by Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells.

Continue reading ‘Aftersun’ Trailer: Paul Mescal Stars In A24’s Acclaimed Sensitive Portrait Of A Young Father & Daughter at The Playlist.

With his classic 1990s heartthrob looks, it was only a matter of time before Paul Mescal found his way into a film set in that era. Like “Normal People,” the series that catapulted the young Irish actor to fame, Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” has him wearing shorts, but this time with a belt and the polo shirt tucked in — a detail like many others in the film that should send a wave of recognition through audience members who grew up then.

Continue reading ‘Aftersun’ Review: Paul Mescal Elevates A Hazy, ‘90s-Nostalgic Memory That’s All About The Vibes [Cannes] at The Playlist.