The 2010s felt like a banner decade for the horror genre. It’s difficult to say that definitively as time is the only thing that can really make that distinction, but as the decade comes to a close, it feels like one that is going to be held up as a “golden era.”

READ MORE: The 25 Best Foreign Language Horror Movies Of All Time

It’s easy to understand why. After a decade filled with remakes, cheap, careless gunk from the likes of Dark Castle and Platinum Dunes, and the “torture porn” movement that metastasized from taking the extreme violence out of the “French New Extremity” (at least in mainstream horror), audiences were yearning for something more adventurous, and filmmakers were more than happy to oblige.

Continue reading The Best Horror Movies Of The Decade [2010s] at The Playlist.

Yorgos Lanthimos and the team from “The Favourite” are having an exceptional year. Lanthimos’ directorial venture has been lauded by many, and awards season is eyeing “The Favourite” to be quite the contender in multiple categories. Having won quite the hardware so far (dominating at the recent BAFTA nominations), there’s no stopping one of 2018’s favorite films (yes, we’ll see ourselves out).

READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019 

Looking back at Lanthimos’s eclectic career, the director has an appreciation for discomfort, or rather, what makes casual moviegoers uncomfortable.

Continue reading The Beating Heart Of Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ at The Playlist.

While Xavier Dolan fans are waiting patiently for the director’s upcoming “The Death and Life Of John F. Donovan,” he’s giving them some ideas of other movies to watch in the meantime. The filmmaker has shared his list of his favorite movies in 2017

Guillermo del Toro’s Top Ten Films Of 2017

While it’s unranked, it’s not a big surprise to see smash hit “It” on here, as Dolan positively adored the horror film (see below).

Continue reading Xavier Dolan’s Top 8 Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

As far as our sociopolitical environment is concerned, 2017 has been a dumpster fire inside a locked building full of orphans. But as we have witnessed with the tumultuous period of the 1970s, such times usually result in daring, transgressive, and sometimes even revolutionary artistic work. Therefore, it makes sense for this year to provide some of the most original and exhilarating films to be released from all demographics of genre, budget, studio, etc… Overall, 2017 feels like a major turning point in how filmmakers and studios approach their craft, and how audiences consume it.

Continue reading Oktay Ege Kozak’s Top 10 Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

While it’s been a rough 2017 overall, It’s been a phenomenal year in film. With that being said, below is a list ranking what I believe are the top 20 films of 2017. It was painstakingly difficult cutting my list of 100 to 50, but even harder from 50 to 20. Some notable films that barely missed the cut include: “Wakefield,” “The Lovers,” “Wonder Woman,” “Baby Driver,” “Super Dark Times,” “It,” “Split,” “Personal Shopper,” “Columbus,” “Menashe” “and yes, I left out the fan favorite, “Dunkirk.” I also want to mention that there are films that I have excluded because I have yet to see them, such as: “Phantom Thread,” “The Darkest Hour,” “BPM,” and  “Molly’s Game” just to name a few.

Continue reading Kyle Kohner’s Top 20 Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

Aliens, robots, holograms, fruit, gods, demons, aquatic mystery creatures and shambling doppelgangers potentially occupied by the spirit of long-disappeared FBI agents trapped between dimensions — yes, it can only be our roundup of the year’s best sex scenes! To be fair, we’ve included a couple that have human participants, but only for form’s sake. Maybe it’s because it’s a global trend, maybe because The Playlist is a hotbed of perverts, but it seems to us the movie and TV year in sex was more than usually characterized by interspecies, mystical, plant-based and/or supernatural sex, and quite a few of the more ostensibly “traditional” sex scenes that impressed us did so for very unsexy reasons (we’re not naming names, but Yorgos Lanthimos).

Continue reading The Best Sex Scenes Of 2017 at The Playlist.

As much as we evidently love you, our glorious readers (why else would we toil so hard over such a breathtaking array of year-end features, for one thing), there is perhaps a group of people we love even more. And that is our contributors, who throughout the year give The Playlist its inimitable, sometimes cacophonous but always lively voice, and who help us to deliver the goods to you every day in the manner of a vigilant cat laying the eviscerated mouse of the day’s hot movie topics at your feet.

Continue reading The Most Underrated & Overrated Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

We’ve been spending the month looking back on the tremendous year at the movies, and “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer” is a picture we can’t stop thinking about. It’s one of our favorites from the past twelve months and has landed on multiple features including Best Movie Posters Of 2017, Best Movie Trailers Of 2017, Best Horror Films Of 2017, Best Films Of 2017, and Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2017.

Continue reading ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ Trailer: Bring The Movie Home For The Holidays [Exclusive] at The Playlist.

Even before filmmakers were even able to record and sync sound, movies and music have been tied together. Back then, music was played on a piano or an organ. Now, some of the world’s greatest composers write scores that can stand as works of art separate to the films they accompany, while often doing so much to make those works memorable. Or filmmakers curate killer compilations of songs familiar and new that can lead to some of movies’ most memorable moments (and an overlooked song being revived).

Continue reading The Best Scores & Soundtracks Of 2017 at The Playlist.

As we drag ourselves, bloodied and limping across the finish line of 2017, there’s little to celebrate at year’s end in the world outside the movie theater, except for Fyre Festival which is still the greatest and funniest thing ever. But inside the popcorny passageways of our local multiplexes and the hallowed halls of our local arthouses, it’s been a different story — one that may not have led to the kind of clear consensus winners of previous years (even awards season seems unusually open) but that points to a general breadth of quality that is, we believe, reflected here in our Best Films of the Year poll.

Continue reading The Best Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

The horror films resurgence of the last few years has been a remarkable thing to watch: some of the most exciting new filmmakers to emerge have been working in the genre, and plenty of masters have been doing some of the best work of their careers. And, unsurprisingly, given that waking up every morning in 2017 has been like stepping into a John Carpenter nightmare, the last 12 months has seen the horror boom bigger than ever.

Continue reading The Best Horror Films Of 2017 at The Playlist.

So we’re off and running, galumphing through our end-of-year coverage like a giant hippo-pig destroying an underground mall. But with all of you doubtless still working your way through our immense 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2018 (which is basically our massive trailer for the year to come) we thought we’d take it pretty easy on you today, and take a look at the teasers, advance clips and promos that have whetted our appetites this past 12 months.

Continue reading The Best Movie Trailers Of 2017 at The Playlist.

December is here, and that only means one thing at Playlist HQ: just a month to go until the release of that horse soldier movie. But if it meant two things, it would be that it begins our annual binge-look at the year in film and TV gone by. Over the coming weeks between now and New Year’s Eve, we’ll be examining 2017 in cinematic entertainment from every angle, from our least favorite movies to the best in the small-screen, and even looking forward to what’s to come.

Continue reading The Best Movie Posters Of 2017 at The Playlist.

If you’re looking for something unsettling and, as Jessica Kiang put it, “absolutely fucking brilliant,” look no further than “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer.” The latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos — the filmmaker behind “Dogtooth” and “The Lobster” — is one of the most unforgettable cinematic experiences of the year, and he has his cast including Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Barry Keoghan to thank.

Continue reading ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ Featurette Celebrates Colin Farrell & Nicole Kidman [Exclusive] at The Playlist.

Halloween is on the horizon, but can it possibly be as terrifying as the nightmare we already live in?

On this episode of Adjust Of Your Tracking, Joe and I get seriously creeped out by the new Yorgos Lanthimos film, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” a surreal nightmare that plunges the audience into some of the darkest recesses of the cinematic mind, where impossible choices abound and unexpected jolts of pitch black humor don’t so much provide relief but instead push that queasy, unsettled feeling to its breaking point.

Continue reading Chaos Reigns In Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ [Adjust Your Tracking Podcast] at The Playlist.

‘Tis the season of Halloween which means a lot of shabby horror and spooky movies tend to scare up money at the box office. It also means it’s time for Tyler Perry to do his critic-proof thing with “Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween.” Perry’s audience is a perennial staple and they turn up to any of his movies, Halloween related or not. In just over ten years, the Perry phenomenon, seventeen writer/director projects, have grossed $838 million domestically.

Continue reading ‘Madea Halloween’ Scares Away ‘The Snowman’ & ‘Geostorm’ [Box Office] at The Playlist.

This is a reprint of our review from the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Maybe the second or third shot in Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” is of a hospital waste bin, over which Colin Farrell, as heart surgeon Steven Murphy, peels off his bloodied latex gloves post-surgery. Now, if you hold simultaneously in your head the established ideas of the surgeon-as-God and the director-as-God, then that suggests the surgeon equates to the director, and gives us a neat metaphor.

Continue reading ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ Is Absolutely F***king Brilliant [Review] at The Playlist.

Yorgos Lanthimos, the director of “Dogtooth” and “The Lobster,” is back, and he’s once again getting audiences talking. This spring he premiered his latest film, “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer,” at Cannes where it quickly became one of the major highlights of the festival. Now, the film is gearing up to hit cinemas and today we have an exclusive preview of a track from the eclectic soundtrack.

Continue reading Stream “De Profundis” By Janne Rattya From ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ Soundtrack [Exclusive] at The Playlist.

Having overcome the delightfully, sleep deprived hurdle that is September with a different festival happening any given week, it’s an exciting prospect to think that we’re really only just getting started. With a mix of cerebral blockbusters, festival favorites and mysterious thrillers coming out throughout the month, October won’t be any sort of dry spell, as it’ll be offering up a month of films for an array of fans. While “Blade Runner 2049” will be the popular, conversation starter, there’s no shortage of other quality films.

Continue reading 12 Movies To Watch In October at The Playlist.

Compared to his previous films, Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Lobster” was a pretty tame affair — there was only the occasional blinding or dog-kicking, with a rather sweet love story and some bone-dry humor the dominant notes. But expect the balance to be redressed, as the title might suggest, with his new movie, “The Killing Of A Sacred Deer.”

Reuniting the Greek helmer of “Dogtooth” with star Colin Farrell (with Nicole Kidman and “Dunkirk” breakout Barry Keoghan joining the cast), Jess described it in Cannes this year as “a film of clean hands, cold heart, and near-Satanic horror,” and also as being “absolutely fucking brilliant.”

While it revolves around the intrusion of Keoghan’s malevolent teen into the life of Farrell’s surgeon, it doesn’t paint the character as a pure villain.

Continue reading Get Freaked Out By A New Trailer For ‘Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ With Colin Farrell at The Playlist.

While we have our eyeballs full with Venice, TIFF, NYFF, and Telluride (which kicks off this weekend), The BFI London Film Festival is no slouch at bringing the business. While they’re less concerned with World Premieres as their counterparts, each year their lineup represents the cream of the festival crop, and 2017 is no different.

Among the highlights in the first wave of programming is Lynne Ramsay‘s “You Were Never Really Here,” which notably isn’t screening at “the big three” North American festivals.

Continue reading 2017 BFI London Film Festival Lines Up ‘You Were Never Really Here,’ ‘Mudbound,’ ‘Lean On Pete,’ More at The Playlist.

Summer is almost over, so get to the beach while you can in these dwindling dog days of August. Though the season is winding down, the fall film festival circuit is just around the corner. As usual, blockbusters will move aside, for the bounty of riches of more adult fare for the aficionado of cinema and humanist dramas. But don’t worry, there’s a “Star Wars” movie and a DC Films picture on the way if you’re so inclined too.

Continue reading 50 Most Anticipated Films: Fall Movie Preview at The Playlist.

Last year’s “The Lobster” caught many people by surprise. The incredibly strange, but hilarious story about a man who hopes to find a romantic partner before he gets turned in a lobster garnered rave reviews and award season chatter. Now, the film’s star and director are joining forces again in the upcoming “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.”

In the new trailer, it’s clear that director Yorgos Lanthimos is going in a different direction for his new film.

Continue reading ‘The Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ Trailer: It’s Time To Burn With Colin Farrell & Nicole Kidman at The Playlist.

The thirteenth incarnation of Fantastic Fest out of Austin, Texas, which celebrates the be best in global genre has announced its opening lineup and its dates, running September 21 – 28. Kicking off the festival will be the opening night film, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” directed by Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”) and the filmmaker will be in attendance. S. Craig Zahler, who helmed Fantastic Film highlight, “Bone Tomahawk” makes his triumphant return with the U.S.

Continue reading Fantastic Fest 2017 Slate: ‘Brawl In Cellblock 99,’ ‘Killing Of A Sacred Deer’ & More at The Playlist.

Rewind to 12 months ago and you couldn’t find an awards pundit, consultant or publicist who didn’t think “Birth of A Nation” was going to win Best Picture and possibly even Best Director. As we now know, that clearly didn’t happen.  That’s the sort of hindsight you need when considering where we currently stand halfway through the 12 month-a-year race to Oscar glory. Things can change and, boy can they change quickly (and we’re not just talking misread envelopes at the end of Hollywood’s biggest night).

Continue reading ‘Dunkirk,’ ‘Call Me By Your Name,’ ‘Florida Project’: Halfway To Oscar 2018 And It’s All Up For Grabs at The Playlist.