If you took a shot every time you read “Hollywood has a misogyny problem” in 2017, you would be long dead. That doesn’t mean it’s not a point worth belaboring — on the contrary, if the past year of entertainment news has taught us anything, it’s that silence around systemic misogyny only breeds more of the same. You may have heard them before, but the facts are these: men disproportionately dominate the filmmaking industry. Women rarely direct films, and are hardly ever recognized or lauded when they do.

Continue reading 52 Movies Directed By Women In 2017 That You Should Know at The Playlist.

2017 might be done with us, but we’re not exactly done with it. In traditional Playlist form, it’s never quite clear if the world has moved on from the last year during the early days of January, but regardless, we seem to exhaust all possibilities examining, breaking down and parsing the previous year in film.

It might have been a shit show of a year, but movies and quality Peak TV provided us riches and escape.

Continue reading The Best Films Of 2017 You Didn’t See 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.

Each year, David Erlich, senior film critic at Indiewire gets out his computer and spends hours cutting together a video tribute to his favorite films of previous twelve months. You might not agree with the pics, but the celebration of the year in cinema is always a lot of fun, and once again, he delivers the goods.

“The 25 Best Films Of 2017: A Video Countdown” is powered by the tunes of Fleetwood Mac, The Psychedelic Furs, Sufjan Stevens, and more (jams you will have heard in “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.

Continue reading Celebrating The Films Of 2017: A Video Countdown at The Playlist.

October is the season of tricks or treats, but for the folks at Criterion, they’ve only got the good stuff. The boutique label has unveiled their lineup for the year’s scariest month, and it’s pretty damn incredible.

Kicking things off is David Lynch‘s “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.” With the new series set to be wrapped by then, this will be the perfect way to continue uncovering the many mysteries packed into the show.

Continue reading ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,’ ‘Barry Lyndon,’ ‘Personal Shopper’ & More Coming To Criterion at The Playlist.

This is a reprint of our review from the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

In mermaid tales — the old ones, before Disney — hybrid fish-women use their glorious voices to lure men into the depths. In some regions, mermaids are harbingers of doom; in others, they are vengeful spirits of women who were themselves lured to the water by treacherous, violent men.

The Polish cannibal mermaid musical “The Lure” cherry-picks from various traditions to create its own unique folkloric creatures in a darkly freaky riff on Hans Christian Andersen‘s “The Little Mermaid.”

As a family of musicians sings on a beach at night, a mermaid just off shore falls in love with the 20-something son.

Continue reading ‘The Lure’ Is A Delirious, Kaleidoscopic Cannibal Mermaid Musical [Review] at The Playlist.

Spending a good part of last year hitting nearly every corner of the festival circuit, those who delight in the off-beat and weird have been singing the praises of “The Lure.” Agnieszka Smoczynska‘s film is a cannibal mermaid musical, and if that three-word description doesn’t at least make you curious, I’m not sure what to tell you.

READ MORE: The 20 Best Movies Of 2017 That We’ve Already Seen

Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska, Jakub Gierszal, Kinga Preis, Andrzej Konopka, and Zygmunt Malanowicz are the ensemble that bring this ’80s-set story to life, one that sees the bond between mermaid sisters tested when a man enters the mix.

Continue reading New Trailer For Cannibal Mermaid Musical ‘The Lure’ Brings The Weirdness at The Playlist.

Review: Unique And Freaky Polish Cannibal Mermaid Musical 'The Lure'

Continue reading Review: Unique And Freaky Polish Cannibal Mermaid Musical ‘The Lure’ at The Playlist.