- “Stranger Things” Sets Up Its Endgame with Quartet of New Episodes (November 27, 2025)
There’s a bit of irony in the fact that the first stretch of the fifth and final season of Netflix’s brand-defining hit “Stranger Things” is at least partially about the power of youth. People like to point out fun facts about how long it’s taken The Duffer Brothers to tell this story—my favorites are that “The X-Files” produced over 200 episodes in less time and the simple fact that the first season premiered during Obama—but the truth is that millions of people around the world are going to quickly get over the fact that a show about children now stars obvious adults. It’s startling at first how much older some of the cast looks, but it’s easy enough to quickly dismiss. People just want to see how the people of Hawkins survive what has now been a multi-year assault on their wellbeing. While these four episodes stumble a bit in terms of pacing and urgency, especially early on, they end on such a satisfying, long-awaited note that fans who have literally grown up watching this show are unlikely to care. They’ll just be counting the days until the next drop. (Spoiler: It’s 29.)
At the end of season four, Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) essentially completed his mission, opening the rift between the Upside Down and the tormented city of Hawkins. The new season opens with a heightened military presence, led by an officer played by Linda Hamilton (only one of several nods from this season that feel to The Book of Cameron), both above and below ground. They’re trying to find Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who they think is the key to stopping all of this chaos. She’s finally been reunited with her surrogate father Hopper (David Harbour) as the two seek the show’s Big Bad, who disappeared after being nearly vanquished at the end of the last chapter. Vecna is out there, somewhere, rebuilding his power while the rest of the familiar faces try to find him first. When one of their own goes missing, they’re forced to act even more quickly than they first planned.
STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. (L to R) Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, and Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson in STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
As made clear by the leaked prologue to the first episode—one that reveals that Vecna was a part of Will’s (Noah Schnapp) disappearance, the inciting incident for the entire series—this final run is going to be about young Mr. Byers’ connection to the leader of the Upside Down. Schnapp gets his toughest material to date, and, somewhat to the surprise of this critic who never thought much of his acting chops when it comes to the emotional material, nails some crucial scenes. Without spoiling anything, “Stranger Things” has long been a show about the forces of evil messing with the wrong kid. At first, it was because Will had a fearless mother (Winona Ryder) and loyal friends to save the day; it only makes sense that the closing arc would be about the role that Will himself will play in the final battles.
As Will leads the efforts to find Vecna, other subplots circle his driving narrative. Max (Sadie Sink) remains in a coma as Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) loyally plays Kate Bush in her hospital room in efforts to bring her back. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) carries the trauma of Eddie’s sacrifice last season, even wearing his Hellfire Club shirt like a tribute. Steve (Joe Keery), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) continue to form some sort of weird love triangle. Brett Gelman is back as Murray, Priah Ferguson pops up as Erica Sinclair, and Maya Hawke gets some great scenes to remind you that she’s probably the show’s most promising future star.
Of course, as with all shows setting up their final chapters, the focus here is going to be on the writing. And, to start the season, it’s admittedly clunkier than normal. In particular, the premiere is messy and unfocused in ways that none of the other seasons were to start. It’s a product of being such a direct continuation of season four. Past outings allowed for a little more of a fresh restart, but this one presumes you not only remember everything that happened 3.5 years ago but are still emotionally invested in how it plays out.
STRANGER THINGS. Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
For one of the few times in the show’s history, there are stretches in the first two episodes that lack confidence and direction, evident in how often the characters ramble about what they have to do next. There are so many “heated planning” scenes in just four episodes, which also adds to the sense that this is about 100 minutes of true plot in 4.5 hours of high-budget television. (On that note, the special effects, especially in the fourth chapter, are truly spectacular.) It’s worth noting that just as the show felt like it was about to get lost in its own Upside Down, the legendary Frank Darabont‘s name popped up on the third episode, centering everything again before the Duffers reclaimed the director’s seat for the fourth, and easily best, episode.
While everyone will talk about these chapters over the holiday weekend, they’ll be just a memory by the turn of the calendar. There won’t be a single criticism that will matter if they stick the landing. And there’s reason enough to believe they will. Again, we’re not allowed to say much of anything about the fourth and final episode, so I’ll only attest that it works. It takes themes that have been bubbling under the surface for years and gives them a shape that will satisfy fans who have literally turned into adults watching “Stranger Things.”
In the end, maybe this really isn’t a season about the power of youth but the strength that comes from leaving childish things behind.
All of Season 5, Volume 1 screened for review. Now on Netflix.
- Reflections on the 2025 Tailinn Black Nights Film Festival (November 26, 2025)
In November, the time change hits hard, not just in places that observe Daylight Saving Time. The darkness seems to creep in earlier and earlier every day, everywhere, as we barrel towards the end of the year. The city of Tallinn, Estonia, embraces this darkness as a virtue. Each year in November, they host the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, also known as PÖFF, which just wrapped up its 29th year. I was privileged to attend this year and see the festival’s dark charms in all their glory with my own eyes.
Much of the festival’s action takes place at the Nordic Forum Hotel, a sleek modern hotel located on the edge of Old Town, a touristy area filled with quaint cobblestone streets that lead you to medieval fortresses and churches that trace back to the 14th century (and at least two really fantastic record shops). A large golden wolf statue by the front doors of the hotel, howling into the night, greets festival goers and guests alike.
It’s here that you not only pick up your badges and tickets for the festival, but also in the lobby and, especially, in the hotel’s breakfast room, where attendees, film critics, filmmakers, jury members, and festival staff alike mix and mingle, discussing all things cinema. If you are really brave, you can sign up for the winter swimming event, which takes festival attendees by bus to Tallinn Bay to dip their toes into the cold waters as a way of waking up and literally breaking the ice with their colleagues. Readers, I was not brave.
A view of Tailinn. (Credit: Kristelle Ahone)
This year, the festival ran from November 7–23, and I arrived halfway through the festivities. Thankfully, they offer a great screening platform for accredited guests, so I was able to watch a dozen or so films before arriving in Estonia. Once there, I fought through the jetlag and watched another couple of dozen before the awards ceremony on the 21st, mostly at the nearby Apollo Cinemas multiplex, where the festival held its black-carpet premieres (and also sold specialty kettle corn, like pumpkin spice and black, PÖFF-themed varieties).
Keeping with the wolf motif, the festival has what may well be the coolest video logo I have seen at any festival I have attended. It starts with an image of the literal black night; white stars fall to the snowy ground, becoming wolves running through the tree-covered snow before morphing back into the light of the stars, which bounces back up into the sky, to form the festival’s neon wolf logo. It goes hard.
The festival is broken up into several competition categories—Official Selection, First Feature, Baltic Film, Rebels With A Cause, Critics’ Picks Competition, Doc@PÖFF International, Doc@PÖFF Baltic—along with two sub-festivals, Just Film and PÖFF Shorts. I watched a total of thirty-five films from thirty different countries. Although I tried to watch a few movies from each competition category, I only managed to watch a handful of the winners. I guess that is par for the course with a festival screening of over two hundred films!
I found the festival’s mixture of films, especially its emphasis on the Baltic region (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Eastern European, and Central Asian cinema (including my first-ever Kyrgyzstani action-comedy, Backstage Madness), to be incredibly rich in both stylistic filmmaking and thematic heft.
Renovation
The ongoing invasion of Ukraine loomed large in several of the films I watched, including Lithuanian filmmaker Gabrielė Urbonaitė’s “Renovation” (which had its world premiere earlier this year at Karlovy Vary), which took home the Best Director award in the Baltic Film competition. This film did not charm me as much as it did others. Often compared to Joachim Trier’s “The Worst Person In The World,” (another film I am mixed on), it follows Ilona (Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė), a woman on the verge of thirty, who has a change of heart about her boyfriend Matas (Šarūnas Zenkevičius), and all her plans for her life, really, after the apartment they have just moved into begins exterior renovations.
There, she befriends one of the Ukrainian construction workers, Oleg (Roman Lutskyi). Although the airy 16mm cinematography by Vytautas Katkus (whose own directorial debut, “The Visitor,” took home the Best Baltic Film award) is gorgeous, the film skirted far too close to cliché for my taste and never really delved as deeply into its political themes as I thought it would.
There were two other films that I watched that tackled the melancholy of a world at war and the horrors of rising fascism, with a much more complex and poetic manner: Harald Hutter’s “Leleka” and Maryna Nikolcheva’s “One Day I Wish to See You Happy.” Playing in the Rebels With A Cause competition, Hutter’s film was made in collaboration with star Olga Kviatkovska, whose character is a composite of her own story, along with several other Ukrainian artists living in exile in Paris.
She plays Sasha, a sculptor who is doing her best to continue working despite the constant trauma of war-related loss and displacement. When her grandmother, also named Sasha, passes away, she crafts a sculpture inspired by her strength and journeys from Paris to Kyiv with her Belgian friend Margaux (played by real-life artist and filmmaker Margaux Dauby) to bring the sculpture home. The journey of these two women, both physical and spiritual, becomes a slow cinema dreamscape rendered in gorgeous black-and-white 16mm, with flashes of luminous color, lulling you into its pace, while always keeping you a bit on edge as the dream veers towards the nightmarish reality of war.
This same sense of dreams and nightmares permeates Nikolcheva’s documentary, which screened in the Doc@PÖFF International competition, as the filmmaker aims her lens at her husband, Max, also a filmmaker, who has begun to drift into a midlife crisis. Halfway through the making of the film, the invasion of Ukraine splits the couple apart, forcing them to stay connected only through video calls. At times, the sheer amount of footage Nikolcheva films of her husband becomes too much, until you realize that filmmaking is their shared love language, one that can hopefully overcome the melancholy of depression and the miseries of war.
Credit: Erlend Štaub
The Doc@PÖFF International competition was the only category in which I was able to watch every film, an accomplishment I found deeply rewarding and that also made the awards ceremony fun, because I actually had an opinion on the winners (all of which I agreed with). The Best Film award went to Karin Pennanen’s “Days of Wonder,” a heartfelt ode to her uncle Markku. This eccentric man dedicated his life to art for art’s sake, leaving behind a treasure trove of works ranging from paintings to collages to audio diaries.
The Best Cinematography award went to Max Golomidov, who lensed Estonian director Vladimir Loginov’s nocturnal city symphony “Edge of the Night,” an insomniac’s love letter to Tallinn. The jury awarded a special prize to Raisa Răzmeriță’s “Electing Ms Santa,” which follows the years-long journey of Elena Cernei, a do-gooder in a remote Moldovan village, as she pursues her dream of becoming the village’s first female mayor. It’s a deeply political film, but not rooted in the game of politics; instead, in a good heart, doing what she can for her community out of a sense of shared destiny with her fellow humans.
As a docs junkie, I really loved a few other films in this competition. In particular, I was impressed by Jadran Boban’s “The Feast of the Wolf,” which on its surface appears to be about conspiracy theories involving wolves being dropped onto their land by the government shared by the villagers living in the Croatian-Dalmatian hinterland, but is actually an angry anti-capitalist screed, where the real wolves are industrialists and capitalists who have put short-term monetary gain over the long-term well-being of their communities and the planet.
I didn’t manage to see any of the winners of the Doc@PÖFF Baltic competition, but I did see Latvian director Laila Pakalnina’s playful doc “Scarecrows.” I love her melancholic doc “Dream Land” from 2004, which outlined how resilient animals created a new ecosystem inside man-made landfills, so I was excited to see her latest. Once again teaming up with Māris Maskalāns, who was the DP on “Dream Land,” the two capture amazing footage of wild animals as they follow the “scarecrows” at Riga International Airport—rangers who keep the runways clear from deer and foxes and rabbits and even flying geese, swans, and storks, and rescue small birds from inside terminals and caught on fences. It’s a warm and joyful film, filled with gentle humor as it contemplates this ridiculous balance between man and beast.
Q&A for “Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart” at the Tailinn Black Nights Film Festival.
Although I saw the three big winners of the Baltic Film competition (“The Visitor,” “Renovation,” and “Becoming“), my favorite film of the bunch was also from Latvia: Alise Zariņa’s mordant “Flesh, Blood, Even a Heart.” Anchored by a stunning performance from Ieva Segliņa, who carries the film in all its humor and melancholy with ease, and edited with sly humor by Armands Začs (who also cut “Renovation”), the film follows Liv (Segliņa) as she comes to terms with the fact that her estranged, alcoholic father is dying. Not only must she navigate her own sticky feelings about their relationship, but also the labyrinthine, often Kafkaesque medical system and her partner Marcis’s (Gatis Maliks) midlife crisis.
Zariņa tackles this heavy subject matter with a wonderfully soft, often humorous touch. Not making light of the weight, but in a way that feels true to what death, dying, and estrangement are like, with the wisdom to know that the love is always there, even if it’s just in flashes of tender memories shared during the good times.
The Rebels With A Cause competition, which celebrates films that push the limits of cinema, awarded its top prize to the crowd-pleasing Belgian-Moroccan film “The Baronesses,” a co-directorial effort by Nabil Ben Yadir and his mother Mokhtaria Badaoui. Using humor and metatextual filmmaking elements, we follow the artistic reawakening of 65-year-old Fatima (Saadia Bentaïeb) after she discovers her husband has been living a double life in Morocco. Determined to live her life on her own terms, she decides to return to her teenage dream of playing Hamlet alongside her best friends, Mériem, Romaissa, and Inès. It’s joyful in its celebration of women of all ages, warm in its sense of community, and super funny to boot.
Although I saw quite a few films in the main competition, I did not see the big winner “The Good Daughter,” which took home the Grand Prix, the Audience Award, and the Best Actress award for star Kiara Arancibia.
In fact, the only competition film I saw that won an award was Richard Hawkins’s bleak drama “Think of England,” a stark period piece set on a remote British isle that recreates the film unit rumored to have produced pornographic propaganda films to boost morale during WWII. It took home an award for its production design. The two films I loved the most from the main competition were Csaba Káel’s “Hungarian Wedding,” a vibrant, ’80s-set rom com that is as lively as the dances at its heart, and Pascal Schuh’s “Interior,” which deploys its unique premise—a burglar uses a couch with a secret compartment to break into people’s homes, secretly record their private moments, then watches them with his partner, a doctor, who uses them to study human emotions—as a way to both critique German stoicism and also to act as a melancholic examination of modern romance, queer or otherwise.
Outside of the competition films, I also had to treat myself to a screening of Victor Sjöström’s silent masterpiece, “The Phantom Carriage.” I watched it with a new friend I made at the festival, Francine, who afterwards said she could still feel it in her bones, which is as apt a description of the film’s effect on the viewer as I’ve heard yet. It’s a film I’ve seen many times (and even programmed once at The Plaza in Atlanta), but one that deserves to be revisited as often as possible, especially in a place as cold and beautiful as Tallinn.
I will miss this lovely town, with its picturesque mixture of medieval buildings and modern sensibilities, and its sense of hospitality and humor. I am grateful for the six days I spent there, filled with good friends, lively conversations, and, best of all, great cinema.
- Home Entertainment Guide November 2025: “Familiar Touch,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Splitsville” (November 26, 2025)
While this column focuses on physical media with an appetizer of Netflix options, it’s worth noting that one of the essential films of 2025 is exclusively available on PVOD through the rest of the year. Go spend money to see “One Battle After Another” if you haven’t done so yet, exclusively On Demand until January 2026.
Also, stay tuned for a special edition of this column in December with limited editions and box sets for the holiday season, including new versions of “Scarface,” “Pride & Prejudice,” and several John Woo masterpieces.
10 NEW TO NETFLIX
“Back to the Future““Baby Driver““Collateral““Doctor Sleep““Ghost““Star Trek““Tenet““This is the End““Whiplash““Zodiac“
11 NEW TO BLU-RAY
“Burden of Dreams” (Criterion)
One of the craziest productions in the history of moviemaking was Werner Herzog’s feverish shoot of his masterful “Fitzcarraldo” in Peru in the early ’80s. Just watching Herzog’s story of a maniacal robber baron (the unforgettable Klaus Kinski), one can sense the chaos that must have been unfolding behind the scenes, but it takes Les Blank’s stunning documentary to really comprehend the insanity. Basically, Herzog decided to make a movie about someone who tried to do something crazy, and so did something crazy himself, trying to move a 320-ton steamship over a Peruvian mountain. A lost star (Jason Robards), multiple on-set injuries, and arguments of exploitation followed, and all of it makes for riveting viewing in Les Blank’s essential documentary, now remastered by Criterion. It also includes a great short film called “Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe,” which is pretty self-explanatory.
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration, supervised by filmmaker Harrod Blank, director Les Blank’s son, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Alternate uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Audio commentary featuring Les Blank, editor and sound recordist Maureen Gosling, and Fitzcarraldo director Werner Herzog
Interview with Herzog
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980), a short film by Blank
Deleted scenes
Behind-the-scenes photos taken by Gosling
Trailer
New English subtitle translation and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by film scholar Paul Arthur and a book of excerpts from Blank’s and Gosling’s production journals
“Caught Stealing“
Darren Aronofsky tries to do the Guy Ritchie thing to mostly positive results in this dark comedy that moves as well as it does largely due to the blinding star power of Austin Butler (Zoe Kravitz, Matt Smith, Bad Bunny, and Regina King don’t hurt). Butler plays an average guy who gets caught up in a violent plot involving a key hidden in a kitty litter box. Some of it feels like it should be a bit more chaotic than Aronofsky allows, but there’s an energy to the piece that keeps it moving from one twist to another. It’s an especially easy watch at home. Consider it the anti-holiday movie this season.
Special Features
Aronofsky: The Real Deal – Director Darren Aronofsky and Screenwriter/Author Charlie Huston explore the genesis of the film, the process of adaptation, and how to keep audiences guessing.
Casting Criminals, Chaos, and a Cat – Austin Butler leads an incredible ensemble of actors – hear from the cast & crew on their characters, filming on set, and more!
New York Story – From nosy neighbors to Black & White cookies, Caught Stealing is a love letter to New York.
I Don’t Drive – Whether he’s running through traffic or hanging from a sixth-story balcony, Austin Butler brought an intense physicality to his performance as washed-up baseball player Hank Thompson.
“El” (Criterion)
Every Luis Buñuel film that joins the Criterion Collection is an occasion for celebration. The latest is the 4K restoration of his 1953 surreal nightmare adaptation of Pensamientos by Mercedes Pinto. Arturo de Cordova, Delia Garces, and Luis Beristain star in a film about an overprotective husband that’s arguably minor for Buñuel, but one would never know that from this excellent release that includes not just a new video essay about the film but an appreciation from none other than Guillermo del Toro. Another cool piece of supplemental material is an interview with the director himself from 1981 but none other than Jean-Claude Carrière.
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration, supervised by photographer Gabriel Figueroa Flores, director of photography Gabriel Figueroa’s son, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
New video essay on director Luis Buñuel by scholar Jordi Xifra
Appreciation by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro
Interview with Buñuel from 1981 by writer Jean-Claude Carrière, a longtime collaborator of the director’s
Panel discussion from 2009, moderated by filmmaker José Luis Garci
Trailer
New English subtitle translation
PLUS: An essay by critic Fernanda Solórzano and an interview with Buñuel by critics José de la Colina and Tomás Pérez Turrent
“Eyes Wide Shut” (Criterion)
The Criterion release of the year is the 4K restoration of Stanley Kubrick’s final masterpiece, now available in a color grading that looks better than ever before, one overseen by D.P. Larry Smith. It’s hard to convey how PERFECT “Eyes Wide Shut” looks on this release, one of my favorite transfers, maybe ever. It’s not overdone, allowing the shadowy underworld of this film to offset the bright colors that make it feel like a nightmare. The movie itself also feels like it would be a masterpiece if it came out today, over a quarter-century later. A study of masculine insecurity and the systems that control society, it’s an incredible drama, one of the best of its era. The Criterion release also includes tons of great special features, my favorite being “Lost Kubrick,” a short documentary about two abandoned Stanley projects: “Napoleon” and “The Aryan Papers.”
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration of the international version of the film, supervised and approved by director of photography Larry Smith, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film and special features
New interviews with Smith, set decorator and second-unit director Lisa Leone, and archivist Georgina Orgill
Archival interview with Christiane Kubrick, director Stanley Kubrick’s wife
Never Just a Dream (2019), featuring interviews with producer Jan Harlan; Katharina Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick’s daughter; and Anthony Frewin, Kubrick’s personal assistant
Lost Kubrick: The Unfinished Films of Stanley Kubrick (2007)
Kubrick Remembered (2014), featuring interviews with actors Todd Field and Leelee Sobieski and filmmaker Steven Spielberg
Kubrick’s 1998 acceptance speech for the Directors Guild of America’s D. W. Griffith Award
Press conference from 1999, featuring Harlan and actors Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman
Teaser, trailer, and promos
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by author Megan Abbott and a 1999 interview with filmmaker and actor Sydney Pollack
“Familiar Touch“
Everyone should see this one before making any proclamations on the films of 2025. It’s haunted me since I first saw it around the time of its Venice premiere in September 2024, and we were proud to program it for the 2025 Chicago Critics Film Festival. Now, Sarah Friedland’s delicate drama about the subtlety of dementia is available to rent on VOD and on physical media from Music Box Films. Kathleen Chalfant gives one of the best performances of the year as a woman forced to move from being on her own into assisted living. It’s a great study in how tactile memories can often linger longer than traditional ones. It’s smart, empathetic, and beautiful.
Special Features
Roundtable Cast Conversation presented by Caring Across Generations
Familiar Touch: The Creative Process – A Conversation with Sarah Friedland
Q&A with Kathleen Chalfant from Jacob Burns Film Center
Behind the Scenes at Villa Gardens
Image Gallery
Theatrical Trailer
“Hell’s Angels” (Criterion)
It’s funny to think that an entire generation of movie lovers probably know this flick better from how its production was essential to the story of Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator.” Remember all the crazy flight scenes in that movie? They were capturing the production of Howard Hughes shooting “Hell’s Angels,” now restored in 4K by the Criterion Collection. A film that changed aerial filmmaking and launched the career of Jean Harlow, it’s an essential part of movie history, and an unexpected choice for Criterion. The release includes an interview with one of my favorite film historians, the brilliant Farran Smith Nehme, and outtakes from the film with commentary by a Harlow biographer. There’s even a direct connection to “The Aviator” as Criterion interviews the VFX supervisor for Scorsese’s film about the production of this one. It all comes full circle.
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration of the Magnascope road-show version of the film, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
New interview with Robert Legato, the visual-effects supervisor for the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, on the groundbreaking aerial visuals of Hell’s Angels
New interview with critic Farran Smith Nehme about actor Jean Harlow
Outtakes from the film, with commentary by Harlow biographer David Stenn
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by author and journalist Fred Kaplan
“In the Mouth of Madness” (Arrow)
While fans bow at the altar of ’70s and ’80s John Carpenter, they’re often quick to dismiss his later work. Listen, I’m not here to defend “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” or “Village of the Damned,” but I will go to bat for the one in between, this 1994 surreal nightmare that’s arguably the filmmaker’s last true vision. Closing out what he called his “Apocalypse Trilogy,” it stars Sam Neill as a man investigating the disappearance of a famous horror novelist when he discovers a Lovecraftian nightmare. The incredible Arrow edition is oe of their best of the year, including two archival commentaries with Carpenter himself and tons of new material. The exclusive stuff includes a new interview Jurgen Prochnow, a new featurette, a new appreciation, fantastic cover art, and a great collector’s book. It may not be Halloween, but it’s never too late to snag this one.
Special Features
Archive audio commentary with director John Carpenter and producer Sandy King Carpenter
Archive audio commentary with director John Carpenter and director of photography Gary B. Kibbe
Brand new audio commentary by filmmakers Rebekah McKendry & Elric Kane, co-hosts of Colors of the Dark podcast
Making Madness, a newly filmed interview with producer Sandy King Carpenter
Do You Read Sutter Cane?, a newly filmed interview with actor Jürgen Prochnow
The Whisperer of the Dark, an archive interview with actress Julie Carmen
Greg Nicotero’s Things in the Basement, an archive interview with special effects artist Greg Nicotero
We Are What He Writes, a new featurette in praise of John Carpenter and In the Mouth of Madness
Reality Is Not What It Used To Be, a new appreciation by film scholar Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Horror’s Hallowed Grounds, an archive featurette looking at the locations used in the film
Home Movies From Hobb’s End, behind-the-scenes footage
The Making of In the Mouth of Madness, a vintage featurette
Theatrical trailer and TV spots
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Francesco Francavilla
Double-sided fold-out poster featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Francesco Francavilla
Perfect bound collector’s book featuring new writing on the film by Guy Adams, Josh Hurtado, Richard Kadrey, George Daniel Lea, Willow Catelyn Maclay, and Alexandra West
“The Long Walk“
It really has been quite a year for Stephen King fans with “The Running Man,” “IT: Welcome to Derry,” “The Institute,” and this theatrical hit, arguably the best of the bunch. To this viewer, Francis Lawrence never quite figured out how to update what was a story written by a young man in the wake of the Vietnam War, but he did something essential to this long-awaited adaptation’s success: he cast two future stars. Years from now, it’s going to be fun to look back on this one in the wake of how critically and commercially successful I expect Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson to be. They’re both just fantastic here, even if the movie around them sometimes struggles to keep pace.
Special Features
Alternate Ending – 4K Blu-ray SteelBook Exclusive
Stephen King: An Appreciation – 4K Blu-ray SteelBook Exclusive
Cooper & David Scene Read – 4K Blu-ray SteelBook Exclusive
“Ever Onward: Making The Long Walk” Multi-Part Documentary
Theatrical Trailers
“Sea Fog”
Am I including this in this month’s guide just because I wrote the essay for it? So what if I am?!? In all seriousness, “Sea Fog,” co-written by Bong Joon-ho, is a propulsive piece of filmmaking, a tense true story starring the fantastic Kim Yoon-seok (“The Chaser”) and Han Ye-ri (“Minari”). It’s the tale of a fishing vessel that agrees to smuggle a few dozen illegal immigrants into Korea on a stormy, dangerous night. The sequence in which the “cargo” is transferred to their shop is haunting and brilliant. And, yes, if you want to read more about the film’s production and craft by yours truly, that’s included in your purchase.
Special Features
Cast and Crew Interviews
Making of Featurette
Trailers
16-page booklet with essay by Brian Tallerico, managing editor of RogerEbert.com
“Shin Godzilla“
The deserved love for “Godzilla Minus One” has brought people back to the timeless franchise overall, allowing for a bit of renewed interest in this 2016 gem, one of my favorite Godzilla flicks. It’s technically the 31st Godzilla film, but the first in the Reiwa era. And it rules. One of many things I love about it is how directors Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi lean into the idea that red tape is the real monster that’s going to destroy us all. A story of how bureaucratic incompetence only makes international disasters worse was almost prescient in 2016. And now you can own it in a beautiful steelbook 4K edition.
Special Features
Promotional Video Collection
Making Of SHIN GODZILLA
Deleted Scenes
Outtakes
News Reels
Previs Reel Collection
Previs and Special Effects Outtakes
Visual Effects Breakdown
Trailer 1
Trailer 2
Teaser 1
Teaser 2
“Splitsville“
One of the funnier films of 2025 is this adult comedy starring Michael Angelo Covino, Kyle Marvin, Dakota Johnson, and Adria Arjona. Marvin, who co-wrote with director and co-star Covino, plays an ordinary guy whose partner (Arjona) up and leaves him one day, pushing them into the arms of his BFF’s wife, who happens to be in an open marriage. A comedy of sexually active, bed-hopping adults doesn’t come along that often in the 2020s. So while this one isn’t perfect, it’s willingness to comedically examine the insecurities of man-children who don’t know how to keep anyone but themselves happy is more than welcome. It also has the best fight scene of the year. Yeah, I said it.
Special Features
The Making of Splitsville – Featurette
Original Theatrical Trailer
TV Spots
- Actors Superbly Channel Siskel and Ebert Onstage in Chicago (November 25, 2025)
A year-long wish of mine was granted this past weekend, and in the most thrilling of ways. Throughout the month of November, the fiftieth anniversary of “Siskel & Ebert” has been celebrated at the Chicago Cultural Center with special free programming held in its Claudia Cassidy Theatre. Most of them have been screenings of films beloved by the critics, followed by a conversation with key people involved in the show.
What made the “Siskel & Ebert” anniversary event held last Saturday, November 22nd, particularly special was the fact that it was a live performance. Local actors Stephan Winchell and Zack Mast appeared on the Claudia Cassidy stage as the landmark critic duo in a new show devised by Paul Durica’s public history project, Pocket Guide to Hell. Seated in chairs that would’ve felt right at home in Siskel and Ebert’s balcony, the critics watched filmed reenactments of various key moments from the evolution of their show as it gradually became a cultural phenomenon. They then discussed and debated the contents of the footage, as they would the merits of the films they reviewed on their show. An amusing running gag centered on Ebert’s insistence that his name should’ve been placed first in the title of their show, considering that he won a Pulitzer Prize, leading Siskel to flip a coin (as he did in real life) to ensure that his name would remain before his co-host’s.
It was last July when I initially saw the actors inhabit these roles in Katlin Schneider’s play, “Siskel/Ebert,” at Chicago’s Bughouse Theater. Watching the show was akin to getting as close as I ever could to observing Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert debate the merits of cinematic works in person. There was no question in my mind that the actors’ performances deserved two very enthusiastic thumbs way up. Winchell was spot-on and very funny as Siskel, while Mast captured Ebert’s look, mannerisms and cadence so impeccably, it was downright eerie. The episode they lovingly and ingeniously reenacted was from June 1987, where the sparring colleagues famously argued about “Full Metal Jacket” and “Benji the Hunted,” complete with hysterical recreations of the selected movie clips. Siskel’s widow, Marlene Iglitzen, was in attendance, and the show got her seal of approval as well. From that moment on, I was determined to have Roger’s widow—my former boss and dear friend, Chaz Ebert—see the show as well.
When I learned that Winchell and Mast were reprising their roles for the fiftieth anniversary festivities, I knew it would be a show I could not miss. In attendance for the sold out performance were numerous Windy City legends who had key roles in Siskel and Ebert’s legacy, including Marlene Iglitzen and Chaz Ebert; the show’s invaluable producer Thea Flaum; Michelle McKenzie-Voigt, assistant director of the show in its iteration entitled “Sneak Previews”; and former Chicago Sun-Times film critic and columnist Richard Roeper, who was selected as Ebert’s co-host following Siskel’s passing in 1999. This distinguished group participated in a lively onstage panel discussion moderated by veteran Chicago newspaperman Rick Kogan following the performance, though it was earlier in the evening when Chaz audibly gave her review of the show. As soon as Mast turned toward the audience, his resemblance to her late husband was so uncanny that it caused Chaz to exclaim, “Oh my god!” Later in the show, when the actors had an animated argument onstage in character, it was so evocative of Siskel and Ebert’s unmatched banter that it garnered applause from the crowd.
Produced by Durica and Meredith Milliron, the show featured live performances from Jeffrey Thomas and his band of the various theme songs utilized by Siskel and Ebert, culminating in the “Sneak Previews” theme for which a band member heroically replicated the wall-to-wall whistling. Rachel Wilson and Tim Sozoko appeared in the reenactment footage as Thea Flaum and David Letterman, respectively, while Kenya Merritt, acting commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, kicked off the event by reading statements from her as well as the city’s mayor Brandon Johnson.
“By reviewing films through accessible, authentic conversation, they transformed the way the world engages with cinema,” Merritt said of Siskel and Ebert. “As we celebrate their 50-year legacy, we also honor the generations of filmmakers, critics, and audiences they inspired. Their influence continues to shape how we uplift storytelling and creative innovation here in Chicago.”
As Roeper noted during the post-show panel, Siskel and Ebert’s spirit can be found in every person you see engaging in impassioned conversation about the film they’ve just seen. The thumbprint of their influence can be found everywhere from Letterboxd and the Criterion Closet to even a show like ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” which Roeper said was conceived as a sports-focused equivalent of “Siskel & Ebert.” Chaz hinted onstage that the critics’ legacy is the subject for several projects currently in development, including a documentary and narrative film—the details about both are confidential—and a stage production that is actively in development by her daughter, Sonia Evans. Whether or not Winchell and Mast will be involved in any of these future projects, they have set an enormously high bar for any performer seeking to capture the essence of these fiercely opinionated icons.
- No Good Deed Will Go Unpunished: Kleber Mendonça Filho and Wagner Moura on “The Secret Agent” (November 25, 2025)
Kleber Mendonça Filho and Wagner Moura have known each other for over twenty years. But until now they haven’t made a film together.
“The Secret Agent,” Mendonça’s fourth narrative feature, stars Moura as Amando, a researcher who’s traveled to Recife, Brazil, in a bid to escape the wrath of the crooked industrialist Ghirotti (Luciano Chirolli). Set in 1977, at the height of the military dictatorship, the film chronicles Amarndo’s desire to obtain fake passports for himself and his son before murderers hired by Ghirotti learn of his location.
Along the way we are immersed in Amando’s network: the refugees living under assumed names who he calls neighbors, the resplendent movie theater his father-in-law Sr. Alexandre (Carlos Francisco) works at the records office where he hopes to find proof of his mother’s existence, and a group of investigators who’d like to take his testimony as evidence of Ghirotti’s crimes.
With help from cinematographer Evgenia Alexandrova (whose energetic camera creates a kind of espionage-like tension), Mendonça both recreates 1977 Brazil and provides a window into a time when disappearances and kidnappings in broad daylight were either refashioned into myths or flatly ignored. At the center of this harrowing, at times, winking story is Moura, who won Best Actor at Cannes for his performance.
Here, Moura is smart and suave, unassuming and sexy, in a performance that combines the restlessness of Gene Hackman in “Night Moves” with the movie-star wattage of Robert Redford in “Three Days of the Condor,” for a film that says much about our fraught contemporary relationship with truth and fascism. It’s also the kind of performance that feels like a sincere partnership between actor and director.
During the New York Film Festival, Moura and Mendonça met in person at the Thompson Central Park Hotel with RogerEbert.com to talk about the importance of journalism, censorship, and the long road that led to this collaboration.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
You two have known each other for quite a while. Why did you decide at this specific moment to collaborate?
Kleber Mendonça Filho: I really think that things happen at the right time. There was a possibility of working with Wagner on “Bacurau,” but he had his mind too much on his own film, “Marighella,” so it wasn’t the right time. Instead, I sat down and actually wrote a script for him. It’s really tailor-made for him, tailor-made in terms of what I knew about him as a person and all the work he’s done in theater, television, and cinema, and weighing it all together. I came up with this role, which I really hoped you’d appreciate, and now here we are talking to you.
But we had met many times before. I was a film critic then, and I’ve interviewed him maybe three times. But then I made my films, and life went on, and by 2013, we developed the desire to work together after he saw my first film, “Neighboring Sounds.” So these things take time.
In what ways do you think you grew to this moment?
Wagner Moura: There was one thing that strongly contributed to our decision to make this film. From 2018 to 2022, Brazil was in a difficult political period, and Kleber and I were both vocally opposed to what was happening. We both suffered lots of consequences for doing that. I had my film censored, and Kleber had his own issues. If we had wanted to make a film together before, that environment was what brought us together.
Before then, we were talking informally because Kleber really takes care of his scripts. So he didn’t really show me the script until he felt like it was time to do it. But I knew exactly what the film was about because we were talking about it all the time, because we had conversations about how to survive and how to stick with your values when everything around you is saying the opposite of what you think.
KMF: I kept telling Wagner before he read the script: No good deed will go unpunished. It means that you’re absolutely right in what you do. You’re honest, and you’re a model citizen, and that is precisely why they can get you. I find that really painful, shocking, and terrible, and it keeps happening in so many places and countries.
The Bolsonaro years brought us together first as citizens outraged by the inequality happening. But then we also had to deal with persecution because, like now, we are in this interview with you, and we often find ourselves with microphones in our hands, and then people ask: So what do you think about denying vaccines? I think it’s terrible. It’s wrong. When that goes on the record, a lot of people who believe that vaccines are ways of installing Chinese drones into your blood veins will go against us for being pro-vaccines. That statement will put us in a position to be attacked.
WM: It’s extremely polarized everywhere, man.
Photo: NEON
Wagner: When a role is written for you, do you find yourself using another process to get into the character?
WM: I’ve been trying to work with Kleber since I saw “Neighboring Sounds.” I met him when he was a critic at Cannes 20 years ago, became friends with him, and then started seeing his short films. I was like: Holy shit. That critic can direct. And “Neighboring Sounds” is one of the greatest Brazilian films ever made. So, when I saw it, I knew this was what I wanted to do as an artist. I’m also a very political person, and I wanted to be part of that universe. Kleber is a master; he shoots films beautifully. You can see his references, and he manages to turn them all into a very Brazilian thing.
It’s also very political. But politics doesn’t go in front of everything. You feel them because of the characters and the relationships the characters have. So it was like: This is what I need to do. And then I basically started to stalk him so he’d work with me [Laughs]. But to be honest, it didn’t really change the way I approach the character. I didn’t feel any pressure. I just felt happy and honored. Kleber used to say: I’m only going to give you the script, and if you read the script and you don’t like it, then you’re a fucking asshole. [Laughs]
I read it, and it was great. But even before then, we were already exchanging information, so I knew exactly what the film was. When we started shooting, I felt like I already knew what it was. It wasn’t difficult. It was very fluid.
How did you imagine Armando as a character?
KMF: I think it’s more challenging as a piece of writing to have a great, classic hero who’s not a wimp or an idiot. He’s actually strong, full of life, and passionate, but he doesn’t have a gun. Other people might have guns, other people might kill people. Not him. That was challenging because how do you make a strong character who doesn’t push people against the wall and say, “I’m gonna kill you”? [Laughs] Which is a kind of tradition, especially in Hollywood cinema.
It feels especially defiant to have a hero without a gun at a moment when political strongmen are carrying metaphorical guns.
KMF: That defiance comes through in the details. The way Armando talks to Ghirotti during the dinner sequence, Armando never lowers his head. He just looks Ghirotti in the face, and you can see he’s thinking: What a fucking idiot. When Armando tries to handle the situation diplomatically, it only explodes. The explosions were really interesting. There’s the moment where he punches that idiotic guy in the face. There’s another explosion when he wakes up from a nightmare. So, those modulations were necessary for the film. But I really wanted a classic James Stewart-type empathetic hero.
You were both journalists, and this film is partly about journalism, particularly the exploitation story about the hairy leg. What do you think about the vulnerability journalism is feeling today?
WM: I have so many concerns. The truth as we know it is over. A lot of that has to do with the decline of journalism. They’re being discredited, especially by world leaders in some places.
Journalism as a business is declining, too. People are now getting information from social media and WhatsApp. With technology, you don’t know what to believe. With deepfake or AI, you have an image of a person and a voice to go with the image, but it’s not the person. What the fuck? How can you deal with that? Where is the truth? There are no facts anymore. That’s what scares me a lot.
KMF: I worked at a newspaper for a number of years. In the film, the information in the newspapers is always imprecise, wrong, or manipulated. I saw this from inside newspaper newsrooms. I worked in culture, and I watched other sections of the newspaper. I saw mistakes many times—natural, human mistakes, errors—and I saw manipulation openly plotted. I saw simple people being reckless and irresponsible with information. As a filmmaker, I really believe that when I shoot the machines at the newspaper, what I’m shooting is a factory of storytelling. It just depends on what stories are being told.
One of them is the hairy leg, which is almost like a poetic fairytale, which finds its meaning in politics and censorship. The newspapers couldn’t actually say what had happened. So they made the hairy leg the culprit. Not the police or the military. So, I’m fascinated by the media, but what’s happening now is incredibly dangerous. I agree with Wagner. The truth is over. I have two 11-year-olds, and sometimes they hear or see things that have been manipulated, and I’m the one who has to look them in the face and say: “This is wrong.” And I’ve even started to feel like they’re beginning to doubt what I’m saying. That’s really scary.
Wagner: We all criticize journalism and specific mainstream newspapers, but I think that at this moment we need to support journalists. This is one pillar of democracy. The shit that our kids are reading on social media—I don’t have social media—but I know they read all kinds of crazy shit. They believe all of those things. Remember when Bolsonaro won the first election?
KMF: Of course.
WM: When he won the first election, one of the reasons he won was because right-wingers spread a rumor that left-wingers were distributing baby bottles with plastic penises pinned to the top.
KMF: To teach babies how to be homosexuals.
WM: People bought that shit. That won him an election in the second biggest democracy in the Americas.
What impact do you think returning to the dictatorship brings to viewers today?
KMF: I don’t think films change the world, but I think films can open an interesting window to the past and inform people about the nature of their own country. The American cinema has done that multiple times. I remember growing up in the 1980s when Hollywood made the Vietnam War a major narrative in US films. That was an interesting moment for many people in the US, as they realized it was a complete thing. Now with Brazil, I think we are at a really interesting moment when it feels like, over the last month, the far-right project has collapsed and is sinking. And while I wish it would sink without a trace, I’m not sure it will.
We have gone back to a democratic mode. “The Secret Agent” was written about a Brazil that existed 10 years ago. This is the crisis that we went through, which was basically a bunch of older men trying to reedit the best years of their lives in the military dictatorship. That was the most shocking discovery for me. This period piece that I was writing so I could work with Wagner was, in fact, a thinly disguised observation of Brazil over the last 10 years.
