Here are the films that have been making waves and scoring awards at this year’s Golden Globes and Oscars. Catch them on KrisWorld.
Gladiator II
“Are you not entertained?”
You may know the iconic line that Maximus (Russell Crowe) shouted in Ridley Scott’s historical epic, Gladiator. Well, it appears that modern audiences can’t get enough of ancient Rome’s “bread and circuses”, as poet Juvenal would call it, because the 87-year-old Blade Runner director decided to complete a long-awaited sequel after more than two decades.
Taking place a generation after the events of the first film, Gladiator II introduces us to Lucius/Hanno (Paul Mescal), a refugee made homeless and a widower by Roman soldiers led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal). After being talent-spotted by wealthy power broker Macrinus (Denzel Washington), Hanno is brought to Rome to fight as a gladiator and, hopefully, get his revenge against Acacius and corrupt twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger).
Audiences commended the film’s elaborate set pieces — including a full-scale naumachia (naval battle) — and Washington’s captivating presence as the manipulative and conniving Macrinus. Film critics were entertained too, with the entertainment journalist Scott Menzel claiming that Gladiator II is “a big, bloody … action spectacle that builds upon the legacy of the original”.
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After his home is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum and must find strength to return the glory of Rome to its people.
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Maria
Director Pablo Larraín’s biopic drama of the eponymous American-Greek soprano Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) begins with the end: her body is obscured by the furniture in her palatial Paris apartment as cops, funeral workers, and her staff respectfully keep their distance.
The film then tracks the events in the week leading up to her demise on 16 September 1977, as the 53-year-old opera singer grapples with her fading voice, health, and sanity due to her medication’s side effects.
Larraín is no stranger to telling the tragic tales of famous female figures: His last two English-language (and Academy Award-nominated) features, Jackie and Spencer, were biopics as well. Jackie followed Jacqueline Kennedy in the wake of her husband’s assassination, and Spencer surveyed the period when Princess Diana mulled over a divorce with Prince Charles.
Maria has garnered critical accolades. Variety called it “absolute perfection”, and The Independent praised Jolie’s performance as “career-defining”. At the time of writing, the film earned a nomination for Best Cinematography at the Academy Awards, and Jolie was nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama at the Golden Globes.
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The film follows the American Greek soprano as she retreats to Paris after a glamorous and tumultuous life in the public eye. Maria reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days.
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The Apprentice
As Frank Sinatra sings about New York, if you can make it in there, you can make it anywhere. Ali Abbasi’s fictionalised dramatisation of Donald Trump’s early life tells the mostly true story of how the property mogul and incumbent United States President became “the king of the hill” and “top of the heap” in the Big Apple around the late 20th century.
The flick follows a young Donald Trump, played by Captain America: The Winter Soldier actor Sebastian Stan, as he navigates the treacherous real-estate world of the Nixon and Reagan eras. The more he strays from his dysfunctional family led by Fred Trump Sr (Martin Donovan), the closer he grows to his mentor, notorious attorney and political fixer Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong), and future first wife, Czech model Ivana Zelníčková (Maria Bakalova).
Abbasi’s bawdy tragicomedy earned an eight-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes last May, but Trump and his legal team were far from impressed. The President’s lawyers sought to block the US release (to no avail), with the man himself calling the movie a “cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job”.
Critics held the film in higher regard: The Hollywood Reporter praised Stan, saying he went “beyond impersonation to capture the essence of the man” while The Times declared it “the Donald Trump movie that you never knew you needed”. Stan even scored his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Actor in a Leading Role, at this year’s Oscars.
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The story of how a young Donald Trump started his real-estate business in 1970s and '80s New York with the helping hand of infamous lawyer Roy Cohn.
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Emilia Pérez
Who is Emilia Pérez? Well, the eponymous character of Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical crime film used to be Juan ‘Manitas’ Del Monte, one of Mexico’s most feared drug lords. Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón) identifies as a woman and ropes in lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) to secretly perform gender-reassignment surgery, stage the kingpin’s death, and whisk unsuspecting wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and their kids away to Switzerland. But absence makes the heart grow fonder, even for that of a reformed gangster, and the newly christened Emilia seeks a family reunion as the ‘late’ Manitas’ distant cousin.
In January, Gascón came under fire for tweets dating back years that had controversial views on religion and the Oscars, which was referred to as “an ugly, ugly gala”. Gascón has since deactivated the offending X account and issued an apology. “Renegade auteur” Audiard, as distributor Netflix calls him, has also been criticised for inaccurately portraying Mexico and her people’s Spanish accent.
Despite Gascón’s fallout from her gaffes, the 52-year-old made history as the first openly transgender actor nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. The star was also the first transgender woman to win the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Actress award, shared with co-stars Saldaña, Gomez, and Adriana Paz. Reviews have also been overwhelmingly positive, with The Wrap saying Saldaña “blazes across the screen”, Entertainment Weekly calling the film “genre-defying”, and Vogue France declaring it “the best musical of the decade”.
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Overqualified and undervalued, Rita is a lawyer at a large firm in Mexico that is more interested in getting criminals off the hook than bringing them to justice. One day, she is given a way out.
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Lee
Marking cinematographer Ellen Kuras’ feature-film directorial debut, Lee is an unflinching look down the camera lens barrel at the extraordinary life of model-turned-World War II photographer Lee Miller (played by Titanic star Kate Winslet).
Over the course of a decade, Miller braved the Blitz bombings of Britain, the liberation of Paris, and the frontlines of Nazi Germany with frequent collaborator and sometime lover David Scherman (Andy Samberg) to capture indelible images of war, including an iconic one of herself bathing in Adolf Hitler’s bathtub. But her biggest battles were fought closer to home, where she had to confront editorial censorship and a traumatic incident from her childhood.
The seed of the film was planted two decades ago. In a Vanity Fair piece, Kuras recalls walking past a bookstore while she was working on the production of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which starred Winslet, and coming across a book about Miller. Surprised by Winslet’s uncanny resemblance to the photographer, she bought two copies and gave the actress one.
Years later, Winslet pitched a biography about Miller to Kuras. The former was so passionate about the film, she even paid the cast and crew’s salaries for two weeks due to the production having insufficient funds. For the role, the 49-year-old actress was nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Drama at this year’s Golden Globes.
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The true story of photographer Elizabeth ‘Lee’ Miller, a fashion model who swapped the catwalk for the battlefield and became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.
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The Substance
Demi Moore makes a triumphant Hollywood return — at age 62! — after years away from the big screen, to star in a film that is both discomfiting and hilarious. She plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an actress-turned-aerobics star who is fired from her TV gig due to her age. Desperate, Elisabeth comes across ‘The Substance’, a mysterious serum that promises to grant youthfulness to the old.
What it actually does is quite different: it allows one to live in another, much younger body. The younger Elisabeth (Margaret Qualley) adopts the new identity of Sue while her real body is stashed away at home. However, the formula demands a rigorous routine of injections and body switches in order for it to work. When Sue starts developing a mind and ego of her own, a battle for autonomy between the two ensues.
‘The Substance’ here is a metaphor for Hollywood’s obsession with beauty and youth, taken to the extreme. The film questions this fixation and points out that women are both victims of and willing participants in the upholding of beauty standards.
Demi Moore is perfectly cast here. That Moore, 62, won her very first award through this performance, which includes grotesque physical transformation and behaviour, is almost dramatic irony since she has long warded off rumours of plastic surgery.
The second film from French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat, The Substance is a riveting watch with its dark humour and thrilling sequences, even as you’re squirming in your seat.
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Elisabeth Sparkle, a former A-lister past her prime and suddenly fired from her fitness TV show by repellent studio head Harvey, is drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug.
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Sing Sing
Sing Sing has been praised for the performance of its lead actor, Colman Domingo, who was nominated for the Best Actor Award at this year’s Oscars. But apart from its star power and excellent acting, this engrossing film about injustice bursts with energy and emotion, especially since it’s based on a true story.
Divine G (Domingo) is a prisoner at the notorious Sing Sing Correctional Facility for a crime he did not commit. While trying to figure out how to prove his innocence, he finds an outlet for his frustrations: theatre. It turns out Divine G is not only eager to dive into it, but he’s also incredibly gifted at it.
Domingo tells Curzon about why the story resonates with him: “I am a Black man in this world who could be wrongly accused of a crime and end up in one of these institutions”. That connection to the film translates to the big screen: you’ll see Domingo give his all in Sing Sing.
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Divine G, imprisoned at Sing Sing for a crime he didn’t commit, finds purpose by acting in a theatre group alongside other incarcerated men, including a wary newcomer.
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A Different Man
In 2024, Sebastian Stan played a young, complicated Donald Trump in The Apprentice. However, in A Different Man, Stan undergoes a physical transformation not unlike Demi Moore in The Substance. But a body horror movie, this is not.
Edward Lemuel (Stan) is an aspiring actor with a physical condition called neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition that causes tumours to grow in the nervous system. He’s mostly alone, save for his daily conversations with neighbour Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), a budding playwright.
However, he gets a chance to radically change his face thanks to plastic surgery. Years later, Edward has a chance encounter with Oswald (Adam Pearson), another man with neurofibromatosis, and the latter challenges everything Edward once believed about himself.
Pearson, an actor and disability activist, lives with the condition in real life. And it’s with this film that Pearson found the role of a lifetime: “We don’t have enough high-profile people with disabilities or disfigurements,” he tells GQ. “And there comes a point when you’ve got to stop looking for role models and try and become one.”
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Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to transform his appearance. But his new dream face turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play.
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A Real Pain
Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, and starred in A Real Pain, a film that will hit close to home if you’ve had relatives you don’t quite know if you love or hate.
David (Eisenberg) and Benji Kaplan (Kieran Culkin) are cousins who were once close as kids but couldn’t be more different from each other as adults. Yet, they find themselves reunited in Poland after the passing of their grandmother. Their adventure through the country unearths past tensions between them and their families.
Culkin turns in a heartfelt and acclaimed performance as Benji, a character wildly different from Roman Roy, which he played on HBO’s Succession. But Culkin almost didn’t star in A Real Pain. In an interview with Vulture, he revealed that the film’s producer, Hollywood star (and Culkin’s one-time girlfriend) Emma Stone, did an “almost reverse-psychology thing” to get him on the plane to Poland for the shoot. He might be glad he got convinced to accept the part, seeing as how it earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
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Mismatched cousins David and Benji reunite for a tour through Poland to honour their grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the odd couple’s old tensions resurface.
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Heretic
Sometimes, actors take on roles that challenge the public’s perception of them. Comedy legends will find a dramatic role they can chew on. Heroic-looking stars may search for a complex role that requires more than charisma. Once the bumbling star of romantic comedies, Hugh Grant is now comfortably entrenched in his villain era, which he first introduced by playing the rakish Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones’s Diary.
His charm and that devastating smile don’t get switched off even if he’s playing a cruel antagonist. Which makes his portrayal of Mr Reed in Heretic even more devious and effective. His character is a smooth-talking recluse with a terrifying secret. Two young Mormon missionaries, played by Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher, knock on his door, hoping to find another convert.
He greets them warmly and invites them in. However, it’s not long until his fatherly disposition starts to become slightly uncomfortable, and the two women find themselves trapped in his home. As they go deeper into it, they find more mysteries they must solve in order to stay alive.
Come for Grant, stay for Thatcher, a fast-rising actor who also acted in this year’s horror-romance film Companion.
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Two young missionaries are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr Reed, becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse.
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Conclave
The pope is dead. The Vatican throne is vacant. And one and a quarter billion souls are watching the gathering of the College of Cardinals, led by British Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), to choose the next bishop of Rome.
Within the sacred walls of the Sistine Chapel, 113 princes of the Church from around the world gather for the papal election, or conclave (from the Latin word meaning ‘a locked room’). Among the lead candidates are Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), an American liberal; Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), an Italian traditionalist; and Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), the dark-horse archbishop of Kabul.
But, as the doleful-eyed Thomas would soon discover, a few of the cardinals had sinned, and the deceased pontiff had been holding scandalous secrets. As the accusations and betrayals mount, the contest for the next leader of the Catholic world culminates in an explosive revelation.
Director Edward Berger, who won an Academy Award for his last film, All Quiet on the Western Front, has earned plaudits from critics for this pulpit pulp thriller, adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Robert Harris. The film, written for the screen by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy co-scribe Peter Straughan, had won the Golden Globes for Best Screenplay, with Variety calling the ending “one of the most satisfying twists in years”.
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Conclave follows one of the world’s most ancient events—selecting the new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope.
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The Wild Robot
Helmed by Chris Sanders, the co-director of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon, this DreamWorks film adaptation of Peter Brown’s beloved novel is about kindness and connection — and how those things are essential for survival.
A mysterious box washes up on a remote island. Inside is a lone survivor named Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) — only this castaway is no human but a state-of-the-art robot. Roz is eager to help the animal inhabitants of her new home, but the feeling isn’t mutual with her frightened and hostile neighbours. When she stumbles upon a goose nest, she takes up the task of raising its single remaining gosling, Brightbill (Kit Connor), with the help of mischievous fox Fink (Pedro Pascal).
The Wild Robot is DreamWorks Animation’s final feature produced entirely in-house, and Sanders has fittingly gathered “an amazing cast”. Among the line-up are Stephanie Hsu as Vontra, another robot sent to retrieve Roz; Mark Hamill as Thorn, a grizzly bear; and Ving Rhames as Thunderbolt, a peregrine falcon.
Nyong’o describes the movie, lauded for its impressionistic art style and humanist themes, as “not afraid to pull at your heartstrings”.
“People are going to enjoy watching a robot learn to be wild,” says the Academy Award-winning actress.
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Rozzum 7134 (“Roz” for short), a futuristic robot, washes ashore on a deserted island. A tale of survival begins when she becomes the protector to an orphaned gosling, which she names Brightbill.
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Dune: Part Two
The space-opera saga of Dune continues in director Denis Villeneuve’s film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s landmark science fiction novel. Timothée Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, the exiled heir of the deceased Leto Atreides and prophesied messiah of the Fremen, the indigenous people of the desert planet Arrakis.
As war looms and alliances are forged with love interest Chani (Zendaya) and mentor Stilgar (Javier Bardem), Paul must face a new enemy in Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler), the bloodthirsty potential successor of House Harkonnen. This second instalment — which also stars Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, and Furiosa star Anya Taylor-Joy in an uncredited cameo — features unforgettable sequences like Paul riding a sandworm for the first time. With Dune 3 set for release in December 2026, there’s even more reason to (re)visit the beautiful and brutal world of Arrakis.
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Explore the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family.
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