Welcome to CFTCA’s monthly digest for September 2025, a roundup of recent reviews, features, interviews, and more by CTFCA critics.
Film Reviews
One Battle After Another | Reviewed by Ethan Simmie | Read the Full Review
“Similar to revolutionaries, revolutions themselves appear in all different shapes and sizes and attitudes, yet the one aspect they all share in common is time. Paul Thomas Anderson has spent the majority, if not the entirety, of his nearly 30-year directorial career positing the epiphany of how time ultimately shapes everything we do and everything we become.”
Find more of Ethan’s work on Agents of Fandom.
No Other Choice | Reviewed by Christopher Cross | Read the Full Review
“No Other Choice is another incredibly assured and impressive addition to Park Chan-wook’s astounding oeuvre and another reason why he is one of the best directors of our time.”
Find more of Chris’ work on Asynchronous Media.
Dawning | Reviewed by Elizabeth Mulloy | Read the Full Review
“‘Dawning is a lot to take in. It’s dark, bleak, and unmistakably touched by the shadow of Ingmar Bergman, but that’s only the surface. What makes it truly consuming is writer and director Patrik Syversen’s ambition.”
Find more of Elizabeth’s work on The Celluloid Correspondent.
Megadoc | Reviewed by Dom Sinacola | Read the Full Review
“Megadoc doesn’t do much to illuminate the big, bold ideas of Megalopolis, but it does illuminate the man behind those big, bold ideas, a man who’s arguably earned the right to get what he wants but has forgotten how to ask.”
Find more of Dom’s work in the Portland Mercury.
Dry Leaf | Reviewed by Eric Zhu | Read the Full Review
“Dry Leaf’s handshake with Impressionism also connects this tradition of painting, that elevated texture over academic form, to the lyricism of Kiarostami, Apichatpong, and even experimentalists like Dorsky and Baillie, filmmakers who peel back surface reality to reveal immense, private worlds.”
Find more of Eric’s work in the The Insert.
Wake Up Dead Man | Reviewed by Darren Zakus | Read the Full Review
“Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery is another masterful whodunnit from Rian Johnson featuring everything that fans have come to love about this series; outstanding performances, intelligent writing, hilarious moments, and shocking twists and turns, cementing Knives Out as one of the best movie series of the past decade.”
Find more of Darren’s work on Movie Scene Canada.
Noviembre | Reviewed by Matthew Simpson | Read the Full Review
“It depicts an event that is full of complexities and nuance, but breaks said event down to its human characters, who are messy, angry, brilliant, tragic, and heartbreaking all at once.”
Find more of Matthew’s work on Awesome Friday.
The Smashing Machine | Reviewed by Rick Chung | Read the Full Review
“Johnson and Safdie make The Smashing Machine a rousing experience. It’s casual bursts of brutality only strengthen its small moments of pain, frustration, and brotherhood. All of the performances are remarkably touching as the film as a whole acts as a subversive portrait of the fragility of manhood in someone who gets his highs from the roar of the crowd and inflicting violence on others.”
Find more of Rick’s work on his website.
Retrospectives
Paul Vecchiali’s Theater of Feeling | By Marta Djordjevic | Read the Full Review
“Within moments of sitting down to watch Paul Vecchiali’s Rosa la rose, fille publique, a bittersweet melody swelled in my ears. It felt hauntingly familiar, yet before I could place it, it slipped away.”
Find more of Marta’s work on Rewind and Revive.
Television
Alien: Earth | Reviewed by Darren Zakus | Read the Full Review
“Alien: Earth expands the beloved horror franchise to our planet with a brilliant evolution of the series’ hallmarks, giving way to more compelling and captivating thematic explorations of technology, corporate greed and humanity, alongside nasty and violent alien kills that will have audiences both terrified and eagerly anticipating what showrunner Noah Hawley has in store.”
Find more of Darren’s work on Movie Scene Canada.
Features
Eleven Films to Argue About in Fall 2025 | By Dom Sinacola | Read the Full Piece
Dom outlines upcoming films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Kelly Reichardt, Lynne Ramsey, Chloé Zhao, Kathryn Bigelow, Yorgos Lanthimos, a Safdie, a Tron movie, and more.
Find more of Dom’s work in the Portland Mercury.