Ever feel like there’s too much to watch, and you don’t know where to start? Well don’t worry. Our Film & TV editor Hidzir Junaini will be rounding up only the very best things to hit your screens at the end of every month! Skip the mediocre and delve right into the good stuff.
Movies:
Titane
Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to Raw is a flashy, traumatic body horror explosion that is just as gnarly as her cannibalistic first film. Titane flows between two characters, Alexia and Vincent, two dreadful, lonely souls who have experienced tragedies in different ways. Alexia is a narcissistic serial killer who slashes anyone with her hair needle, whereas Vincent is a firefighter and father who lost his son. They need each other to live and to die, their needs carnal and vicious. Bathed in macabre and uncomfortable imagery, this year’s Palme d’Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival is extreme – violent, erotic and pitiless. But it’s also triumphantly tender and sweet.
Watch on: VOD
Belle
It girls, grieving high-schoolers and cyber dragons collide in Mamoru Hosoda’s anime skew on Beauty and the Beast. The story follows Suzu, a 17-year-old living in a rural village. For years, she has been unable to process the death of her mother and growing distant from her well-meaning father. One day, she enters “U,” a virtual world where she becomes a famous singer called Belle. She soon meets with a mysterious dragon and embarks on a journey of adventures, challenges and love, in their quest of becoming who they truly are. This beautifully observed, dazzlingly animated sci-fi fairy tale about our online-offline double lives is Hosoda’s finest film since 2012’s Wolf Children.
Watch in: Cinemas (Golden Village and The Projector)
The Rescue
The Rescue is a non-fiction film that focuses on the enthralling, against-all-odds story that transfixed the world in 2018: the daring rescue of twelve boys and their coach from deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand. Free Solo filmmakers Elizabeth Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin shoot this documentary like a thriller, combining both actual footage shot during the rescue with recreations featuring the actual divers, blending the footage together seamlessly to create a wholly cinematic experience. The Rescue is a breathtaking and nail-biting chronicle of a true impossible mission that united the world.
Watch in: Cinemas (The Projector)
The Humans
Based on the one-act Tony Award-winning play, The Humans focuses on three generations of a family who gather at an apartment in lower Manhattan to celebrate Thanksgiving. Featuring a sublime ensemble, Stephen Karam’s film is a remarkably insightful and powerful portrait of the human condition that’s built upon a pervasive atmosphere of existential dread. Food is eaten, secrets are revealed, menacing eerie noises are heard and familial tensions rise to the surface. But despite its seeming lack of overt drama, The Humans’ observance of an average family’s psychological and emotional dynamics is the most terrifying cinematic experience of 2021.
Watch on: Showtime
Spencer
This highly unconventional, elliptical and experimental biopic of Princess Diana is very different from The Crown season four. Spencer reins in its tight focus to a three-day Christmas weekend at Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham estate in the early ‘90s, when the sham of Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles had become unendurable. Billed as “a fable from a true tragedy,” this is a speculative character study, featuring an inspired performance from Kristen Stewart. Director Pablo Larraín crafts an intimate historical fantasia, a claustrophobic psychological thriller about a woman struggling to remain sane within a rigid power structure she can’t escape.
Watch on: VOD
Terrorizers
Terrorizers follows various disillusioned youths in Taipei, whose stories intertwine via a violent slashing incident. Director Wi Ding Ho does a great job of crafting a queasily dark drama that unravels the underlying causes of crime – ranging from societal malaise and toxic online activity to bullying and parental neglect. Terrorizers is a powerful commentary on the proliferation of violence and misogyny through entertainment, but it’s also a humanist film about how people choose different ways to seek out love, cope with emotional trauma, and deal with rejection.
Watch in: Cinemas (The Projector)
Passing
Watch on: Netflix
Memoria
Thai auteur Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s first English-language feature is as entrancing and wonderfully perplexing as any of his previous pictures. The film follows a Scottish woman named Jessica who has been unable to sleep after hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak. Soon, she begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia. Beautiful and mesmeric, Memoria weaves a liminal soundspace through its languid long takes and tranquil natural settings. This is a deeply contemplative and meditative film of connection and spiritual isolation.
Screened at: Singapore International Film Festival
Saloum
Set in 2003, Congolese filmmaker Jean Luc Herbulot’s film follows three mercenaries extracting a drug lord out of Guinea-Bissau are forced to hide in the mystical region of Saloum, Senegal. Part crime thriller, part horror fantasy and part spaghetti Western – Saloum is a genre-hopping tale made with considerable style and imagination. Packing a huge amount of action and information into just 80 minutes, this compact film keeps its story and character pistons firing all through the mayhem. Saloum never pauses long enough for you to catch your breath, delivering a kinetic West African gem.
Screened at: Singapore International Film Festival
Yuni
Set in an Indonesian town, the film follows a bright high-schooler who starts receiving marriage proposals, which is customary of her community. But Yuni’s teenage preoccupations, from college aspirations to romantic rendezvous, render marriage at this age ill-fitting. As societal expectations multiply, her fate is left to onerous decisions that will irreversibly shape her future. A character study packed with poetic moments of interpersonal intimacy, Yuni’s earnest approach makes its indictment of gender inequity a poignant marvel thanks to the thoughtful direction and writing of Kamila Andini and Arawinda Kirana’s performance.
Screened at: Singapore International Film Festival
Barbarian Invasion
Since her divorce and the birth of her son, award-winning actress Moon has been wanting a comeback. Her director friend Roger promises her a role in his latest martial arts film that will reignite her star power. Enduring gruelling training for the role, an incident leads to Moon using the skills she has learnt to regain control of her life. Gliding seamlessly from arthouse drama to Hollywood-style action and meta-cinematic commentary, Barbarian Invasion never loses sight of the subject at hand: overcoming adversity with determination. Tan Chui Mui’s return is a refreshing, Malaysian action flick that serves an allegory for motherhood and the reclamation of one’s self.
Screened at: Singapore International Film Festival
Television:
In My Skin
This dark coming-of-age dramedy lays bare the bleak realities of a teen’s troubled life in Wales. In My Skin follows 16-year-old Bethan who tries to hide the truth about her mother’s bipolar disorder, father’s alcoholism and chaotic home life from her friends by pretending to be a spoiled rich girl. Heavily drawing from her own experiences growing up, Kayleigh Llewellyn’s series may be bleak, but it’s also filled with tenderness and caustic wit. From the authenticity of its tone to the vivid grittiness of it’s Cardiff setting, the second season of In My Skin remains a brutally relatable show that cuts deep.
Watch on: BBC iPlayer
How To With John Wilson
Like a spiritual successor to Nathan For You, the second season of this docu-comedy series continues to be a celebration of social awkwardness as seen through the lens of John Wilson. Shot in the first person, How To With follows Wilson as he films the lives of everyday people he meets, as he attempts to get advice on relatable but random life topics like say, safely disposing batteries – but by the end, his curious journey has transcended and morphed the question into an inquiry into grander things. His seemingly random wanderings through the world are by turns hilarious and poignant, revealing profound humanity through strange interactions.
Watch on: HBO
The Great
The Great is a hilariously anachronistic and deliriously revisionist show about the rise and reign of Catherine the Great in 1700s Russia. Created by Tony McNamara (The Favourite), the first season focused on Catherine’s coup to overthrow her narcissistic and cruel husband, Emperor Peter. This second season dwells on the aftermath of her coming into power while pregnant with his child as she fights not only the men around her but also her own mother (Gillian Anderson). The Great remains a titillating and devastating period piece, with marvelous costuming to boot, commenting on the political landscape of the past and the present with sparkling wit.
Watch on: Hulu
Hellbound
Based on Choi Kyu-seok’s webtoon The Hell and helmed by Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho, this excellent new South Korean fantasy explores religious zealotry and the media in the midst of a frightening supernatural crisis. The series follows detective Jin Kyung-hoon, who investigates the deaths of “sinners” who have been killed by demonic monsters after angels appear to forewarn their exact time of death. Meanwhile, lawyer Min Hey-jin looks into the rise of a burgeoning religious cult called New Truth who use the mass hysteria surrounding these otherworldly events to gain power.
Watch on: Netflix
Arcane
Based on the popular multiplayer online battle arena video game League of Legends, Arcane is easily one the best new animated series of 2021. Buoyed by incredibly dynamic visuals, top-notch action, and a vivid hand-painted aesthetic, this show is a compelling introduction to the game’s fantasy-steampunk world and an exhilarating experience for its built-in fanbase. The story follows the origin of two League champions in the prosperous city of Piltover and the impoverished underground district of Zaun – where our protagonists are shaped by an environment of crime, class disparity, the ambition to fuse science and magic.
Watch on: Netflix
Super Crooks
Set in the Mark Millar’s superhero universe (as introduced in Jupiter’s Legacy), this stylish new anime is gorgeously animated, hilariously gory and breezily paced. Super Crooks follows low-level, electricity-wielding supervillain Johnny Bolt as he embarks on the most dangerous heist of his career when the legendary thief known as The Heat recruits him to be a part of a team that robs the world’s most feared crime boss. Think the bloody violence and superpowered subversion of Invincible meets the style and tone of The Pretender, and you’ll get why this series is so fun.
Watch on: Netflix
Narcos: Mexico
Narcos wraps up its Mexican saga with a cathartic and complex final season. After the arrest of Félix Gallardo at the end of season two, his national trafficking organization has splintered into individual cartels, introducing a new generation of kingpins in the 1990s. With each faction warring over resources, distribution routes and territory – the violence and bloodshed of the formerly unified drug trade has escalated manifold. Still based on real-life events, this climatic season touches upon topics like poverty, institutional corruption and press freedoms to illustrate the tragedy of the never-ending war on drugs.
Watch on: Netflix