Sight and Sound: the April 2025 issue

“Bong generally presents as an affable, humorous guy; I’ve known him for 30 years or so and can say that he always did, and that the success of Parasite (2019) hasn’t changed his outlook in any way. But when you scan his work as a director, it’s true that death features quite prominently. Pretty much every film, long or short, features at least one death or murder, even if it’s only the cruel demise of a dog.”

— Tony Rayns on Bong Joon Ho, in our cover interview

Its release delayed by the Hollywood strikes, Bong Joon Ho’s most expensive film arrives in timely fashion just two months into a new American era. Mickey 17 revisits some of the ‘sensitive’ issues touched on in Bong’s previous films, but this time as black farce. On his way to the Berlin premiere, Bong passed through London and sat down with Tony Rayns to discuss working with a Hollywood major, silliness and stupidity. Photography by Marie Rouge.

Gints Zilbalodis’s magical dialogue-free environmental fable is a survival story about a cat seeking safety after his home is flooded. Here the director explains why emotion is more important than technical prowess, what he has learned from live-action cinema and why he dislikes storyboards. By Alex Dudok de Wit.

The life and work of the great Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cissé can be rendered as a lengthy and zealous endeavour of defiance: defiance of the Western gaze; of the Malian patriarchy, of censorship; of the aesthetic parameters enforced on African cinema. His cinema was anti-authoritarian in every respect: in its measured wrath against class, militarism and conventional storytelling. He was one of the most singular voices in African cinema, and in Yeelen (1987) he created one of the most original, most monumental films of the 20th century. By Joseph Fahim. 

Fellow artists Ben Okri, Julie Dash, Miryam Charles and Martin Scorsese pay tribute to Souleymane Cissé, discussing his place in the pantheon and the influence he has had on their lives and work.

Steven Soderbergh’s smart, fun spy thriller Black Bag is the kind of mid-budget, star-led adult entertainment that has become an endangered species in cinemas. Here the director explains why the box office is so hard to predict these days, why he has always been fascinated by duplicity and how he built his career filming ‘two people in a room’. By Philip Concannon.

In his debut fiction feature Joshua Oppenheimer has followed his bold documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence with an even bolder musical set in an underground bunker in a post-apocalyptic world. Here he discusses the guilt of the oligarchs, the majesty of the aurora borealis and the end of the world as we know it. By Nick Bradshaw.

Fine films by Bong Joon Ho, Radu Jude, Michel Franco, Lucile Hadžihalilović and Richard Linklater captivated audiences this year, but as a new political era dawns in the country, and in the wider world, it’s not yet clear what the future holds for the Berlinale. By Jonathan Romney.

The role of artificial intelligence in film production continues to grow in prominence, but questions remain about whether, how and when the audience should be told it is being used. By Dominic Lees.

With Gala screenings of a US road-trip picture and a steamy Brazilian thriller among other delights, London’s LGBTQ+ film festival returns for a 39th year to remind audiences what queer joy in an imperfect world looks like. By Rachel Pronger.

New films by Gabe Klinger, Ulrike Ottinger, Cheryl Dunye and Martin McDonagh. By Thomas Flew.

In Santosh, an Indian widow faces sexism and corruption after taking a job with the police. Interview by Leigh Singer.

Nosferatu director Robert Eggers on the complementary influences on his film, running the gamut from creeping gothic horror to advice from Chris Columbus. By Roger Luckhurst.

Thirty years on from the Dogme 95 manifesto, cinema could do with a little more of its scathing energy. By Pamela Hutchinson.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s astute appraisal of the work of Douglas Sirk is a highpoint in critical writing. By Nicole Flattery.

It might celebrate an attempt to skewer a politician’s evasions, but Brian and Maggie can’t handle the truth. By Andrew Male

Think things seem bad in the world? Don’t worry! As an issue full of dystopian visions proves, they could be worse. By Mike Williams.

In 1975, in an America struggling with post-Watergate burn-out and suddenly mesmerised by sharks, Arthur Penn’s neo-noir about a private eye with a failing marriage missed its moment. Fifty years on, perhaps it feels more timely. By Arjun Sajip.

A perceptive picture of a young woman working in a male-dominated world, and one of the best films about the challenges of the theatrical life, Stanisław Różewicz’s drama about an actress in 1980s Warsaw deserves to be far better known outside Poland. By Alex Roman.

The German novelist, poet and literary translator’s melancholy paean to the cinema documents her failed attempts to restore an abandoned picturehouse in a small town on the Great Hungarian Plain. By Laura Staab.

A major London retrospective of the great French director’s work over half a century offers cinephiles a rare opportunity to watch his masterful, enigmatic 13-hour epic Out 1 on the big screen. By Sam Wigley.

Few would have guessed that Vittorio De Sica’s fame as an actor playing handsome men about town in pre-war Italian cinema would soon be superseded by his stature as the director of several of the most highly regarded films in postwar cinema, including Bicycle Thieves, Miracle in Milan and Umberto D. Sight and Sound, Spring 1950, by Francis Koval.

The wrenching loss of leaving home is depicted in the final scenes of Peter Hall’s elegiac portrait of rural life in 20th-century Suffolk, when a young man makes a bid to escape the poverty that has blighted his family for generations. By Adam Scovell.

Our critics review: Misericordia, The End, The People’s Joker, The Monkey, When Autumn Falls, Day of the Fight, Mr. Burton, War Paint: Women at War, The Stimming Pool, La Cocina, September Says, Sister Midnight, Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other, Twiggy, Four Mothers, Flow, Sebastian, Santosh, Brief History of a Family, Mickey 17.

Our critics review: Sirk in Germany: 1934-1935; Godzilla vs. Biollante; Bumpkin Soup; Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling; Golem; Two films by Patrick Tam; Cronos; A Touch of Love; The Lives of a Bengal Tiger; What Happened Was…

Our critics review: In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, Casualties of War, The Prop.