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The Smashing Machine

Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt grapple with barely-there characters in a sports biopic that leaves out nearly all of the “bio.”

San Sebastian 2025: The Verdict

From the cloister to Gaza, powerful films and opinionated audiences make themselves heard at San Sebastian.

San Sebastian 2025: The Awards

Spanish director Alauda Ruiz de Azua won San Sebastian’s best film prize with her witty, paradoxical and often quite moving ‘Sundays’.

She Walks in Darkness

Spanish director Agustín Díaz Yanes delivers a gripping, action-packed but intellectually hollow thriller about an undercover woman police officer who infiltrates the Basque terrorist group ETA.

Nighttime Sounds

In wheatfields dotted with 800-year-old stone statues, hidden female desires burn in Zhang Zhongchen’s engrossing magical realist tale from the Chinese hinterlands.

Hidden Murder

Sleek, sophisticated and certifiably scary in parts, ‘Hidden Murder’ is a Spanish-Argentinian psychological thriller premiering in San Sebastian’s RTVE Galas sidebar.

A Scary Movie

Spanish-Brazilian director Sergio Oksman uses Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’ to reflect on the ghosts of his own life in the slender but intriguing hybrid documentary, ‘A Scary Movie;’.

Maspalomas

Love, lust and old age coalesce in the layered, emotionally charged queer comedy-drama ‘Maspalomas’, part of San Sebastián’s Official Selection.

Two Seasons, Two Strangers

Gently engaging the viewer with whimsical tales of two couples and reflections on the artistic process, Shô Miyake’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner ‘Two Seasons, Two Strangers’ skillfully plays a wide range of chords from melancholy to amusing, tragic to poetic.

Historias del buen valle

Autenticidad y buen humor en las manos de José Luis Guerin hacen de estás Historias una contendiente fuerte a la Concha de oro.

Good Valley Stories

The authenticity and good humor in José Luis Guerin’s documentary ‘Good Valley Stories’ make it a contender for San Sebastian’s Golden Shell.

Ballad of a Small Player

Colin Farrell gives a high-energy performance as a boozy con man gambling his life away in the casinos of Macau in director Edward Berger’s stylish but shallow thriller ‘Ballad of a Small Player’.

Cuerpo Celeste

Nayra Ilic Garcia’s minimalist, somewhat impenetrable coming-of-age tale about a 15-year-old Chilean girl, ‘Cuerpo Celeste’, is set during the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

Bad Apples

Saoirse Ronan and two child actors shine in the implausible but wildly funny UK comedy ‘Bad Apples’, screened in San Sebastián’s New Directors section.

Los domingos

La vida de una familia española de clase media se convulsiona cuando la hija de 17 años considera convertirse en monja de clausura en la astuta, divertida y frecuentemente conmovedora película ‘Los domingos’ de Alauda Ruiz de Azua.

Las corrientes

Las tensiones de la maternidad se desbordan en Las corrientes, un drama existencial y visualmente expresivo.

Sundays

The life of a middle-class Spanish family is turned upside down when the 17-year-old daughter considers becoming a cloistered nun in Alauda Ruiz de Azua’s sly, funny and frequently moving ‘Sundays’.

Ungrateful Beings

A holiday homicide triggers a family crisis in Olmo Omerzu’s compelling psychological thriller ‘Ungrateful Beings’, which is clunky in places but saved by its intriguing premise and strong cast.

SAI Disaster

A new-old take on a not very believable serial killer haunting Japan, ‘SAI Disaster’ emphasizes the ordinary, dull, problematic lives of his victims in Yutaro Seki and Kentaro Hirase’s unremarkable second collaboration.

Weightless

Danish director Emilie Thalund depicts teenage confusion with gentle precision in her feature debut ‘Weightless’.

Coutures

‘Coutures’ mixes sickness, war, high fashion and star power in its race for the Golden Shell at San Sebastian.

As We Breathe

A wildfire out of control in rural Turkey threatens the house, livestock and resourcefulness of a little girl and her motherless family in Seyhmus Altun’s low-key, high-anxiety drama ‘As We Breathe’.

Two Pianos

Music and obsessive love are the center of the compelling new Arnaud Desplechin film premiering in competition at SSIFF.

Hen

György Pálfi works with a plucky cast of real animals on ‘Hen’, a scrappy but technically impressive comic thriller about a rebellious bird on the run from the chicken-industrial complex.

Urchin

Harris Dickinson shows impressive directorial chops with the mental health drama ‘Urchin’, starring Frank Dillane.

La lucha

Un padre y una hija de clase trabajadora pertenecen a un grupo muy unido de luchadores tradicionales en La lucha, una historia inesperadamente extravagante y emocionalmente perfecta ambientada en las Islas Canarias.

Los tigres

Grandes actuaciones y buena realización salvan un guion previsible in ‘Los tigres’.

The Tigers

Great performances and good direction save a predictable script in Alberto Rodriguez’s thriller ‘The Tigers’, bowing in competition at San Sebastian.

Dance of the Living

A working class father and daughter belong to a close-knit group of traditional wrestlers in an unexpectedly flamboyant, emotionally pitch-perfect story set on the Canary Islands, ‘Dance of the Living’.

Redoubt

Writer director John Skoog casts Denis Lavant as a real-life backwoods eccentric from Swedish history in his dramatically thin but compellingly bizarre Cold War drama ‘Redoubt’.

El mensaje

La película de Iván Fund – minimalista y en tono bajo- sobre una joven argentina con un don especial se centra en atmósfera y matices.

San Sebastian 2025: The Female Touch

Women are prominently featured at San Sebastián 2025, from the poster to the subject of the Retrospective, and beyond.

The Stranger

François Ozon gives much-loved Albert Camus novel ‘L’Étranger’ a chic retro-modernist polish in this sumptuously shot adaptation of a French literary classic.

Six Days in Spring

Joachim Lafosse tells the story of an unusual vacation in the autobiographical and subtly surprising ‘Six Days in Spring’.

One Battle After Another

Sprawling and intimate, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest takes on sweeping political and personal ideas with equal assurance.

An Interview with Anders Thomas Jensen

The prolific Danish screenwriter and director, Anders Thomas Jensen, talks about his latest wander into the weird with Mads Mikkelsen, ‘The Last Viking.’

The Long Walk

An impressive ensemble of young actors and taut filmmaking makes this adaptation of Stephen King’s death-march saga gripping and grim.

Our Father

Addiction and religion clash in ‘Our Father’, a powerful drama about getting clean under the eye of God.

Good Boy

‘Good Boy’ delivers a delightfully strange tale about the limits of parenthood.

Winter of the Crow

Lesley Manville sees history unfold in front of her eyes in the uneven Cold War thriller ‘Winter of the Crow.’

Whitetail

A patience-testing, slow-burn drama about trauma and grief that offers little reward for sticking it out.

The Currents

The tensions of motherhood overflow in the existential, visually expressive drama ‘The Currents’.

To the Victory!

Valentyn Vasyanovych imagines post-war Ukraine with both hope and fear in the compellingly meta drama, ‘To the Victory!’