It’s one of the evergreen rituals of the Holidays: going to the movies with friends, family or children. The Newyorker has chosen for you the ten movies you absolutely must not miss at Christmas (find the last five here).
It is hardly a Christmas classic, yet The Brutalist, due out Dec. 20, was one of the (nice) surprises at Venice 81, where it earned an impressive 12 minutes of standing ovation. Directed by Brady Corbet and starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, it is a drama lasting more than 3 hours that follows the life of a Hungarian Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust as he tries to rebuild his career in the States.
Then, on Dec. 25, four more movies debut in theaters that are all must-see.
The first one I want to tell you about is Vermiglio, the work by Italian director Maura Delpero that won the Silver Lion at Venice 81 and is the Italian film nominated for the upcoming Academy Awards. Set in a mountain village in the last year of World War II, it tells the story of a small farming community that welcomes the arrival of a soldier from the South seeking refuge.
Quite different is the long-awaited Nosferatu, Robert Eggers’ film that revisits the vampire myth by posing as a remake of the 1922 silent classic, Nosferatu the Vampire. The story is still more or less the one we already know, starring Nicholas Hoult and Lily-Rose Depp, joined by Bill Skarsgård as the Transylvanian count under whose identity the blood-sucking monster hides, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Willem Dafoe.
Instead, Timothée Chalamet stars in A Complete Unknown the James Mangold biopic that chronicles several years in the life of the young Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan. Based on the biography Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald, it begins in New York in 1961 and focuses on the artist’s transition from the folk scene to rock played on electric instruments, which confused and disappointed many of his fans. Chalamet said he himself sang the Dylan songs we will hear in the film, the cast also includes Monica Barbaro as singer Joan Baez, Edward Norton as folk singer Peter Seeger and Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, while Elle Fanning plays an artist and college student with whom the young Dylan had an affair.
Least but not last, Christmas Day also sees the arrival of Better Man, a live-action musical tracing the life and career of British pop superstar Robbie Williams. Signed by Michael Gracey, who also co-wrote the screenplay, the film is told from the perspective of Williams himself with a great display of irony: the actor who plays him-from his debut with the boy band Take That to his solo successes, downfalls and rebirth-is Jonno Davies transformed into a CGI monkey.
The article The ten must-see Holiday 2024 movies at the cinema (part two) comes from TheNewyorker.
