Foyer Reviews is back! This fortnightly series highlights films from various eras and genres, providing you with a weekly dose of movie inspiration.
If you have ever found yourself mindlessly scrolling through Letterboxd, letting your watchlist catch dust and certain nothing your friends are watching is worth your time, Foyer Reviews is the series for you. The rules are simple: The movie watchers take turns in picking a movie exclusively from their watchlist and no one is allowed to complain or change the movie, regardless of their personal feelings about it. This way everyone involved is always exposed to something new whether they want to or not.
Here are our movies from the first part of November:
Halloween (1978)
Director: John Carpenter
Year: 1978
Runtime: ~92 min
Main cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence
Summary: A masked murderer, Michael Myers, escapes from a mental institution and returns to his hometown on Halloween night to terrorize a babysitter and her friends.
Review: We began the month with a classic. Horror is a genre I rarely dabble in simply because I am a scaredy cat and have a vivid imagination that transforms the dark into something terrifying. That being said, I loved this movie dearly. Every aspect that makes this movie as important to cinema as it is, has already been written and discussed a thousand times, but the one thing that stood out to me was how fast the 91 minute runtime passed. It is a script that is supposed to leave you breathless and Tommy Lee Wallace and Charles Bornstein waste no space in the editing, ensuring that I felt pressure in my chest from beginning to end.
Crimson Peak (2015)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Year: 2015
Runtime: 119 min
Main cast: Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston
Summary: An aspiring author moves into a decaying Gothic mansion with her new husband and his sister, only to uncover haunted secrets.
Review: I wanted to watch ‘Crimson Peak’ before the release of Frankenstein on Netflix to hopefully help me spot things I missed in my original cinema viewing. And while I’m not sure if I got that out of ‘Crimson Peak’ necessarily, I did certainly remember how much I miss Mia Wasikowska on my screen. Her ability to blend in with the otherworldly and hold my hand through fantastical stories remains unrivalled by any other actor working today. Outside of that, I really loved that movie. Guillermo Del Toro’s progression from Crimson Peak to The Shape of Water always felt like he was sharpening of his tools to make his magnum opus.
Frankenstein (2025)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Year: 2025
Runtime: ~149 min
Main cast: Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth
Summary: Driven scientist Victor Frankenstein brings a creature to life, leading to devastating consequences for both creator and creation.
Review: I have already written a detailed review of Frankenstein. I will use this space to pad out a certain aspect of the online discourse that is not touched upon in my initial review: If you expect a faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s work, you have cornered yourself into not liking this movie from the get go. The movie is not a faithful adaptation nor is it trying or ever claimed to be. To say that Guillermo Del Toro is a man, hence incapable of telling that story, silences his heritage and point of view for what is largely a critique coming from women that do not share the same cultural experiences. It is not a movie that reflects European stories, it reflects a Mexican filmmaker’s journey.
The Conformist (1970)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Year: 1970
Runtime: 113 min
Main cast: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli
Summary: A weak-willed man joins the Fascist secret police to appear “normal,” and is tasked with assassinating his former professor.
Review: An exceptional movie that is quite relevant to the political state of our world today. Often, we judge political opponents as extremists in their beliefs, but conveniently forget those who mould themselves and benefit from whatever is in power. Bernardo Bertolucci tells a frustrating tale in a way that could only be described in modern cinema as Lynchian. While there are no records of Lynch ever mentioning the movie, its surrealistic plot, almost dreamlike visuals and surprisingly queer commentary, leave you feeling as if you have watched the first grade source inspiration for what David Lynch would become. In three words: a must-watch.
Saltburn (2023)
Director: Emerald Fennell
Year: 2023
Runtime: 131 min
Main cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi
Summary: A socially awkward Oxford student becomes obsessed with a charismatic aristocrat and is invited into his eccentric family’s world.
Review: I have a particularly difficult time digesting Emerald Fennel’s work. Not because I find it grotesque or disturbing, but simply because it reads as an early 2000s front page magazine scandal title – empty. Perhaps, that is the point, but I found this movie to pull me in three different contradictory directions with very little to help me make out what was the point. The movie is gorgeous, but it is generally difficult to have an ugly movie where Linus Sandgren is involved. Jacob Elordi puts on a sweet performance and Barry Keoghan does drive the weirdness home, but my question still remains – why?
Inside Man (2006)
Director: Spike Lee
Year: 2006
Runtime: 129 min
Main cast: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen
Summary: A tough detective negotiates with a brilliant bank robber during an intricately orchestrated heist full of hidden agendas.
Review: A Spike Lee joint for sure. I had an incredible time watching this movie. It is fast, it does not encourage you to root for either side of the conflict and by the end you end up thinking to yourself: ‘Denzel Washington and Clive Owen should have done a hundred movies together before Owen disappeared from the spotlight.’ The thrill largely relies on the two actors to convince you of their chemistry until their characters begin blurring the lines. The score by Terence Blanchard threads and brings the movie to life, keeping the playful vibe throughout an otherwise tense situation. It also brings up who at Netflix watched this and thought they can make Money Heist.
Little Women (2019)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Year: 2019
Runtime: 135 min
Main cast: Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh
Summary: The March sisters navigate love, ambition, and family as they grow up in post–Civil War New England.
Review: After putting it off for years, I finally tackled the last of the 2020 Oscar Best Feature Film nominees, which is surprising as this movie is right up my alley – an adaptation of a classic novel. Perhaps, it was because I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. Happy to announce, I did enjoy it. I found the movie moving, especially the balance between Florence Pugh’s performance as Amy and Soirise Ronan as Jo. They kept the heart of the movie beating. I have some technical issues with it, but they are mostly stylistic and are not really grievances as opposed to personal preferences.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Director: Robert Wiene
Year: 1920
Runtime: 74 min
Main cast: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt
Summary: A hypnotist manipulates a sleepwalker to commit murders, unraveling a surreal tale of control and madness.
Review: If you watch one movie off this list, let it be this one. If you cannot grit your teeth through silent cinema, I’m afraid I’ll have to revoke your cinephile card. The way Mary Shelley is foundational to the genre of science fiction, Robert Wiene’ ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligar’ is foundational to the genre of horror. A single watch through this riveting piece of cinema is enough to begin noticing its influence in almost any film – from Eggers to Scorsese. It is an impressive 72 minutes and it does not waste a second of it.
Bugonia (2025)
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Year: 2025
Runtime: 118 min
Main cast: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone
Summary: Two conspiracy-obsessed men kidnap a powerful CEO, convinced she’s an alien plotting humanity’s demise.
Review: Bugonia is a movie inspired by the Korean classic ‘Save the Green Planet’ from 2003 and if you’ve watched enough Korean cinema, you can tell. Korean cinema carries a certain flare for the off-beat that is very difficult to replicate. Luckily, western cinema has Yorgos Lanthimos to carry that torch and he does not replicate the vibe of the original, but almost succeeds at making it entirely his own. It seems he has reached a flow state between him and his collaborators, all encapsulated to the viewer through Emma Stone. However, I think this level of comfort is reaching stages where his movies are beginning to feel a bit safe for my liking.
Priscilla (2023)
Director: Sofia Coppola
Year: 2023
Runtime: 114 min
Main cast: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi
Summary: A portrait of Priscilla Presley’s life and her complicated relationship with Elvis from their first meeting through her rise into adulthood.
Review: I wrapped the first half of the month with Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla. It’s one of those movies that had been sitting in my watchlist for years, collecting dust until I reluctantly decided that it’s now or never. And perhaps, it had been sitting there for a reason as I subconsciously knew this movie is not more me. Its muted colours and airtight pace managed to paint across the reproachable behaviour of Elvis Presley towards a young Priscilla Beaulieu, thanks to the stellar performance of Cailee Spaeny in the titular role and Jacob Elordi’s support as Elvis. However, I could not stop thinking that while the screenplay held the perpetrator of the situation accountable, the visuals romanticised it, which is most likely due to the style of filmmaking Coppola is associated with.
