Touted as one of the most promising line-ups in the festival’s history, this year’s slate ultimately proved a broadly solid if generally unexceptional selection, with no obvious breakout hit akin to 2019’s Parasite among the competition for the Palme d’Or. We saw a lot of films. Not all of which we had time to write about at length, but you can read our thoughts on the good, great and truly terrible that didn’t make the Total Film top 10 in our review of Cannes 2022.

As for the crème de la crème, the picks of the Palme, put these at the top of your list when they finally release in cinemas – every one is well worth your time (note: Top Gun: Maverick and Men have been omitted, despite receiving 5* reviews from TF, as both premiered and we’re reviewed by us ahead of Cannes Film Festival). Without further ado, here’s the Total Film top 10 of Cannes 2022.

Close

The movie: In provincial Belgium, a pair of 13-year-old boys find the bond they have had since childhood put to the test when a new school year starts. Embarrassed by Rémi’s neediness, Léo rejects him in favour of new alliances and pastimes. Then something happens that forces him to face up to the consequences of his actions.

Our verdict: Sensitive, graceful and impeccably restrained, Lukas Dhont’s heartbreaking story of two childhood pals drifting apart belongs to a long and noble tradition of poignant coming of agers. The way he gets us to root for and invest in his youthful characters, only to then deliver a devastatingly emotional sucker punch, is more than a tad manipulative. As with his 2018 debut feature Girl, though, this is all in the service of fostering a greater empathy for those who don’t conform and are cruelly ostracized for it.

Read our full review of Close.

Decision To Leave

The movie: After a mountain climber falls to his death, a South Korean detective interviews the dead man’s wife and finds her curiously unimpacted by the fact she has just become a widow. Suspecting foul play the cop sets out to investigate, only to develop a romantic obsession with this mysterious femme fatale that puts his own marriage at risk.

Our verdict: Hitchcock vibes abound in Park Chan-wook’s melodrama, an achingly romantic throwback to the noirs of yesteryear that infuses a contemporary crime thriller with a distinctly retro vibe. Elegant visuals, a Hermannesque score and sophisticated costumes all contribute to the nostalgic mood, while modern devices like fitness apps and Siri are playfully incorporated into its narrative. A drawn-out second half, though, does make the film feel at least 20 minutes too long.

Read our full review of Decision To Leave.

Elvis

The movie: Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll spans 30 years of Elvis Aaron Presley’s tragically curtailed life, from formative early encounters with gospel and rhythm & blues music to his untimely death from heart disease at the age of just 42.

Our verdict: A trad but terrifically enjoyable musical biopic with swagger to spare, and a star-making central performance from Austin Butler. Luhrmann is one of cinema’s great, sincere showmen and he tackles the Elvis story with typically exuberant aplomb, striking just the right balance of bombast and character beats. It’ll leave you all shook up.

Read our full review of Elvis.

Falcon Lake

The movie: French actor Charlotte Le Bon makes her directorial debut with this adaptation of Bastien Vivès’ bande dessinée Une Soeur, about a 13-year old Bastien and 16-year-old Chloe, who share a sexual awakening summer romance while holidaying with their families on the Manitoba beauty spot. 

Our verdict: Shot in full-frame, sun-kissed soft-focus, Le Bon’s bittersweet ode to young love is a nostalgic and effortlessly charming two-hander, with a pair of perfectly judged performances from the age-mismatched leads. Remarkably assured behind the camera, Le Bon locates gently spooky overtones that payoff with haunting consequences. Up there with The Lost Daughter and Booksmart as the best actor-turned-director debuts in recent memory.

Funny Pages

The movie: A wannabe cartoonist drops out of high school and impulsively moves to the city. Having found dirt-cheap accommodation in a sweltering basement, he strikes up a friendship with a volatile loner who used to work in comic books in the hope he will help him follow in the footsteps of his artistic heroes.

Our verdict: Directed by Owen Kline, son of actor Kevin and a protégé of the Safdie brothers, this rough-and-ready rite-of-passage comedy appears to have a direct line to the scrappy energy of early 1970s cinema. Grainy Super 16mm photography gives it a hand-made quality akin to a film school short, while an extended farcical set-piece set around a calamitous Christmas dinner ends things on a high. As funny as Funny Pages is, though, it has a sad pathos that gives every laugh a tinge of tragic despair.

Read our full review of Funny Pages.

Holy Spider

The movie: In early 2000s Iran, a former soldier turned construction worker is murdering sex workers in the belief he is doing God’s holy work. Frustrated by the authorities’ lackadaisical attitude, reporter Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) makes it her mission to bring this opportunistic serial killer to justice.

Our verdict: Reminiscent of Zodiac, Manhunter and the 1967 film adaption of In Cold Blood, Ali Abbasi’s fact-based crime thriller is a grimly compelling procedural that starkly sets out the toxicity of zealotry fuelled by misogyny. Making a fictionalized, composite female character so central to its plotline is problematic, as are the graphic scenes depicting violence against women. For the most part, though, this is a clinical, angry slice of filmmaking that takes an entire society to task for its heartless complicity.

Read our full review of Holy Spider. 

Leila’s Brothers

The movie: Said Roustayi’s dense family drama weaves a complex tapestry of tradition and the struggle for a better life in modern day Tehran. Leila has a plan to lift her four layabout brothers out of poverty by opening a shop – easy enough if it weren’t for their stubbornly unhelpful father and Trump’s economy-tanking Tweets.

Our verdict: Possessing the ability to grip like a great stage story, and managing to whip along at pace despite clocking in at nearly 3hrs, Roustayi’s arresting way with dialogue is matched only by his colourful and believably tight-knit cast. Like a great Asghar Farhadi morality play, but funnier. 

Moonage Daydream

The movie: Part concert film, part psychedelic art installation, part elliptical account of the major stages in David Bowie’s artistic evolution, Moonage Daydream defies documentary convention to create something thrillingly unique in the space.

Our verdict: Narratively, there’s just enough of a throughline for those with even the bare minimum of background biographical info to keep up with what can generously be called a story here. But where the film really sings (literally) is the stunning remastered performance footage, remixed in multi-channel surround sound from Bowie’s original stems. It’s like hearing Bowie anew.

Read our full review of Moonage Daydream.

Return To Seoul

The movie: A young woman who was born in Korea, adopted as a child and raised by a white couple in France returns to the country of her birth to reconnect with her roots. Over a number of years she forms an attachment to the father she has never known while trying to get in touch with the mother who gave her up.

Our verdict: Low-key, naturalistic and resolutely unemphatic, Davy Shou’s portrait of cultural dislocation doesn’t set out to win the viewer’s affection any more than its heroine does. Slowly, though, it grows on you, avoiding easy epiphanies and pat resolutions in its search for a deeper meaning and resonance. As Frédérique, aka Freddie, Park Ji-min gives us a protagonist who is prickly, spiteful and generally pretty exasperating. That we end up falling for her regardless is a testament to the film’s capacity to beguile.

Triangle Of Sadness

The movie: A glamorous social influencer and her model boyfriend are offered a free cruise on a luxury yacht. Their fellow passengers are a rogue’s gallery of Russian oligarchs, arms dealers and tech nerds. When the ship capsizes and they are stranded on a desert island, though, wealth and privilege count for nothing.

Our verdict: Darkly funny, narratively daring and cuttingly satirical, Ruben Östlund’s follow-up to his Palme d’Or-winning The Square is every bit as pointed as the geometrical polygon in its title. Not since Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life has so much puke been spewed in the service of comedy, while the ideological divisions between Woody Harrelson’s boozy captain, the yacht’s obsequious crew members and its pampered clientele makes it resemble nothing so much as Downton Abbey At Sea.

Read our full review of Triangle Of Sadness.

Apart from Elvis (out in the UK and US on 24 June), none of the films mentioned in this article currently have a UK or US release date. For more coverage from Cannes 2022, check out our review of Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, through that link.

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The Call, a 2013 thriller starring Halle Berry as an emergency operator dealing with the kidnapping of a teenage girl, is currently the most-watched movie on Netflix in the US.

In response to the news, Berry said on Twitter (opens in new tab), “….so ‘The Call’ is the No. 1 movie on @Netflix right now, nearly 10 years after its release. Are y’all OK?”

The Call was a modest success at the box office upon its release, garnering just shy of $70m. The critics were similarly cool on the release. It’s at 44% – officially ‘Rotten’ – on movie aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, though it fared a little better with audiences at 65%.

That popularity, seemingly, has continued to grow over the years. Those who came to the movie late have even being sharing their reactions on social media.

“The Call on Netflix was a phenomenally made movie with a shitty ending,” lamented one viewer (opens in new tab). Another said (opens in new tab), “My god this is one of the scariest (in a thrilling sense) movies I’ve ever seen.”

One wrote, (opens in new tab) “I love that Netflix put The Call on their platform, I forgot how amazing this movie is.” Hilariously, some assumed (opens in new tab) it was “something new” – proving that Netflix can give a second chance on streaming to even some of the most forgotten movies.

For more from the streamer, be sure to check out our curated lists: here are the best Netflix shows and best Netflix movies you should be watching right now.

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Created by Sarah Streicher and executive produced by showrunner Amy Harris, the show – which follows multiple timelines – centers on a group of teenagers, all from different backgrounds, who sign up for a young women’s empowerment retreat. They find themselves stranded, though, after the plane that was supposedly taking them to Hawaii crashes into the ocean. 

Soon, it becomes clear that the girls are test subjects in a potentially deadly social experiment – only they don’t know it yet. As the fight to survive, flashbacks provide insight into each of their lives before the accident, while flashforwards see the ultimate survivors recount the ordeal to two men claiming to be FBI agents.

The Wilds’ season 1 finale saw flashforward Leah (Sarah Pidgeon) discover a room of monitors that revealed that the organization behind the social experiment has also been running a boys-only version, too. In the season 2 trailer, the girls can be seen making contact with their male counterparts, but will their union prove to be a good thing or not?

“We all started wanting to be things,” new character Rafael (Zack Calderon) can be heard saying in the promo. “We wanted to be men but the truth is… some of us were becoming monsters.”

“We couldn’t see them, we could hear them,” Toni (Erana James) states in another scene, as puppet master Gretchen Klein (Rachel Griffiths) argues that the boys “were the perfect control group” and that “there’s no question they imploded”. Given all the shots of them fighting, we think she might be right…

The video ends with Dot (Shannon Berry) creeping up behind Rafael and grabbing his mouth, as she whispers forcefully: “Don’t scream.” 

Sophia Ali, Jenna Clause, Mia Healey, and Reign Edwards also reprise their roles as Fatin, Martha, Shelby, and Rachel respectively. Other new names joining the cast this season include Aidan Laprete, Charles Alexander, Nicholas Coombe, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Tanner Ray Rook, Reed Shannon, and Alex Fitzalan. 

The Wilds season 2 is set to premiere on Prime Video on May 6. In the meantime, why not check out our roundup of the best shows on Amazon Prime available to stream right now, and pad out your to-watch list.

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Described as a psychological thriller that will take listeners on a “new journey deep into the mind of Bruce Wayne,” in Batman Unburied listeners are introduced to a Batman who is a forensic pathologist in his civilian life, “working in the bowels of Gotham Hospital” and tasked with examining the victims of The Harvester, a Gotham City serial killer.

Winston’s Wayne has to navigate a series of dark twists and turns with some classic Batman villains and face his own mental demons to save the citizens of Gotham from The Harvester.

Spotify, Warner Bros., and DC have released a US version of the trailer.

Batman Unburied will premiere globally with eight adaptations of the original English-language script for Brazil, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, and Mexico. Each version will feature local original talent and production teams, and the adapted scripts are specifically crafted to “reflect the culture and language that remains true to the core story.”

Executive produced by David S. Goyer, Winston is joined in the lead role in its other international versions by Rocco Pitanga (Brazil), Dali Benssalah (France), Murathan Muslu (Germany), Amit Sadh (India), Ario Bayu (Indonesia), Claudio Santamaria (Italy), Ryohei Otani (Japan), and Alfonso Herrera (Mexico).

“With the global launch of Batman Unburied, we are excited to bring the iconic franchise and the legacy of Batman to our hundreds of millions of listeners around the world,” said Dawn Ostroff, Spotify’s chief content & advertising business officer. “Through our extraordinary partnership with Warner Bros. and DC, we have the unique opportunity to usher in a new era of the universally beloved DC Super Heroes through the world of audio, voiced by all-star casts. The power of podcasts has never been more evident than it is with David Goyer’s spine-chilling soundscape masterpiece that tells the transcendent story of the one and only Bruce Wayne.”

As previously announced Batman Unburied will be the first of a series of Spotify narrative podcasts featuring DC characters.

Batman stories in podcast form is a pretty new thing. Check out the biggest changes to Batman over his 80-year history.

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“I’m really thinking that what Neumeier and I, at this moment, want to do with this script, Young Sinner, will be an innovative version of movies like Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct,” Verhoeven told Moviemaker (opens in new tab). “And it would not be adding all kinds of digital elements. As little as possible.”

Basic Instinct is the director’s 1992 erotic thriller, which starred Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, while Fatal Attraction was directed by Adrian Lyne and also starred Douglas opposite Glenn Close.  

“Young Sinner is a political thriller set in Washington, D.C.,” Neumeier added. “Our heroine, a young staffer who works for a powerful Senator, is drawn into a web of international intrigue and danger, and of course there is also a little sex.”

Verhoeven said the upcoming movie would be similar to two other thrillers he directed in the last couple of decades, 2006’s Black Book and 2016’s Elle. His last movie was Benedetta, about a love affair between two 17th Century nuns, which is already out in the US and is set to release in the UK next spring.

While we wait for Young Sinner to hit the big screen, check out our list of the other upcoming movies to get excited about in 2021 and beyond.

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Ahmed plays Malik, a Marine Corp veteran who goes on the run with his two young sons after an alien threat comes to Earth. While Encounter – directed by Michael Pearce, best known for Beast – is grounded on our planet, there’s sci-fi imagery throughout; helicopters look like UFOs and the desert seems like an alien landscape. Yet, Ahmed is adamant that this is not simply a sci-fi movie. “It’s about something more pressing than sci-fi, which is about our society right now,” Ahmed says. 

“If I give you an example, where we were shooting this film on set, everyone behind the camera was wearing a biohazard suit, the sky was bright red on fire on some Blade Runner vibe because of the California forest fires, and there was civil unrest everywhere because of a contested election. Now, that feels apocalyptic, that feels sci-fi, but it’s not, it’s right now. So I would say this film gives you the scale and scope and imagination of the genre, but it’s actually about right here, right now. And it’s all the better for it.”

Ahmed rose to prominence after appearing in the dark comedy Four Lions, and he’s gone on to appear in Hollywood movies like Nightcrawler, Star Wars: Rogue One, and Venom. He reveals that he worked collaboratively with Pearce on honing the details of his character – Malik was named Marcus in the original version of the script, but that changed after Ahmed was cast.

“I saw an opportunity here to pitch myself for this role, when, maybe, one wouldn’t normally think of an actor like me in a role like this,” he says. “And now that includes me, I wouldn’t normally think of myself in this kind of role. So I challenged myself and challenged Michael [Pearce] to reconsider. And he saw it the same way I did… And so the character’s name changed from Marcus to Malik, and suddenly his alienation from society took on a different shade. And the way that his interactions with law enforcement go down suddenly became more perilous. And it just really enriched the story.”

Ahmed spoke to ex-US Special Forces to prepare for his role as a veteran. “Malik is somebody who comes back from war with many different kinds of scars, some physical, some mental, and from my research what I noticed is that that’s very common,” he says. “Unfortunately, of course, there’s the destruction, the devastation in invaded countries. There’s also a devastation that’s brought back home with returning war veterans and an epidemic of illnesses, both mental and physical, in countries like [the UK] and the United States off the back of these 20 years of war.”

He adds: “What I found is that, yes, there’s the injuries you have in the battlefield, but then there’s also the second injury you can have of coming back home and not feeling you fit into society, feeling like you’re unwanted in a place that you helped defend. That alienation is something that really runs through our story and runs through Malik as a character.”

While you could argue that Ahmed is the lead in this movie, it’s safe to say that he shares that mantle with the two actors who play Malik’s young sons. Bobby (Aditya Geddada) and Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) are the heart of the movie – they’re Malik’s motivation for the increasingly erratic decisions he makes as the story progresses, and the relationship between father and sons is the key to the heart of the film.

On working with Geddada, who plays the youngest of the two, Ahmed says: “He improvised almost all of his lines, he was just throwing stuff in all the time, just keeping us on our toes. Some days, if you were boring him in a scene, he would yawn in your face, so you had to really keep him there. What we discovered is, if you wanted him to do a more intense scene, give him more Skittles. If you want him to do a more chilled-out scene, wait till the sugar crash. But he’s a firecracker and has this really punk ethos.”

And what about Chauhan, who plays the older of the two boys? “He is so wise beyond his years. I’m learning from him… He has such a command over what he does from such a young age, it’s crazy, so I would go home wanting to push myself harder seeing the commitment he brought to the table. It was amazing working with them both. They say don’t work with children or animals. I don’t think it’s because it’s difficult – it’s because what’s difficult is that they’re better than you, so you have to keep on pushing yourself to bring the same honesty and authenticity that young actors bring on screen.”

Ahmed has no shortage of variety under his belt when it comes to previous roles and projects. However, Encounter is the first time he’s played a father on-screen, which he admits was a slightly daunting prospect. “That’s also what Malik is feeling. Malik is feeling, ‘Can I be a dad? Am I cut out for this? Will the kids accept me as their dad?’ And I was having those thoughts as an actor, so when you start having the same thoughts as your character’s having, without even meaning to, that’s a good sign. I could bring my own insecurity about playing a father into this character who has insecurities about playing the father, because he hasn’t seen his kids for years, he’s returning home, he’s seeing they don’t trust him. And so that was useful in a way. I always try and take on roles that scare me in some way because I know that I will be a little bit out of my depth.”

Encounter is released in theaters on December 3 before arriving on Amazon Prime Video on December 10. In the meantime, check out our list of the best movies on Amazon Prime that you can stream right now.

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No Time To Die finally arrives six years after Daniel Craig’s last Bond adventure, Spectre (the second biggest gap between films since the series began in 1962, eclipsed only by the hiatus between Licence To Kill and GoldenEye). This being the swansong for Daniel Craig’s take on the character, it was always going to be laden with expectation, something that the Covid delays and its appointment as the potential savior of cinema have only intensified. 

After such a long wait, you certainly get a lot of bang for your buck (it’s 15 minutes shy of three hours), and for fans of Craig’s run as the character, there’s plenty here to satisfy. Yes, it largely adheres to the formula that’s the franchise’s blessing and curse: you get spectacle galore in terms of action set-pieces, incredibly shot locations, and attractive characters wearing the hell out of killer costumes. While the conventions can occasionally feel confining, there are enough significant deviations to make this entry stand out.

It’s a somewhat front-loaded affair, kicking off with not one, but two prologues. The first, introducing baddie Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) is the closest that the series has yet come to horror. After that, it’s to Matera, Italy, to where Bond is heading with Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), following the events of Spectre. Of course, their luxury getaway doesn’t stay peaceful for long, erupting into another of the film’s standout sequences, featuring motorcycle leaps and a minigun-firing Aston, ahead of the obligatory title sequence.

Five years later, the agent formerly known as 007 is enjoying a retirement of sorts in Jamaica. But if he thinks he’s out, former CIA contact Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, returning to the franchise for the first time since Quantum Of Solace) pulls him back in, showing up to rope him into the hunt for a rogue scientist who is the key to a very powerful weapon…

Director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts Of No Nation, True Detective S1) took over after Danny Boyle bowed out, and manages to find a nice balance between hitting the Bond checklist, and also incorporating stylistic flourishes that prevent it feeling stale, from some immersive audio design to riveting action sequences that leave you shaken without sacrificing clarity. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s contributions to the script originally written by series stalwarts Neal Purvis and Robert Wade and Fukunaga aren’t particularly noticeable, although might go some way to explaining a Hugh Dennis cameo.

Craig’s final film doesn’t do much to interrogate Bond’s relevance in the modern world. Yes, his position has been filled by new 00 Nomi (Lashana Lynch), but their tension doesn’t go beyond light banter (and Lynch is never quite as compelling as you’d hope, given her position as a potential baton-carrier). Instead, it’s largely down to Bond to do what he does best, no expense spared.

If there’s a real disappointment here, it’s in Malek’s villain. Lacking presence, and overdoing the sneer, the Bohemian Rhapsody Oscar winner proves to be an underwhelming foil, and the motivation for his nefarious scheme feels flimsily sketched. The character’s apparent age, and how that relates to the timeline of another character, is also cause for distraction.

Thankfully, the film has enough up its sleeve to compensate. There are some sincere and nicely judged nods to Bond’s cinematic history – from classic cars to musical cues (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service admirers might get a lump in their throat from an early musical cue and beyond). M (Ralph Fiennes) and Q (Ben Whishaw) are also given a little room to reveal additional layers: with a brief but gratifying glimpse at the latter’s home life, and the MI6 chief finding himself in an awkward position morally, and apoplectically at odds with Bond. Best of all the newbies is Ana de Armas’ Paloma, making maximum impact with her limited screen time. She’s a fun, frisky delight as James Bond’s purportedly novice contact in Cuba, where another standout shootout takes place. She has more fun than anyone’s had over Craig’s five movies. Throw in some nifty gadgets, a prescient MacGuffin and vehicles of every description, and starved fans are extremely well served.

Craig is also given just what he needs, with a performance that offers a fitting end to his tenure, ensuring that he’ll be forever jostling for a place at the top of those Best Bond lists. (At least three shirtless scenes in the opening 20 mins also re-confirm his status as buffest Bond). His chemistry with Seydoux may never quite match what he had out of the gate with Eva Green’s Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, but No Time To Die plays to his strengths, giving his tough but tender Bond a memorable and fittingly stirring finale.

No Time To Die is in UK cinemas from September 30 and US theaters from October 8. For more on Bond, check out our extended interviews with the cast on the making of No Time To Die.

The Verdict

4

4 out of 5

No Time To Die review: “A fitting end to Daniel Craig’s tenure as James Bond”

Even a disappointing villain can’t detract from a bold, satisfying climax to Daniel Craig’s time in the tux.

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In a tweet (opens in new tab) earlier today, primary developer The Initiative told fans that “we are partnering with Crystal Dynamics, the world-class team being character-driven games such as Tomb Raider, to bring this first-person spy thriller to a new generation.” In a follow-up tweet, the company said that the project was “still early in development,” so we’re unlikely to see the fruits of this partnership for a little while yet.

In its own set of tweets (opens in new tab), Crystal Dynamics expressed its excitement at “reimagining” the heroes of Perfect Dark alongside The Initiative, and that work on the title would take place “alongside Marvel’s Avengers and Tomb Raider.” When it comes to Lara Croft, the studio has already stated that it’s working on the next Tomb Raider game, announcing in January that a reveal was likely to be a long way off.

Rumors around a new Perfect Dark project surfaced almost a year before an official announcement during The Game Awards 2020. Back then, studio head Darrell Gallagher told fans that The Initiative had “built the Perfect Dark team […] by bringing in some of the most talented game makers from around the industry who all share a passion for storytelling, world-building, and creating memorable game experiences.”

There’s still no word on a release date, and development on the reboot is thought to still be in the very early stages. When the new Perfect Dark arrives, however, it’s a pretty safe bet that it’ll be available on PC and Xbox consoles.

While you wait, here’s a list of upcoming Xbox Series X games to get excited about.

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Taking place over the course of one morning in a 911 dispatch call center, demoted LAPD officer Joe (Gyllenhaal) receives an emergency call from a mother who’s been abducted. However, things are not all as they seem.  

The trailer doesn’t give much away – tense and claustrophobic, we see Joe at his desk. He takes a call and asks for the address of the caller’s emergency. “I just wanna talk to you,” the voice at the end of the phone says. It turns out that the woman is pretending to talk to her child – she’s been abducted and her kidnapper doesn’t know she’s on the phone to 911. That is, until she slips up, and the line goes dead. Joe then takes it upon himself to save her – but the truth is more complicated than it first appears. 

Directed by Antoine Fuqua, who previously helmed movies including Training Day and The Magnificent Seven, the movie also stars Ethan Hawke, Riley Keough, Paul Dano, and Peter Sarsgaard. Gyllenhaal is also on board as a producer and the movie is a remake of the 2018 Danish thriller of the same name.

The Guilty premieres at Toronto International Film Festival this month, before releasing on Netflix on October 1. While we wait for the movie to arrive on the streamer, check out our list of the best Netflix thrillers that you can watch right now.

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So, let’s make sense of it all. Below, we’ll run through all of the story beats in Reminiscence’s final act as the sprawling noir tale snares multiple main characters and includes a final scene that might feel too out of left-field for some.

As a bonus, there’s even some commentary from director Lisa Joy – including whether the fate of Nick (Hugh Jackman) and Watts (Thandiwe Newton) is a happy one.

• Read our full interview with Reminiscence director Lisa Joy and actor Daniel Wu

Reminscence ending explained: your biggest questions answered

Who was Mae?

Throughout Reminiscence, Nick is chasing the ghost of a memory – that of femme fatale/lover Mae (Rebecca Ferguson).

As Nick slowly uncovers throughout the runtime, Mae has several secrets of her own and their ‘chance’ meeting was anything but.

Not only is she a recovering addict who falls in with some seriously bad company in New Orleans, she has hatched a plan with rogue cop Cyrus to take the memories of Elsa from Nick’s vault. Why? As it turns out, Elsa was the mistress of Walter, one of Miami’s infamous Barons. She’s even hiding a dark secret: a son that only Walter knows about.

When Walter dies, Mae falls in league with Walter’s (legitimate) son Sebastian to help kill his half-brother.

Mae, though, shows her true colors – and has a change of heart. She steals the son away from under Cyrus’ nose and whisks him off to an unknown location. Knowing that her memory is a powerful tool in the wrong hands, she deliberately overdoses and throws herself off a balcony. A sad end for a tragic figure.

So, who was Mae? Reminiscence paints her as several people: addict, Nick’s lover, and one of the movie’s minor antagonists. Ultimately, she is someone who was forced to double cross Nick after falling on hard times, but her true feelings for Hugh Jackman’s lead got in the way.

How did Nick find Walter’s son?

Mae tells him. But, of course, this is Reminiscence. The medium of the message is a little more complicated than that.

Knowing Nick would rifle through Cyrus’ memories, Mae tells Cyrus in the past that he knows where to find Walter’s son: it’s where she feels “safe”.

Cyrus, of course, doesn’t know what that cryptic message means. But Nick does, and it soon becomes clear she’s speaking to him through Cyrus’ memories. 

Earlier in the movie, she told him of a time where she took solace in a house out in the water owned by a woman named Frances. Mae, then, gave all the clues she needed to – and gave Nick the ‘map’ to finding out where Walter’s son was stashed away.

What was Cyrus’ plan?

Despite Cyrus being the Big Bad of the piece on the face of things, his plan was actually hijacked by Sebastian. He was but a pawn in a larger game being played by the progeny of a wealthy Baron that would do anything to avoid slumming it in flooded Miami.

After discovering he had a half-brother who was liable to take a large amount of his inheritance after Walter’s death, Sebastian put the wheels in motion to kill both the boy and his mother, Elsa.

To do so, he hired Cyrus – who had originally been tasked with gaining Elsa’s memories. He succeeded after Mae learned that Nick’s ‘key’ to the lock was actually a tune he used to whistle. While getting Watts drunk, Mae swooped in and took the (literal) memory card containing Elsa’s memories, as well as the proof that she slept with Walter, something that could then be destroyed along with Elsa.

Unfortunately for Sebastian, Nick uncovers the plan thanks to tracking Cyrus down and putting him in the tank to relive his memories.

What happens to Nick?

After finding out the masterplan and all of the people he has made suffer, Nick ups the voltage on Cyrus in his memory machine and fries his brain. In a cruel twist of fate, Cyrus is forced to relive his worst memory for the rest of his life: being set alight by Saint Joe’s goons.

Nick then confronts Sebastian in one of the movie’s weirdest scenes – which is saying something. Sebastian’s mom, Tamara, is coping with her failing memory, but only thanks to Sebastian hiring actors to play the role of Walter. He helps re-enact one the last memories she can still recall, that of the pair embracing in a clock shop, on an endless loop.

Nick (as a fake Walter) reveals that he’s tipped the cops off to the location of Walter’s illegitimate son and that they know all about Sebastian’s scheme. Nick gives the weaselly son a choice of killing himself or waiting for the authorities. He can’t go through with shooting himself and ends up falling inconsolably into his mother’s arms.

Hugh Jackman’s lead is then faced with facing his own music…

The time jump – is it a happy ending?

Nick knows he’s on borrowed time – so makes the most of it. Instead of going to jail for putting Cyrus in a memory loop, he’s able to work out a deal to go to a prison of his own creation.

Jump forward a few decades and we see what that means: Nick is in the memory tank, reliving his time with Mae over and over again. Watts, now with a granddaughter (confirming she reconnected with her estranged daughter), watches over Nick. He has a warm smile on his face, but is still a man destined to live out his days trapped in his own memories.

But is that a happy ending? It’s a question we put to director Lisa Joy, who has positive feelings about the fates of both Nick and Watts.

On the ending, Joy said, “I do think it’s a happy ending for him. And I believe that it’s also a happy ending for Watts, who chose a different path… I understand that once Bannister saw Mae fully and was able to appreciate her and truly love her, not just lust after something he was chasing, that he never wanted to stop looking at her. That was when he was at his most complete and his happiest.”

Joy continues, “And so, for me, it’s a happy ending for him to stay there with him. On the other hand, it’s a happy ending for me for Watts, to have stopped hiding from the world, to stop running from our problems and to embrace the future and connect with her family again.”

Reminiscence is now in cinemas in the US and UK and streaming on HBO Max in the US. Need more to look forward to? Check out all the most exciting upcoming movies heading our way.

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