The 2025 Telluride Film Festival was a nice cinephile escape from a chaotic world, as I showed up early to take in the views and acclimate to the higher elevation. It was a breakaway from life I needed. The scenery is fantastic, and the film festival, which many say resembles a summer camp, had another outstanding program. Here are some of the highlights:
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet is astonishing filmmaking and an arthouse epic. Both Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal gave it their all, but Buckley, in a grand performance of the year, stunning and devastating over the loss of a child, balancing different emotions. A fictional historical drama account of William Shakespeare’s family life, Hamnet’s rhythm is so natural and controlled, like an iambic pentameter of grief and loss. Hamnet unfolds with quiet, meditative intensity that is both intimate in detail and monumental in scope. Its raw vulnerability has lingered in my mind since I watched it, with many moments that feel both timeless and human. The viewing experience is so empathetic for some viewers that Chloé Zhao leads the audience in breathing techniques to center themselves before the movie. It is a memory that I will take with me long after the festival ended.
See Also: Kenny Miles’ Highlights From The 2025 Sundance Film Festival
A tremendous Jodie Foster commands every moment of her screen time in A Private Life. Rebecca Zlotowski’s previous work is the underrated film Other People’s Children, an intimate character study centered on its radiant female lead, played by Virginie Efira. The tone ping-pongs between thriller and dark comedy elements, with some trippy dream sequences that made me laugh. Once it finds its footing, it gains confidence, even if it remains prosperous. The film follows Foster as a woman uncovering a client’s mysterious death, contemplating whether it was a suicide or a murder. The mood has a good amount of paranoia and a tad of absurdity, keeping a primarily older audience on its toes. The film’s striking visual contrast and surreal moments effectively embody the protagonist’s confused state of mind, particularly during the bizarre dream sequences. A touch of Christmas adds to the relational strife.
Inspired by Per J Andersson’s book The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love., the breakout documentary The Cycle of Love, from Virunga and The White Helmets (Netflix’s first-ever Oscar win), director Orlando von Einsiedel is a touching love story that is disjointed and needs focus, but it is very tender, with its heart in the right place. A feel-good crowdpleaser about an Indian street artist (PK Mahanandia) in 1977 is determined to ride his bike 6,000 miles from India to Sweden to reconnect with a long-lost love. The movie is re-told with actors in the role and the subject recounting the story. Those dramatized reenactments, featuring archival photographs and intimate interviews, craft a patchwork that resembles the journey’s persistence and unexpected moments. Both uplifting and reflective, the bittersweet documentary seamlessly blends a fairytale romance with the real-world impediments that keep them apart, yet will never separate them.
Executive Produced by Frances McDormand and Joel Coen, the documentary The Bend in the River is the third installment in a series of free spirit, life-loving river rafting friends Moss, Cathy, Barry, Jim, Danny, and Jeff, who drifted along the Colorado River and were featured in the 1982 documentary Riverdogs and the 2003 follow-up The Same River Twice. Described as Michael Apted’s 7-Up series, it combines decades-old 16mm footage with present-day cinema vérité techniques. The documentary meditates on the passage of time with a loose, lyrical cadence. The subjects are nostalgic for their old memories, reminiscing on past ideas of freedom that clash with the reality of growing older and finding pleasure in the simplicity. What emerges is less about the rafting trip and about the currents of friendship, memory, and the search for meaning in the downstream moments of life. Many are adrift now, like they were along the river decades ago. It profoundly moved me.
Mary Bronstein’s anxiety-inducing If I’d Have Legs I’d Kick You gives an unrelenting glimpse of a life outside your control and the nightmare scenarios that parents can go through. Every little and big thing that happens gets under your skin and erodes your well-being. Rose Byrne delivers an exceptional performance as an exhausted mother on the edge of her sanity that plays almost like a horror movie over a character study drama. This is the one movie where I wanted to know what other people, regardless of marital status or gender, think of it. Different types of viewers respond differently based on their experience. Usually, I watch an episode or two of Bluey to unwind after a particularly upsetting movie. There aren’t enough episodes to begin the healing journey with this one. A one-and-done viewing experience you can’t shake off.
Bugonia is a demented ride that garnered a reaction from audiences. Jesse Plemmons delivers a next-level highlight in his accomplished career, embracing the madness of going down the conspiracy rabbit hole. His expressive acting utilizes his eyes and facial reactions, complementing his performance just as much as his lines. A commentary of the conspiracy theorist, it is very violent and disturbing, and polarized the audience. Shot in Yorgos Lanthimos’ style, which features longer takes, impulsive bursts of brutality, jarring editing transitions, sudden music cues, and a darkly grim comedic edge, the film leans into the spectacle and madness of the situation and character motivations. You feel queasy between the laughter and the horror when you realize it is holding a mirror up to the chaos of our present moment.
A spiritual cousin to I’m Still Here in a historic framing and burdened by the weight of surveillance, memory, and loss, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent has remarkable attention to the retro detail, especially in the background. Set against the sweltering backdrop of late-1970s Recife during Carnival, the double Cannes Award-winning film is a political thriller, noir, and a dialogue-heavy, character-driven drama. Wagner Moura was sensational, plus a terrific ensemble, but the two that stood out were very spectacular performances from Maria Fernanda Cândido and Thomas Aquino, among others. It didn’t get a lot of attention, but I could see it gaining momentum with arthouse audiences later this season, especially for its more surreal elements that will get people talking.
I was thoroughly entertained by Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, from the setup to the shots of the pleasant countryside. Still, the artificial sheen in the lighting made me feel disconnected from the enjoyable experience of watching it. The best performances were from the dramatic element, as Adam Sandler and Billy Crudup demonstrated the best an actor can be while simply reading a menu. My favorite aspect was a filmmaking technique where Clooney’s character walked onto the set of an old memory, evoking longing and reflection on his past life and where he wants to go. The tone swings between nostalgia, character drama, and light-hearted humor, anchored by Clooney’s character’s endless search for the meaning of his life. Will he choose family or fame? At its core, the film serves as a celebration of life, reenacted through his memory and performance art.
Reuniting the filmmaker and lead actress from The Worst Person in the World, Sentimental Value was a spectacular, emotionally resonant family drama. Sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) come to terms with their distant father, actor Gustav (a terrific Stellan Skarsgård). The film balances raw emotions with tenderness and an unpredictable story, all of which are connected by Trier’s mix of witty dialogue and uncomfortable silences. Like WPINW, he gracefully grasps the messiness of people and their relationships, fueled with passion and burdened by regret, and the connections that linger with the characters and the audience. I barely had a Joachim Trier Summer. Still, thanks to Telluride, it happened and was worth it.
Laura Poitras’ Cover Up is a searing indictment of American foreign policy and how hard-working journalists hold truth to power, no matter what it uncovers. Reporter Seymour Hersh uncovers scandals from the Mỹ Lai Massacre to the Abu Ghraib torture in a richly dense but riveting manner. A final clarion call from the subject about how whistleblowers and civil servants will do the right thing. With an unflinching and urgent matter-of-fact delivery, Poitras confronts viewers with the high cost of truth-telling to expose government secrecy, no matter the cost. This plays both as a historical chronicle and a contemporary warning; the tribute to Hersh’s legacy is a rallying cry for press freedom and the fierce truth tellers.
