Even the endearing performances of Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, along with their undeniable chemistry, are not enough to rescue ‘The History of Sound’ from being a dull period drama. It is such a pity that it was wasted by a very boring execution.

Overall, the story of Leon Le’s ‘Ky Nam Inn’ is beautifully executed with such care for Vietnam's culture and history.

Sana Sinabi Mo’ proves that love and religion are a game of tug-of-war. Even when faith tests loyalty, love persists across time and distance.

Pelikultura: The CALABARZON Film Festival returns for its 2025 run with new stories and forms of storytelling about Southern Tagalog. The festival is more than a celebration of Southern Tagalog’s pride and diversity, but also a reminder of how cinema is a form of resistance that mirrors the lived realities of the people living in the region. ST Shorts Premiere and #BuhayElbi are the festival's main highlights, highlighting stories about the region as well as homegrown storytellers from Los Baños, where the festival started. Pelikultura continues to become a platform for regional filmmakers and a catalyst for driving regional cinema representation.

Kelly Reichardt’s ‘The Mastermind’ is a quiet, subversive take on an art heist film that never feels tensionless, anchored by a stellar performance from Josh O’Connor.

The 5th Oroquieta Film Festival made an impactful comeback after a three-year hiatus, providing the big screen to stories from Misamis Occidental and nearby regions. The Lumayagan and Habagatan shorts became the highlight of the festival, projecting films about pressing social issues, the rich culture of Misamis Occidental, Mindanao, and Visayas, and the power of transformative media education, and the dreams of the young filmmakers.

The 15th run of the Binisaya Film Festival continues to pride itself as a cultural hotspot for both Bisaya and global cinema. With a roster of films that are at once surreal, sociopolitically aware, and deeply tender, the festival highlights a talented community of filmmakers and a Bisaya movement that is truly alive.

In one of 2025’s best films, ‘Sentimental Value’ illuminates the unseen costs of creating art and the debt it owes to lived experience. At the same time, it reveals how much of what we hope to express is often suppressed, either in favor of grander gestures or in service of our fears. Some things are simply too difficult to talk about, let alone explain in different languages.

‘The Treasure Hunter’ is an out of touch documentary about a British man trying to live out his imperial fantasies in the Philippines. He wants to find Yamashita’s gold so he can ‘live the high life,’ suspiciously sounding like a 16th century conquistador.

 ‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 marks a brave and bold outing for the DCU — one that emphasizes character development, with the cross-dimensional adventures serving as both a backdrop and a slingshot toward the universe’s future.

With both its sharpest writing and structuring in years, this year's eight-episode run is Sunny at its most character-centric, hilarious, and relatively grounded. Still would've wanted more episodes, though.

‘Adolescence’ exemplifies and extends the problems of misogyny, incel culture, and the nature of social media beyond what we know and usually practice, exploring how each of us has our own roles in protecting young children online.

Beyond the exquisite cooking and dynamic character moments, The Bear season four further draws its strength from portraying deeply flawed human beings, characters who reflect who they are and who they might become, despite their shortcomings.

‘The Four Seasons,’ starring Tina Fey, Colman Domingo, and Steve Carrell, as 3 middle-aged couples going on weekend getaways for each season of the year, is guaranteed to win over most audiences with its wisdom and subtlety.

Where ‘Andor’ truly stands out from other mainstream stories on war, is its fearlessness into showing the murkier and uglier sides to waging revolutions.