Friday's Five Films: June 27, 2025
Another weekly roundup.
Pride Month comes to an end. Couldn’t go on without at least watching a few more gay movies, or going without completing the Teen Apocalypse trilogy by Gregg Araki too. In fact, I think that with TIFF’s own series celebrating their 50th edition currently on its way, it only feels like the perfect way to get myself up and ready for another great festival in the works. In fact, a few new world premieres were also just announced, so I think that it’s time to get busy, busy, busy - ain’t that the truth?
Without further ado, these are Friday’s Five Films. If you like what you’re seeing here, remember to subscribe for a whole lot more.
#1: The Circle (2000, Jafar Panahi)
I’ve been watching many of Jafar Panahi’s movies again ever since he won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, for It Was Just an Accident. I think that it only goes without saying that Panahi is more than just one of Iran’s greatest artists, but he’s also one of the most important filmmakers working under an oppressive regime. It’s no surprise that The Circle is a film that remains banned in Iran at the very moment, but perhaps that’s also why it makes Panahi one of our most essential working artists: he’s a filmmaker who knows that humanity cannot be defined by the cruelty of a government. This is a film capturing the many stories of women within Iran: happy, sad, everything in between, despite everything around them. I think that’s what makes a movie like this just beautiful.
#2: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2000, John Cameron Mitchell)
A gay anthem in all the best possible ways. I think that the first time I saw this musical on the big screen, on a beautiful 35mm print, but also backed by a drag performance, might have been the moment something just clicked inside for me. It’s a movie that I think celebrates queer life for all its messiest aspects that lie within. And all of these come from the fact that John Cameron Mitchell is making a movie all about a person who refuses to be defined by a gender binary, considering the fact that even after a gender-affirming surgery, Hedwig doesn’t even strictly use one set of pronouns or the other. She exists as she is, that alone might be a perversion according to some, but it doesn’t make Hedwig any less human – and that’s just what makes all the songs rule.
#3: Mississippi Masala (1991, Mira Nair)
Somehow, this watch felt fitting with the announcement of director Mira Nair’s son, Zohran Mamdani, having won the Democratic primary to become the mayor of New York City. But I think there’s a lot more to a film like Mississippi Masala than one might assume, because this is a film all about the complicated nature of interracial relations as seen through the eyes of two different subsets of people of colour. I think it’s one of the best romance films ever made, and Mira Nair is just one of the most important working filmmakers right now.
#4: Nowhere (1997, Gregg Araki)
If you know at least a handful of queer cinephiles in your life, you know for sure that at least one of them is going to be into the films of Gregg Araki. Nowhere, I think, is his best film. It’s his best film because it encapsulates an entire spectrum of what it felt like to be a gay teenager in Los Angeles in a time where the existence of such people was treated to be an abomination. It’s a movie all about where these people ultimately have left to go, in ways that I find very beautiful, horrifying, and devastating all in equal measure. That Gregg Araki is able to fit all of this into only 80 minutes is perhaps a perfect testament to his skill as an artist, but it’s also the encapsulation of what every queer teen feels they have running through their heads.
#5: Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin)
I like this movie almost as much as I do The Wages of Fear. I think the fact that the original novel has spawned two equally great movies is perhaps a testament to its staying power, but William Friedkin doesn’t opt for a simple scene-for-scene retelling of the same story. Instead, Friedkin’s approach is one that shows people within desperate situations digging their own hole, so that we get a sense of why they’ll want to escape the hell within which they’re living in. But that’s also just what capitalism is like at its core: it rots any sense of rationale from within, and ultimately, you’ll be thought of as nothing more than just liabilities for bigger companies. A fate that felt fitting considering the film’s initial reception, and the legal hellhole that Friedkin fell into, trying to get the film back in his own hands.
The Complete Day-by-Day Log
First time watches are denoted with bold text. Scores are on an out of five star basis.
Friday
One for the Road (2021, Nattawut Poonpriya) - ✯✯✯½
The Sealed Soil (1977, Marva Nabili) - ✯✯✯✯½
The French Connection (1971, William Friedkin) - ✯✯✯✯✯, watched on 35mm
Saturday
Sorcerer (1977, William Friedkin) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Barry Lyndon (1975, Stanley Kubrick) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Experiment in Terror (1962, Blake Edwards) - ✯✯✯✯½
Sunday
Bent (1997, Sean Mathias) - ✯✯✯✯
Still Life (1974, Sohrab Shahid Saless) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001, John Cameron Mitchell) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Monday
The Boogey Man (1980, Ulli Lommel) - ✯✯½
KPop Demon Hunters (2025, Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang) - ✯✯✯½
Rango (2011, Gore Verbinski) - ✯✯✯✯½
Manuscripts Don’t Burn (2013, Mohammad Rasoulof) - ✯✯✯✯
Closed Curtain (2013, Jafar Panahi and Kambuzia Partovi) - ✯✯✯✯
Tuesday
Across 110th Street (1972, Barry Shear) - ✯✯✯✯½
Essene (1972, Frederick Wiseman) - ✯✯✯✯½
Elio (2025, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina) - ✯✯½
Next of Kin (1984, Atom Egoyan) - ✯✯✯✯
Mississippi Masala (1991, Mira Nair) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Wednesday
Pink Flamingos (1972, John Waters) - ✯✯✯✯✯
You’re a Big Boy Now (1966, Francis Ford Coppola) - ✯✯✯
Will-o’-the-Wisp (2022, João Pedro Rodrigues) - ✯✯✯½
Nowhere (1997, Gregg Araki) - ✯✯✯✯✯
The Circle (2000, Jafar Panahi) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Thursday
No Country for Old Men (2007, Joel and Ethan Coen) - ✯✯✯✯✯
Sleep with Your Eyes Open (2024, Nele Wohlatz) - ✯✯✯
Red Sonja (1985, Richard Fleischer) - ✯✯, watched on 35mm
For real time updates, please follow me on Letterboxd here.