Film & Television

Radiating with passion and persistence, Jessica Chastain has a unique propensity for shading in the contours of colorful, often historically-grounded characters.

Reyes ultimately formed a dire examination of the systems that ensnare individuals and set them up for failure in a carefully crafted, tragic portrait of the incarceration system and a young man’s attempts to navigate life and immigration in the United States.

Creator Rian Johnson, the mind behind “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion,” subverts mystery tropes left and right for a refreshing take on the genre that toys with audience expectations.

While the traditional cold opening of the film is refreshing and invitingly misleading, Scream VI attempts to do more with the slasher movie template than it can offer.

“Unicorn Wars” takes a mesmerizing visual approach to its antiwar fable, underscoring the senselessness of violence through its use of cartoonish imagery.

“A House Made of Splinters” is a heart-wrenching portrayal of the less visible impacts of war — one that many countries, not just Ukraine, know all too well — and a beacon of hope nonetheless.

“Outer Banks” creates complexities in the villains of the story, ultimately giving them vindication, and although audiences may not initially want their success, inevitably their character development wins over all. 

In “American Cherry,” the typical coming-of-age story takes a dark twist as the protagonists’ growing romance is distorted into something more sinister, and ultimately deadly.

With crisp cinematography and tactful dialogue, Davy Chou's "Return to Seoul" tells a thoughtful story about curiosity, culture and identity. But, as the director explained in an interview with the Daily Californian, the story isn’t his.

“I was really interested in lighting. I liked the physics of light and the philosophy of how lighting could change the way a space felt,” Valladao spoke of her early interactions with the field of cinematography in an interview with The Daily Californian.