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Criticker Newsletter - 22 September 2025 - Toronto Film Festival
Published 23 Sep 2025

Movie News

As you might have heard (since we've been touting it a lot), Criticker was chosen as the sponsor of the Hidden Gem Award at this year's BASE Awards. BASE is the British Association for Screen Entertainment, and their Hidden Gem prize is special, in that it's chosen by film fans -- including you! The 2025 Shortlist has just been announced, and there are some great titles to choose from on.

Everyone is encouraged to cast their vote, regardless of whether or not you live in the UK. So if you haven't done so already, please head over to base-awards.org, pick out a film that you think deserves the title of "Hidden Gem", and make your voice heard!

Film Festivals

Toronto's annual film festival, one of the most prestigious in the world, wrapped up last week. The big winner was Chloe Zhao's Hamnet, based on Maggie O'Farrell's novel about the death of Shakespeare's son, and the impact it had upon his marriage and work. The film stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley, and beat out both Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, and the latest installment in Rian Johnson's Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man, to take the prize.
Hamnet - Agata Grzybowska © 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, the Busan International Film Festival is still underway. This year's opening film was Park Chan-wook's darkly comic thriller No Other Choice (which also happened to pick up the International People's Choice award in Toronto). Park Chan-wook is a long-time favorite of Criticker users, with some classic thrillers to his name, including Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Handmaiden, JSA: Joint Security Area, and of course 2003's international smash Oldboy. We're excited to check out this new film, which is garnering a ton attention on the festival circuit!

Collections You Might Want to Check Out

Includes The Rules of the Game, The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity, Bicycle Thieves, and A Woman Under the Influence
Created on 04 Apr 2013 by avgcrtckr
From Billy Mernit's book Writing the Romantic Comedy
Created on 10 Jan 2013 by rospo
Includes Kater, God's Own Country, The Hours and Times, and Patrik Age 1.5
Created on 17 Sep 2009 by bobyang
"Films which "break the fourth wall," that is, the one between the audience and the film. Also includes films which thematize breaking the fourth wall."
Created on 07 Oct 2008 by djross
These films all won the Academy Award Oscar for Best Feature Film
Created on 23 Sep 2008 by Quicky

Recent Mini-Reviews Getting Love

2 Stars for AAAutin's review of Together
More efficient than the Catholic Church at promoting celibacy.
2 Stars for jlewis's review of The Life of Chuck
live, laugh, love. dance as if no one's watching, sieze the day! also give me these fucking 90 minutes back.
2 Stars for NefariousQ's review of Longlegs
Lee Harker is a Space Cadet, training for her future. But, the Big Man Downstairs has other plans for her.
2 Stars for BeeDub's review of Superman
Silly and weird and wholesome and funny and dorky and cool and touching and thrilling and wacky and endearing and and and
2 Stars for k177105's review of Citizen Kane
The tragedy of the figure of the era of analogue media, or the tragedy of that era itself: how the manipulation of desire gives the grandest fantasy of "the love of the people", only to expose it as the nightmare of mimetic drives as empty as the blowing wind. A great film in every perspective, with incredible performance and directing given by a 25-year-old Orson Welles.

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