Sinners

As I write this, Sinners is 2025’s highest-grossing original film. It’s also written and directed by Ryan Coogler, one of Hollywood’s most revered and popular recent directors. That said, being popular doesn’t stop Sinners from being a cult film in the making. Like many cult films, Sinners constantly shakes things up with different genre elements. One minute it’s a 1930s gangster story crossed with a fun hangout movie, the next it’s a full-blooded horror film. All while peppering in a cast of brilliant characters, songs and musical numbers, and deep thematic topics. Such as cultural legacy, appropriation, ingrained power structures and America’s racism. Modern big-budget films are rarely this audacious. Considering Sinners’ success seemingly has studios spooked, we may not see another huge film this unique for a while. That’s why this film is destined for cult stardom. It’s too special and significant not to inspire a legion of fans.

I Saw the TV Glow 

Many cult films also speak to marginalised experiences, particularly LGBTQ+ audiences. This is where I Saw The TV Glow slots in. Its discussion of how media provides great outlets for young people to express themselves, along with its difficult but important discussion of how hard it is to break free from an identity that society expects of you and that you have internalised, holds particular resonance for trans audiences. Plus, it’s framing through a lens of 90s and early 2000s nostalgic memory and heavy psychological horror gives I Saw The TV Glow a distinct style and feeling. These elements and the film’s bittersweet message at such a horrendous time for trans people will ensure a devoted following.

Polite Society

Smaller action films are also prime targets for cult status, especially if they have an instantly iconic main character. Polite Society centres on Ria, a British-Pakistani teenager aiming to become a stunt performer. When her beloved sister, aspiring artist Lena, unexpectedly gets engaged, Ria tries to sabotage their relationship. Slowly, she discovers a dark plot involving cloning that will require all her skills to overcome. A loving ode to sisterly love, with two fantastic central characters, that surreally mixes martial arts and sci-fi trappings into a grounded family drama, Polite Society has all the right ingredients to become a fixture of playground conversations for a new generation of off-kilter action fans.

The Tales From Pandora’s Box Series 

Another proud cult film category is the so bad it’s good film. Tales From Pandora’s Box is a horror and sci-fi anthology trilogy with the same charm as The Room. The filmmaker clearly had big ideas for the stories, but a lack of budget and no care given to film production basics make the final products feel incredibly amateur. When the films feature an astounding amount of out-of-place nudity, hilariously bad dialogue, use of still images to transition between stories, the same actors popping up again and again, Windows Movie Maker transitions, and more, it’s impossible not to laugh a little. These films could definitely become Halloween roasting rituals for drunken friends.

Stopmotion

Cult films are also known for how they experiment with cinema as a medium. Stopmotion’s blend of live-action and animation is an unnervingly impressive reminder of how great smaller-budget genre films can be. Additionally, it has some hard-to-watch effects work, a layered story about the creative process and Aisling Franciosi’s outstandingly raw lead performance. While Stopmotion should be held in higher regard, it will undoubtedly become a future cult favourite.

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Today we will look briefly at the history of modern action heroines. We’ll also look at the importance of this development and its impact on gender representation within the industry more broadly.

Here Come The Girls

The 2010s saw a growth of interest in women-led action films after the release of titles like Alice in Wonderland (2010) and The Hunger Games. These films were hugely successful, had heroines leading the action and showed them rebelling against the established order. Showing that audiences wanted to see lead actresses challenging the blockbuster status quo.

From there women-led YA action films became box office regulars. Films like Mad Max: Fury Road and the new Star Wars trilogy also shifted their franchises to focus more on the strong ladies in their worlds, with Furiosa and Rey providing good examples of capable and emotionally complex women action leads. During this time pressure also mounted for successful franchises like the MCU and DCEU to make films for their iconic superheroines. This later bore fruit with the success of Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel.

And the hunger for genre heroines is still present, with films like Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Woman King, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever carving out more space for woman actors of colour in leading action roles.

Heroic Recruitment

Because strong and complex action heroines are now more prominent women viewers are able to feel less marginalised by popular action films. These films also help to shift hegemonic ideas about womanhood. Showing that more opportunities are available to women than simply supporting a man’s story. Additionally, sources have shown that greater representation leads to better self-esteem by allowing underseen groups to feel more valued and it also helps to promote understanding between groups through humanisation. 

This uptake could positively affect the film industry as well. Research has found that having role models in the media can help women become more ambitious and assertive. Meaning that the more the industry showcases strong and complex leading ladies the more encouraged women will be to pursue their dream careers. Like making and starring in films.

Women in Film

The number of action heroine leads rose from 3% in 2016 to 10% in 2022. Meaning there is now a greater chance for woman actors to have leading roles and be seen by big audiences. Thanks to the many successes of the past few years, we have also seen a rise in women directors and writers. Particularly since 2017 (writers rose from 11% in 2017 to 19% in 2022 and directors rose from 11% to 18%) when Wonder Woman (at the time the highest-grossing film ever directed by a woman) was released. While correlation doesn’t equal causation it’s certainly conceivable that a successful woman-driven film in one of the most popular genres opened producers to the power that women-led and fronted productions can have. Thereby opening the industry to more women creatives. 

But the fight for representation is not over. In 2022 only 10% of the top-grossing action films had a solo woman as the protagonist. While men accounted for 30%. Additionally, women of colour, LGBTQ and disabled women are still underrepresented in these stories. As they account for 51% of UK cinemagoers it’s only right that women should see themselves reflected and headlining popular genres. The past few years have brought great progress. But if audiences and artists continue fighting even better possibilities will follow.

Also Read: Class Rules: The Representation of UK’s Social Class in Film

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Sci-Fi: Crimes Of The Future

In Crimes of the Future pain is mostly a thing of the past because of implied evolution. And some people are now able to grow extra organs. But others have evolved further, now being able to eat and digest plastics along with other undigestable materials. Something which the government wants to suppress. Featuring such intriguing concepts as theatrical live organ transplants, human bodily evolution to adapt to a decaying world and surgery being so commonplace it is considered “the new sex”, David Cronenberg’s return to body horror encourages much discussion thanks to the many thought-provoking ideas that populate this fascinating world.

Comedy Action: Everything Everywhere All At Once

When the year started everyone wanted to see how Doctor Strange’s sequel would showcase the creative possibilities of the multiverse. But Everything Everywhere All At Once managed to capture viewer adoration more. And it used the multiverse concept as an excuse to showcase a number of creative and hilarious ideas. Including using technology to access skills possessed by different versions of oneself in the multiverse, showcasing a diverse array of parallel worlds that feature such great ideas as humans having sausages for fingers, humans being controlled by raccoons, and the main characters becoming rocks and an apocalyptic doomsday device made from a snack. All of which was accomplished on a $25 million budget. 8 times less than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Showing that the multiverse has such big creative potential even smaller productions can use it to showcase fantastic ideas.

Thriller: Fall

Movies primarily based around one location are nothing new. Fall however bases its central plot around two friends scaling up and then trying to get down from a 2000-foot-high TV tower. This conceit not only provides a thrilling setting for most of its action but allows for a constantly high amount of tension to be present even during mundane scenes. This is thanks to the high winds at such heights and the small surface area not providing many opportunities for respite. Plus being up so high provides great explanations for common problems viewers have with many of these thrillers. Such as why don’t the protagonists just call for help? High-altitude thrillers are always a guaranteed source of tension. And the conceit to set one atop such a thin, high structure paid off.

Horror: Hatching

Hatching concerns a child facing incredible pressure from her mother. She subsequently takes care of an egg which eventually hatches into a monstrous creature. It then begins taking on more of the girl’s likeness and violently acting out. Hatching’s central idea is a perfect allegory for how abusive parental pressure negatively impacts and shapes children. The creature acts as a great metaphor for the child’s mental health. Demonstrating once again that horror is a perfect genre for using creative ideas to address bigger issues.

Action: Prey

How do you revive interest in the predator franchise when only the first one is universally considered a good film? You go back to the series’ roots, having the predator attack a group of people in a sparsely populated area while offering something new by setting the film in the 1700s. The era of colonial expansion. This conceit of placing the technologically futuristic predator during this era instantly stacks the odds against our main characters and provokes discussion of colonialism and power. Additionally, the film gives us diverse, fully-rounded indigenous protagonists, and centralizes their voices in depictions of their cultural history. Instead of having them act in service of someone else’s story.

These were just a small sampling of creative ideas that we got to see this year. So please make sure to let us know any creative movies you particularly gravitated towards. And let’s hope 2023 continues to provide us with more genius film ideas.

Also Read: The Impact: How Dozens of Filmmakers Around The World Crowd-Created A Film About The Apocalypse

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What’s Going On?

The Old Guard is the story of a group of secretive almost-immortal soldiers who do what they can to make the world a better place. The group is lead by Andy, by far the oldest, seemingly thousands of years old but never quite confirmed, there is also Joe and Nicky, both around a thousand years old and Booker, relatively young at around two hundred. Unsurprisingly being around for centuries makes you pretty good at your job and they are highly sought after but always trying to balance this with the fear their secret may be uncovered – which after taking a job for a former employer it is. As they are found out they also realise a new semi-immortal has come into the world and it is their responsibility to find her. They must confront their greatest fear – not death, but endless imprisonment and torture.

Behind The Scenes

The film is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, a director and writer perhaps best known for the film Love & Basketball as well as various credits writing and directing television, including co-creating recent TV drama Shots Fired. The Old Guard is written by Greg Rucka, the creator of the comic-book series on which the film is based.

In Front Of The Camera

The star of the film is very much Charlize Theron, who as well as being one of the best dramatic actors of her generation has recently made a lot of action films. Theron plays Andy, the leader of the mercenaries, and is very good, carrying much of the film herself. Newcomer to the group and our way into understanding this story is Nile, played by KiKi Layne. Layne is best known for starring in If Beale Street Could Talk and she has the difficult job of explaining the story to the audience and struggling with this earth-shattering knowledge. The rest of the immortal team are made up of Nicky (Luca Marinelli), Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts). There are two villains – Copley, ex-CIA agent and former employer of the group played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, looking to use the extraordinary powers of the group to help the world and the far more selfish Merrick played by Harry Melling. Ejiofor is another acting heavyweight and does his best to express the conflicted feelings of someone who has genuinely good intentions but involved in quite unpleasant work. Melling is a far more standard evil baddie – and to save everyone googling this – Melling is probably best known for playing Dudley Dursley in The Harry Potter films. Merrick works for Big Pharma which is shorthand in the film for absolutely untrustworthy and is hoping to rip out the group’s special powers out of them with brutal medical methods.

Does It Work?

The Old Guard is an enjoyable action film with an interesting premise and a great cast. It’s not going to reinvent the genre but it is very good. Theron is utterly convincing as the ancient mercenary soldier with slightly less convincing performances as we go down the cast. Ejiofor never quite manages to sell the disconnect between his noble intentions and committing horrific human rights abuses but I think this is the fault of the film rather than Ejiofor. Indeed, the rationalising of a number of the villains is paper-thin.

The action scenes are first-rate, the most memorable being the plane fight between Andy and Nile near the beginning of the film – when Nile still doesn’t trust the strange woman telling her she’s immortal. They also have fun with the healing abilities of the soldiers – bones jutting out from limbs that heal neatly and head shots that are gone within seconds.

But the film is not built solely on its action and there is more going on with the characters. Andy and Booker are clearly struggling with their near-immortality and the grief and pain that has accumulated and at it times it reminded me of vampire films and the “curse” of immortality. This is especially interesting as Andy and Booker are the oldest and youngest respectively. Then there is Joe and Nicky who manage to get an awful lot of feeling into their relatively limited screen time focused on their relationship. Two men who fell in love whilst fighting – and killing -each other in the Crusades is about as star-crossed a pair of lovers as you are going to get, and a timely declaration of their love is genuinely emotional.

The main problem in the film are the bad guys, it doesn’t help that the role is effectively split between Copley and Merrick (with the addition of one soldier who seems to be the leader of Merrick’s mercenaries but you never consider as dangerous as Andy or her team). Copley is half-hearted in the endeavour whilst Merrick is so utterly ruthless and cruel that he is a bit of pantomime villain. I would much rather have seen Ejiofor play someone along the lines of his unnamed character in Serenity, a supremely effective individual doing admittedly bad things for a greater purpose – a character that I hold as a high watermark of sci-fi villains.

Overall this is a very enjoyable action film with good acting and great fight sequences. There is a very interesting premise which allows it to do something different to most action films and there is an emotional depth many similar films do not have.

Rating: (3.5 / 5)

Also Read: The Best of Blumhouse

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