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How do you dramatize the birth of a police force while confronting the corruption it was created to challenge? SPECIAL UNIT – THE FIRST MURDER tackles that question head-on, positioning itself not simply as a period crime thriller but as a foundational myth shaped by compromise, ambition, and institutional rot. Christoffer Boe’s reimagining of Rejseholdet’s (an actual elite police unit in Denmark tasked with assisting local police in solving serious, complex crimes across the country) origins isn’t concerned with nostalgia or comfort; it’s about the uneasy reality of power forming under pressure.

What happens when doing the right thing doesn’t actually set anything right? That question sits at the center of DARK WINDS: SEASON 3, a continuation that refuses to offer the comfort of clean resolutions. Instead of escalating purely through shock, this season turns inward, allowing consequence, memory, and unresolved guilt to shape every decision its characters make. It’s a confident move for a series that already proved its command of atmosphere and cultural specificity, and it results in a season that feels heavier, more reflective, and deliberately restrained.

Why do dinosaurs endure when so many other childhood fascinations fade with age? WHY DINOSAURS? doesn’t treat that question as a rhetorical hook; it treats it as a genuine mystery worth unpacking from every angle. From the outset, the film makes it clear that this isn’t a traditional nature documentary concerned with extinction events or anatomical breakdowns. Instead, it positions dinosaurs as a shared cultural language, one that bridges science, imagination, nostalgia, and identity across generations.

How much tension does a murder mystery really need if the cast is good enough? DEATH ON THE NILE answers that question with a kind of confidence that feels almost rebellious by modern standards. Rather than leaning hard on suspense or dread, the film treats murder as an excuse for character, atmosphere, and theatrical indulgence. It isn’t in a hurry to disturb you, and it isn’t particularly interested in urgency. What it offers instead is a carefully staged social exercise where everyone looks guilty and extraordinary, and the pleasure comes from watching the pieces move rather than from fearing where they’ll land.

What does it mean to confront your own mortality when you can’t even come to terms with your day-to-day life? ANDRÉ IS AN IDIOT opens with that question hanging in the air, not as a philosophical exercise, but as a practical problem its subject insists on solving out loud. From the first moments, a scene that you’ll never forget, the film lets you see who André is. The film establishes its core narrative early on. This is a documentary about dying, but it is not interested in reverence, restraint, or distance. Instead, it’s about agency; specifically, what agency looks like when it’s slipping away and the only thing left to control is how you show up.

What do you do when adulthood shows up before you’re ready and doesn’t bother knocking? MUSTARD MAN opens on that question and never even wants to pretend to give you all the answers, which turns out to be one of its strengths without question. This is a film less interested in milestones than in drift, less focused on triumph than on the space between adolescence and something permanent. The film is a coming-of-age story that offers the audience a chance to feel the experience rather than just watch it on camera.

What happens when a network genre show refuses to stay canceled, survives a reinvention, and ends up preserved as a single entertainment staple? That question sits at the center of LUCIFER: THE COMPLETE SERIES, a release that captures both the strengths and the excesses of a series that thrived on personality more than precision.

What does it mean to capture a moment that history itself later refuses to honor? THE LONG WAY HOME: REMASTERED AND EXPANDED arrives less as a rediscovered relic than as a time capsule reopened. Originally released in 1989 and long unavailable, Michael Apted’s documentary about Russian rock icon Boris Grebenshchikov returns with a new restoration and an added epilogue that reframes everything that came before. What once played as an optimistic portrait of cultural exchange now carries the weight of lost possibility.

What does it mean to hold a family together when history has already pulled it apart? Set in 1970s Virginia, BIRDIE places its emotion squarely on the shoulders of a sixteen-year-old Nigerian refugee navigating the aftermath of the Biafran War (Nigerian Civil War). Writer/director Praise Odigie Paige approaches this moment not as a history lesson or a chronicle on trauma, but as a deep coming-of-age story shaped by absence, restraint, and longing. The result is a short film that feels both carefully composed and emotionally intimate, less interested in dramatic escalation than in the slow accumulation of unspoken tension.

How long can grief survive before it turns into resolve? PIKE RIVER doesn’t rush toward that question; it sits with it, returning again and again to the space where mourning and anger overlap. Rather than framing the 2010 mining disaster as a singular tragedy with a singular emotional arc, director Robert Sarkies and writer Fiona Samuel treat it as an ongoing open wound, one that reshapes lives not through shock, but through attrition. The film’s power comes from its refusal to simplify that process.

What happens when a film has all the pieces of a compelling sci-fi genre story but never quite figures out how to assemble them? WORLDBREAKER opens with a premise that feels deliberately pared down: a father and daughter living in isolation after a global catastrophe, training for a “threat”. Directed by Brad Anderson, whose past work has shown an aptitude for psychological tension and claustrophobic dread, the film aims to blend post-apocalyptic survival with an intimate coming-of-age arc. The ambition is clear; the follow-through is less consistent.

What happens when curiosity isn’t driven by wonder or fear, but by boredom and ego instead? TIM TRAVERS AND THE TIME TRAVELER’S PARADOX opens with that question baked directly into the core idea of its story, and it wastes no time making clear that this isn’t a tale about saving the world, fixing the past, or learning some noble lesson about responsibility. This is a film about a deeply unpleasant man who decides the laws of time exist solely to amuse him, and then doubles down on that belief until the universe quite literally fractures under the weight of his self-importance.

What does intimacy look like when romance and sex stop meaning the same thing? PAYING FOR IT doesn’t pose that question as a provocation; it treats it as an inevitability. Set in the late 1990s, the film approaches non-monogamy, sex work, and emotional distance with a level of candor that feels rare, especially in a culture still trained to frame love as something that must follow a prescribed path to be considered valid.

What happens when a horror film wants to question religious trauma but refuses to weaponize fear in service of that goal? INHABITANTS opens with a promising premise, pairing domestic unease with spiritual guilt, and initially suggests a slow-burning examination of belief systems colliding under supernatural pressure. On paper, that approach makes sense; religious horror has always thrived on conflict. In practice, though, the film rarely pushes beyond suggestion, settling into a muted exploration that drains tension rather than cultivating it.

What happens when the institutions meant to protect truth decide that truth itself has become inconvenient? (sound familiar?) ILLUSTROUS CORPSES opens with that question hanging heavy in the air, and it never lets the audience forget it. From its earliest moments, Francesco Rosi’s film makes clear that this isn’t a mystery interested in easy answers or comforting resolutions. It’s a procedural that treats procedure as theater, and a thriller that understands the most frightening forces are rarely the ones you expect or the most visible villains.