Six To See January 18-24, 2025

1. The Brutalist: a new epic period drama film directed and produced by Brady Corbet from a script he co-wrote with Mona Fastvold. An international co-production between the United States, United Kingdom, and Hungary, it stars Adrien Brody in the lead role as László Tóth, a fictional Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to the United States, where he struggles to achieve the American Dream until a wealthy client changes his life. The cast also features Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, and Alessandro Nivola. The Brutalist premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year where Corbet was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Direction. At the Golden Globe Awards, it won three awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and it will probably win even more awards, including Oscars, where it has ten nominations. The Brutalist was released in limited theatres in the United States on December 20, 2024 and was released in the UK now as well on January 24. The film will be released in even more countries in February, including in Belgium. I will be seeing the film during the Filmfestival of Ostend that starts next week on January 31.

2. Flight Risk: a new suspense thriller film directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mark Wahlberg, Michelle Dockery, and Topher Grace. Wahlberg plays a pilot transporting an Air Marshal (Dockery) and a fugitive (Grace) across the Alaskan wilderness, where the identities and intentions of those onboard come into question. The U.S. Marshal escorts a government witness to trial after he is accused of getting involved with a mob boss, only to discover that the pilot who is transporting them is also a hitman that had been sent to assassinate the informant. After they subdue him, they’re forced to fly together after discovering that there are others attempting to eliminate them. Flight Risk was released in theaters on January 24.

3. Presence: a new supernatural horror thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp. It stars Lucy Liu, Julia Fox, and Chris Sullivan, and follows a family who moves into a suburban house and becomes convinced they’re not alone. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year. Shortly after, Neon acquired distribution rights to the film for 5 million dollars. The film already received positive reviews from critics and has a score of 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. The website’s consensus reads: “A slow-burning spectral thriller, Presence reaffirms that Soderbergh plays with form as deftly as he flits between genres.” Presence was released in theatres on January 24.

4. Star Trek: Section 31: a new science fiction television film directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi and written by Craig Sweeny for the streaming service Paramount+. It is intended to be the first television film, and the fourteenth film overall, in the Star Trek franchise and part of executive producer Alex Kurtzman’s expanded Star Trek Universe. A spin-off from the series Star Trek: Discovery, the film is set in the franchise’s “lost era” between the Star Trek: The Original Series films and the series Star Trek: The Next Generation. It follows Philippa Georgiou as she works with Section 31, a secret division of Starfleet tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets, and must face the sins of her past. Michelle Yeoh stars as Georgiou, reprising her role from Discovery, along with Omari Hardwick, Kacey Rohl, Sam Richardson, Sven Ruygrok, Robert Kazinsky, Humberly Gonzalez, and James Hiroyuki Liao. The film was released on Paramount+ on January 24.

5. Inheritance: a new espionage action film directed by Neil Burger from a screenplay he co-wrote with Olen Steinhauer. It stars Phoebe Dynevor, Rhys Ifans, Ciara Baxendale, and Kersti Bryan. The film follows a young woman who is drawn into an international conspiracy after discovering her father is a spy. Inheritance was filmed entirely on an iPhone. Burger has described using an “experimental style of shooting” in which there “was no wait time for camera set-ups, no makeup checks, or rehearsals. We’d arrive at the location and then immediately shoot as much as we could in the time that we had. It enabled us to travel with a small crew”. Inheritance was released in theatres in the US on January 24.

6. Prime Target: a new thriller miniseries created by Steve Thompson, directed by Brady Hood, and starring Leo Woodall in the lead role as Edward Brooks. It follows a post-graduate mathematics student who discovers an effort being made to destroy his work in finding a pattern in prime numbers that would allow him to access every computer in the world. Also starring in the series are Quintessa Swindell, Sidse Babett Knudsen, David Morrissey, Stephen Rea, Fra Fee, Joseph Mydell, Jason Flemyng, Martha Plimpton, and Harry Lloyd. Prime Target premiered on Apple TV+ on January 22 with the first two episodes and the rest releasing weekly.

Bonus:

• The Night Agent season 2: the second season of the action thriller series created by Shawn Ryan based on the novel of the same name by Matthew Quirk. It stars Gabriel Basso in the lead role as FBI agent Peter Sutherland, along with Luciane Buchanan, Fola Evans-Akingbola, Sarah Desjardins, and Hong Chau. New cast members joining the series are Amanda Warren, Arienne Mandi, Louis Herthum, Berto Colon, and Brittany Snow. Season 2 will see Peter as the newest member of the secretive organization, Night Action. His new responsibilities will propel Peter into a world where danger is everywhere and trust is in short supply. This second season of The Night Agent was released on Netflix on January 23. Ahead of the second-season premiere, Netflix renewed the series for a third season.