A lonely Frankenstein (Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (five-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman, and The Bride (Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!

Maggie Gyllenhaal by Way of Mary Shelley

Gothic horror is having a serious moment right now, but instead of simply revisiting familiar ground, Gyllenhaal goes straight to the source: the legacy of Mary Shelley and her immortal creation, Frankenstein. Yet rather than reverently retreading the path of Bride of Frankenstein, Gyllenhaal detonates the mythos and rebuilds it with swagger and rebellion.

The result is a film that feels less like a traditional monster movie and more like a punk-rock fever dream — a collision of gothic horror, tragic romance, and anarchic crime saga. Gyllenhaal isn’t carefully sampling genres; she’s smashing them together with gleeful abandon. The result is a cinematic cocktail with a kick like jet fuel. If you like your cinema bold, loud, and unapologetically strange, THE BRIDE! absolutely delivers.

Gothic Horror Goes Gangster in Depression-Era Chicago

One of the film’s boldest moves is its setting. Rather than haunting castles and misty moors, Gyllenhaal drags the gothic into the smoky back alleys and neon-splashed underworld of Depression-era Chicago. It’s a setting that pulses with grime, danger, and temptation — the perfect breeding ground for monsters who refuse to stay buried.

Working with cinematographer Lawrence Sher, Gyllenhaal crafts a visual landscape that is nothing short of electric. Neon lights slash across the screen while deep noir shadows swallow entire city blocks. The imagery feels half gangster thriller, half gothic hallucination, and it works brilliantly.

There’s an intoxicating sense of chaos to the film’s atmosphere, pulling viewers into the reckless spiral of two resurrected souls determined to live hard and burn fast. Every frame feels alive with tension and attitude.

Adding even more texture is the striking score from Hildur Guðnadóttir. Her music swirls between eerie orchestration and pulsating modern energy, giving the film a sonic backbone that perfectly matches its rebellious tone.

Jessie Buckley’s Bride Is Pure Controlled Chaos

At the heart of the film is the electrifying performance of Jessie Buckley as the Bride herself, and she absolutely owns the screen.

Brought back to life by the ambitious scientist Dr. Euphronious (played with delicious authority by Annette Bening), Buckley’s Bride has no intention of being treated like a laboratory curiosity. Instead, she becomes the one asking questions, and causing plenty of chaos along the way.

Buckley plays the role with what can only be described as controlled mayhem. Her Bride is impulsive, rebellious, and burning with a long list of grievances against the world that destroyed her the first time around. She’s alive again, and she’s determined to make every second count.

It’s a fearless, magnetic performance that balances vulnerability with explosive energy. Buckley, already widely celebrated for her powerhouse turn in Hamnet, proves once again that she’s one of the most dynamic performers working today. Here she doesn’t just inhabit the Bride; she sets the character on fire.

Christian Bale’s Monster Finds His Match

Matching Buckley beat for beat is Academy Award winner Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s Monster — or simply “Frank,” as he calls himself.

Bale takes a fascinating approach to the character. His Monster is not merely a creature of brute force, but a deeply wounded soul who has spent decades wandering through a world that greets him with nothing but fear and rejection. Beneath the scars and rage lies a desperate longing for connection — for someone who might finally see him as more than a monster.

When the Bride enters his life, the spark is immediate.

Bale balances tragic vulnerability with volcanic anger, capturing both the humanity and the terrifying power of the creature. His performance gives the film emotional weight, grounding its wilder moments with genuine heartbreak. Together, Buckley and Bale ignite the screen. Their chemistry is strange, volatile, and unexpectedly tender — the beating heart of a story about two outcasts discovering something dangerously close to love.

A Wild, Electric Ride

Ultimately, THE BRIDE! is a film that refuses to behave. It’s loud, stylish, weird, romantic, and gloriously over the top; a cinematic mosh pit where gothic horror collides with punk attitude and gangster swagger.

The film barrels forward with manic momentum, building toward a finale that feels like a lightning strike to the nervous system. By the time the final surge of electricity hits, audiences are left exhilarated and slightly shell-shocked.

Final Verdict: Dark, Dangerous & Defiantly Alive

For viewers looking for something safe and traditional, THE BRIDE! may feel like a shock to the system. But for those willing to embrace its wild spirit, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s monster romance is an unforgettable experience. THE BRIDE! proves that sometimes the monsters deserve their love story — and sometimes that love story comes with a killer soundtrack and a criminal streak.

Image: Warner Brother Pictures

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Ready yourself for a whirlwind explosion of monsters, chaos and the golden age of film noir horror, as Maggie Gyllenhaal dials up the volts and delivers an utter livewire with THE BRIDE! her punk rock resurrection tale of death and the afterlife as she jolts new life into The Bride of Frankenstein, and in the process delivers a spectacle that will be one of cinema’s wildest spectacles.

Watch the all-new trailer for THE BRIDE! below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

A lonely Frankenstein (Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (five-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman, and The Bride (Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!

In a radical reimagining of the legendary character of The Bride of Frankenstein, first portrayed by Elsa Lanchester in 1935, director Maggie Gyllenhaal discovers a whole new side of the character through Jessie Buckley. And what is promised by this new trailer is a cinema experience that utterly flaunts what you know of this character, and kicks convention and expectation out the window.

In wanting to tell the story of THE BRIDE!, Gyllenhaal sought to get discover ‘the monster inside all of us’, and was intrigued to discover more about the Bride herself, what her own thoughts, dreams and terrors might be, and you see that present in the new trailer as this is a character who is thrown into a storm, and then embraces all the fun, mania ans chaos that results from being the walking dead!

Not only do we get to see Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale amp things up as both The Bride and Frankenstein’s Monster in the picture, but THE BRIODE! turns the volume all the way up on its presentation and spectacle, as it takes audiences back to a neon-soaked 1936 era of gangsters and troublemakers, and Gyllenhaal bedazzles the movie with its own flair and combustible atmosphere that is reminiscent of the hard-driving punk rock of the 1970s, and it’s a scream!

Giving further context to audiences with Perri Nemiroff in a recent webinar chat concerning THE BRIDE!, Gyllenhaal stated that if audiences wanted to understand the mood and presence that’s she’s bringing to this picture that they should listen to Siouxsie and the Banshees cover of Iggy Pop’s ‘The Passenger’, and that this song evokes her feeling for the character of The Bride, saying “because just vibe-wise, I think it fits right in with the movie. And also, I don’t know, she’s presented, The Bride, The Bride of Frankenstein, as the passenger when that is absolutely not what she is. She’s driving this story.”

THE BRIDE! is shaping up to be a cinematic storm of radical neo-noir horror, and audiences will be primed for something very special when it arrives in IMAX and cinemas on March 5.

Image: Warner Brothers Pictures

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From Academy Award® winning writer/director Chloé Zhao, Hamnet tells the powerful love story that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.

Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s celebrated novel, Hamnet reframes the legacy of William Shakespeare by shifting the focus away from the myth and toward the life that shaped him, specifically, the love he shared with his wife Agnes, and the loss that would alter them both forever. Rather than a conventional historical drama, Zhao delivers something far more intimate: a sensory, emotionally driven exploration of a marriage, a family, and the quiet, shattering impact of tragedy.

Zhao, who previously stunned audiences with the gentle humanism of Nomadland, once again proves herself a filmmaker deeply attuned to emotional truth. Her approach to Hamnet is unhurried and deliberately paced, allowing feeling to take precedence over exposition. This is not a film that explains itself; it asks you to feel it. Every gesture, glance, and silence carries meaning. Love, hope, despair, and memory circulate through the film like breath through lungs, and Zhao’s confidence as a storyteller allows those emotions to bloom naturally, without force or artifice.

The world of Hamnet is rendered with extraordinary tactility and texture. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal captures Elizabethan England with a grounded, earthy beauty, candlelit interiors, soft dawns spilling across fields, and gardens alive with quiet life. There is a lived-in authenticity to the imagery, one that makes the film feel less like a period piece and more like a memory being gently recalled. This visual poetry is further elevated by Max Richter’s exquisite score, which swells and recedes with aching restraint. Music, image, and emotion intertwine seamlessly, drawing the audience ever deeper into the film’s emotional core.

At the centre of it all is Jessie Buckley, delivering a performance of staggering depth and vulnerability as Agnes Hathaway. Buckley doesn’t simply play Agnes, she inhabits her completely. Her Agnes is fierce, intuitive, loving, and spiritually grounded, a woman deeply connected to the rhythms of the natural world and the emotional undercurrents of her family. As a wife, mother, and individual navigating unspeakable loss, Buckley presents a portrayal that feels utterly unfiltered. There is no romantic gloss placed over grief here, instead, we witness its raw, consuming force and the quiet resilience required to survive it. Buckley’s performance is extraordinary, a soul-deep exploration of motherhood and love that will leave audiences profoundly shaken.

Opposite her, Paul Mescal delivers a beautifully restrained and quietly powerful turn as William Shakespeare. This is not the grand literary icon carved into history books, but a restless, searching man; a husband, a father, and an artist grappling with the limits of language in the face of unbearable pain. Mescal imbues Will with a constant sense of motion, as though his mind can never quite settle. Ideas churn, words form and dissolve, and grief manifests differently within him than it does in Agnes. Where she turns inward, he searches outward, trying to transform loss into meaning. Mescal captures this inner conflict with remarkable subtlety, and his chemistry with Buckley is electric, their shared scenes charged with tenderness, passion, and unspoken understanding.

One of Hamnet’s greatest strengths lies in Zhao’s ability to weave Shakespeare’s own works into the emotional fabric of the film. Moments from his canon echo through the narrative, not as literary references, but as emotional reflections, art born from pain, memory shaped into language. In doing so, the film becomes a meditation on creativity itself, presenting art as both refuge and reckoning. The film’s third act, in particular, is devastating in its honesty, confronting grief head-on while also offering the possibility of renewal through connection and creation.

What ultimately sets Hamnet apart is its overwhelming sense of empathy. This is a film that understands loss not as a single moment, but as a lifelong companion, something that reshapes love rather than extinguishing it. Zhao approaches this truth with immense compassion, crafting a story that acknowledges sorrow while still holding space for beauty, hope, and enduring connection.

Hamnet is a film of rare emotional clarity and grace. It is moving without manipulation, poetic without pretension, and deeply human in every sense. Anchored by sublime performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, and guided by Chloé Zhao’s assured, empathetic vision, it stands as one of the most heartfelt cinematic experiences in recent memory. Bring tissues, take a breath, and surrender yourself to it; Hamnet will break your heart, and then gently show you how to carry the pieces forward.

Image: Universal Pictures

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Watch the full trailer for Hamnet below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

From Academy Award® winning writer/director Chloé Zhao, Hamnet tells the powerful love story that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.

Building off of the previous teaser trailer, this new trailer for Hamnet showcases the film’s deeper emotions and the journey that famed author William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes undertake as life, love, loss, grief, despair, and hope all filter through the artist’s mind and leads Shakespeare to craft his most famous play.

Every frame promises to be strikingly beautiful, and Zhao conjures a story of immense feeling and intensity as we follow the lives of William and Agnes, before and after the loss of their only son Hamnet, and how this affects the writer’s life, and more so his wife’s in the years that follow. The emotions are raw, and the drama immense in this beautiful picture of the real world and the imagined one of the stage, and it is sure to make audiences weep.

Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal are front and centre in the picture, and their chemistry is undeniable together from these first images that we see, but Hamnet is told from the perspective of Agnes, and in this picture we’ll get to see not only her own journey as a wife and mother, but also that of how she watches the creative the process of her husband, and Hamnet will explore artistry from those people so closely attached to it. Buckley’s performance has already drawn immense praise from the festival circuit, and many are tipping her to see some serious buzz this awards season.

 

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Hamnet makes for an achingly beautiful watch, and audiences will be able to experience the magic that only the cinema can deliver when it arrives in cinemas on January 15.

Image: Universal Pictures

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Watch the crazy all-new trailer for THE BRIDE! below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

A lonely Frankenstein (Bale) travels to 1930s Chicago to ask groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious (five-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening) to create a companion for him. The two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride (Buckley) is born. What ensues is beyond what either of them imagined: Murder! Possession! A wild and radical cultural movement! And outlaw lovers in a wild and combustible romance!

Taking audiences into the raging, free-spirited and rough and tumble gangster era of 1930s America, Gyllenhaal spins a all-new take on Bride of Frankenstein and the Frankenstein mythos as she pumps up the volume, and delivers a gothic-tinged modern tale that is piure Bonnie & Clyde with a good mix of traumatic Sid & Nancy toxic romance thrown in, and THE BRIDE! is shaping up to be one of 2026’s wildest releases!

With its exuberant lighting, flowing costuming, and completely rated-R violence and intensity, THE BRIDE! is a feature that will really give audiences a shock, and they’re not going to be ready for what arrives in this film. The focus of the trailer is on Jessie Buckley, the Irish actress who has taken the performing world by storm, and who, following her Academy Award-nominated performance in Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter, is now being tipped to be an Oscar frontrunner again with 2026’s Hamnet.

Buckley goes utterly crazy in THE BRIDE!, and she fully commits to this resurrected character who is pulled into a dark, dangerous and deranged world not of her choosing, and she really turns up the volume in terms of performance. Her performance is juxtaposed with that of Academy Award-winning actor Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster, now calling himself Frankie, who pulls the Bride into his savage life…. and it’s clear that there won’t be a lot of sympathy coming Frank’s way, as it appears he’s not a full-on monster.

 

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Get ready for the unexpected and a whole heap of utterly wild and crazy moments when THE BRIDE! arrives in cinemas next year in March 2026.

Image: Warner Brothers Pictures

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Watch the incredibly moving trailer for Hamnet below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

From Academy Award® winning writer/director Chloé Zhao, Hamnet tells the powerful love story that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.

As a filmmaker Zhao has captured the attention of audiences with her ability to capture a wife array of dramatic feelings and emotions in her work, and now she turns her attention to the life and work of William Shakespeare, the greatest voice in English language, and in adapting Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed novel, she takes audiences into a radiant, fairy-tale-esque story of romance, heartbreak and creative freedom, and this trailer promises a cinematic experience that will sweep over audiences.

The presence of Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal also elevate the experience of what this film will be with their incredible talent, and you can feel the burning passion and chemistry that two share together. Buckley herself looks to have transcended to an entirely new place with her performance as Agnes, wife to Shakespeare who experiences a severe sense of grief and shock following the death of her only son, and Buckley appears to have taken her emotive performance to a whole new level with this performance.

Hamnet is a film that looks to be shaped by texture and realism, with a string sense of natural light and dynamic, close-in camera work helping to pull audiences into the time and feeling of the Elizabethan stage, and Zhao’s beautifully crafted world building helps to elevate this dream-like, fairy-tale feeling that she’s bringing to the production, and this is a film rich in visuals that will pull audiences in with its elevated ambience.

Get ready to have your emotions pulled in every direction with Chloé Zhao and her tribute to the expression of absolute love and the burning fires of creativity when Hamnet arrives in cinemas on January 15.

Image: Universal Pictures

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Based on a true scandal that stunned 1920s England, the story centres on neighbours Edith Swan (Olivia Colman) and Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) in the seaside town of Littlehampton. One day, a series of obscene letters begin to target Edith and the other residents, with suspicion falling upon Rose. As the outrageous letters continue to escalate, Rose risks losing both her freedom and custody of her daughter. Police Officer Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasan) is determined to find the real culprit, and along with a group of other women, seeks to solve this perplexing mystery.

Sometimes a film comes along that is straight out of left field and wraps its audience up in its narrative; Wicked Little Letters is that film, and what’s more, it’s chronicling a truly strange and scandalous crime that was thought lost to history, but thankfully the truth has now come out. Filmmaker Thea Sharrock and screenwriter Jonny Sweet are the team behind Wicked Little Letters, and the end result is a piece of pure genius that can be described as a combination of comedy and character study. You’re completely taken by surprise by it. Sharrock’s direction is spot on, and she focuses inwards on her character’s feelings and motivations, and the result is a foul-mouthed, smart comedy that moves at a cracking speed and that gives its audience something incredibly fun to witness.

Academy Award winner Olivia Colman is a national treasure of the British film industry, and whenever she takes on a new project, her talent instantly rewards the production. That’s exactly what we see here with Wicked Little Letters and with her performance as Edith Swan, one of the two women at the centre of this mischievous and extremely naughty affair. Colman’s Edith is a completely sheltered, holier-than-thro busybody whose chirpy demeanour and do-gooder persona hides her stance as a know-it-all who is keen to know everyone’s business. Colman’s performance reflects her character’s personality, but Edith is not all as she seems, and Colman delivers an incredible complexity as this character who is caught up as the victim of this ‘letter writing scandal’, and her performance takes audiences for a ride.

On the other side of the narrative, we have Jessie Buckley as Rose Gooding, a loud, brazen, uncouth, and extremely foul-mouthed woman with no filter, who, as the outcast of this docile little town, is soon the prime suspect in this ‘letter writing horror’. Her portrayal of Rose is of a woman who gives as good as she gets but who is also just trying to make her way in the world amidst immense hardships and who is striving to better the life of her daughter. There’s a natural confrontation between her and Colman’s Edith, and their back and forth leads to plenty of surprising drama and one hell of a mighty twist in the end.

Wicked Little Letters is set up as a comedy with a mystery at its centre, and its dynamic story will keep you hooked right from beginning to end. Its characters crackle with convolutions, and as the story moves at pace, you quickly want to see how this ghastly mystery will resolve itself. Colman and Buckley’s co-stars, including the likes of Anjana Vasan as PC Gladys Moss, a bull-dogged policewoman who is very keen to prove her worth, and the great Timothy Spall as Edward Swan, Edith’s completely awful and foul father, add to the liveliness of the plot. Plus, there’s some extensive and creative swearing, and it’s a riot.

Wicked Little Letters is a flat-out funny and hilarious watch, and for audiences who are looking for something a little bit different, well, it strikes gold!

Image: Studio Canal

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Fresh out of prison, Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley), a Scottish woman juggles her job and two children while pursuing her dream of becoming a country music star. She soon gets her chance when she travels to Nashville, Tennessee, on a life-changing journey to discover her true voice.

If you start with Wild Rose then you have to begin with newcomer Jessie Buckley, and this performer is an absolute revelation. As a troubled parolee, and hopeful country musician Rose-Lynn Harlan who is desperately trying to turn her life around, Buckley is absolutely incredible in the role and effectively holds the attention of the screen. Her performance is flawless and completely natural. Uncouth, loud, wild and broken, Buckley really digs deep here as she struggles with her very real responsibilities with those of her dreams. As you watch her throughout Wild Rose, you really empathize with her, and truly hope and pray that she finds what she’s looking for. Buckley’s vocal talents also get an incredible showcase here as well and as she unleashes her voice you find yourself cheering for this wildcard, rebel character to succeed in her dreams.

Joining Buckley on-screen as her no-nonsense mother Marion is the legendary Julie Walters and she gives one very stern performance here. While Buckley’s Rose-Lynn is off chasing her dreams and having a seriously fun time while she’s doing it, Walter’s Marion is raising her children and getting sick of having to clean up the mess of Rose-Lynn’s life. This interaction between mother and daughter leads to plenty of tense stand-off moments and really fuels Wild Rose with some deep drama. But while there is an intense battle that takes place over Rose-Lynn’s country music dreams, Marion never stops believing in her daughter and this sets the stage for a beautiful resolution.

In addition to the heavy drama on screen, Wild Rose also showcases us the extraordinary vocals of Jessie Buckley and country music fans will really get a kick out of this. From hard-charging bluegrass rock to sweeping ballads and sad love songs, the entire breadth of country music is captured here in Wild Rose. The use of music here really gets you amped up and you’ll definitely want to rock out.

Along with the sensational duel performances of Jessie Buckley and Julie Walters, Wild Rose is also an incredible showcase for director Tom Harper who not only presents a well-thought-out narrative, but also comments on issues such as class and poverty in the modern UK. While Nashville, Tennessee is a long way from Glasgow, through Harper’s eyes the two cities become closer together. Harper’s direction is interesting in how he draws comparisons between the working poor of both the UK and America and through the guise of country music a keen sense of hope is raised here. The director really gives his all to this production and this attention really shines through in a heartwarming piece of cinema.

If you’re seeking a film to make you feel alive, along with experiencing the strum of a guitar on edge then you need to run along and see Wild Rose right away, because it’s one amazing cinematic journey.

Image: EOne Films

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