Before the The Dark Knight trilogy, The Prestige, and Oppenheimer, English director Christopher Nolan shook up cinema with this ingenious puzzle. Guy Pearce plays a man suffering from recent memory loss and yet still trying to uncover his wife's murderer. The revolution is in the way the story is told: backward, demanding double attention from the viewer.
The Brutalist is a drama directed by Brady Corbet (Vox Lux), exploring themes like the migrant experience and the cost of power. The plot follows László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian Jewish visionary architect who, after surviving the Holocaust, emigrates to the United States, where he tries to rebuild his life from scratch and reconnect with his wife (Felicity Jones). However, his life is transformed by an unscrupulous businessman (Guy Pearce), who recognizes his talent for architecture. Despite some controversies surrounding its use of artificial intelligence, the film is majestic in its incredible performances and stunning VistaVision images. Its length is also monumental, with a runtime of nearly four hours, but it also incorporates traditional intermissions to provide a break.