Every year, it feels as though we’re bombarded with a never-ending onslaught of formulaic musical biopics, ones that hit every beat that Jake Kasdan’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story brilliantly skewered years ago. The formula has grown stale, and audience enjoyment of those films largely hinges on how much they care about the artist they depict, but it’s not as simple as someone being a Bruce Springsteen fan and automatically adoring Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. It works both ways. For example, my love of Queen’s music intensified my hatred for Bohemian Rhapsody, while my appreciation for Bob Dylan’s work made A Complete Unknown feel more gratifying than it probably should have been. With that said, I walked into Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue with a completely open mind because I’m indifferent toward Neil Diamond’s music. All I could hope for was that this wouldn’t be another dull, by-the-numbers musical biopic. What I got instead was an oddly charming, riveting, and refreshingly unpredictable film.

Remaking a cult classic is always a gamble, but Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia proves it can be done with reverence and creativity. Instead of making a carbon copy of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 film Save the Green Planet!, screenwriter Will Tracy delivers a thoughtful and imaginative reinterpretation. The film honors the spirit of the original while carving out its own identity. Bugonia will likely satisfy both fans of the original film and moviegoers encountering this wild story for the very first time.

Ronan Day-Lewis’ feature directorial debut, Anemone, is likely to spark accusations of “nepotism” because the film serves as his father Daniel Day-Lewis’ return to acting after retiring in 2017. However, the father-and-son duo also wrote the screenplay together, and their shared passion for this project is evident. Moreover, right from the film’s opening frames, it’s evident that Ronan Day-Lewis exhibits major promise in the director’s chair.