Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos — Screenplay by Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou.

I consistently find Yorgos Lanthimos, the Greek filmmaker behind works such as The Lobster and Poor Things, to be one of the most fascinating rising auteurs of European cinema. I often think about the Lars Von Trier quote: “a film should be like a stone in your shoe,” and, when it comes to European artists breaking through to the Hollywood gravitational center, Lanthimos is perhaps the one auteur that best manages to adhere to that specific Trier-esque modus operandi or end goal, as his films constantly test boundaries, provoke, or work against conventionality. Despite the odd and boundary pushing premise of Poor Things, it can feel as if, as Lanthimos has been embraced more and more by American audiences, he may have gotten further away from his auteurist roots, but Kinds of Kindness, his 2024 anthology triptych film, does, at times, feel like the American output of his that shares the most DNA with his most famous Greek film, Dogtooth. The closest English-language comparison of his is probably The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Kinds of Kindness is a fascinating work that many will find challenging, as it sometimes explores depravity, features tonal shifts, and is quite lengthy at two hours and forty-four minutes.

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