Supergirl (2026) | REVIEW

Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and Supergirl (Milly Alcock) in SUPERGIRL -- PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).
Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and Supergirl (Milly Alcock) in SUPERGIRL — PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures (Still image from trailers).

Directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) — Screenplay by Ana Nogueira.

Timing is of paramount importance when you want to release a highly-budgeted film in theaters around the world. You have to make sure that you’re not putting something out at a time when people are really laser-focused on other activities. One film that I think may’ve been really hurt by the timing of the 2026 FIFA World Cup this summer is Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl. At least, I never got around to watching it in theaters, because I prioritized other films and shows when I wasn’t watching football. It looks like I wasn’t the only one who skipped it, because it really struggled during its theatrical release, to say the least. But I was, and still am, quite interested in the title character and the film as a whole, so when this film had its streaming premiere recently, I felt compelled to give it a real chance and a full standalone review. Supergirl isn’t great, but I also don’t think it’s a disaster. It exists somewhere in the territory between unremarkable and okay, and in the process of writing this review, I tried to figure out exactly at which end I found myself.

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Oppenheimer (2023) | REVIEW

Cillian Murphy is outstanding as the titular theoretical physicist in Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER — PHOTO: Universal Pictures.

Directed by Christopher Nolan (Dunkirk; Tenet) — Screenplay by Christopher Nolan.

In 1965, famed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer appeared on a television broadcast, and, on said broadcast, he gave an account of how people reacted and what went through his head during the so-called ‘Trinity Test’ in 1945, when Oppenheimer and a group of physicists had successfully created and detonated the first nuclear weapon. Oppenheimer claimed that a specific line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita popped into his head: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” It is a chilling quote that has echoed through generations and had a life of its own. For the twelfth feature film in his oeuvre, the immensely popular auteur filmmaker Christopher Nolan opted to tell J. Robert Oppenheimer’s story. It’s a film about a man full of paradoxes, such as how he became a political figure with strong left-wing disarmament views but was also the man who is known for having willfully created a weapon that once dwarfed all others and forever changed warfare and foreign policy. But it is also a film that gets to the heart of the rot of the American soul in the 20th Century. It is an intimate account of the complicated headspace of a historically significant genius, but it is also a haunting and damning cautionary tale about learning the wrong lessons, naivete, guilt, covetousness, and ripple effects. It is an astoundingly brilliant achievement and much more than your average biopic.

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