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In ‘The Wonders,’ Tasting the Nectar of an Artisanal Life in Tuscany

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By Manohla Dargis

• Oct. 29, 2015

“The Wonders,” a diffuse and quietly charming coming-of-age story, takes place under a Tuscan sun different from the one that usually shines in mainstream movies. It’s set in an isolated corner of the region, a place choked with dust and scrub, on a ramshackle farm far from the tourist hot spots, with their crowds and feverish commercialism. There, amid the bleats of children and animals, a young family scrapes by on love as well as on the honey it makes in an artisanal product that the Italian writer-director Alice Rohrwacher clearly identifies with.

An unruly brood, the family is nominally led by Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck), a German-speaking transplant who, with his partner, Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher, the director’s sister), is raising four daughters alongside a flock of sheep. The truer head of the family, though, is its calm center, Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), a sober, dark-haired girl who, while on the cusp of adolescence, has already vaulted into a premature adulthood. Gelsomina keeps an eye on the younger children and also works alongside her father, tending the honeybees (some of the movie’s most hypnotic images are set to the humming of the hives), maintaining them with smoke and gentleness. It’s obvious that Gelsomina is herself a worker bee, but this isn’t an association that Ms. Rohrwacher overworks.

Instead, Ms. Rohrwacher, directing her second feature, slips from moment to moment, often just drifting alongside the family, dreamily catching a wave on its quotidian rhythms, and then pausing to hold on to a single image, a gesture, a smile, an exchange. In one scene, Gelsomina stands in a murky room and orders her sister Marinella (Agnese Graziani, a vivacious charmer), the second-oldest, to “drink” from a ray of light piercing the dark. Marinella does, bowing her head and cupping her hand, like a wood sprite preparing to lap at a sunbeam. It’s a lovely moment, attractively lighted and sweetly played, yet it also comes across more like a strained, self-conscious attempt at cinematic lyricism than like the private ritual of two isolated children.

Ms. Rohrwacher’s strengths here are the tender intimacy of the performances, particularly those of the older child actors, and her gentle meandering, both narrative and cinematographic. In the opening scene, set at night, the camera wanders through the family’s darkened house like a dog, a thief or maybe a memoirist. (The cinematographer is Hélène Louvart.) Hunters are outside, readying themselves for a shoot. Wolfgang chases them off, but nothing else comes of this. Other people pass in and out, while the parents flail about, often in their skivvies. There’s a suggestion that they’re dropouts, perhaps from society, a commune, a cause. They’re squatters of a type, having taken up residence in a rundown home in which every nicked wall carries a story, including this one.

“The Wonders” is not rated. In Italian with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes.

“The Wonders” is not rated, runs 1 hour 50 minutes, and is in Italian, French and German, with English subtitles.

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Home » Review » Movie » The Wonders

The Wonders

An enigmatic fable about a young girl's coming of age provides magical low-key pleasures.

Winner of last year’s Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, Alice Rohrwacher’s The Wonders might come as a bit of a surprise to some viewers. While Cannes has a reputation of profiling the big, brash and bold of arthouse’s finest—last year’s top prize went to a 3+ hour Chekov-inspired drama, after all— The Wonders goes in the opposite direction of its competitors. It’s a quiet, enchanting coming-of-age tale about a unique family in the Italian countryside, one that drives itself almost entirely by what’s hidden underneath the surface. It’s an approach that doesn’t necessarily work all the time, but it certainly establishes Rohrwacher as a rising talent.

The family at the center of Rohrwacher’s film appears to be run by 12 year old Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lungu), who helps run the family business of beekeeping and honey-making with her dad, Wolfgang (Sam Louwyk). She also looks after her three sisters, Marinella, Caterina and Luna, when her mother, Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher, Alice’s sister), can’t, and also relies on the help of family friend Coco (Sabine Timoteo). Rohrwacher keeps exposition to an absolute minimum, but her script drops several hints of the family living a purposely isolated existence (at one point, Coco implies they lived in some sort of commune in the past). And as Gelsomina starts growing into a young woman, her desire for independence and exploration clash with her family’s self-contained lifestyle, creating a slow, underlying tension.

That tension gets amplified through two developments which make up most of The Wonders’ plot. The first comes in the form of the arrival of a TV production around the area. Gelsomina continually eyes the show’s host (Monica Bellucci, rocking a ridiculous white-haired wig) with curiosity and amazement, and when she learns that the show is offering a cash prize to the “most traditional family” in the area, she jumps at the chance to put her family on the show. Wolfgang wants no part in Gelsomina’s plan, but the growing animosity between them suggests it has to do with everything but the program. The other addition of stress to the family comes when new farming regulations threaten to put an end to the farm’s honey business. In order to get cheap labour to help bring the farm up to standard, Wolfgang signs up for a service that lets him hire young delinquents. But once the quiet, handsome 14 year old Martin (Luis Huilca Logrono) shows up to work, Angelica freaks out, wondering if he will be a bad influence on the girls.

It’s to Rohrwacher’s credit that she manages to introduce these elements without succumbing to the temptation of melodrama. That winds up being Rohrwacher’s biggest strength, as her well-observed, warm eye for her characters infuse the film with a naturalism that feels truly special. It takes a lot of skill to portray this family’s quirks, like Wolfgang’s penchant for sleeping in a bed outdoors, without it falling into caricature. It’s because Rohrwacher never shows an ounce of judgment towards her characters, or the way they choose to live their lives. Almost every moment feels real and unrehearsed because the characters’ specific qualities work inward rather than outward. They combine to form a distinct, yet completely believable portrait of one family, instead of being used as an easy joke to compare their strange behaviour to people’s idea of a “normal” family unit. It’s a breath of fresh air that radiates throughout every frame.

That’s why The Wonders ’ first half, primarily focusing on establishing Gelsomina and her family’s routines, works wonderfully. The plotline involving the TV show, one of the film’s biggest faults, suffers from having too much time dedicated to it. Once Gelsomina gets interesting in auditioning for the program, it’s apparent that they’ll end up on the program somehow, making the build-up a bit of a drag to get through. But right when it looks like Rohrwacher might have overstayed her welcome, her film takes a surprising turn for the enigmatic. It’s a bold move, and yet it blends seamlessly within the world Rohrwacher creates. That successful change-up summarizes what makes The Wonders a film that can, at times, turn into something magical. In this low-key tale of a close-knit family, Rohrwacher makes it feel like anything can happen.

Originally published on March 27th, 2015. The Wonders opens in select theaters on October 30.

The Wonders Movie review

Review: If ‘The Wonder’ doesn’t quite live up its title, it remains something to behold

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Chilean director Sebastián Lelio’s solidly engrossing new film, “The Wonder,” is set in post-famine 19th century Ireland, which aligns with the trappings of its source material — “Room” author Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel. That sounds obvious, but when the movie opens, it’s not on a rain-swept countryside, but rather a brightly lighted modern soundstage with scaffolding around what looks to be a boxy house set, and a woman’s voice telling us that we’re about to watch a movie. She’s hopeful we’ll give in to the illusion, because, she says, “we are nothing without stories.”

Cinema is indeed both a challenge of belief and an opportunity to bind us to the grand narrative that is humankind. So each movie is possibly, yes, a wonder. But few draw attention to that, as if the imagined audience were culture-starved innocents or alien beings, not well-chilled Netflix subscribers.

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Sure, the beginning is arch, and it’s twee, but it’s not some mindless gimmick. What Lelio and Donoghue (as co-adapter with Alice Birch) clearly believe is that their Brechtian device — which gives way when the camera eventually pushes into the past through the period-dressed hold of a ship — is a potent way to connect us to English nurse Lib Wright ( Florence Pugh ), traveling to Ireland and considering her own peculiar invitation to the unreal: a healthy looking 11-year-old Irish girl who claims she hasn’t eaten a scrap of food in four months, just “manna from heaven.” Lib has been hired by a committee of male elders to monitor Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy) for two weeks and offer her assessment of the girl’s veracity.

Trained on the Crimean War battlefields but not entirely powerless to her own vulnerabilities and needs, Lib views her unusual caretaking assignment — shared in shifts with a nun and unavoidably imposing on a pious, scrutinized family — as both an investigation (is she secretly eating?) and a campaign to break so severe a fast.

But the single-minded men, who include a doctor (Toby Jones), a priest (Ciarán Hinds) and a landowner (Brian F. O’Byrne), care about fact-finding less than they do proof of the miraculous in the wake of a historic famine. Hovering in the village as well is a nosy but appealingly rational big city journalist (Tom Burke), whom Lib must decide is either an ally or a hindrance in determining the authenticity of a “miracle girl,” and perhaps something more.

As a mystery exploring the limits of faith and reason in a society’s more closed-off corners, anchored by a benevolent skeptic who’d rather help one child than expose a community’s fault lines of repression, “The Wonder” undeniably resonates in these confounding times concerning belief, fact and manipulation.

Anna’s lonely, culturally reinforced holiness — sincere but worrisome — and Lib’s engagement with it reminded me of a phrase that journalist Rachel Aviv coined for her powerful recent book (“Strangers to Ourselves”) about mental health and self-narratives: what she calls the “psychic hinterlands.” It also aptly describes Ari Wegner’s moody, tactile cinematography, in which a dank house alone on a harsh plain is like a mind on the outer edges of experience, while bursts of color — damp greens, purple heather, a fire’s glow — become respites from the gloom.

And yet “The Wonder” can be bumpy, too often seeming to be about itself, not letting us inside it. Primed for theatricality by that opening, we get something very much staged instead of probed, pointed at rather than expressed. Apart from Pugh’s sturdy, intelligent portrayal of truth-seeking as a minefield, and Cassidy’s commandingly enigmatic, whispery pall, Lelio — known for his generous focus on a single main character (“A Fantastic Woman,” “Gloria”) — seems disinterested in the other actors’ roles as living, breathing parts of a community that helped create, is still shaping and might decide, a girl’s fate.

Lib, of course, has a different notion about Anna’s destiny, which is what triggers the nervous tension in the movie’s well-handled resolution of its gothic suspense and theme of moral responsibility. “The Wonder” may not ultimately describe itself, but in its admiration for the mysteries of storytelling and self-preservation — articulated at first, but shown in the contours of its ending — there is something worthwhile to behold.

‘The Wonder’

Rated: R, for some sexuality Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes Playing: Starts Nov. 2, Los Feliz Theater; Landmark Westwood; Bay Theatre, Pacific Palisades; also available on Netflix

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‘The Wonder’ Review: You Won’t Believe Sebastián Lelio’s Latest, but Not in a Good Way

Florence Pugh plays a widowed Nightingale nurse looking for the gimmick that could explain how an Irish girl has survived without eating for four months.

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The Lord works in mysterious ways, Christians are fond of telling us. More mysterious still is the matter of faith, a uniquely human idea which operates on the principle that phenomena we can’t explain are true, not because we understand them but because we don’t need to.

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Then how to explain the film’s Brechtian framing device? Lelio opens on a soundstage, drawing our attention to the artifice: “Hello, this is a movie called ‘The Wonder,’” a woman welcomes (supporting actor Niamh Algar, so compelling in tiny doses, you wish she had more to do here). Movies aren’t real, this unusual introduction reminds, but their emotions can be. “We invite you to believe in this one,” continues the narrator, as DP Ari Wegner (“Lady Macbeth”) tracks left from a farmhouse set to the hold of a ship to find Pugh, deep in character.

It’s not clear what the film gains from this self-conscious setup, especially since Lelio proceeds to give his mostly female cast sufficient room to make their characters feel true. Once Lib arrives in Ireland, the movie commits to her reality. Just a few years earlier, the Irish Potato Famine pummeled the region, starving roughly a million, and food is still precious in most people’s minds. “The Wonder” doesn’t emphasize this overly, though you can sense it in Lib’s frustration when her employers call her away from whatever gruel was to be her first meal at the boardinghouse where she’s staying (a place with nearly a dozen hungry mouths to feed).

Lib soon learns that she’s not the only nurse they’ve engaged, though the other is no medical expert; she’s a nun. The two women are to take turns watching Anna and report on their findings. However politely serious Lelio’s approach, it’s a common enough horror-movie trope to send in an expert to examine someone exhibiting supernatural behavior, à la “The Exorcist” or “The Sixth Sense.” But “The Wonder” is not a horror movie. Nor is it the kind of film where a skeptic is swayed by what she sees (another familiar device in such films, where the director can bend the rules of nature to suit their point). When Lib first meets Anna, she’s impressed by the girl’s conviction. Believers often enjoy a serenity that atheists cannot, able to offload their anxieties to a higher power. Cassidy, who so eerily embodies Anna, taps into that peace. But the girl is not without secrets.

To make her study more scientific, Lib forbids any kind of physical contact between Anna and her parents. Almost immediately, the girl’s health starts to slump. Here, the movie seems to imply that Lib is justified in her means: She’s getting to the Truth. But it’s her rule that’s endangering Anna’s life, and the way she resolves the situation (with the help of a London journalist, played by Tom Burke) is ethically corrupt and downright inexcusable — a third party deciding what’s right for someone else’s child.

Reviewed at Netflix Roma screening room, Los Angeles, Aug. 24, 2022. In Telluride, Toronto film festivals. Running time: 108 MIN.

• Production: (U.K.-Ireland) A Netflix release and presentation of a House Prods., Element Pictures production. Producers: Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell. Executive producers: Emma Donoghue, Len Blavatnik, Danny Cohen.
• Crew: Director: Sebastián Lelio. Screenplay: Emma Donoghue, Sebastián Lelio, Alice Birch, based on the novel by Emma Donoghue. Camera: Ari Wegner. Editor: Kristina Hetherington. Music: Matthew Herbert.
• With: Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Niamh Algar, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Elaine Cassidy.

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‘the wonder’ review: florence pugh dazzles in sebastian lelio’s mesmerizing study of faith and abuse.

Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones and newcomer Kila Lord Cassidy co-star in this drama set in famine-ravaged 1862 Ireland.

By Stephen Farber

Stephen Farber

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The story takes place in 1862, when an English nurse, Lib Wright (Pugh), comes to a small town in famine-ravaged Ireland to investigate a strange occurrence on a desolate homestead. The family’s young daughter, Anna (Kila Lord Cassidy), has been fasting for a few months with no apparent ill effects. The girl’s family and the elders of the community want to insure the girl’s safety and also verify if this might be a bona fide Christian miracle. Lib is skeptical of any supernatural interpretation; her only desire is to help the child, and she runs up against a community of elders who distrust her medical expertise.

The community’s priest (Oscar nominee Ciaran Hinds) and doctor (Toby Jones) look down on Lib, though she clearly has much more knowledge than they do, as well as considerably more compassion. Lib has her own troubled past, which is gradually revealed, and this may partly explain her desire to save the child under her care. Her only real ally is a journalist from England (Tom Burke), who is investigating a story that has obviously traveled beyond the confines of this small village.

Technically, the film is a striking achievement, with elegant, appropriately dark-tinged cinematography by Ari Wegner, who also shot The Power of the Dog last year. The eerie musical score by Matthew Herbert contributes to the movie’s impact.

Some of the other actors have too little to do. Hinds’ role seems underwritten, and other family members are also sketched a little too hazily. But there’s no disputing the power of the story and of the central performance. Pugh has shown great strength in earlier films like Lady Macbeth and Little Women , but here she rivets our attention from first frame to last. In a world increasingly threatened by religious extremism and male arrogance, we can take some comfort from the idea that women like Lib Wright — at least as embodied by Florence Pugh — are around to fight the good fight and even achieve occasional victories.

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‘The Wonder’ Review: Florence Pugh Discovers a Miracle

David ehrlich.

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Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival. Netflix releases the film in select theaters on Friday, November 4 and to its streaming platform on Wednesday, November 16.

Considering that Sebastián Lelio ’s “ The Wonder ” is a religious mystery (of sorts) set in the Irish Midlands circa 1862, the first shot of the film is so wildly unexpected that audiences might fear that the projectionist has played the wrong file. We open, not on the foggy moors of a country still reeling from the Great Famine that had starved it to death some 13 years earlier, but rather in the cavernous space of a modern soundstage — the kind of facility that might house the sets for a period drama like this one. It looks more like a logo of a production company than it does the opening image of a movie. Only when a disembodied voice starts talking to us over the soundtrack are we able to make sense of what we’re watching.

“Hello,” it says with a comforting softness, “This is the beginning of a film called ‘The Wonder.’” At this point, I half-expected the film to channel Traffuat’s “Fahrenheit 451” and have the voice read out the full credits — to announce that the sumptuous but slightly undercooked tale we’re about to see has been adapted from a 2016 novel by “Room” author Emma Donoghue, and features Tom Burke playing against type as a well-meaning journalist whose delicious muttonchops threaten to swallow his entire face — but her voiceover soon proves to be less interested in details than ideas.

“We are nothing without stories,” it continues, “so we invite you to believe in this one.” Then Ari Wegner’s camera swivels around to find the actress sitting in a set made to look like the interior of a boat, and with nothing but a push-in and a splash of water through the floorboards the illusion is complete. Belief, we’re viscerally reminded, can be transformative.

It’s a gambit more compelling than much of the film that follows, but also one that enriches it; it tells you where to focus your attention when no-nonsense English nurse Lib Wright ( Florence Pugh ) arrives in Ireland to witness the miracle child Anna O’Donnell (newcomer Kíla Lord Cassidy), an 11-year-old girl in good health who supposedly hasn’t eaten anything for more than four months. Lib has been summoned to the Midlands by an impeccable phalanx of Irish and British character actors (including Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones), who’ve hired the nurse — and a nun along with her — to watch Anna around the clock for two solid weeks, in the hopes that this tag-team of observers might determine the validity of her claim. Between a woman of medicine and a woman of faith, the local patriarchy looks forward to getting a clear answer they can immediately ignore because it came from two women.

If not for that odd framing device, you might have reason to see “The Wonder” as a story in which saints and scams are mutually exclusive, but the introduction filters the entire film through a lens that refracts it into a story that has nothing to do with God, and everything to do with belief. At no point does Lib seriously entertain the idea that Anna might actually be fed by “manna from heaven,” and at no point does Donoghue’s script — co-authored by Lelio and “Lady Macbeth” writer Alice Birch — reduce the plot to a cheap parlor game. But the fact that there’s no magic at work doesn’t necessarily mean that a miracle can’t occur.

“The Wonder” is rich with small examples that serve an even greater one. They begin with the film’s ultra-evocative look and design, which needs only a handful of (admittedly fake!) locations and a few Caravaggio-like shots of Lib skulking around the village inn to paint a vivid picture of grief and despair. Everyone we meet is attended to by one or more ghosts from the famine, and so it’s no wonder that people would be eager to believe in the rumors of a girl who doesn’t need to eat.

Matthew Herbert’s strange and ingenious score, filled with loud whacks of percussion and wisps of ascendant human voices, adds to the sense of being surrounded by lost souls; so do the white flecks that flicker like fireflies across Wegner’s Andrew Wyeth-inspired visions of the moors, the result of transmutating her digital footage onto celluloid film before scanning it for the color grade. Anything seems possible — except for when Lib is watching over Anna, and the unmistakable reality of a simple child being coerced into nonsense by her desperate mother (played by Elaine Cassidy, Kíla Lord Cassidy’s actual mother) clicks back into focus.

Steely as ever, while still allowing Lib a tragic undercurrent of her own, Pugh is excellent in her scenes with the younger Cassidy, but there’s a gear missing from the time these characters spend together. Where there should be a measure of tension between the nurse’s doubt and her subject’s unwavering belief, instead there’s only a fussy mix of secrets and pity. Even the hot and heavy relationship that Lib rushes into with Burke’s leery journalist — sad and sweet and even a little bit funny for how it betrays a mutual need for expiation — struggles to escape the shadow of the ideas that it’s meant to represent. Impressive as it is that “The Wonder” is able to squeeze so much from its spartan trappings, the film still feels clipped at 110 minutes; there may not be a lot to chew on, but there’s almost too much to savor.

It’s only in the last third of the film, once all the cards are on the table, that “The Wonder” is truly able to reach for the divine while delivering on the terms that it sets for itself at the outset. Religion may be no different than any of the other stories we tell ourselves in order to survive, but it can be uniquely indicative of their power over us. And, by extension, it can also be instructive as to the power they give us over ourselves in return.

When one of the characters in this story laments believing someone who told her that “love is forever,” there’s no mistaking how that belief was strong enough to bridge the gap between heaven and hell. “The Wonder” often skims along the surface when it should cut deeper, but the film’s obviousness only holds it back for so long. By the time it reaches its final shot — inevitably closing the clever parenthetical opened by its first — you just might believe every word of it, too.

“The Wonder” premiered at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival. Netflix will release it in theaters in November, and streaming on Netflix in December.

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‘The Wonder’ Review: Florence Pugh Stuns as a Woman of Science in a Community of Faith

The director of “A Fantastic Woman” and the author of “Room” find a vehicle that perfectly blends their sensibilities

This review originally ran September 2, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.

You’ll need to have faith in your core to be swept away by Sebastián Lelio’s lovely and elegiac “The Wonder,” a mournful and textured psychodrama that gently nurses one into hope and spiritual serenity.

But not a religious kind of faith, to be clear: You’ll just need to believe in, or at least gradually come to accept, the power of stories as a means of survival.

A deeply feminine tale of fortitude with heart and teeth, “The Wonder” (making its world premiere at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival) hints at this very suggestion right at the start — perhaps a tad too expressly — and opens on what looks like a contemporary film stage. As the camera pans, it unveils the yarn’s eventual setting, the impoverished Irish Midlands of the 19 th Century, haunted by unspeakable grief under the recent shadow of the Great Famine.

As if to tell a bedtime story, a voiceover softly requests us to consider the complete devotion in which the dwellers of “The Wonder” believe in their own truths. As we’d soon find out, one side would be charged by mathematical facts and modern science; the other, by Catholic faith.

Lib Wright (the astonishing Florence Pugh, in a delicately searing performance) is firmly in science’s corner as a top English Nightingale summoned to a remote Irish village for a well-paying yet mysterious duty. After an arduous journey across seas and sweeping landscapes of mist and sward, all cuddled by the masterful Ari Wegner’s dewy cinematography of muted, buttery watercolors, the nurse faces an all-male panel of the town’s bigwigs, including the likes of Doctor McBrearty (Toby Jones) and landowner John Flynn (Brian F. O’Byrne).

Leading the committee is Ciarán Hinds’ imposing Priest Father Thaddeus, who guides Lib through her two-week assignment. She is hired to watch — and only to watch — the town’s famous 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell (a sensational Kíla Lord Cassidy in a breakthrough role), who hasn’t had any food for four months since her last birthday and yet still shows no signs of weakness or starvation.

Overwhelmed by nosy tourists and insistent journalists, the group simply wants to know whether the girl is a miracle or a fraud. Learning that she’d share shifts with a nun named Sister Michael (Josie Walker), “Why a nun?” inquires the science-minded Lib, understandably rejecting the possibility of divine intervention. “Welcome to Ireland,” is the loaded response she gets. In another scene that contrasts Lib’s contemporary ways against the devout town she dismisses as “backwards,” Lib fires, “I need facts, not stories,” when told that Anna’s last meal was the body of Christ. She indifferently notes down, “wafer.”

Adapted from “Room” author Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel by Alice Birch, Lelio and Donoghue herself, “The Wonder” builds all its characters and their conflicting dilemmas patiently and compassionately, especially once the bedridden and angelically porcelain Anna enters the tale with her sweet and tranquil demeanor. Donoghue is a master when it comes not only to engaging with resilient feminine headspace, but also surveying a child’s inner world; understanding how little ones cope, adapt, transform and are reborn — that much we know from “Room.”

Meanwhile, Lelio is a maestro of portraying womanly strength and tenacity, as demonstrated through his impressive streak of “Gloria,” “A Fantastic Woman” and “Disobedience,” all telling stories that pit women against the perils of masculine bile, tradition and religion. In that regard, you can’t help but feel that there couldn’t have been a more fitting match between the curiosities of an author and filmmaker, while witnessing the cozy cadence in which Anna and Lib warm up to one another.

Each touched by their own familial grief and trauma, the duo comes with personal and domestic secrets that “The Wonder” skillfully takes its time to disclose, in rooms Lelio and Wegner (“The Power of the Dog”) light with shades of baroque, painterly chiaroscuro. Anna chirps lightly and prays to no end for her deceased brother, insisting that “manna” from heaven ensures her survival. Frustrated by the girl’s stubbornly religious family (the brittle yet resolute Elaine Cassidy is especially outstanding as the mother), Lib on the other hand gives everything she’s got to listening to and comprehending Anna, who often tells her, “You don’t understand us.”

Because she’s convinced that Anna is being fed in secret, Lib treats the situation like a detective case to be cracked. In a frantic and devastating violation of trust one day, she regretfully tries to shove food down the weakening little one’s throat. (During this masterful, tear-jerker of a scene, expect to secretly wish for Lib’s success while desperately wanting her to stop all the same.) Ultimately, nothing works on the fragile girl, who continues to believe in a spiritual kind of nourishment despite her deteriorating health.

Has Anna been brainwashed? Is she being used as a religious pawn by benefit seekers? It’s not until the persistent journalist Will (Tom Burke) finally breaks Lib and convinces her to collaborate with him that secrets crack wide open. As a person with closer leanings to faith than Lib and also a tragic past, he serves as a logical bridge in the tale; one who finds and connects the missing pieces of the two sides.

Divulging what the pair discovers would betray the serene rhythm that Lelio and his editor Kristina Hetherington (“The Duke”) establish throughout. Just know that the film possibly gains something from reading Donoghue’s book after seeing the screen adaptation. Then again, it perhaps loses a little something, too; you can’t help but feel a smidgen of hurry when Will and Lib fall into each other’s arms in a moment of need and assume a more luxuriously teased chemistry throughout the pages of the book.

Regardless, what a visual, aural and philosophical feat “The Wonder” is as a cinematic examination of empathy and truth, faith and reason, and pride and identity. Every aesthetic decision here complements the film’s searching qualities, from Matthew Herbert’s echoey score of dreamy sounds and pregnant screeches — the screaming sorts you’d perhaps hear in a dream or nature — to frequent use of central framing that emphasizes Lib’s growing isolation and desperation. Delivering a towering performance in a budding career already full of them, Pugh especially leaves a memorable trace as Lib tries to get inside Anna’s head, agitatedly sweeping the muddy earth with her “Lady Macbeth”–adjacent garbs in one moment, quietly sinking into her own demons in the next with a softening façade.

It would be too simplistic to summarize “The Wonder” solely as a lesson on the shortcomings of blind faith and organized religion. A more rewarding engagement is to see it as an exercise on listening with humility. In the end, Lelio earns the powerful close of “The Wonder” with every temperate turn. His film, a career-best, departs like a birdsong, with an optimistic finale as perfect and revelatory as they come.

“The Wonder” opens in select U.S. theaters Nov. 2 and premieres on Netflix Nov. 16.

Screen Rant

The wonder review: florence pugh is the miracle in netflix's haunting movie.

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Florence Pugh has proven she can dominate the screen no matter the strength of the film behind her. Earlier this year, she starred in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling and carried that film through sheer force of will. In The Wonder , directed by Sebastián Lelio ( Gloria Bell , A Fantastic Woman ), Pugh does something similar while having much more to work with. The Wonder may buckle under lofty ideas the film seems reticent to explore with the religious fervor its subject would call for, but it is a beautiful and haunting film thanks to the impeccable behind-the-scenes talent and Pugh's magnetism. Still, The Wonder will leave many wanting more when it comes to what lurks beneath its fascinating story.

Pugh plays Lib Wright, an English nurse called to a remote Irish village to watch over Anna O'Donnell (Kila Lord Cassidy), a young girl who has not eaten anything since her 11th birthday but is still miraculously alive. In eight-hour shifts, Lib and one other woman, a nun named Sister Michael (Josie Walker), are to watch Anna and report their findings to a local council at the end of a two-week period. Lib is naturally skeptical, searching every crook and crevice in the O’Donnell home for hidden food. The less scientifically inclined members of the village believe they are witnessing a miracle and Lib becomes hellbent on proving them wrong as journalists, believers, and non-believers descend on the village.

Related: Aftersun Review: Charlotte Wells' Debut Feature Is Poignant & Powerful

The Wonder is an eerie film, and Matthew Herbert’s score evokes an unnerving chill as Ari Wegner’s camera glides over a lush but sparse Irish landscape. Wegner (whose recent work includes The Power of the Dog , an equally haunting film ) has the camera floating in and out of village homes and over the windswept tundra, acting as a ghost itself, an unseen miracle siding with Lib and her determination to root out the O’Donnell family’s potential fraud.

The script, which is adapted by Emma Donoghue from her own 2016 novel, rightly stays with Lib's perspective as she battles a traumatic past and a village that would rather her not be there at all. The English nurse is faced with all sorts of pushback while trying to do her job, a tough prospect for anyone, let alone a woman being overseen by a council of men who do not trust her, regardless of whether they are men of faith or science. The harsh landscape only serves to compound these issues, as does the nun also sent to watch over Anna. Lib is not to confer with her to make sure their findings are unbiased, but there’s a coldness to Sister Michael and Walker's staunch performance that adds to the unsettling nature of the task at hand.

Unfortunately, The Wonder isn’t all too interested in this task, overlooking the battle between faith and fact for more interpersonal interests as well as a romantic subplot that would feel unnecessary save for its usefulness in The Wonder ’s ending. It’s an ending that feels more like a deus ex machina than an earned development, but once again, Pugh is the film’s saving grace, as is a scene of Lib confronting the council with her findings.

In the way Pugh holds the film together, so too does Leilo and Wegner’s work. The supporting cast also does tremendous work with what little they're given, including Tom Burke, Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones, Niamh Algar, and more rounding out the ensemble. For all their work in making The Wonder an atmospheric feat about miracles and the damage they can do, though, The Wonder ’s concept ultimately goes unexplored. This could be forgiven if the subtext weren't laid bare early on with the mention of Ireland's Great Famine and the clear connection to the "fasting girls" of the Victorian era. There may be few miracles in The Wonder , but it's clear that Pugh is one unto herself.

Next: Best Movies Of 2022

The Wonder premiered on Netflix Wednesday, November 16. The film is 108 minutes long and rated R for some sexuality.

Based on the novel Room by Emma Donoghue, The Wonder tells the tale of a young girl in the Irish Midlands in the 1800s who is perceived as a saint based on miraculous events surrounding her. Florence Pugh plays nurse Lib Wright, who is sent to examine a girl who stopped eating but remains healthy. The girl, anna O'Donnell, is subjected to visitors across the land as people come to see the mysterious saintly child, but others believe she may be tied to something more sinister. The Wonder is a psychological thriller that pits love vs. evil as Lib and Anna grow closer despite the events surrounding them. 

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‘The Wonder’ Review: Florence Pugh Film Pits Science Against Religion

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This review was originally a part of our 2022 Toronto International Film Festival coverage .

The Wonder begins with an acknowledgment of the artifice inherent to what director Sebastián Lelio has created for us. While all films are themselves illusions, rarely does the very opening shot remind the audience of this. Over a glimpse at an almost empty warehouse of some kind that appears clean and sterile to the eye, we hear narration from lead Florence Pugh who begins monologuing about the film itself. She does so not in character, but as the actress herself. As the camera begins to move, she makes the case for the importance of stories themselves. The camera then settles on a set with Pugh’s Lib Wright who is traveling to a remote community in Ireland. It is important to put a pin in this prologue as the film leaves it behind for almost the entirety of an experience that becomes both evocative and erratic.

What follows is a film that serves as a fraught conversation with itself and the nature of storytelling which is flawed yet fascinating to behold. Based on the novel of the same name by Emma Donoghue , we are transported back to the 19th century where we discover that Lib is a nurse who has been hired to look into a mysterious medical impossibility. Specifically, it is that an 11-year-old girl named Anna O’Donnell ( Kíla Lord Cassidy ) has not been eating for several months yet seems to be in perfectly good health. What then begins is a watch where Lib and a nun will take turns keeping an eye on the child to ascertain what is happening. They do so under the direction of a small board that includes one Dr. McBrearty, played by an underutilized yet terrific Toby Jones , who seems to have gotten swept up in the spectacle.

Lib, on the other hand, is skeptical of almost everything that is playing out. The more she attempts to learn about the family and what is taking place, the more she grows to realize that her job is merely meant to affirm the supposed “miracle” they've received. While she does not believe in any faith, the family of the girl and the many visitors who come to see her are devout to a potentially dangerous degree. The only other person that Lib seems to have a connection with is William Byrne ( Tom Burke ) who has come to the area to seek the truth in his capacity as a journalist. However, even he has his own perspective on the situation that occasionally runs counter to hers. Also operating in the background is Kitty ( Niamh Algar ) who seems to be aware of what is really happening and, based on a couple of very significant shots, may even be aware that we are watching as an audience. Regardless, she isn’t much help to Lib who begins to form an attachment to Anna that stems from a loss that each has endured.

RELATED: The True Story Behind Florence Pugh's 'The Wonder' and the Fasting Girls

The film is an odd experience that, often despite some of its inclinations, still sinks underneath your skin. Much of this is due to how Pugh delivers a dynamic performance that excels in the quieter moments as her character methodically tries to piece together what is happening. She is dedicated to the pursuit of truth and clings to the idea that this will be the way to complete the assignment that she has been called here to do. Soon, this becomes more than a job for Lib and Pugh remains as spectacular as ever in teasing out the motivations of her character. Some showy moments undercut her performance, but she remains as resolute as ever in seeing it through. The fact that the film is written by Alice Birch , who also wrote the unsettling Lady Macbeth that made Pugh one to watch, might tempt one to put it in conversation with that prior film. While both are thrillers of sorts that take place in similar settings, The Wonder plays out with a more self-reflective perspective that can often get tangled up in itself. Many scenes serve to only further tie the story into knots.

With that being said, there is something arresting in seeing it attempt to untangle itself, much of this because of the way it embraces an eerie atmosphere. The score by Matthew Herbert is key to this as it bounces back and forth between sounding like a ghostly whalesong to the tense ticking of a booming clock. It doesn’t hold back from letting this all wash over you, even as it feels like it may drown you in the cacophony of sound. While the story is initially centered around Lib getting to the bottom of what is happening in this small town, this soundscape gives it all a sense that there is something bigger happening. Indeed, it soon becomes clear that all the science and understanding of medicine that she has may itself be useless here. The film becomes increasingly about who can tell the best story, even if it flies in the face of truth. Faith is a powerful force and those who wield it can have immense sway over the world. It can be a tool of both salvation and of destruction when desperation takes hold.

This all requires a vagueness about what exactly it arrives at as the film delves into some rather grim revelations that are impossible to discuss without tipping off what is happening. Nothing ends up being too surprising as this isn’t a thriller that thrives off of twists and turns. Instead, everything is more grounded even as the presentation can feel like it is teetering into being a horror film. It never fully leaps into this as Lelio keeps it grounded in the many scenes of Lib looking and observing to best understand what is happening. Much of it doesn’t work in a manner that threatens to almost doom the whole thing, but Pugh keeps pulling it back from the brink of oblivion. If you want to watch it just to see her command center stage, there is plenty of that in the many confined conversations she has. She keeps us engaged even when the film does not, smoothing over many of the rougher patches that arise.

What makes it more intriguing towards the end is the way it seems to pull back the curtain on itself, poking and prodding about what will be the most compelling story. It is by no means a perfectly constructed work, but there is something more immense in its thematic aspiration that provides plenty for Pugh to play around with. All that makes it unwieldy also makes The Wonder mesmerizing so that, even when the spell is broken, you can’t shake it from your mind.

The Wonder is now playing in select theaters and comes to Netflix on November 16th.

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The Wonder Reviews

It is a heavy film with tough questions, yet Florence Pugh is up for the challenge as always.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 15, 2024

A film that fully leans into what makes it work.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2024

The Wonder doesn’t instill “wonder,” nor enjoyment.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Mar 6, 2024

Much like the movie sets it depicts in its meta opening, The Wonder is similarly just an empty framework — narrative scaffolding that is never given life and a central purpose by its abridged storytelling.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2023

Based on Emma Donoghue’s eponymous book, The Wonder is a beautiful yet disturbing psychological thriller with a stellar performance by Florence Pugh.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

The Wonder is a mesmerising movie that finds the central character’s unshakable faith being broken and instils curious stories to be investigated.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

The Wonder drives its heavy themes home ever so eloquently, resulting in a worthy adaptation that won’t be easy to forget, no fewer thanks to its powerhouse cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 26, 2023

The Wonder is a bleak tale of an unexpected connection between two people well acquainted with hardship. Pugh’s performance, as always, elevates this to something beyond a religious period piece mystery about life itself.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2023

A gritty tale exploring religion vs science that is helmed by a masterful lead performance by Florence Pugh, The Wonder is definitely worth a watch and may nearly pack as much of a punch as the book.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 24, 2023

The sunless landscape that’s being blasted by wind 24×7. The creaking and dreary insides of the houses. The spine-chilling score. The constant glare of kids or elders watching our protagonist. The lack of any warmth between humans. It’s all horror 101.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2023

Pugh's performance, which dovetails nicely with newcomer Cassidy’s devout determination as Anna, can’t quite overcome the uneven plotting and, at times, flimsy characterisation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 17, 2023

Oddly though, the contemporary framing device feels even more superfluous when it returns for the final shot.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 20, 2023

Lelio shows an exceptional management of tone and the way he captures and uses his period setting enhances the story in a number of ways. He also knows what he has in Florence Pugh whose standout performance is both thoughtful and haunting.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 7, 2023

Florence Pugh is perfect in this film by Sebastian Lelio about religious obsession and those skeptical of it.

Full Review | Jan 31, 2023

The film tacitly frames faith and science as both “stories” with sincere, devoted adherents. But it leaves no doubt as to which story we should prefer.

Full Review | Jan 27, 2023

We are left with two possibilities: The Wonder is a deeply cynical artifact, or it's entirely clueless about itself. It's hard to say which is more depressing.

Haunting and atmospheric, director Sebastián Lelio's film operates between faith and evidence.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 29, 2022

Lelio (“Disobedience,” “Gloria”) continues his reverence for strong women through Pugh’s haunting portrayal of Lib, a stoic lady who does not suffer fools.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 28, 2022

Florence Pugh confronts uncertainty and skepticism in this piercing drama that questions the power of stories, faith, and freedom. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 20, 2022

... an exercise in mood with no visible threats. It will leave you with less than what you demand for a story of this nature.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 12, 2022

Please See Twisters in Theaters

The film might seem like an unnecessary sequel, but it squeezes a lot of juice out of the weather-driven disaster flick.

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Late in Twisters , as an Oklahoma town is under threat from a giant tornado, a group of strapping heroes is seeking shelter and settles on an old-fashioned movie palace. In that moment, it’s a practical choice—the theater is a big space with no windows—but I think I knew what the director Lee Isaac Chung was getting at: When all hell breaks loose, at least cinema will protect us. That’s the best way to think about the old-school spectacle of Twisters , a 2024 update to the 1996 summer blockbuster Twister that relies on mostly the same ingredients: wind, rain, cyclonic storms, and hot scientists tooling around in pickup trucks.

Honestly, the most surprising thing about Twisters is that it took Hollywood this long. Weather-related calamities are always a hot ticket, and Jan de Bont’s original , though no masterpiece, is a baseline ideal for ’90s action fun. Twister built a template that its sequel largely follows: loud and fast-paced but anchored by a reliable ensemble spouting meteorological technobabble amid the chaos. But compared with the high-octane de Bont, who was behind hits such as Speed and The Haunting , Chung is a curious choice. He’s an art-house favorite who was Oscar-nominated for the sensitive, textured Minari . Why pivot from that to tornadoes?

On the one hand, the quickest way to get a movie made in Hollywood is to slap on a familiar title . On the other hand, you can quickly guess what Chung might have seen in the project, given that he spent most of his childhood in Arkansas, where Minari is set, and has a good sense for depicting the charm and fragility of rural America. Twisters takes place amid the towns and farms of central Oklahoma, in part of the region known as Tornado Alley, where a once-in-a-generation outbreak of storms has drawn scientists, storm chasers, and amateur disaster enthusiasts looking to explore some very dangerous weather. There’s no explicit mention of just what might be causing more and more tornadoes to pop up, and the film walks a nonpolitical line on climate change while still nodding at how the times certainly are different.

It couldn’t be me doing all this storm chasing; as a New Yorker, I still fearfully recall the two little tornadoes that blew through town in September 2010. But Chung assembles quite the charming array of talent here, led by the square-jawed Glen Powell as Tyler Owens, a YouTuber who “yeehaws” in his cowboy hat as he drives toward storms with the cameras running. His supporting crew is blown in from the Sundance Film Festival, including indie darlings such as Sasha Lane, Tunde Adebimpe, Katy O’Brian, and Brandon Perea. On the more recognizable side are Daisy Edgar-Jones, playing a resolute meteorologist named Kate who’s working to overcome the trauma of watching a twister kill some of her researcher pals years prior, and Anthony Ramos as the corporate storm expert Javi, whom Kate is assisting in his effort to make 3-D-scans of tornadoes.

Read: The most influential climate-disaster thriller of all time

Yes, much like it is for Helen Hunt’s character in the original Twister , it’s personal for Kate. She grits her teeth every time she sees a condensation funnel, and she’s invented some strange tech intended to neutralize tornados on sight. That’s about all Edgar-Jones has to work with here—her character is a bit of a zero, especially when she’s matched up with Powell, whose charisma can give the thinnest caricature some teeth. Kate and Tyler start out as frenemies and end up partners, the same path Powell follows in hit rom-coms such as Set It Up or Anyone but You — only this time lots of hail and lightning surround the banter, a helpful distraction from the duo’s lack of chemistry.

But the quasi-romance should be secondary, because every viewer goes to Twisters to see … twisters. The movie has plenty of ’em, photographed on honest-to-goodness celluloid—one of Chung’s smartest decisions. Every time Twisters threatens to lag over its two-hour run time, some more rip-roaring storm action revs everything back up. If you can see the film in IMAX, or in one of those 4DX theaters that jostles your seat around and sprays water in your face, I recommend it. Chung has a nice grasp of his supporting characters, and he takes pains to dwell on the aftermath of every horrible storm, but in Twisters , the action is the juice, and the bigger and louder your viewing experience, the better.

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45. Malekith ( Thor: The Dark World )

Literally who? * — Angie Han, Deputy Entertainment Editor

44. Dormammu ( Doctor Strange )

I still don't entirely understand what Dormammu is, and I don't care. And if you're about to launch into an explanation based on the comics, my point is that the movie doesn't do a good job of explaining what he is or why I should care. * — A.H.

43. Ivan Vanko ( Iron Man 2 )

With his gold teeth, thick Russian accent, and pet cockatoo, Vanko is basically a latter-day Johnny Depp character — and as with most latter-day Johnny Depp characters, there doesn't seem to be anything like an actual person underneath all those tiresome affectations. * — A.H.

42. The Dweller-in-Darkness ( Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings )

The Dweller-in-Darkness is the CGI manifestation of studio executives flipping through the screenplay of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and realizing that there’s nothing in there that would make a cool Lego set. It’s not on the very bottom of the list because all it wants to do is eat snacks (relatable), and everyone after this entry is in Marvel’s clown car of really bad villain ideas. — Alexis Nedd, Senior Entertainment Reporter

41. Aldrich Killian ( Iron Man 3 )

The reveal that the Mandarin was really a role being played by Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery was a jaw-dropper, but the truth about who was really pulling the strings was far more disappointing. Not even Killian's embittered-nerd backstory can make him a compelling foil to Tony Stark. * — A.H.

40. Ronan the Accuser ( Guardians of the Galaxy )

Ronan gets more laughs than most of the other villains on this list, which could push him up a couple slots. But that's mostly because he's just in a funnier movie than most of the other villains on this list, not because he himself is all that funny. So he moves back down toward the bottom. * — A.H.

39. Justin Hammer ( Iron Man 2 )

Justin Hammer is essentially another Tony Stark, only inferior in every possible way. Which shouldn't be that interesting, except that Sam Rockwell makes him kind of an odious oddball. It's fun to watch him try to take down Stark, and even more satisfying to watch him fail again and again. * — A.H.

38. Abomination ( The Incredible Hulk )

There's the germ of something interesting in Emil Blonsky, an aging soldier who agrees to undergo a painful experimental procedure in order to achieve Hulk-like power. Unfortunately, The Incredible Hulk never gets there, and by the end has reduced him to a mindless CGI monster. * — A.H.

37. Ayesha ( Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 )

Ayesha is essentially just a superiority complex dipped in gold, but so much of the fun of her character comes from seeing her haughty grandeur rub up against the goofy, grimy world of the Guardians. Here's hoping she'll get more to do once Adam emerges .* — A.H.

36. Dar-Benn ( The Marvels) 

She’s got a cool warhammer (the universal weapon), some powerful jewelry (quantum band), and some tooth bling for extra flair. But this revenge-fueled wannabe savior of the Kree just feels like a retread of lesser cosmic villains who’ve come before, like Malekith and Ronan. Angry, conquering, blah. Uncluttered by egregious prosthetic makeup, Zawe Ashton’s performance isn’t swallowed up like those of her predecessors. Still, there’s not much there there. — Kristy Puchko, Entertainment Editor

35. Yon-Rogg ( Captain Marvel )

Carol Danvers' fragile masculine captor isn't particularly interesting, but not for the first time Marvel gets by on some inspired casting — and in this case, a few well-placed twists. When Carol is about to blast him to Kree-Kingdom-Come during their final showdown, Yon-Rogg encourages her to strike him, to defeat him. It's so hubristic and patronizing (what's the Kree word for "mansplain?") that Carol decides she'd rather just dip. — Proma Khosla, Entertainment Reporter

34. Obadiah Stane ( Iron Man )

Obadiah Stane fits so many of the MCU villain tropes we've become familiar with: He's a greedy businessman and a false father figure, and he's vastly less interesting than the superhero he's out to get. What makes him first among equals is that he was literally the first, setting the mold for years to come.* — A.H.

33. Goliath and Ghost ( Ant-Man and the Wasp )

Sharing a spot on the list because they share so many villainous goals, the foes of Ant-Man and the Wasp are pretty textbook. Goliath, aka Bill Foster, has beef with Hank Pym (a man who specializes in beef) and wants revenge, while Ghost, aka Ava, just wants to stop phasing and not die. They team up to harness the energy of the Quantum Realm, which interferes with Hank and Hope's plan to rescue Janet, but by the end of the movie everyone realizes what a viewer probably caught early on: There's a version of this plan where everyone wins. — P.K.

32. Kaecilius ( Doctor Strange )

Now we're really getting down to the dregs. Kaecilius is yet another MCU antagonist who lusts after some abstract notion of power. However, he wins a couple points for that flawless eye look and hilarious who's-on-first routine. — A.H.

31. Arishem the Judge ( Eternals )

The Eternals' Celestial space-robot daddy is one of the most powerful beings on this list, but fails to make a proportionate impression because he is in fact a CGI space robot with no face. Arishem is the reason the Eternals even exist. He makes villains of them and their Deviant foes by basically using everyone as chess pieces — if a game of chess ended with the Earth being destroyed to create a cosmic superbeing. Arishem isn't evil in the way of someone like Thanos; Celestials operate on ancient universal laws, while Thanos acted out of hubris — but what they all have in common is the view that most mortal life is unremarkable and therefore unessential. Hopefully Sersi, Kingo, and Phastos can convince him otherwise. — P.K.

30. Thunderbolt Ross ( The Incredible Hulk )

General Ross doesn't get the big showdown with Hulk (that dubious honor goes to Abomination), but for the first two-thirds of the movie, he's a rather chilling portrayal of a man so obsessed with revenge that he's blind to the fact that he's become a monster in his own right. — A.H.

29. Adam Warlock ( Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 )

Don't get me wrong, Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) is a ton of fun. This golden battle mage swoops into Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 early on and basically pounds them into the dirt. After that, though, we see he's more of a childlike himbo than a supervillain. For the rest of the movie, he mostly screams "Mother!" (which, fair, when you're talking about Elizabeth Debicki as Ayesha) and hangs out with furry cutie Blurp . Good news, though: By the end of the film, he's become a new Guardian of the Galaxy, so we're in for more non-villainous Adam down the line. — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter

28. Dreykov ( Black Widow )

While far from the most charismatic or memorable villain on this list, Dreykov is pretty damn sinister when you think about what he's done. He kidnapped orphans to turn them into soldiers, and he made a point to pick children with uteruses so he could forcibly sterilize them. He turned his own daughter into a barely-sentient killing machine and seemed pleased as punch — incidentally, Natasha (and the rest of us) really want to punch him. Eff this guy. — P.K.

27. Yellowjacket ( Ant-Man )

He's essentially Obadiah Stane Redux, minus the shock of realizing that, holy shit, it's Jeff Bridges under that chrome dome. Yellowjacket was just one too many wounded male egos plotting against the MCU's heroes, which perhaps mercifully led to the new era that followed. Sorry, Corey Stoll. We love you, just not this role for you. * — A.H.

26. M.O.D.O.K. ( Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania )

Darren Cross/Yellowjacket gets an upgrade after being banished to the Quantum Realm, where he is remade by Kang the Conqueror (more on him later) to be a Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing. M.O.D.O.K. is mostly a gag villain thanks to his teeny little arms and legs and frankly massive head — apologies should be in order for nightmarishly stretching Corey Stoll's face like this. But M.O.D.O.K also has some of the funniest lines in an otherwise meh movie , and Stoll is clearly having a blast. At least he died an Avenger, right? Right? — B.E.

25. Trevor/The Mandarin ( Iron Man 3 )

To this day, the reveal of the Mandarin's true identity is one of the most shocking twists that the MCU has ever pulled off — and Ben Kingsley plays both sides beautifully. He's chilling as the Mandarin but delightfully daft as Trevor, the party-bro actor who has no idea what's really going on.* — A.H.

24. Taskmaster ( Black Widow )

Taskmaster is Black Widow’ s main antagonist for most of the movie, and while they don’t do much beyond showing up and kicking ass, that ass-kicking is some of the best in the MCU. Tasky’s fight scenes are a highlight reel of every Avenger’s coolest moves, and half the fun of watching Black Widow is seeing how Natasha would actually fare if she squared up against Captain America, Bucky (again), Black Panther, and herself. Also, points awarded for having a cool third act reveal. Best wishes to you, Taskmaster. — A.N.

23. Alexander Pierce ( Captain America: The Winter Soldier )

Like Vulture and Zemo, Alexander Pierce is a relatively understated villain. But he's got gravitas, because he's played by Robert Freakin' Redford, and he raises some genuinely complicated questions about security versus freedom. Well, at least until it's revealed that he's been a Hydra agent all along, and therefore unambiguously evil. Oh, well.* — A.H.

22. Red Skull ( Captain America: The First Avenger )

Red Skull is a really good representation of another annoying MCU villain trend: squandered promise. He's played by Hugo Weaving and based on a popular comic book character, so he seems like he should be amazing. But onscreen, he comes across as just another generic nemesis.* — A.H.

21. Ulysses Klaue ( Avengers: Age of Ultron , Black Panther )

Ulysses Klaue is a villain who died before he really got to live. Mostly in the sense that it would've been wild to see Andy Serkis' take on the comics, but Klaue served his purpose in the MCU's ongoing story. It's Klaue who smuggled vibranium out of Wakanda, a singular act that directly leads to Killmonger's plot to establish Wakanda as a fearsome ruling superpower. Without that vibranium, where would Ultron's consciousness end up after he escaped Tony's computer system? It's impossible to know what the MCU would look like without Klaue's impact, and that's what makes him one of the saga's essential villains. — Adam Rosenberg, Senior Entertainment Reporter & Weekend Editor

20. Ego ( Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 )

Talk about villains grounded in painful reality. Kurt Russell is perfect as Ego, the personification of every dashing deadbeat who's ever refused to let minor details like "a child" stand in the way of his grand ambitions. It's just that his grand ambitions involve remaking the entire galaxy.* — A.H.

19. Kang the Conqueror ( Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania )

Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors) is one of Marvel Comics' biggest villains, and he's been hyped up as the big bad of Phases 5 and 6 of the MCU . So why was he such a letdown? Maybe it's the fact that his introductory movie simply isn't very good , or maybe it's that his power set isn't defined well beyond "shooting blue beams" and "blathering on and on about how he can see time." Or maybe it's that you need to have watched Loki to have even the slightest understanding of who he is . Whatever the reason, he's just not popping yet — and that's a gargantuan problem. At least Majors seems to be having fun, I guess. — B.E.

18. Winter Soldier ( Captain America: The Winter Soldier )

Bucky is only a true villain in Winter Soldier , and then just because he's been brainwashed by Hydra. Maybe that's a shame, because it turns out he's pretty good at being bad. He's all ruthless efficiency and controlled intensity, but his real secret weapon as a supervillain is his tragic backstory.* — A.H.

17. Ultron ( Avengers: Age of Ultron )

A sort of sentient robot son to Tony Stark, Ultron sounds cooler in theory than he actually is in execution. But he is voiced by James Spader in mustache-twirling villain mode, and he's the kind of unapologetic drama queen who insists on having his own throne. That's not nothing.* — A.H.

16. Hela ( Thor: Ragnarok )

Odin’s firstborn and the goddess of death, Hela is a formidable foe for Thor. She breaks Mjolnir! She kills the Warriors Three with her knife-y powers! She’s played by Cate Blanchett! Even though Hela is sidelined for much of Thor: Ragnarok , Blanchett imbues her with delightfully chilling villainy. Also, her outfit is among the best villain outfits in the MCU — talk about being dressed to kill. — B.E.

15. Gorr the God Butcher ( Thor: Love and Thunder )

Say what you will about Thor: Love and Thunder , there's no denying that Christian Bale makes for an amazing villain. Drape that man in a sinister cloak, put the Necrosword in his hand, and give him a tragic backstory, and you're looking at MCU villain gold. Gorr's grief-fueled quest to kill all gods in the universe is Love and Thunder 's most compelling storyline. While the film doesn't examine it quite as much as I wish it would, it still gives us Gorr being the world's most terrifying babysitter. Absolutely immaculate villain vibes. — B.E.

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14. Mysterio ( Spider-Man: Far From Home )

On paper, Mysterio looks like a pedestrian amalgam of Vulture, Justin Hammer, and Aldrich Killian — but the formula doesn't account for Jake Gyllenhaal chewing the absolute heck out of this role. In Mysterio, Gyllenhaal finds layers of sincerity (with Peter), egomania (with his team), and outright unhinged madness that is nothing short of delightful to behold. How did Tony Stark ever overlook this guy? — P.K.

13. The Grandmaster ( Thor: Ragnarok )

Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) may not be Thor: Ragnarok 's main villain, but the hedonistic leader of Sakaar more than steals the show. Everything from his sparkly blue makeup to his funky piano jam sessions oozes funky, offbeat charisma — even when he’s forcing unwilling fighters to battle his champion to the death. Arguably the most fun Marvel villain, thanks in no small part to Goldblum doing what he does best, Grandmaster is just a blast to watch. — B.E.

12. Helmut Zemo ( Captain America: Civil War )

In contrast to the colorful, power-mad personalities we've come to expect from comic book movies, Zemo is a quiet, unassuming man driven by grief. Best of all, the guy's kind of got a point when he notes that the Avengers are responsible for a lot of collateral damage.* — A.H.

11. The High Evolutionary ( Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 )

Hoo boy, this guy is evil. In his quest to develop the perfect utopian species — so, space eugenics? — The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) tortures and mutilates sweet, innocent animals like Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper). Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 does not pull its punches when depicting the horror of The High Evolutionary's experiments, a choice that brings the MCU to its darkest places yet while solidifying just how horrendous its villain is. The High Evolutionary gets bonus points on this villain ranking for his frightening face mask and Iwuji's capital "D" Dramatic performance, which brings high Shakespearean theatrics to The High Evolutionary. Truly an irredeemable monster of a villain. — B.E.

10. Mr. Paradox ( Deadpool & Wolverine)

Some Marvel villains have been given mystical armies, unnerving prosthetic makeovers, and/or elaborate backstories sparked from petty grievances. Mr. Paradox doesn't need any of that to be a terrific villain. Sure, at first glance, he just seems like a British suit with a smug attitude. But props to Succession 's Matthew Macfadyen, who's made being a power-hungry weasel into an art. Paradox's plan is one of timeline annihilation, coldly killing off millions of beings because he thinks the timelines are tidier that way. That's deeply evil and unhinged. But what makes Paradox marvelous is Macfadyen's delivery. Whether he's providing a dense exposition dump, dressing down Deadpool for relying on the "Worst Wolverine," or squawking for help when his master plan goes kabluey, the theatrical energy and snarling self-satisfaction makes for a foe that's an absolute hoot to hate. — K.P.

9. Vulture ( Spider-Man: Homecoming )

Vulture is a basically normal dude grappling with the fact that he lives in a superpowered world — but unlike our heroes, Adrian Toomes isn't inspired by example to become one of the good guys. He channels that rage into a successful black-market enterprise selling alien weaponry, but what's fascinating about Adrian is there's much more to him than supervillainy. He doesn't seem to be playing a role in the way that, say, Obadiah Stane was only pretending to be Tony's friend so he could stab him in the back later. Adrian really is a family man, and he really is an illegal arms dealer. He contains multitudes, and Homecoming doesn't shy away from it.* — A.H.

8. Namor ( Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

With his winged ankles, green hot pants, and strength to rival the Hulk's, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's Namor (Tenoch Huerta) bursts onto the scene with a tremendous amount of flair. But Namor is so much more than his appearance. A backstory involving his Yucatec-Mayan people fleeing from European colonizers sets the stage for his compelling motivations: wanting to keep his people and their home of Talokan safe. Like Black Panther 's Killmonger, his reasoning makes sense and initially positions him more as an antihero. Also like Killmonger, his violent methods quickly plunge him into villainy, making for a layered Marvel antagonist who is also a blast to watch. — B.E.

7. Cassandra Nova ( Deadpool & Wolverine)

She's the evil twin of X-Men leader Charles Xavier, which means Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) shares his skills for telepathy and telekinesis. But you know, without all those pesky moral codes weighing her down. Content to rule over the temporal wastelands, Cassandra developed a creepy crew of X-men villains while building a fort in the rotted-out suit of a lost Giant Man. But once she meets Deadpool and Logan, her ambition grows from dystopian tyrant to eradicator of all existence. And if that goal alone isn't enough to commend her as a top-tier MCU villain, consider how her superpower involves stretching her fingers deep into her victims' brains. Watching Paradox's eyes wiggle as she treats his skull like a bowling ball is one of the creepiest things the MCU has offered yet. — K.P.

6. Wanda Maximoff ( Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness )

We can discuss at length how Wanda Maximoff deserved better throughout her time in the MCU, but we can also give her major props for being an exceptional villain in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness . Elizabeth Olsen is clearly having the time of her life as the film's big bad, channeling horror film legends like Samara from The Ring and Carrie White from Carrie . She also annihilates years' worth of fan service in the film's most diabolical sequence. On top of all that, Wanda's villainy comes after several movies and an entire TV show 's worth of character development. So, our attachment makes her turn to the dark side both engrossing and painful to watch. Hats off to Olsen for a killer performance, and here's hoping Wanda is having a better time somewhere else in the multiverse. — B.E.

5. Green Goblin ( Spider-Man: No Way Home )

No Way Home may have brought back every notable Spider-Man villain since 2002 (sorry, Hobgoblin), but Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin is a magnificent standout as he urges them all to go rogue. This character once laid the groundwork for the misguided-scientist-who-turns-into-a-bad-experiment that every Spidey villain followed until Vulture, and his performance is as unhinged and spectacular as it was 20 years ago. Sliding back into Goblin’s armor, madness, and signature cackle, Dafoe reminds us that he all but invented the modern comic book movie villain, that everyone else here is in the house that Goblin built. It’s a hell of a legacy to leave behind in the first place, and even mightier to live up to it yourself. — P.K.

4. Loki ( Thor , The Avengers )

There's a reason Loki is the rare baddie to stick around for more than one movie ( and a whole TV show ). He's the only MCU supervillain who's as fully developed as the MCU superheroes — and with his sad tale of familial angst, he's almost as sympathetic. Plus, Tom Hiddleston gives Loki a slippery, smirky charisma that's hard to resist. You listen to one of his faux-Shakespearean monologues and tell me you're not tempted to cross over to the dark side.* — A.H.

3. Wenwu ( Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings )

Leave it to Hong Kong cinema icon Tony Leung to show up 25 movies into the MCU and proceed to wipe the floor with almost every other villain the franchise has come up with. Wenwu is a fascinating villain because he’s a bad guy who isn’t always a bad person , and the real tragedy of Shang-Chi is knowing Wenwu is mourning more than the loss of his wife — he’s mourning the lost possibility of his own redemption. Also, he’s a Marvel villain who keeps another Marvel villain as a human pet. That’s god-tier villainy right there. — A.N.

2. Eric Killmonger ( Black Panther )

Hot off the heels of Vulture revolutionizing MCU villainy came Michael B. Jordan's legendary turn in Black Panther . Eric is everything T'Challa isn't: vengeful, embittered, and deeply isolated. His methods might be villainous, but his message is compelling. Growing up in Oakland, far from the promise of Wakanda, he mourns generations of injustice that Black people have experienced around the world, seething with envy at T'Challa and his supposedly charmed life. Killmonger's pain stays with us long after the credits roll on Black Panther , as does his chilling final line. — P.K.

1. Thanos ( Avengers: Infinity War , Avengers: Endgame )

Here we go. The big bad. The biggest  bad. In one *snap,* Thanos erased half of the known universe from existence — but it's more than that. The build-up to Thanos pretty much defined the entire pace of the MCU's first truly sprawling story arc, from Iron Man to Endgame . Marvel spent 10 entire years teasing and setting up this massive villain before 2018's Avengers: Infinity War  gave him an outwardly significant role to play. It was a hell of a trick, and it wouldn't have worked without the decade of buildup making it clear that a larger, more malevolent puppet-master was always pulling the strings just out of view. There are more exciting villains in the MCU, but Thanos is, as ever, inevitable. — A.R.

*This blurb appeared on a previous list.

UPDATE: Jul. 23, 2024, 4:15 p.m. EDT Originally published on Sept. 9, 2021, this list has been updated to include the latest MCU releases.

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Kristy Puchko is the Film Editor at Mashable. Based in New York City, she's an established film critic and entertainment reporter, who has traveled the world on assignment, covered a variety of film festivals, co-hosted movie-focused podcasts, interviewed a wide array of performers and filmmakers, and had her work published on RogerEbert.com, Vanity Fair, and The Guardian. A member of the Critics Choice Association and GALECA as well as a Top Critic on Rotten Tomatoes, Kristy's primary focus is movies. However, she's also been known to gush over television, podcasts, and board games. You can follow her on Twitter.

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This was the last movie review Roger Ebert filed. 

Released less than two years after his " The Tree of Life ," an epic that began with the dinosaurs and peered into an uncertain future, Terrence Malick 's "To the Wonder" is a film that contains only a handful of important characters and a few crucial moments in their lives. Although it uses dialogue, it's dreamy and half-heard, and essentially this could be a silent film — silent, except for its mostly melancholy music.

The movie stars Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko as a couple who fall deeply, tenderly, transcendently in love in France. Malick opens as they visit Mont St. Michel, the cathedral perched on a spire of rock off the French coast, and moves to the banks of the Seine, but really, its landscape is the terrain is these two bodies, and the worshipful ways in which Neil and Marina approach each other. Snatches of dialogue, laughter, shared thoughts, drift past us. Nothing is punched up for dramatic effect.

Marina, a single mother, decides to move with her little daughter, Tatiana, to America with Neil, and the setting suddenly becomes the flatlands of Oklahoma, a land seen here as nearly unpopulated. Oh, there are people here, but we see few of them and engage with only a handful. Again there is the hushed serenity as in France, but differences grow between them, and there is anger now in some of their words. Neil reconnects with Jane ( Rachel McAdams ), an American girl he was once in love with, and romantic perfection between he and Marina seems to slip away.

In Oklahoma, we meet Father Quintana ( Javier Bardem ), a priest from Europe, whose church is new and brightly lit. We can almost smell the furniture varnish. His faith has been challenged, and many of his statements are directed toward Jesus Christ, as a sort of former lover. Quintana visits prisoners, the ill, the poor and the illiterate, whose dialogue is half-understood even by themselves.

As all of these relationships intertwine, Malick depicts them with deliberate beauty and painterly care. The mood is often similar to the feelings of the early small-town scenes in " The Tree of Life ." Malick has a repertory of fundamental images he draws upon.

We don't need to be told Malick's in an autobiographical vein here; these memories surely belong to the storyteller. In both films, he is absorbed in living and dining rooms, looking out upon neat lawns and neighborhood pastoral peace.

As the film opened, I wondered if I was missing something. As it continued, I realized many films could miss a great deal. Although he uses established stars, Malick employs them in the sense that the French director Robert Bresson intended when he called actors "models." Ben Affleck here isn't the star of " Argo " but a man, often silent, intoxicated by love and then by loss. Bardem, as a priest far from home, made me realize as never before the loneliness of the unmarried clergy. Wandering in his empty church in the middle of the day, he is a forlorn figure, crying out in prayer and need to commune with his Jesus.

A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision.

"Well," I asked myself, "why not?" Why must a film explain everything? Why must every motivation be spelled out? Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed? Aren't many of them telling the same story? Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like. We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?

There will be many who find "To the Wonder" elusive and too effervescent. They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply. I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too. But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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To the Wonder (2013)

Rated R for sexuality/nudity

112 minutes

Ben Affleck as Neil

Olga Kurylenko as Marina

Rachel McAdams as Jane

Javier Bardem as Quintana

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Based on the book by the best-selling author of Wonder, this uplifting movie shows how one act of kindness can live on forever. Based on the book by the best-selling author of Wonder, this uplifting movie shows how one act of kindness can live on forever. Based on the book by the best-selling author of Wonder, this uplifting movie shows how one act of kindness can live on forever.

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• Trivia Originally set for a release on September 16, 2022, it was pushed to October 14, 2022. Later that month, the film was quietly removed from the schedule and pushed to August 25, 2023, due to underperforming at the Fall (2021 box office and pushed again to an unspecified date due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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SDCC 2024: Iyanu Child Of Wonder Getting An Animated Adaptation On Max

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Iyanu: Child of Wonder , a major comic book success for Dark Horse Comics , is set to receive an animated adaptation. Produced by Lion Forge Entertainment, the superhero series steeped in Nigerian mythology is heading to the Max streaming service in the coming year.

Showcased at San Diego Comic-Con 2024, the series is poised to bring new life and attention to the tale penned by Nigerian creator and filmmaker Roye Okupe. Now, a clip shown at the landmark event gives audiences their first glimpse at the upcoming show. Featuring an all-star creative team, the show is sure to join the pantheon of exciting animated superhero fare.

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First Look at Iyanu at Comic-Con

Based on the Iyanu: Child of Wonder graphic novel series by Dark Horse Comics and YouNeek Studios, the upcoming animated adaptation was on the center stage at the “Crafting IYANU: An Inside Look at Lion Forge Entertainment's Animated Series” SDCC panel. The series is set in Yorubaland, a fictionalized version of Nigeria that heavily features the country's mythology and folklore. Iyanu is the titular character, with the young girl discovering her innate powers as she yearns to forge a destiny beyond her mundane life. Along with her allies Biyi and Toye, she embarks on an adventure to learn more about herself and defeat the evil threatening her home.

Actress Serah Johnson portrays Iyanu, while Okey Jude, Samuel Kugbiyi, Adesua Etomi-Wellington, and Blossom Chukwujekwu voice Biyi, Toye, Olori and Kanfo. Likewise, Stella Damasus, Shaffy Bello, Ike Ononye voice Sewa, Emi the Tone Mother, and Elder Alapani. Creator Roye Okupe is the EP and director, while Brandon Easton, who's worked on such shows as Netflix's Transformers: War for Cybertron trilogy and the Marvel TV series Agent Carter , will be the head writer. The Comic-Con clip is only the initial look at the series, however, fans have to wait until 2025 to watch Iyanu on Cartoon Network and the Max streaming service. The comic book series published by Dark Horse is now up to its third volume, with other YouNeek Studios comics such as Malika: Warrior Queen also available.

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Iyanu and Lion Forge are Gamechangers In Superhero Cartoon/Comic Diversity

Though the Iyanu comic books are published by Dark Horse and YouNeek Studios, Lion Forge Entertainment is the major driving force behind the animated series. Starting in 2011 as a comic book publisher named Lion Forge Comics, the company eventually merged with comic book publisher Oni Press , with the combined publishers now owned by Polarity. The publisher's previous Catalyst Prime comics were focused on a diverse cast of superheroes with works such as Iyanu continuing that thematic focus. These include the animated short “Hair Love," the song “Rise Up, Sing Out” for Disney, and the award-winning “The Power of We: A Sesame Street Special.”

The executive producers for Iyanu are David Steward II, Matt Heath, Erica Dupuis, Ryan Haidarian, and Doug Schwalbe, the former of whom was the co-founder of Lion Forge. Impact x Capital, which focuses on supporting diverse talent in the digital sphere, is also behind the series. Putting a foreign culture and its mythology firmly on display, Iyanu should wow audiences of all ages with its storytelling and inventive animation. It joins several animated superhero shows in the pipeline, including more adult-oriented fare such as Invincible for Amazon Prime Video, the Disney+ shows X-Men' 97 and the upcoming Marvel Zombies , as well as the 2024 animated series Creature Commandos , which will be the first entry in James Gunn's rebooted DC Universe.

Source: Lion Forge Press Release

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