Fantastic Film Festival Australia (FFFA) is back for its 2025 programming, and cinephiles with a taste for the experimental, esoteric, and independent, brace yourselves!

The conflicting adaptation of Tom Michell’s memoir, The Penguin Lessons, swerves between a lighthearted comedy and political drama.

The Correspondent actually offers a rather insightful narration of Australian journalist Peter Greste’s experience during his incarceration in Cairo back in 2014. 

At a brisk 95 minutes, Drop is the kind of taut, grown-up genre film that feels increasingly rare.

Small Things Like These is a poignant title for an arresting film, as it’s the little uncomfortable things director Tim Mielants wants you to become familiar with.

It’s a post-Bluey world and children deserve better from animated dog properties, let alone adults who might be drawn in by Dog Man’s appealing art.

The Count of Monte Cristo, directed and written by french duo Alexandre de La Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte, is a three hour epic worthy of the source material.

James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen is a slow-burn psychological horror that trades in gore for something far more insidious - helplessness.

Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up is a delightful, high-energy adventure that stays true to the heart of what makes the franchise so beloved.

Oh, Canada tries to be profound and contemplative, but disappointingly, is not as deep or compelling as it thinks it is. 

In an era of ever-increasing shake-ups in the animation world, it’s no wonder the best animated feature film of the past year was made by a small team of Latvian filmmakers in Blender.

For all of the hysteria that has surrounded this adaptation, when I watched this in a preview screening surrounded by cheering girls in Snow White costumes, it was hard to remember why people were convinced of the insidiousness of this film in the first place. 

If you’re looking for a bit of lighthearted fun, One of Them Days is one release you won’t want to miss!

Steven Soderbergh continues his prolific ‘post-retirement’ run with Black Bag, a tightly-wound spy thriller that is as cleverly composed as it is devilishly paranoid.

While it most likely won’t be regarded as a mobster classic when compared to some of Scorsese’s other masterpieces it is trying to channel, The Alto Knights is still a well-enough-made film that fans of the mobster genre will be able to glean some enjoyment from the feature.

My Melbourne is the people we all know: our friends, our family, our neighbours, our coworkers, our bosses, our classmates, the people on our tram rides in the morning, and the people we talk to on a night out.

From a young age, the film stuck in my mind as undyingly sympathetic, and upon my revisiting it recently, I love it more than ever as not only the purest demonstration of Lynch’s ability to thrive within the studio system, but also the directorial attention to his own idiosyncratic way of loving the people of the world around him.

Meet the Leroys (Nous, les Leroy), the directorial debut of Florent Bernard, is a 102-minute French dramedy that explores the emotional toll of divorce on an entire family.

Dahomey is a compelling narrative that underscores the legacy of a colonial past onto the present while demonstrating hope for a future shaped by the Beninese people.

Hard Truths is a masterclass in great writing and acting, and despite a shaky ending, still packs a huge punch.