The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
The BAFTA nominations (i.e. the UK version of the Oscars) will be announced this coming Wednesday. That's during the Oscar nomination voting period (which runs January 7th through the 14th) so it could be helpful to certain contenders (we're looking at you, especially, Mary Poppins Returnssince you got stiffed at the PGA.)
But we already know the nominees in one category with BAFTA, their annual EE Rising Star Award, which is voted on by the public. This year's nominees and the 13 year history of that category after the jump...
Is it better to have good friends or a large number of friends? It’s a question asked casually in Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer that hosts some of its more loaded themes: social connection, the difference between acquiring and appreciating, the futile pursuit of a nuclear unit. As discussed between odd teenager Martin and adult Steven, played by Barry Keoghan and Colin Farrell, it carries even more terrifying subtext for their unsettling relationship.
Chris here. I take back every complaint I've had about trailers using moody covers of familiar songs, and all thanks to a supremely terrifying use of Ellie Goulding's "Burn" in the new trailer for The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Paired with some chilling and evocative images, the song helps make the trailer as scary as any full film in theatres this year. Yorgos Lanthimos is ready to shake us up again and with even darker laughs than before!
This trailer is a thing of wonder, a certain contender for best of the year for how it quickly grabs you by the shoulders and lingers after its done. It does what so few trailers do: gives us scant plot details while selling us on mood. Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman's immediate reuniting post-Beguiled looks to be even more slippery and poisoned than what they delivered together this year, so it will be exciting to see both performers return to something more outre. Try as I might, I didn't spot Alicia Silverstone's reportedly brief role anywhere here - but trust that we'll be eager for her return!
But my big question mark will be Dunkirk lad Barry Keoghan as the film's pseudo-villain - just how nefarious will he be and could this be one of the major fall breakouts? With the film playing TIFF, expect to hear our thoughts before the film opens right in time for Halloween on October 27!
Saturday, January 5, 2019 at 2:11PM 
The BAFTA nominations (i.e. the UK version of the Oscars) will be announced this coming Wednesday. That's during the Oscar nomination voting period (which runs January 7th through the 14th) so it could be helpful to certain contenders (we're looking at you, especially, Mary Poppins Returns since you got stiffed at the PGA.)