leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Thriller

How To Make A Killing (2026) – Lethal

Released: 26th February
Seen: 20th June

Every few years we get a celebrity who is clearly being pitched as a leading man to the masses but, for some reason, just doesn’t seem to click. One of the more recent ones who has been undergoing this process is Glen Powell, it seemed to start around his appearance in Top Gun: Maverick and kept going with works like Hit Man, Anyone But You, Twisters (the image of him walking in the rain was almost scientifically designed to make audiences feral) and The Running Man. Each film basically just tried to give him star power, turn him into the affable, attractive leading man that anyone could root for. It’s clear that the industry wants him to be the next Tom Cruise-type but somehow they have yet to get him into a vehicle that puts him on that level. How To Make A Killing definitely wanted to be the thing that cemented him as that leading man but it flopped hard enough that it won’t be doing that, which is a shame because if it had hit it would’ve undoubtedly been the thing that made Glen into a generational star, even if the film itself isn’t great.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy

Toy Story 5 (2026) – Technically Brilliant

Released: 18th June
Seen: 19th June

The Toy Story franchise feels like a miracle at this point, it’s certainly a franchise that goes past any reasonable explanation in terms of quality. The first film was basically a test to see if you could even make a full-length feature film using CGI characters and make it interesting, it went on to be the second-highest-grossing film of 1995 (I know, I feel old too just realising it’s been 31 years) and effectively killed the hand-drawn animation genre. Toy Story 2 was almost deleted by accident and intended to go straight to DVD, it ended up as the third highest-grossing film of 1999 and is widely considered as good as, or better than the original. Toy Story 3 came out nearly a decade later in 2010, had a six-year production period and seemingly closed the story out. It would go on to make a billion dollars, be the highest-grossing film of that year and finally win this franchise the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Then in 2019 came Toy Story 4, a film that many people doubted because the story was finished pretty perfectly in part three but it proved us wrong, creating another nearly perfect movie that again made a billion dollars and won this franchise its second Best Animated Feature Oscar. It’s kind of wild just realizing that this franchise has somehow produced four absolute classics of the genre and keeps finding new ways to delight young audiences with its story about a bunch of toys that come to life whenever you aren’t looking… Well, looks like we’re gonna have to make that five absolute classics because the bastards did it again.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Romance

Pillion (2026) – BD-YES-M

Released: 19th February
Seen: 13th May

In November of last year, a phenomenon was released. Heated Rivalry was one of those things that probably shouldn’t have been a hit, an explicit gay romance story about two hockey players is the kind of thing that would normally end up being a big deal in the LGBTQIA+ community but wouldn’t really be a huge thing outside it so for this little show to become one of the biggest pop culture moments ever is stunning. The last time something this pointedly sexual got to be so mainstream was when 50 Shades Of Grey introduced suburban housewives to the world of BDSM (albeit doing it badly, according to people in the BDSM community). Of course, there are still works being made that play in the BDSM and queer worlds that don’t get mainstream coverage, such as the film Pillion which is probably a little too much for the mainstream, but it’s still quite spectacular in itself.

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leebutler Drama, Review, Romance

“Wuthering Heights” (2026) – Too Hot, Too Greedy

Released: 12th February
Seen: 3rd May

In 1847, Emily Brontë released her first and only novel, Wuthering Heights, under the pen name Ellis Bell,. The story has gone on to be considered a classic, a gothic tragedy that has been told countless times since then. It’s inspired plays, operas, TV and film adaptations and of course the first single by the iconic Kate Bush. It’s also one of those books I haven’t had a chance to read yet so if you’re hoping to find out if this is an accurate adaptation, I’m not the man for that. I am pretty confident that this film is not the most faithful adaptation ever, but it’s also not trying to be faithful and if you meet it on the level it’s working at you might find there’s something interesting here.

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leebutler Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Mercy (2026) – Release Me

Released: 22nd January
Seen: 23rd March

For better or worse, we live in the era of AI… or at least the era of AI being brute-forced into our daily lives by billionaires who rely on it to turn a profit and make a couple of extra dollars. It’s in everything, it’s in all the apps you use, the very site I post this on offers AI to write a synopsis of what I post (you’ll be happy to know I never use it, I can write shitty unfunny synopsis’ all by myself), and it’s overtaken social media where it does fun things like “makes child sex abuse material” or “endorses white supremacy”. People are now losing jobs and being replaced by AI, which is incredibly faulty and has a high risk of errors… but no error is as big as the error that was made when someone decided to give Mercy a budget and allowed this film to exist because it’s just fucking bad.

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leebutler Action, Biopic, Drama, History, Sport

The Smashing Machine (2025) – Oh, Smashing

Released: 2nd October 2025
Seen: 9th February 2026

Over the last several decades, one of the biggest names in cinema has been The Rock, AKA Dwayne Johnson. His films have grossed billions of dollars; he is currently the 10th-highest-grossing actor of all time, and he did all that without having to appear in a Marvel film or anything involving Avatar. He’s one of the highest paid, most recognisable and most beloved film stars of recent years… but he’s not a great actor. Let’s be honest, no one’s ever accused him of giving a transformative performance in his entire career; the man is a personality who effectively plays himself in every single film he ever appears in. Now this isn’t a bad thing per se, a lot of very famous actors are kind of known for playing themselves in every film that they do (Ryan Reynolds, Jack Black, Will Ferrell just to name the first three that come to mind). With Dwayne Johnson, however, it comes with the fact that he not only plays the same character, but he’s doing it at a time when his wrestler-turned-actor contemporaries John Cena and Dave Bautista are delivering genuinely great, layered acting performances that demonstrate a range that Dwayne just hasn’t been able to do. What Dwayne’s been needing for quite some time is a chance to show off his skills, to stretch himself and prove that he isn’t just a one-trick pony… The Smashing Machine does kind of prove that, but in a way that also really shows off his limitations

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leebutler Drama, Review

Sentimental Value (2025) – Intriguing

Released: 25th December 2025
Seen: 28th February 2026

It’s often hard to figure out how to open these reviews; the style developed almost a decade ago out of an understanding that a single paragraph would be placed above the fold, and I’ve just carried that on like it was a standard element of writing. Something that just happened several years ago for no particular reason is now locked in, will probably be standard until something dramatic changes, and I’m forced to re-evaluate how things are done… You could consider that process to be something of an imperfect metaphor for Sentimental Value, a film that revolves around the idea of how things that happened in the past can still have a massive impact on people several years later. Is it the best metaphor out there? No, is it the best I could do for this opening paragraph that inevitably means nothing other than tone setting for the rest of the review? Also no, but it’s what we’ve got.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Thriller

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (2025) – Rosy

Released: 7th August 2025
Seen: 27th February 2026

We all know the famous phrase “Life’s a bitch, and then you die”. That phrase feels more relevant today than ever, where everything just feels constantly overwhelming. Burnout is real and is not only happening in people’s professional lives but in their personal ones. Day-to-day events just pile up in a way that feels insurmountable and unfixable because the people who could fix them are unavailable. That’s a feeling that we’ve all had before and it’s the kind of emotional destruction that could make for a fascinating film, or at least a fascinating performance, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is fortunately both of those things.

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leebutler Biography, Drama, History, Review, Romance

Hamnet (2026) – To Be Or Not to Be

Released: 15th January
Seen: 13th February

In the history of the English language, there are few playwrights as revered as Shakespeare, it is often suggested that he is the greatest playwright in history and almost certain that his work has been adapted more times than any other writer. His work includes 39 plays, over 150 sonnets, 3 narrative poems, a few other verses and I’m sure someone will claim he also wrote the McDonald’s jingle at some point. He’s credited with creating several well known phrases (some have been misattributed to him, for more on that look up the fantastic Brows Held High video about Shakespeare that came out a while ago) and in general is just a major figure in history that will be remembered long after the rest of us are put on the compost heap and eaten by worms… oh, and also he had a wife who, hilariously, was named Anne Hathaway, but the movie Hamnet changed her name to Agnes because having a main character of your drama named after the star of The Princess Diaries would probably take away some of the potency of it.

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leebutler Comedy, Drama, Review, Sport

Marty Supreme (2026) – Ping Pong Boy

Released: 22nd January
Seen: 7th February

In the history of cinema, the genre of the sports movie has presented us with some truly great films that stand the test of time. From A League Of Their Own to Air Bud, all genres and levels of prestige have been the subject of a good sports movie. Almost every sport you can think of has had a film focused on it, including table tennis. Of course, up till now, most table tennis films haven’t exactly been the most well-known; perhaps the biggest one would be Forrest Gump, but that’s not so much a table tennis film as it is a film where someone played table tennis at some point. Honestly, the sport of table tennis hasn’t had its big, sweeping, dramatic epic until now, and Marty Supreme is undeniably the ultimate in table tennis cinema.

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