The Brutalist (2024)

Three and a half hours about a Hungarian architect's American dream sounds like punishment. It isn't. Brody gives the kind of performance that makes you forget he's been in movies you'd rather not remember. Pearce is terrifying as patronage that slowly reveals itself as ownership. The film is deliberately punishing in length and pace, which is either a structural choice that mirrors its protagonist's endurance or an editing problem dressed up as intention. Probably both. When it works — and it frequently works — it's devastating.