After escaping the horrors of Buchenwald, Hungarian architect László Tóth arrives in America, full of hope but scarred by his past. The Brutalist, the latest film from Brady Corbet (The Childhood of a Leader), is a compelling and visually stunning epic about migration, loss and uncompromising art, in which the American dream slowly crumbles. 

Adrien Brody portrays the opium-addicted László with restrained intensity, while Guy Pearce plays his counterpart as the megalomaniac industrialist Van Buren – two men who meet at the intersection of admiration and control. The architect is given the opportunity to realise a modernist masterpiece, but becomes entangled in the humiliating dynamics of power, prestige and narrow-minded nationalism. 

The Brutalist is about the power and price of autonomy, about art versus capitalism, and about how architecture can be both a shield and a wound. Nominated for ten Oscars and praised for its cinematography, sound and production design, this is a film that must be experienced in the cinema. Magnificently designed and razor-sharp in tone.