To celebrate the release of Barry Jenkins’ miraculous new feature If Beale Street Could Talk, we asked video essayist Luís Azevedo to look back over the American filmmaker’s career – starting with his 2008 debut Medicine for Melancholy – to explore the evolution of his distinct visual style.

Here’s what Azevedo had to say about the project:

“You could look at the most recent work of Barry Jenkins and intuitively understand how precisely he paints with a camera, yet you don’t need to. Jenkins first spelled out his deep interest in light, colour and the inception of images in a 2011 short. The first sentence of Chlorophyl explains the mechanics of the green pigment: ‘Its main function is to absorb light’.

“The parallel with cinema is obvious: light travels through the camera until it is absorbed by the chemical coating on film. Despite relying in digital cameras, especially the Alexa, the work Jenkins develops with long-time collaborator James Laxton is hyper-conscious of the intricacies of film and attentive to impact of subtle –and not so subtle – colour nuances.

“Their first collaboration, My Josephine is awash in green, as if the images were spun in an emerald-sock-tainted washing machine. When purple invades the frame in Moonlight it’s not only the result of mixing red and blue, but the combination of trauma and years of reflection. And we don’t quite know if when the mostly black-and-white Medicine for Melancholy finds colour in its ultimate instances, we’re entering or leaving a colour/colourless haze.

“More than an understanding of the mechanics of light and the complexity of the Arri Alexa 65, the work of Barry Jenkins denotes a unique emotional intelligence in the way he approaches pictures. He’s one of the few bold yet personal stylists that came out of the blue, fully-formed since his film school days – perhaps since he was rocked in the cradle.”

Watch Barry Jenkins In Colour below and share your thoughts with us @LWLies

In the lead up to Halloween we’ve been thinking about some of our favourite horror movies and the effect they have on us – specifically, the psychology of voyeurism and what happens when filmmakers ask us to relate not with the victim but the aggressor.

In this chilling new video essay, Leigh Singer explores the evolution of the first-person POV shot in horror cinema, beginning with Michael Powell’s 1960 thriller Peeping Tom before surveying such genre touchstones as Jaws, Halloween and The Evil Dead.

He considers the different stylistic techniques directors and cinematographers use in bringing us closer to the action, sometimes even putting us in the killer’s shoes. Ultimately, Singer asks the question: why do we watch?

Check out the full video below and share your thoughts with us @LWLies

In collaboration with Girls on Tops, we’re thrilled to present a new video essay by emerging filmmaker and animator Grace Lee, whose brilliant The Baths was featured as part of this year’s Random Acts shorts programme.

Lee is a talented video essayist too, and her latest effort is a fascinating deep dive into one of our favourite horror movies of recent years, French writer/director Julia Ducournau’s subversive 2017 feature Raw.

The video starts off by examining the cultural shift from ghosts to zombies to cannibals, with Lee then homing in on the central metaphor of Ducournau’s film – a young woman learning about identity, desire and love through the consumption of human flesh.

Watch the full video essay below, share your thoughts with us @LWLies, and be sure to check out girlsontopstees.com

When The Truman Show was released in June, 1998, it seemed a work of satirical science-fiction. Today, it’s more a cautionary tale, a sign of our media-saturated times. But to what extent was Peter Weir’s film prescient in its depiction of mass surveillance, reality television and the erosion of the gap between public and private life?

In this new video essay, Leigh Singer offers an insightful reappraisal of one of the definitive films of the 1990s, exploring many of the searching questions raised by this story of a man (played by a career-best Jim Carrey) who discovers his entire life is being lived out as a television show.

Watch the video below and share your thoughts on The Truman Show with us @LWLies

Maurice Pialat’s 1983 film A Nos Amours is one of the greatest teen movies ever made. It revolves around the impulsive, sexually rapacious coquette Suzanne, played by Sandrine Bonnaire, and charts the period of life between losing her virginity, and then flying the family nest.

This screening is being held in conjunction with a retrospective of Pialat’s work, ‘I Don’t Like You Either’, on MUBI, and this is a unique chance to revisit some of the extraordinary films made by this singular, and sometimes unheralded director.

This revered tenet of modern French cinema has been cited as a key influence on Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming feature Call Me by Your Name, and is a rare treat on the big screen.

See A Nos Amours at 13:45 on Sunday 17 September at London’s Rio Cinema, followed by a panel discussion led by LWLies editor David Jenkins and featuring a host of special guests. Book tickets at riocinema.org.uk

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re just a bit excited about Nicolas Winding Refn’s new film, The Neon Demon. So much so, in fact, that in addition to putting it on the cover of our May/June issue, we’re hosting a very special early preview screening of the Danish writer/director’s latest (and career best) on the evening of Wednesday 1 June in central London.

Full details will be announced via our newsletter at midday on Monday 30 May, but for now we’re pleased to confirm that Refn will be in attendance to introduce the film. Tickets are available for free on a strictly first-come, first-served basis. RSVP now at theneondemon.splashthat.com

The Neon Demon hits cinemas nationwide 8 July.

Director Tom McCarthy’s weighty ensemble drama won big at the 88th Academy Awards, scooping the coveted Best Picture statuette, but is the film really worth all the fuss? Here to blow the lid off is our resident movie vlogger, Clarisse Loughrey.

Watch our latest video review below and, if you like what you see, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow @clarisselou for more. We’d also love to know what you made of Spotlight, so be sure to tweet us your thoughts @LWLies

The Oscars are about as easy to ignore as a furry creature clawing at your body, but making an accurate forecast of the eventual winners is an even trickier matter. So how to cover an event which every man and his dog has already weighed in on? With cats, of course!

Our staff writer Sophie Monks Kaufman nominated her trusted moggie companion (and dedicated cinephile) to provide their hot tips for Sunday’s ceremony. Watch the video below and share your predictions with us @LWLies using #OscarsCat

Ahead of the 2016 Academy Awards, vlogger Clarisse Loughrey runs the numbers on Best Picture hopeful The Big Short, which stars Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt and Christian Bale… and their wigs.

Watch her review below and let us know your thoughts @LWLies. If you like this video why not follow @clarisselou and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.

To coincide with the release of John Hillcoat’s gangland thriller Triple 9, we sat down with one of the film’s stars, Chiwetel Ejiofor, to find out his all-time favourite heist movie.

Watch his answer in the video below, in which he also talks about his experience working on another high-stakes crime flick, Spike Lee’s Inside Man.

Triple 9 is in cinemas from 19 February. Like this film? Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more.