I've been watching anime for 15 years and nothing has hit me emotionally the way Frieren does. The premise of an elf processing centuries of loss through human timescales is genuinely profound, and the magic system is one of the most creative in recent memory. The Sense exam arc is peak anime storytelling and I will die on this hill.

Villeneuve took one of the most complex sci-fi novels ever written and made it feel emotionally immediate and visually stunning. Zendaya finally gets room to breathe as Chani and she absolutely delivers. The Feyd-Rautha scenes with Austin Butler are genuinely unnerving. This is the movie that proves blockbusters can be art without compromising spectacle.