Resurrection

An audacious, ambitious vision from master filmmaker Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), Resurrection is a whirlwind love letter to cinema unlike any before. Set in a future where society has lost the desire to dream, a clandestine set of rebels called “Fantasmers” continue to indulge in fantasy and imagination. A curious creature, armed with a device able to extract their fading dreams, attempts to catalog these illusions. The result is a mesmerizing, maximalist masterpiece that toggles between a dizzying array of film styles and aesthetic modes—from a Méliès-inspired silent film to a slick story about playing card-toting con artists, as well as a bloodsoaked, red-filtered modern vampire romance.

To watch this layered, daring work is to experience five or six films in one. Replete with eye-popping production design, expertly choreographed long takes, and a constantly shifting rollercoaster of a narrative, Resurrection uses its sci-fi-inflected premise to ponder an art form’s past as it imagines its future.