#der tiger

DER TIGER (2025) » dir. dennis gansel

Look. We did not expect to spend a time watching a German tank story set inside a Tiger I tank and coming away from it genuinely delighted. And yet. Der Tiger (2025) is fun: a WWII film that uses the Eastern Front retreat of 1943 as the backdrop for something more surreal and eerie than the genre usually allows. Sam loved it immediately. Maartje, who does not love horror, loved it anyway.

The film follows Lieutenant Gerkens and his four-man Tiger tank crew on a special mission into no man’s land, and from the very first scene you get the distinct sense that something is deeply, deeply not right. The only people who speak to them seem a little too in on the joke. There’s a Latin mass playing on the radio that nobody explains, and there is a pomegranate. We have questions about the pomegranate.

Though WWII is not entirely important in this one, we also get into the Einsatzgruppen, the Battle of the Dnieper, tank candy (it’s methamphetamine, the Wehrmacht was on it, history is a nightmare), and the fascinating engineering fact that the Tiger I could technically be submerged underwater. Emphasis on technically. It took half an hour to prepare and was never used in actual combat, which tracks - track’s, see what we did there?

It’s not perfect. But this movie takes a genuine swing at something unusual, and for a war movie, that counts for a lot. Also, there’s no 20-minute sexual assault scene, which puts it ahead of Fury by default.

Intentionally ignoring all the hints.

Last 10 minutes completely fuck you up.

The Runners-Up:

20. THE TANK (DER TIGER)

German writer-director Dennis Gansel, who I mainly know through The Wave and the deeply weird vampire romantic horror We Are the Night, bounced back onto my radar with this surprisingly complex and intense existential World War II thriller following a Panzer crew sent on a dangerous rescue mission behind enemy lines in the final days of the War in Europe. This is SERIOUSLY DARK STUFF, impressively suspenseful and acted up a storm by a small but incredibly talented cast. Compelling, challenging, richly atmospheric and a good deal smarter than you might expect ...

19. LEE CRONIN’S THE MUMMY

Hot off the back of his DYNAMITE breakout soft reboot horror Evil Dead Rise, the writer-director stays sharp while exec-producing its back-to-back sequels by ushering in this sort-of-but-not-exactly companion piece to Blumhouse’s recent Universal Monster re-imaginings The Invisible Man and Wolf Man. Ultimately this isn’t REALLY as good as the movie which has rightly made him one of THE ONES TO WATCH in the horror scene, but it EASILY transcends its comparative flaws by delivering the same kind of gross-out shocks, skin-crawling nastiness and relentlessly unbearable family-centric supernatural distress with just as much gleefully sadistic enthusiasm ...

18. SCARLET

I am a MASSIVE fan of big screen anime writer-director Mamoru Hosoda’s films, so while this might not be among his very best work I still had a fine time with what’s ultimately a Grimdark version of What Dreams May Come filtered through a rewardingly surrealistic reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the afterlife. The worldbuilding is sublime, the animation is STUNNING and the narrative CONSTANTLY surprises, while the themes are rich and the characters fascinatingly complex. Sure, the pacing might put less patient viewers off, but those who are willing to give it due time to breathe will find plenty to entertain and invigorate.

17. MIKE & NICK & NICK & ALICE

BenDavid Grabinski absolutely deserves to break out BIG TIME for this gleefully INSANE time-travelling jet black comedy thriller that makes FULL USE of the oft-underrated subtle comic talents of Vince Vaughn, who is EVERY BIT as good in this as he was in Freaky. This is a gloriously WEIRD piece of work that consistently subverts expectations with a gloriously offbeat plot and some ingenious leftfield character choices, while Vaughn and his co-stars, who include James Marsden, Eiza Gonzalez, Keith David and a fantastically douchey Jimmy Tatro, are all clearly having an absolute blast …

16. WHISTLE

While it doesn’t quite live up to the massive promise of his feature debut indie horror The Hallow, director Corin Hardy’s latest offering is still one of the most entertaining kids-do-something-dumb-and-supernatural-and-seal-their-own-fates movies I’ve seen for quite some time, thanks in no small part to an incredibly game young cast led by Dafne Keen and Sophie Nelisse. It’s wildly inventive and gleefully sidesteps a lot of the more conventional tropes in some really clever ways, so while the end results may wind up comprehensively jumping the shark before the end this is still huge fun, and I would HAPPILY sign up for a whole franchise based on THIS premise ...

15. SEND HELP

Sam Raimi is BACK baby … although he never ACTUALLY went away, but it is still nice to see him on such fine form with this gloriously over-the-top survival horror which sees Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien both acting up a storm as a pair of massively disparate corporate co-workers trapped on a deserted tropical island in the middle of the Pacific after a work trip ends in a horrific plane crash. Flipping between a scathing psychological deconstruction of gender-politics and office hierarchies and a sadistically macabre jet black comedy, this is EASILY one of the most deliciously uncomfortable films I’ve had the pleasure of squirming through in quite some time ...

14. COLD STORAGE

I read David Koepp’s original novel way back when it first released, and I KNEW that if he ever got to actually turn it into a film it was gonna be an absolute RIOT … so I was SO HAPPY when it turned out to be every inch the outrageously bonkers intentional throwback guilty pleasure I was expecting. Liam Neeson has HUGE FUN relentlessly lampooning his veteran tough guy persona while Stranger Things’ Joe Keery and Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell have chemistry FOR DAYS as completely unqualified wage-slaves trying to survive a potentially world-ending outbreak of deadly mind-controlling alien fungus ...

13. IRON LUNG

YES!!! THAT’S RIGHT!!! IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! Markiplier’s fantastically ODD (sort of) single-location post-apocalyptic cosmic horror definitely DESERVES to go down as one of the greatest video game adaptations ever made, but given how much of an undeniable MARMITE MOVIE this is I highly doubt that will ever be the case unless this experiences a major reappraisal in a decade or so. Either way, this really is one of THE most unique super-low budget indie flicks I’ve seen in a while, with Mark Fischbach handing in what’s largely a one-man-show in front of the camera with as much impressive skill as he shows in the director’s chair. I don’t care what the establishment might think – as far as I’m concerned this is MESMERISING ...

12. MERCY

Timur Bekmambetov ALMOST makes up for inflicting Ice Cube’s abysmal War of the Worlds on us by taking the reins himself on a Time/Life sci-fi thriller and actually making it WORK, although with an inherently fascinating premise like this it had a MUCH better chance right off the bat. Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson thoroughly impress on what’s essentially a two-hander that takes an incredibly challenging central idea and masterfully channels it into a compellingly twisty and persistently gripping real-time cyberpunk suspense thriller that looks SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than it likely actually was …

11. RENTAL FAMILY

Brendan Fraser continues his MUCH DESERVED comeback with a far more loveable but still JUST as emotionally resonant and impactful turn as what he delivered in The Whale. This is an EFFORTLESSLY charming and emotionally evocative culture-clash comedy drama built around a brilliantly unusual core concept that also does a really beautiful job of shining a light on aspects of Japanese culture we’ve never seen on film before, while Fraser is ably supported by a massively committed supporting cast that includes a career best performance from Takehiro Hira and an astonishing debut from Shannon Mahina Gorman which is SURELY just the start of an INCREDIBLE future career ...