Sadiq’s screenplay navigates a complex web of secrets and lies, pressures and prejudices to create a soulful human drama intent on challenging narrow minds.
Joyland
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Pakistan · 2022
2h 7m
Director Saim Sadiq
Starring Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq, Alina Khan, Sarwat Gilani
Genre Drama, Romance
Add to Watchlist
Please login to add films to your watchlist.
In inner-city Lahore, a patriarchal family yearns for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line. Meanwhile, the youngest son takes a job as a backup dancer in a Bollywood-style burlesque and quickly becomes infatuated with the strong-willed trans woman who runs the show.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The Film Stage by Ethan Vestby
Another example of a tasteful but passionless festival film, Saim Sadiq’s feature debut Joyland errs on the side of arch family drama when its most interesting aspects remain almost in the periphery, promising a much better film.
Tartly funny and plungingly sad in equal measure, this is nuanced, humane queer filmmaking, more concerned with the textures and particulars of its own intimate story than with grander social statements — even if, as a tale of transgender desire in a Muslim country, its very premise makes it a boundary-breaker.
The Hollywood Reporter by Lovia Gyarkye
As Joyland heads toward its end, the film grows increasingly moving. Secrets and their attendant lies collapse under pressure. The weight of what’s left unsaid strangles interactions.
Joyland is a wonderful film about longing and desire with a melancholy undertone that you just don't expect.
The frame moves slowly, if at all, but it always brims with physical and emotional energy; in “Joyland,” there’s always something in the ether, whether embodied by dazzling displays of light as characters move across stages and club floors, or by breathtaking silences as they begin to figure each other out, and figure out themselves.
Users who liked this film also liked
High and Low
(天国と地獄)
A wealthy executive becomes the victim of an extortion plot after his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 1963
- Director Akira Kurosawa
- Cast Toshirō Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Kyōko Kagawa, Tatsuya Mihashi, Isao Kimura, Kenjirō Ishiyama
- Genre Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
- Available on Criterion Channel, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Amazon Video
Castaway on the Moon
(김씨 표류기)
A debt-ridden man abandons his city life to live on an uninhabited river island, striking up a friendship with a reclusive young woman.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Korea • 2009
- Director Lee Hae-jun
- Cast Jung Jae-young, Jung Ryeo-won, Yang Mi-kyung, Lee Sang-hun, Jang So-yeon, Park Young-seo
- Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Available on Tubi TV, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV
Poetry
(시)
A Korean grandmother enrolls in a poetry class, where she finds solace amid the chaos of her personal life.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Korea • 2010
- Director Lee Chang-dong
- Cast Yoon Jeong-hee, Lee Da-wit, Kim Hee-ra, Ahn Nae-sang, Kim Yong-taek, Park Myung-shin
- Genre Drama
- Available on Kanopy
El sur
The daughter of a scientist with mystical powers attempts to discover the secrets he's been keeping from her
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Spain, France • 1983
- Director Víctor Erice
- Cast Omero Antonutti, Sonsoles Aranguren, Icíar Bollaín, Lola Cardona, Rafaela Aparicio, Aurore Clément
- Genre Drama
- Available on Criterion Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, YouTube
125, rue Montmartre
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 1959
- Director Gilles Grangier
- Cast Lino Ventura, Andréa Parisy, Robert Hirsch, Jean Desailly, Dora Doll, Lucien Raimbourg
- Genre Crime
- Available on No streaming locations found.
The Murder Case of Hana & Alice
(花とアリス殺人事件)
Alice and Hana investigate the disappearance of their missing classmate.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2015
- Director Shunji Iwai
- Cast Yū Aoi, Anne Suzuki, Shôko Aida, Ranran Suzuki, Haru Kuroki
- Genre Drama, Animation, Comedy
- Available on Hoopla, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Kanopy
Hanagatami
(花筐)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2017
- Director Nobuhiko Obayashi
- Cast Shunsuke Kubozuka, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Keishi Nagatsuka, Tokio Emoto, Honoka Yahagi, Hirona Yamazaki
- Genre Drama, Romance, War
- Available on Fandor, Fandor Amazon Channel, OVID, AsianCrush, Amazon Video
The Asadas!
(浅田家!)
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Japan • 2020
- Director Ryota Nakano
- Cast Kazunari Ninomiya, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Haru Kuroki, Masaki Suda, Jun Fubuki, Mitsuru Hirata
- Genre Drama, Family
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Girl Picture
(Tytöt tytöt tytöt)
Three teenage girls experience love and pleasure during the intense Finland winter.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- Finland • 2022
- Director Alli Haapasalo
- Cast Linnea Leino, Aamu Milonoff, Eleonoora Kauhanen, Bruno Baer, Amos Brotherus, Oona Airola
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube
L'immensità
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Italy, France • 2022
- Director Emanuele Crialese
- Cast Penélope Cruz, Vincenzo Amato, Luana Giuliani, Aurora Quattrocchi, Elena Arvigo, Laura Nardi
- Genre Drama
- Available on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube, Xumo Play, Amazon Prime Video with Ads, Plex,
Looop Lapeta
(लूप लपेटा)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- India • 2022
- Director Aakash Bhatia
- Cast Taapsee Pannu, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Shreya Dhanwanthary, Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Rajendra Chawla, K.C. Shankar
- Genre Action, Comedy, Crime
- Available on Netflix, Netflix basic with Ads
Other People's Children
(Les Enfants des autres)
When a woman falls in love with a single father, she starts to develop a bond with his daughter.
- ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2022
- Director Rebecca Zlotowski
- Cast Virginie Efira, Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira-Goncalves, Yamée Couture, Henri-Noël Tabary
- Genre Drama, Family
- Available on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube
Empire of Light
A poignant love story set in and around an old cinema on the South Coast of England in the 1980s.
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- United Kingdom, United States • 2022
- Director Sam Mendes
- Cast Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tom Brooke, Tanya Moodie
- Genre Drama, Romance
- Available on Hulu, Max Amazon Channel, Max, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, YouTube, Spectrum On Demand, AMC on Demand
Final Cut
(Coupez !)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France, United States, United Kingdom • 2022
- Director Michel Hazanavicius
- Cast Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo, Grégory Gadebois, Finnegan Oldfield, Matilda Lutz, Raphaël Quenard
- Genre Comedy, Horror
- Available on Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Vudu, YouTube, Kino Now, Amazon Video
Until Tomorrow
(Ta farda)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- Iran, France, Qatar • 2022
- Director Ali Asgari
- Cast Sadaf Asgari, Ghazal Shojaei, Babak Karimi, Amirreza Ranjbaran, Nahal Dashti, Mohammad Heidari
- Genre Drama
- Available on No streaming locations found.
Save Our School
(La cour des miracles)
- ✭ ✭ ✭
- France • 2022
- Director Carine May, Hakim Zouhani
- Cast Rachida Brakni, Anaïde Rozam, Sérigne M'Baye, Mourad Boudaoud, Gilbert Melki, Sébastien Chassagne
- Genre Comedy
- Available on No streaming locations found.