“Having recently seen The Irishman (for a second time) and A Hidden Life in the same week, I was kind of awestruck: Here are two American masters, still at the height of their powers, making films that you could draw direct links to the films of theirs that premiered 46 years ago at the same New York Film Festival: Mean Streets and Badlands. More mature, haunting and beautiful works that are definitely future—if not instant—classics, and so nicely positioned in [Martin] Scorsese and [Terrence] Malick’s bodies of work. Everything before seems to have led to this expression.”