Babylon (2022)

Babylon is the kind of big, breathless swing Hollywood rarely takes anymore—an audacious, fever-dream love letter to movies that’s as intoxicating as it is exhausting. Damien Chazelle plunges you into the chaotic, champagne-soaked collision between silent-era glamour and the brutal new reality of sound, rendered with jaw-dropping cinematography, production design, and a propulsive score that makes the whole thing feel alive. Margot Robbie burns with feral charisma, Brad Pitt brings tragic grandeur, and Diego Calva anchors the madness with a hungry, human center, while the ensemble turns every scene into a high-wire act. It’s loud, vulgar, and unapologetically maximalist—so if you want subtlety, look elsewhere—but if you’re craving a passionate, immersive cinematic experience about the ecstasy and cost of chasing the dream, this one demands to be seen.

Babylon is Damien Chazelle swinging for the fences: a loud, sweaty love-hate letter to early Hollywood that wants to overwhelm you with spectacle, ambition, and the messy birth of the sound era. The problem is it often confuses “more” with “meaning”—at nearly every turn it’s chaotic, overlong, and so relentlessly maximalist that what should feel intoxicating can start to feel exhausting. If you need a tight, coherent rise-and-fall story with emotional payoff, this may come off disjointed and a bit hollow, especially as it barrels into its final stretch. That said, if you can tolerate indulgence for the sake of big performances (Robbie and Pitt commit hard) and occasional bursts of filmmaking bravura, there’s enough manic energy here to justify a watch—just don’t expect subtlety or restraint.