Coming off his Oscar-nomination for The Brutalist, Guy Pearce brings a weary potency to the character of Warren Murfett, a long-incarcerated prisoner who reluctantly takes on the task of mentoring taciturn Mel Blight (an impressive 17-year-old Vincent Miller). And what could have been a straight-forward prison tale instead ferments into an almost operatic thriller hurtling towards an apocalyptic conclusion when in-for-life Mark Shephard (Cosmo Jarvis counterpointing Pearce’s performance with insane bravura) takes an interest in the kid as well.

Driven by the need to explore what might have been, writer and director Charles Williams spent four years visiting and interviewing officers and inmates in Australian prisons. Many take part in this debut feature film and Williams was rigorous in every detail, down to taking the exact percentage of Indigenous people incarcerated in Victoria — 10.8% — and then having exactly 11% of the cast be Indigenous. There is neither judgment, nor forgiveness, for the characters — instead there is a curious compassion and clear-eyed view of the system these men are in and the world that shaped them.—Simone Ling