If you grew up with a well-worn CD of Pulp’s 1995 album Different Class, or discovered it at some point in the last three decades, then watching the band’s new documentary might cause your life to flash before your eyes. Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?, Garth Jennings’ film shot during the band’s triumphant June 2025 shows at London’s O2 Arena, captures a band at its effortlessly brilliant best. That’s no small feat when your first performance took place in the early ’80s. Lanky, lovably louche frontman Jarvis Cocker may look a bit older, but he’s clearly lost none of his wit (or dance moves). 

Jennings’ film provides the answer to two of the great Pulp mysteries. First: why does the band have more worldwide popularity now than ever? Is it the William Shatner effect? The Cocker-Wes Anderson collaborations? The prescience of Cocker 2006’s solo track “Running the World”? It certainly helped that Olivia Rodrigo was spotted singing “Common People” atop then-boyfriend Louis Partridge’s shoulders at Glastonbury in 2025, and later used “Do You Remember the First Time?” in an Instagram post.

Second: what is it about Pulp that causes such intense devotion? For it seems there are few moderate Pulp fans. There are those who delight in every Jarvis Cocker hand jive and lyrical takedown; who adore seeing wizened Mark Webber, Nick Banks, and Candida Doyle onstage; who regularly replay His ‘n’ Hers, Different Class, This Is Hardcore, and the underrated We Love Life; and who bought 2025’s More on its first day of release. Then there’s the rest of the world.   

As a Pulp fan, then, there’s a high likelihood that some of the most important moments of one’s past are innately linked with songs like “Common People,” “Disco 2000,” “Babies,” and “Do You Remember the First Time?” Yes, they’re bangers—then, now, forever. But the answer to both the questions asked above is best understood through the lyrics of “Mis-shapes,” the fourth song performed in Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? Cocker’s lyrics speak of “mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits” who “could end up with a smack in the mouth just for standing out.” Pulp is the soundtrack of misfits’ lives. And in the 30 years since that song’s release, misfits have gone mainstream. Perhaps there was no band better equipped for an embrace of the outsider. 

What Do You Do for an Encore? captures the Pulp of today—after years of struggle (pre-His ‘n’ Hers), shocking mainstream success (Different Class era), crashing out (This Is Hardcore), wilderness years (We Love Life and a lengthy hiatus), a successful first reunion (from 2011-2013), and another hiatus. That band is relaxed, joyful, and pleased to go on a victory lap. Smartly, Encore intersperses the O2 Arena performances with archival footage and interviews, each narrated by Cocker. How did this strange group end up performing its 566th show before an audience of 20,000 fans in 2025? “That’s a long story,” Cocker purrs, “but I’ll tell you it, if you’ve got time.”

But first, the stage. Cocker may be known for his playful phrasing, but when he states, “This is a night you’ll remember for the rest of your life” as Encore begins, there’s no doubting his sincerity. “Spike Island,” the first single released from More, is a perfect statement of intent. “I was born to perform, it’s a calling,” Cocker sings. “I exist to do this, shouting and pointing.” Remarkably, “Spike Island” and the other More tracks performed here (“Grown Ups,” “A Sunset”) sound as if they’d slot nicely on any classic Pulp record.

After “Spike Island,” Cocker begins narrating the band’s story. His quest to live in the world he saw on TV as a child is a recurring theme, as is the idea of music as a refuge; he explains he “grabbed the three most unpopular kids in school and started a band.” Back to the music, Pulp sways into the once-controversial “Sorted for E’s & Wizz” and the original’s melancholy tone is stripped away for something warmer. A throbbing “Disco 2000” is accompanied by streamers falling from the rafters and the audience bathed in red. It wouldn’t be a Pulp song without pathos, and even a mass sing-along such as “Disco” includes lyrics like “you didn’t notice me at all.”

Cocker shares how an early version of the band scored a John Peel BBC session, but this did little to enhance the group’s status. What really slowed things down was Cocker’s falling-out-the-window-while-trying-to-impress-a-girl mishap. During his recovery, Cocker hit on the band’s unique sound: “Barry White + Eurodisco + Gritty Northern Realism = the Future.” Soon after came the development of what Cocker calls “the Pulp aesthetic”: “Sifting through the debris to find an alternative to the official narrative, using second-hand items to tell a brand new story.” That may sound like nonsense, but it seems logical after hearing those descriptions and watching the band perform “F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.,” “Babies,” and “Do You Remember the First Time?” 

Cocker speaks candidly about the band’s rise to music stardom and tabloid infamy (“We had scaled Mount Pop”) as well as the darkness that followed. In 2025, the title track to This Is Hardcore suggests the stately culmination of the band’s career to that point, and a prophetic study of a culture in decline. In 1997, however, it sounded to many like career suicide. (“The indie darlings have lost their common touch,” sneers a talking head of the time.) More difficulties were coming in the form of a long hiatus and, after a reunion, another hibernation and the death of longtime bassist Steve Mackey.

As performed in Encore, “Something Changed” feels like the entire Pulp story in one song. But, of course, “Common People” steals the show. Arguably the greatest song of the 1990s (it is at least top-five), it’s a tune so full of venomous wisdom, so musically ambitious, and so catchy that even William Shatner could not sully it. Jennings keeps the audience shots to a minimum, but when he does cut to them, especially during this song, they’re doing what you’d be doing—jumping in time with the music as Cocker points in their direction.

Moments like this make Encore a much more satisfying effort than 2014’s Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets, a pleasurable if unmemorable oddity that tied the band’s Sheffield past with its first reunion tour. Supermarkets felt incomplete and relied far too much on the viewpoints of Sheffielders not named Jarvis Cocker. It was a loving celebration of the ordinary (OK, common) people, but not the ultimate Pulp picture. 

While Encore includes fleeting mentions of Oasis and Blur, and quite a few rapturous mid-90s UK music magazine covers, there is nary a mention of Britpop. Most surprising, though, is the absence of a name that’s invariably uttered in any history of the band: Michael Jackson. Perhaps Cocker and Jennings assumed—correctly, one imagines—that anyone watching What Do You Do for an Encore? is already steeped in band lore and requires no further rehashing of the 1996 Brit Awards “Earth Song” fiasco. (For an insightful analysis of the impact this moment had on the band, read Jane Savidge’s fantastic 33 ⅓ series entry, Pulp’s This Is Hardcore.)

For Garth Jennings, Encore is a nice return to the offbeat charms of his earlier work—music videos like Pulp’s “Help the Aged” and “A Little Soul” (neither song makes the cut here, sadly), and films such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Son of Rambow. Jennings can’t be blamed for embracing the commercially welcoming worlds of Sing and Sing 2; both are highly agreeable. If Rosita sings “Common People” in Sing 3 (“Underwear” and “This Is Hardcore” seem unlikely), then we’ll know a little Jarvis has rubbed off on Jennings. 

“The story of Pulp is not over yet,” Cocker says late in the film before asking, “Why do we keep going?” He pauses for a beat and answers with another question: “Why wouldn’t we?” For the Pulp faithful, such a statement has great meaning. If Pulp is the soundtrack of your life, it’s quite wonderful knowing that the soundtrack’s unfinished. The final song is a new one from More titled “A Sunset” that finds a typically self-deprecating Cocker cheekily considering his place in the universe: “I’d like to teach the world to sing / But I do not have a voice.” As Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? makes abundantly clear, Cocker’s voice, moves, and lust for performance put Pulp in a class by themselves. This film is quite an encore.

Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore? screens in a one-night-only event on September 24.

Looking for what to see in theaters? Our feature, updated weekly, highlights our top recommendations for films currently in theaters, from new releases to restorations receiving a proper theatrical run.

While we already provide extensive monthly new-release recommendations and weekly streaming recommendations, as distributors’ roll-outs can vary, this is a one-stop list to share the essential films that may be on a screen near you.

American Doctor (Poh Si Teng)

Poh Si Teng’s American Doctor is a harrowing, heartbreaking portrait of Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian doctors who are risking their lives to tend to the overwhelming victims of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and speak the truth in any way they can. Dan Mecca said in his Sundance review, “When will this end? When will this bloodshed stop? And when will the United States of America stop supporting it? Filmmaker Poh Si Teng offers a clear-eyed, unrelenting look at the genocide in Gaza with her documentary American Doctor. It follows three doctors––Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, and Dr. Mark Perlmutter––that are consistently trying to save lives in the Gaza Strip. On some trips they are approved to enter. On others they are denied for specious reasons. Dr. Perlmutter is Jewish, Dr. Sidhwa is Zoroastrian, and Dr. Ahmad is Palestinian. Their mission is the mission of all medical professionals: to heal everyone they can.”

Barbara Forever (Brydie O’Connor)

Avant-garde pioneer Barbara Hammer has received a much-deserved documentary portrait ahead of the world premiere of the new restoration of her seminal Nitrate Kisses at the New York Film Festival. As Dan Mecca said in our Critic’s Pick review out of Sundance, “The best thing about Brydie O’Connor’s documentary Barbara Forever is how it functions as an interesting, engaging movie on its own terms. It concerns the life of filmmaker Barbara Hammer, a pioneer of queer cinema and larger, cultural queer identity. And while there are plenty of films and archival photos and video to tell Hammer’s story, O’Connor is smart to never make this feel like homework. It is ultimately much more than a celebration of a great artist (Hammer passed away in 2019). Too often do these profiles of artists play it safer than said artist ever would. Barbara Forever does not do that. It often feels like a Barbara Hammer film itself while evolving into a sharp, clever montage that moves fast and entertains throughout. It’s funny and disarming and, ultimately, quietly uplifting.”

Buddy (Caspar Kelly)

After bringing much-loved surreal entertainment with his viral Too Many Cooks, Casper Kelly entered big-screen territory with his Sundance premiere Buddy, starring Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt. Caleb Hammond said in his Sundance review, “A mix of Barney and Blue’s Clues, the TV program Buddy follows a large pink unicorn who, alongside a supporting cast of anthropomorphized house objects, teaches the program’s children a new lesson each episode. All of the show’s elements—the colorful sets, the ’90s outfits the children wear, the songs they sing—point to Kelly’s deep understanding of the aesthetics and rules of the world that he subverts.”

Coyote vs. Acme (Dave Green)

The first sign that we’re in good hands comes right at the start. One of the script’s earliest character introductions is—of all people—Peter Lorre. In this world, he’s a scientist at the Acme Corporation (not to be confused with the grocery chain) evading security guards with a variety of nefarious devices like Expanding Boulders and Large Magnets. The second sign of quality is the law firm handling the titular court case: Avery, Jones, and Maltese. It’s the kind of naming convention that could only come from a creative team with a deep reverence not just for the Looney Tunes, but the medium of animation itself. – Devan S. (full review)

Chronovisor (Kevin Walker and Jack Auen)

In a year of remarkable debuts, one of the most formally astounding comes with Kevin Walker and Jack Auen’s unclassifiable, riveting detective-meet-academia tale, Chronovisor. As Leonardo Goi said in our Rotterdam review, “Ostensibly set in the present, Chronovisor keeps jamming your temporal bearings. Save for the occasional smartphone, the ‘action,’ such as it is, unfolds in a world frozen in time (when Béatrice tries to contact one of Ernetti’s surviving relatives, it isn’t an email she sends but a typed letter). The focus gradually moves from the academic-turned-detective toward the media she consults: we hear recordings of a lecture Ernetti gave about his creation, watch old TV footage concerning the man and others who sought to communicate with the dead, but mostly we read. Chronovisor is so enamored with the written word that close-ups of books and articles comprise most of its runtime—with English translations of their various languages dished out not as subtitles but placed directly over the original text on the page. There’s nothing precious about the choice: Auen and Walker want you to read along with Béatrice, and what’s so fascinating about their film is the way it tries to combine two different art forms (literature and cinema) and different actions (reading and watching) all while adjusting its pace to the time needed to perform both.”

Dreams in Nightmares (Shatara Michelle Ford)

After their impressive directorial debut Test Pattern, which was nominated for both Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards, Shatara Michelle Ford returned to the festival circuit in 2024 with Dreams in Nightmares. Jourdain Searles said in her review, “Shatara Michelle Ford’s sophomore feature Dreams in Nightmares is a Black road trip film with a big heart, full of warmth, healing, and beauty. With their debut film Test Pattern, Ford announced themselves as an essential new voice in Black cinema, with a focus on the lives and struggles of Black women. Here, Ford tackles similar themes with a wider scope that includes Black femmes, queer love, and non-monogamous relationship structures. An even mix of comedy and drama, Dreams in Nightmares is a work that feels both casual and cathartic.”

Filipiñana (Rafael Manuel)

One of the most formally accomplished feature debuts to premiere at Sundance earlier this year, Rafael Manuel’s Jia Zhangke-backed feature debut Filipiñana is set at a country club in the Philippines as we follow a 17-year-old “tee-girl” who starts uncovering a rotting core of misogyny and violence amongst the higher-ups and clientele. With striking tableaus crafted by cinematographer Xenia Patricia, Manuel effectively pulls back the clashing layers of beauty and systemic issues to capture a country’s disparities. Read Jared Mobarak’s Critic’s Pick review.

The History of Concrete (John Wilson)

Like a movie tie-in, John Wilson’s debut documentary feature, The History of Concrete, picks up immediately where his HBO series How To with John Wilson left off after three seasons. An elevated public profile does not lead to the next bigger, better project. Instead it’s illustrated via Wilson stumbling upon an empty bag of weed featuring an unauthorized branding of his likeness. The full-sized crew afforded by his show now absent, Wilson is forced back to his roots, filming the day-to-day scenes of New York City life solo. – Caleb H. (full review)

If They Go Will They Miss Me (Walter Thompson-Hernández)

Finding poetic beauty in the quotidian, Walter Thompson-Hernández’s If I Go Will They Miss Me centers on coming of age in housing projects of southern Los Angeles. It’s a way of life often depicted with a grittiness that favors do-or-die intensity, yet this emerging director of great promise takes an opposite approach. One where dreams of flight are always on the mind as the planes coming in and out of nearby LAX are constantly passing above. Greek gods, as studied in school, give purpose to a higher calling. An affection and adoration for and from its ensemble (many non-professionals, in this case) form a portrait of a living, loving community that rises above hardship. Just as his characters draw grand personal inspiration, Thompson-Hernández is greatly indebted to a variety of renowned directors, including Barry Jenkins, RaMell Ross, Charles Burnett, and Spike Lee, with the end result a film greater than the sum of its recognizable influences. – Jordan R. (full review)

Late Fame (Kent Jones)

Returning after his directorial debut Diane, film scholar Kent Jones is back with Late Fame, which brings together Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee, working from a script by Samy Burch (May December) that itself adapts Arthur Schnitzler’s novella. As Leonardo Goi said in our Critic’s Pick review, “One need not be fluent in the ’70s New York poetry scene to appreciate such a piercing snapshot. Jones captures the boys’ milieu with near-ethnographic attention to its textures, patois, and etiquette; Late Fame is never funnier––or more consistently on-point––than when it turns to these pompous fresh graduates and their quirks. In adapting Arthur Schnitzler’s 1895 novella, Burch can posit Ed’s squad as analogue nostalgists in a digital world. But that, of course, is just one of their many poses.”

The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan)

After a clunky opening setting the table for his time-hopping reworking of Homer’s epic, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey settles into a rhythm of melding awe-worthy spectacle with the emotional toll of a seemingly never-ending journey of despair and sacrifice. What I was most struck by, even for all its fantastical elements, is how much Nolan mines from the rather spare natural settings to instill a grounded sense of vastness when it comes to Odysseus’ journey. While one wishes for a bit more patience to take it all in, the trademark propulsiveness of the director works wonders as we discover the ingenuity of each setpiece. For another perspective, read Nick Newman’s eloquent review, which details why the technical feat of shooting entirely in IMAX has its drawbacks. – Jordan R.

Resident Evil (Zach Cregger)

Resident Evil, as a game series, has always borrowed heavily from cinema, whether it be the fixed angles and Kiyoshi Kurosawa inspirations of the first title to the Texas Chainsaw riffs in the 7th. It’s less about the zombies, more the feeling of powerlessness and weird puzzles. Zach Cregger understands this on a deep level. His follow-up to Weapons may not be a pitch-perfect adaptation of the long-running lore, but it perfectly captures the spirit of Resident Evil as a whole, not to mention what it’s like to play it. The perfect title might actually have been Biohazard. – Devan S. (full review)

The Rivals of Amziah King (Andrew Patterson)

Following up his impressive debut The Vast of Night, it’s been a long wait for Andrew Patterson’s delightfully ambitious second feature The Rivals of Amziah King, which premiered at SXSW last year and is now finally in theaters. John Fink said in his review, “Like the Church potluck to which Amziah King introduces his one-time foster daughter Kateri, The Rivals of Amziah King is a gleeful mashup of genres and tones blending bluegrass music, comedy, revenge, and heist-thriller elements into a tasty homestyle buffet full of eccentric characters and thick Southern accents. It’s a strong follow-up to the promise Andrew Patterson displayed in his resourceful debut feature The Vast of Night––even when this mash-up seems a little uneven and indulgent, with a heavy use of formal techniques, from slow-motion to ironic music.”

The Samurai and the Prisoner (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

After viewing a certain ensemble period epic dominating the box office, the next that should be highest on your radar this summer hails from Kiyoshi Kurosawa. The Samurai and the Prisoner is a knotty, fascinating samurai mystery that sees the Japanese director adopt an entirely different register from most of his work, yet still showcases a thrilling set of formal tricks. Leonardo Goi said in his Cannes review, “Like its protagonist, The Samurai and the Prisoner is a curious oddity. It’s a film that keeps bloodletting to a bare minimum and delights in subverting genre expectations to fascinating effects. Where other recent entries in the canon opted for bigger, action-packed spectacles—recall Takeshi Kitano’s gruesome 2023 Kubi—this is a much more stately, almost contemplative affair, a kind of throwback to mid-century masterpieces from Kenji Mizoguchi and Akira Kurosawa.”

Serpent’s Path (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Transplanting the action from Tokyo to Paris, the new Serpent’s Path is fairly faithful to its predecessor in terms of story beats. Albert (Damien Bonnard) joins forces with Japanese psychiatrist Sayoko (Ko Shibasaki), with the latter being a gender-flipped interpretation of the previous schoolteacher role. The film kicks off with them abducting Laval (a brilliant weasel of a performance from Mathieu Amalric), a low-level accountant for the company Minard, whose employees are secretly involved in a child-trafficking organization known as The Circle. Laval’s interrogation takes place in the kind of decrepit, abandoned warehouse we’ve seen in much of Kurosawa’s work, and with the aid of deeper shadows and sharper framing from cinematographer Alexis Kavyrchine (who worked with the director on his previous French-language feature, Daguerrotype), the palpable sense of terror is turned up further from the very beginning. Serpent’s Path is the type of film that makes you want a shower afterwards, the hours spent in the muck of this environment and the psychology of these characters taking a toll on your spirit. – Mitchell B. (full review)

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun)

Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow follow-up Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a wildly entertaining exploration of the slasher film, erotic pleasure, and everything in between. Led by Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, Rory O’Connor said in his Critic’s Pick review from Cannes, “Shot masterfully by their regular cinematographer Eric Yue (Alex G also makes a welcome return as composer), the movie-within-the-movie’s formative kill scene is so mesmerizing that you’ll welcome Schoenbrun’s decision to play it again and again––all the better to get a feel for how Kris’ obsessions have led them to the movie’s climax, and perhaps their own. Yue and Schoenbrun’s approaches also perfectly align when capturing actresses’ faces, often in achingly beautiful close-ups that only occasionally allow for a flicker of menace. ‘There’s a hole at the bottom of the lake,’ Billy explains to Kris in one of those moments, setting off a sequence that is quickly becoming Schoenbrun’s signature—that churning sense of movie spiraling a drain as it drags you down with it.”

Tony (Matt Johnson)

After crafting one of the highlights of 2026 with the thrilling, hilarious Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Matt Johnson is back with a look into the early life of the late, great chef Anthony Bourdain. Devan Suber said in his review, “Those looking for a movie about the man himself won’t necessarily come away with much about Bourdain or his background. As a film about how a small period of time can end up shaping a person, Tony is well observed and distinctive. If nothing else, it’s a welcome sign that Johnson can retain his signature voice while dropping some elements of his style and finding interest in a topic he might not care all that much about.”

The Weight (Padraic McKinley)

Gold is such an apt metaphor for greed. It’s shiny, it’s heavy, it’s superficial, and it’s obtained through someone’s hard labor. That labor is carried on the backs of the downtrodden and desperate while its benefactors maintain a comfortable distance. Gold prices are currently at an all-time high, a testament to the timelessness of its corrupting allure, while life isn’t getting any easier for those on the bottom of the economic totem pole. Every day, we see news stories about more people struggling to make ends meet or afford healthcare. It’s a devastating sign of the times which director Padraic McKinley taps into in his debut feature, The Weight. – Kent M. W. (full review)

More Films Now Playing in Theaters

• Bad Apples
• Black Zombie
• The Dog Stars
• The End of Oak Street
• Hanging by a Wire
• Hope
• How to Divorce During the War
• Idiots
• The Oldest Person in the World
• The Sun Never Sets
• Union County

Read all reviews here. For our NYC-specific repertory round-ups, including many films that will tour the country, bookmark NYC Weekend Watch.

On paper, hiring Takashi Miike to add his own spin to Bad Lieutenant, an unlikely franchise stemming from Abel Ferrara’s controversial 1992 film, makes perfect sense. Edward R. Pressman, the late producer of the original, made the inspired choice to create a spiritual successor with Werner Herzog in 2009’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which added its own gonzo energy to the template of a corrupt policeman glancing back at redemption on a highway to hell. Another 17 years later, the series has returned, now in the hands of Pressman’s son Sam while one of Japan’s most prolific and eccentric directors takes the helm.

Thus it’s shocking that Miike’s Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo arrives with a thud. A dull, insipid, lazy take on a formula designed to let loose, Miike and screenwriter Daisuke Tengan (a collaborator on Audition and 13 Assassins) throw out a series of uninspired plot threads that mostly go nowhere. It’s hard to believe the same person behind titles like Visitor Q, Gozu, and Ichi the Killer made this shrug of a film, but those films debuted more than 20 years ago. A lot can change over that time, and not for the better.

Following in the footsteps of Harvey Keitel and Nicolas Cage, Shun Oguri plays detective Yabuki, who we learn via an opening title card used to head a team investigating the Yakuza until new laws forced the gangs to disband in the 2000s. One would think this period of time would be prime for bad lieutenant-ing, but Miike keeps us in the present day, where a divorced Yabuki spends his days taking meth, racking up gambling debts, and screwing prostitutes. He’s effectively useless to the rest of his department, save for periodic consulting around crimes that involve former Yakuza members. 

Two grisly discoveries start the plot with a limp-wristed push. The first is a Yakuza member found tied up with his head twisted 180 degrees. The second, and the closest this film comes to an evocative image, involves another gangster who’s been hacked into meatballs and left outside for crows to eat. Both are assumed to be linked to Ishizuka (Shôtarô Mamiya), a former associate who just got out of prison. Yabuki remembers Ishizuka from his past days, seen in flashbacks that pull the generic “tortured cop” card over the murder of his former partner, but he’s unbothered by the cases, instead seeing them as opportunities to trade intel with creditors to forgive his debts. Around the same time, FBI Agent Gwen (Lily James) gets partnered with Yabuki to search for the missing daughter of a high-profile U.S. politician (Liv Morgan).

These storylines half-assedly link once it’s discovered that this missing daughter is the one doing the head-twisting, while Ishizuka’s revenge quest has spiritual ties that will be completely forgotten about by the time credits roll. Oguri’s performance as Yabuki has no charm, no sauce, no flavor. The film can’t even muster up an excuse to paper over the presence of James and Morgan as necessities for additional financing from producer and U.S. distributor NEON; both are crammed into this sad clown car of a script. At least James and Morgan, unlike Oguri, make an effort to bring some freakish energy to proceedings via, respectively, a ridiculous Southern drawl and an obsession with sushi. But James’ performance is all loud choices with no logic, while Morgan barely gets any screen time. The entire missing woman subplot doesn’t even resolve so much as stop in place, Morgan’s character just appearing in the final act.

Miike directs while asleep at the wheel; periodic bursts of gory violence look more like an obligation to expectations than actual decisions. A car chase and club brawl that unfold with little spatial awareness or coherence sag like wet laundry alongside everything else. This operates at the same frequency as TV-movie schlock, and not in any compelling way if you’re aware of Miike’s past, superior output. If the filmmakers can’t be bothered to put in the work to make a good, depraved time, there’s no reason why viewers should waste theirs. Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo might be terrible, but with producer Pressman intending to continue his father’s legacy, this may amount to little more than a bump along a world tour of authoritative debauchery. I guess we’ll have to wait another 17 years to find out.    

Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. by NEON.

Forgiveness and redemption lie at the heart of Tim Blake Nelson’s The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd, which sees the actor returning to the role of writer-director after more than a decade. Set in Oklahoma and inspired by true events, this bleak tale of a convicted murderer, a hopeless woman’s investment in him, and the people who tragically pay the price for it engineers itself as a hard look at our capacity to do good and harm to one another. And as impeccable as Nelson’s tastes might be—from bookending his film with Emily Dickinson poems to the insanely talented ensemble he puts together—his skills behind the camera cannot grasp the lofty goals he tries to reach. Bogged down by a structure that cheapens the impact of his material and directed with a competence that doesn’t inspire a strong reaction, it’s a film whose sincere convictions can’t escape its flaws.

Nelson’s film crosscuts between three different points in time, which lets viewers watch his story’s beginning, middle, and end unfold simultaneously. Karen (Amanda Seyfried), stuck in a loveless marriage to an abusive husband (Grant Harvey), takes on a job teaching creative writing to inmates at a local maximum-security prison where she meets Wilson (Scoot McNairy), an intimidating prisoner locked away for double homicide. At a different point in time, Minister Jane (Devyn A. Tyler), husband John (William Jackson Harper) and their two children go about their days as a happy family. And further in the future, a warden (Missi Pyle) prepares herself on the day of Wilson’s execution. Nelson gives each storyline their own tonal flavor: harrowing melodrama for Karen, dread-induced tragedy for Jane and John, somber procedural for the death sentence.

The format resembles scattered puzzle pieces gradually locking into place. Wilson becomes a model student for Karen, and once they start up a secret penpal arrangement, she can’t help herself from being wooed when the only thing waiting at home is an alcoholic ready to beat her. As Wilson’s professions of love turn to demands for contraband, we see how Karen’s desperate need for an escape from her life kicks off a series of events that drag multiple people down with her. It’s cut together to maximize the disastrous inevitability of it all, and that focus on the assembly comes at the expense of its characters.  

There’s a clear intent that, by providing the outcome early on, the focus shifts from narrative tension and more towards the ideas each character brings to this story. But the question of how it all comes together dominates, and Nelson’s contrived narrative shorthand leaves everything undercooked. Karen’s story devolves into grim scenes of domestic abuse and shouting matches, only offset by the kindness of her friend Gladys (Wunmi Mosaku); Jane and John’s story amounts to a cruel guessing game of when the hammer comes crashing down on their happy life. The straightforward nature of the death row section makes it the most effective part of the film, though a self-contained construction that rests on a basic plea for humanity means it could probably work as its own short.

With names like Seyfried, McNairy, and Mosaku comprising the cast, it’s hard to find fault with anyone’s efforts to elevate a script that needs all the help it can get. Nelson’s unremarkable direction also leaves much to be desired; letting this weak material take the lead makes it easy for his film to become Southern-fried miserablism. All that remains is the obvious effort to weave a portrait of flawed people trying their best or doing their worst and an acknowledgment that we have to make sense of it all, even when we know there’s no sense to make of it. Nelson’s heartfelt intentions with The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd demand respect simply because he sees the inherent value in the essential and irreconcilable aspects of our existence. It’s just too bad he doesn’t have the strengths to make use of them.

The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between. 

Today we discuss New Jersey legend James Gandolfini! Our B-Sides include: The Mexican, Romance & Cigarettes, Cinema Verite, and The Drop. Our guest literally wrote the book on Gandolfini! Jason Bailey, author of Gandolfini Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend. He also co-hosts the podcast “Guide for the Film Fanatic” on the One Heat Minute Productions network. I was honored to chat about The Adventures of Robin Hood on the pod not too long ago!

We discuss Gandolfini’s early years as a character actor, his fun times on the set of the holiday debacle Surviving Christmas, and the chemistry of friendship that Gandolfini and Julia Roberts build in the underrated The Mexican. 

Jason dishes on the process of writing his great book, we all lament the next act of great Gandolfini performances we did not get, and I remember some iconic episodes from The Sopranos. We discuss his playful energy and singular legacy, and what could have been. There’s also a chat about Jason’s upcoming book YIPPEE KI-YAY “Die Hard,” Bruce Willis, and the Reinvention of the Action Movie.

Listen below and subscribe here. Be sure to give us a follow on Bluesky at @tfsbside.bsky.social. Enjoy!

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Bouchra (Meriem Bennani, Orian Barki)

Based on a real-life conversation shared by co-director Meriem Bennani and her own mother, Bouchra (co-directed with Orian Barki and co-written by them and Ayla Mrabet) opens with a phone call. Aicha (Yto Barrada) is checking in on her daughter from Morocco when Bouchra (Bennani) broaches a subject they’ve been avoiding for almost a decade. Stuck creatively, the latter has decided to find emotional catharsis through a script about the complex dynamic shared with her parents and seeks context from the opposite side. – Jared M. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI

Dry Leaf (Alexandre Koberidze)

Languorous without becoming laborious, meditative without becoming meandering, abstract without becoming abstruse, Alexandre Koberidze’s Dry Leaf is a road movie unlike any other. It follows Irakli (David Koberidze), a father in search of his daughter, a sports photographer whose sudden disappearance is less of an enigma to solve than a vehicle for Koberidze’s imagination to serenely drift. Featuring Giorgi Koberidze’s charming, addictive score and shot on a Sony Ericsson, the fuzzy look of which transforms mundane landscapes into foreign-seeming textural images and hypnotic sequences, Dry Leaf, at 186 minutes, actively heightens our perception to its bucolic territory, its singular wavelength. It’s the kind of film where the destination is less important than the journey, where submission to its logic is more meaningful than a resistance, and where, like a vivid dream, its numinous sensations linger long after viewing. No matter the resolution, Koberidze has established himself as a modern enchanter. – Nirris N.

Where to Stream: MUBI

The End of Oak Street (David Robert Mitchell)

The End of Oak Street opens with a rollicking gusto, Michael Giacchino’s assured heavyweight score ripping us straight from the production cards into a 1982 suburban block party in Flowervale, Michigan, where the styles and aesthetics of the ‘70s still reign supreme in outfits, home decor, cars, you name it. From there, it’s Meet the Platts: Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise’s (Anne Hathaway) marriage is on the rocks, and their teen children Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convery) can tell. But the kids have their own problems, like crushes and Jumanji-pilled bully bike chases. Until the Platts—and everyone else in a two-mile radius—suddenly share the same problem: their neighborhood has been inexplicably transported to the Mesozoic era, otherwise known as the Age of Dinosaurs, in a cross-epochal paranormal event. – Luke H. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Ghost in the Machine (Valerie Veatch)

What exactly is artificial intelligence? Where does it come from? And precisely how powerful is (or will) it become? Valerie Veatch’s documentary Ghost in the Machine digs into these answers and finds things both disturbing and unsurprising. This is a fairly brisk, fairly standard documentation of the evolution of artificial intelligence—effective, dispiriting, and disappointingly mundane. – Dan M. (full review)

The Rivals of Amziah King (Andrew Patterson)

Like the Church potluck to which Amziah King introduces his one-time foster daughter Kateri, The Rivals of Amziah King is a gleeful mashup of genres and tones blending bluegrass music, comedy, revenge, and heist-thriller elements into a tasty homestyle buffet full of eccentric characters and thick Southern accents. It’s a strong follow-up to the promise Andrew Patterson displayed in his resourceful debut feature The Vast of Night––even when this mash-up seems a little uneven and indulgent, with a heavy use of formal techniques, from slow-motion to ironic music. – John F. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun)

Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow follow-up Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a wildly entertaining exploration of the slasher film, erotic pleasure, and everything in between. Led by Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, Rory O’Connor said in his Critic’s Pick review from Cannes, “Shot masterfully by their regular cinematographer Eric Yue (Alex G also makes a welcome return as composer), the movie-within-the-movie’s formative kill scene is so mesmerizing that you’ll welcome Schoenbrun’s decision to play it again and again––all the better to get a feel for how Kris’ obsessions have led them to the movie’s climax, and perhaps their own. Yue and Schoenbrun’s approaches also perfectly align when capturing actresses’ faces, often in achingly beautiful close-ups that only occasionally allow for a flicker of menace. ‘There’s a hole at the bottom of the lake,’ Billy explains to Kris in one of those moments, setting off a sequence that is quickly becoming Schoenbrun’s signature—that churning sense of movie spiraling a drain as it drags you down with it.”

Where to Stream: VOD

Tony (Matt Johnson)

To the public, Anthony Bourdain was a carefully constructed persona: the fine-dining chef who waxed poetic about the joys of “regular” food and traveled to far-flung locales that made him want to throttle Henry Kissinger on shows like Parts Unknown. He would be the first to admit he wasn’t perfect, cataloging his faults in bestsellers like Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw while sharing his thoughts on various blogs and social platforms up until his tragic suicide in 2018. With such presence, it would seem like his life was plenty covered; Kitchen Confidential even had a Fox sitcom in 2005 starring a young Bradley Cooper. Matt Johnson’s Tony recognizes this tall order and, like many of the better biopics, chooses to focus on a small, pivotal section of Bourdain’s story: the first couple chapters of Kitchen Confidential. – Devan S. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Also New to Streaming

Kino Film Collection

Scavenger Hunt

MUBI

9 Lives of a Wet Pussy
Devil in Miss Jones
Exposed
Harlot
Let the Summer Never Come Again
A Woman’s Torment

Prime Video

The Napa Boys

Shudder

Goody Goody

VOD

Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause
Fwends
It Ends
Nimrods

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 18.

Like a movie tie-in, John Wilson’s debut documentary feature, The History of Concrete, picks up immediately where his HBO series How To with John Wilson left off after three seasons. An elevated public profile does not lead to the next bigger, better project. Instead it’s illustrated via Wilson stumbling upon an empty bag of weed featuring an unauthorized branding of his likeness. The full-sized crew afforded by his show now absent, Wilson is forced back to his roots, filming the day-to-day scenes of New York City life solo.

After futile attempts to enter the commercial world as a freelancer, Wilson surveys his depressing wall calendar with only “Slurpee Day” earmarked and decides to pivot toward something with a greater promise of financial stability. And so he attends a seminar on how to write Hallmark movies. It’s an enlightening window into the well-oiled machine that cranks out these paint-by-number romances. The narrative rules for what’s presented in the seminar as either “in” or “out” range from evolving to hard and fast. Girl bosses are no longer in—that trope got pushed too far. Mentioning Jesus is a consistent no-go, despite these mostly being Christmas movies. And audiences will always hate an interrupted first kiss between romantic leads, so don’t do it. It’s clear that Wilson, with his self-described “documentary memoir” style, is not actually going to pivot to a fruitful second act making these movies. But the visibility of this manufactured conceit doesn’t matter, and recalls elements of Charlie Shackleton’s Zodiac Killer Project from last year’s Sundance. Both are seemingly more constructed than meets the eye, and both look at genres—in Hallmark movies and true crime—with codified narrative tropes that are consumed by voracious audiences. 

The Hallmark seminar occupies much of Concrete‘s extended prologue before an eponymous subject takes center stage. Fans of Wilson’s work won’t be surprised to learn that this is not some Ken Burns-like comprehensive study of the grey construction material, but rather acts as a jumping-off point for a digressive journey covering a great many topics and traveling to a number of locations. Despite a decade-plus spent fine-tuning this filmmaking mode, Wilson has a hard time conveying what the film might be—mostly because he doesn’t know yet—on Zoom calls with prospective producers and anonymous industry types. These Zooms highlight Wilson’s bumbling, inarticulate personality in a self-deprecating manner and illustrate how he forever feels out-of-place in an industry increasingly driven by an adherence to sure things. 

But Wilson, somehow, scrapes together funding and promptly heads overseas to Rome, an ancient city full of concrete structures that has withstood the test of time, unlike the concrete he encounters daily in New York City—a constant state of disrepair. Without much of a plan, he asks confused, suspicious police officers and construction workers about this famed secret mixture. Back in New York with no answers, his voiceover announces that the modest production budget has been entirely blown on the trip. Traveling to Rome to set up a single voiceover joke is a very funny bit, one that recalls Norm Macdonald at his best, or Greta Gerwig’s ill-conceived trip to Paris in Frances Ha. 

At 101 minutes, The History of Concrete compacts its ideas invigoratingly. Wilson’s excitement is infectious as he pauses to mention, via voiceover, some bizarre factoid he’s discovered. For instance: did you know that ATMs in NYC aren’t allowed to touch the sidewalk and so must float above it? Wilson worked as a private investigator post-college, and you feel a shaggy Long Goodbye energy in The History of Concrete as Wilson is content to follow leads down unrelated rabbit holes. (The Long Goodbye even features what might be the most John Wilson-esque image he didn’t record, when the camera zooms past Marlow onto two dogs shagging on a Mexican street.)

A single review can’t possibly encompass all that The History of Concrete touches upon. There’s a brief trip to Bellefontaine, Ohio, which houses two eyebrow-raising landmarks: the nation’s first-ever concrete paved road and the state’s highest point. There’s a trip to a concrete convention in Louisiana, participants of which discuss how the colonization of the moon and Mars will require lots of concrete. How will they get tons and tons of this dense construction material to the bases? There’s even a segment involving the preservation of dead human skin with tattoos. Los Angeles is visited and described as having a “pornographic relationship with concrete.” One recurring thread involving NIMBY activism in New York City feels underdeveloped. It’s simply too complex an issue to be properly broken down in these shortened segments. However, it does grant us footage of a character whose general demeanor and mannerisms are tailor-made to be featured in a John Wilson work: former New York mayor Eric Adams. 

It’s worth noting that Wilson’s skills as a cinematographer have improved through the years—more considered compositions of cityscapes are present here. There are also more complex editing jokes, beyond ones that simply juxtapose his voiceover with a corresponding image captured from the streets of New York. One of the best sequences has a former Department of Transportation head explain to Wilson that the Brooklyn Queens Expressway’s (BQE) one-of-a-kind triple cantilever is a ticking time bomb. The mostly unsupported concrete structure can’t continue to be sustained by patchwork fixes. The film then immediately cuts, supplemented by ominous music, to Wilson traveling the dangerous pathway, a hilarious gag that draws to mind the Christopher Walken driving sequence in Annie Hall. 

In many respects, The History of Concrete plays like three How To with John Wilson episodes combined into one package. The series would often devote extended stretches to characters Wilson met in public, and in History that role is occupied by Jack Macco, who the director meets in a grocery store where Macco hands out liquor samples. At night, he rocks out as the frontman of a few different metal bands. The inclusion of Macco can begin to feel like a perplexing digression, even by Wilson standards, but by the end of the film, his role is revealed as a sly, elaborately constructed jab at what the film industry informs the director, in the opening act, is needed for a viable, commercial documentary feature. To say more would be to spoil, and while this setup and payoff is not entirely successful, Wilson’s attempt to craft something more ambitious and complicated should be applauded. And it does lead to a comical hip-hop needle drop over the credits à la Evanescence’s role in Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal. 

For those willing to meet Wilson on his wavelength, The History of Concrete is a joyous ride full of his now-trademark detours and persistent, underlying sadness at both the state of New York (his first and true love) and, on a secondary scale, the world at large. While there is a lingering frustration prevalent throughout, directed at targets like AI or a film industry committed to a pervasive safeness, the mere fact of this project’s existence and subsequent programming at a prestigious festival serves as a triumph in its own way. 

The History of Concrete premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 18.

Gold is such an apt metaphor for greed. It’s shiny, it’s heavy, it’s superficial, and it’s obtained through someone’s hard labor. That labor is carried on the backs of the downtrodden and desperate while its benefactors maintain a comfortable distance. Gold prices are currently at an all-time high, a testament to the timelessness of its corrupting allure, while life isn’t getting any easier for those on the bottom of the economic totem pole. Every day, we see news stories about more people struggling to make ends meet or afford healthcare. It’s a devastating sign of the times which director Padraic McKinley taps into in his debut feature, The Weight. 

McKinley’s intense and, at times, brutal thriller is crowd-pleasing without being pandering. He melds a winning premise, breathless sequences, and lush photography with the right cast to draw you into the treacherous journey. The Weight borrows from action-adventure films like Cliffhanger and Indiana Jones, but possesses a more thoughtful soul—one hand on its heart, the other on a blade. 

McKinley takes us back to another difficult time for the nation: The Great Depression. Sam Murphy (Ethan Hawke) is doing his best to provide for his young daughter (Avy Berry) using his skilled hands and keen mind. While most can’t afford to be scrupulous, the single father tries to set a good example for her through hard work and moral judgment. He projects optimism for her sake, but his strong character isn’t enough to stop their eviction. After unknowingly assaulting a group of police officers while protecting his daughter, Sam is sent to a work camp to pay off his debt to society. When Sam uses his wits to move an enormous boulder, Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) takes notice. Impressed by his ingenuity and virtue, the warden offers him a deal: freedom in exchange for leading a gold heist. With time running out before the state puts his daughter up for adoption, Sam has no choice but to accept the six-day mission. Luckily for us, the simple smuggling operation becomes more complex and perilous with each passing day.

For the journey, Sam handpicks three of his fellow inmates, not all of whom are ideal candidates. His band of convicts is chaperoned by two armed goons and later take on Anna (Julia Jones), who wants to escape the gold mine and is also willing to work for her freedom. As in a war film or western, the troop shares stories around a campfire and on their trek, shedding light on how they ended up in their respective predicaments. Each accomplice is colored-in enough to elicit our sympathies that pay off when tragedy strikes. It adds to the dramatic stakes of the heart-in-throat sequences McKinley puts them through, including a harrowing rickety-bridge scene that feels fresh despite its well-worn usage. The same can be said for The Weight’s marquee lead.

Certain things are proven to get better with age: cast-iron cookware, catcher’s mitts, and Ethan Hawke. Hawke mines his wealth of sensitivity as a performer to play the devoted dad and invests us in his ultimate goal of reuniting with his daughter. He can also go toe-to-toe with the innately imposing Crowe in their lopsided power dynamic; Sam is unafraid to respond to Clancy’s hard edge with pithy retorts. It’s unfair to say Hawke is experiencing a catchy, portmanteau-labeled renaissance, but there is certainly a newfound momentum behind his stardom. Never fully crossing over to the Hollywood mainstream, Hawke has continued seeking out projects that interest him, working with filmmakers like Pawel Pawlikowski, Paul Schrader, and continuing his longtime collaboration with Richard Linklater. Those “one for me” projects do come with the “one for you” roles, but even those feel like they’re rooted in sincere interest in the project. As he’s aged, he’s found new gears in his performances that build on his intensity and movie star charisma. With another Oscar nomination to his name (his fifth!), it seems Hawke’s peers have also taken note of his progression.

Whether it’s the dialogue-focused Before trilogy, his action thrillers, or the more recent stature as an elder statesman in horror, Hawke brings a sincerity to his performances that pulls you into the diverse worlds of his films. His range has only refined and widened over the years, affording him a character actor versatility as a leading man. He can elevate a film that has its faults or, in a film like The Weight, complement a strong one to help it reach its potential.

The Weight premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2025 BFI London coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 18.

To international viewers, Bad Apples will play like a conventional dark comedy about a schoolteacher pushed too far by a student; to Brits, it’s a scorched Earth takedown of a state education system that has failed millions of children, any laughs to be had cathartic through the tears. What’s surprising is that such a state-of-the-nation takedown arrives courtesy of Swedish director Jonatan Entzler in his English-language debut, relocating Scandinavian source material to a classroom in the southwest of England. Working with breakthrough screenwriter Jess O’Kane, he’s done an impeccable job encapsulating decades of political failures towards younger generations into a morally slippery kidnapping comedy, weaponizing viewers’ own experiences in the classroom (both as parents and students) to try making you empathize with the criminal adult over their victim. It’s provocative simply because it’s a crowd-pleaser that relies on you abandoning any shred of empathy, highlighting a societal problem by making unsuspecting viewers delight in the worst possible solution to it while revealing unconscious biases.

Saoirse Ronan stars as Maria, an exhausted elementary school teacher who frequently has her patience tested by Danny (Eddie Waller), the one badly behaved kid in her class. She won’t admit it, but he’s worn down on her; she’s received endless warnings from the principal for not keeping him in line, the exhaustion led her engagement with another teacher to fall apart, and she has very little time to devote to other students while spending so much of lesson time dealing with him. After Danny’s suspended for pushing a girl down the stairs and breaking her arm, Maria visits his dad, a gig-economy delivery worker whose low-paid, high-hours job means he spends little time at home. He’s a nice guy who can’t understand his boy’s rage, their father-son relationship the manifestation of that one tweet about dead-beat dads not being there because their kids have bad vibes. He needs to leave for work, but Maria finds Danny attacking her car as he drives off; she restrains him and attempts to take him to the hospital, but after he says he’ll tell the police she beat him, she hastily takes him back to her house and locks him in the basement until he calms down. 

What should be the logical inciting act of a conventional crime narrative is anything but. Danny’s disappearance makes headlines but vanishes quickly, and without him in the class, the other children’s grades rise significantly––the school inspector even singles out Maria for praise when he comes to observe her class, paving the way for a promotion. O’Kane’s screenplay relishes stoking the flames of the hand-wringing right-wing arguments you’ll often see whenever the topic of schools comes up in the news: that a lack of discipline from teachers, and placing pupils in classes with mixed learning abilities, hinders the futures of the brightest few. In actuality, underfunding the education system, severe teacher shortages due to low pay and high hours, and the repeal of a law which restricted classes to a maximum of 30 pupils (perhaps the weakest aspect of Bad Apples’ world-building is that the classroom here is considerably more manageable than that) are the culprits. It’s a film which relishes in convincing you that there is an easy answer to the problem, only to twist the knife once you start warming to what it proposes to fix things. Would you close your eyes to certain horrors if it meant your child was guaranteed the best possible start in life?

None of this would be effective if the film didn’t simultaneously weaponize Danny, spending the best part of the first half convincing you he is merely a kid with bad vibes. Violent, hateful, and destructive for the sheer hell of it, he’s what every parent fears, doubly so because he doesn’t have the excuse of a bad father to pin the blame on. We’re primed to see him the way we’ve been taught to see any working-class child who doesn’t have an obvious academic future: a lost cause whose presence drains classmates of their potential. No child at such an impressionable age should be written off, but when they can’t be given extra attention, that’s what happens––Danny only gets the devotion he needs from his teacher when she’s restrained him in her basement because she’s too overworked during school hours. It’s no surprise that his violent rages come from a genuine place; there have been hundreds of thousands of kids like him who have never been offered help because they were failed from their first mistake. Everybody knows at least one Danny. Many of us might have been closer to being a Danny than we could have ever imagined.

Ronan is a gifted comedic actress, a talent exploited by far fewer filmmakers than acceptable, but she doesn’t straightforwardly adopt that tone in her performance, despite the unrelenting pitch-black humor. If anything, the darkness stems from her often playing Maria as if she were an audience surrogate, a figure in over her head who just panicked at the wrong moment, her actions framed as the kind of mistake anybody would make under such pressure. She becomes a far more malevolent figure in a way that’s effective because the performance never pronounces it as such; when she helps join a police search for Danny alongside his father, knowing damn well where his son is, the film never overstates the sheer lack of morality this would take. For British viewers, this moment will likely be reminiscent of the early-2000s Soham Murders case, where a school caretaker murdered two young pupils at his home––his victims were only discovered several days after he had appeared on national news giving interviews as part of the search party looking for them.

That this film could invoke such a notorious story without ever feeling tasteless is commendable, but this is the rare dark comedy which wants to provoke without relying on shock tactics. As with the Netflix hit Adolescence, a singular case study gradually reveals a highly detailed tapestry of ways the next generation are being failed in the classroom, just like their parents before them. Entzler makes his point via omission, showing a funhouse-mirror view of fixing the education system––it’s far more impactful than if he’d called out the cause directly.

Needless to say many countries have these issues in their own schools, but Bad Apples tackles a very specifically British institutional issue in a way I’m not sure will fully translate outside of its home country. It’s a damning political indictment disguised as a fun, twisty thriller.

Bad Apples screened at the 2025 BFI London Film Festival.

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film opens in theaters on September 18.

Finding poetic beauty in the quotidian, Walter Thompson-Hernández’s If I Go Will They Miss Me centers on coming of age in housing projects of southern Los Angeles. It’s a way of life often depicted with a grittiness that favors do-or-die intensity, yet this emerging director of great promise takes an opposite approach. One where dreams of flight are always on the mind as the planes coming in and out of nearby LAX are constantly passing above. Greek gods, as studied in school, give purpose to a higher calling. An affection and adoration for and from its ensemble (many non-professionals, in this case) form a portrait of a living, loving community that rises above hardship. Just as his characters draw grand personal inspiration, Thompson-Hernández is greatly indebted to a variety of renowned directors, including Barry Jenkins, RaMell Ross, Charles Burnett, and Spike Lee, with the end result a film greater than the sum of its recognizable influences.

The Nickerson Gardens Housing Projects of Watts, California, is both home and playground to 12-year-old Lil Ant (Bodhi Dell), introduced reflecting on the life of his father, Big Ant (J. Alphonse Nicholson), in what will form the film’s central, complicated relationship. In voiceover written as to seem extemporaneous and spoken as a prayer to the Gods above, we learn of a violent mistake in his father’s past—the first steps to a life in and out of jail juxtaposed with images of deep feeling, including his relationship to Lozita (Danielle Brooks). We also learn of Lil Ant’s obsession with the planes that circle above, a motif of escape and wonder further threaded in the form of Greek mythology as the likes of Odysseus, Poseidon, Zeus, and Pegasus fill his mind with larger-than-life imagination. We witness fantastical images of Lozita as Medusa, snakes curling out of her hair at the barbershop. Other flights of fancy include a sequence of the boys of the neighborhood taxiing down the proverbial runway of their shared front yards, arms aligned in a fashion that would make Aunt Gladys proud.

“It’s always better when dad is away,” reveals Lil Ant, while Lozita notes, when asked if she’s romantically happy upon Big Ant’s return, “It’s not about what I need. It’s about what them three kids need right now.” A hardened father who wants a better life for his son, Big Ant doesn’t have capability to emotionally connect with his son, who is more interested in a world of art and creativity, which could be another planet compared to his own difficult upbringing. The vignette style of If I Go Will They Miss Me brings a lyrical grace to this clash, yet it can often mean certain scenes feel cut short and a script underwritten to better serve the nimble flow.

With warm, exuberant cinematography by Michael Fernandez, Thompson-Hernández captures everyone in this community with a sense of love, taking a note from Barry Jenkins’ (or Jonathan Demme’s) direct-to-camera, fourth-wall-breaking shots as actors gaze onward, cordial souls captured for brief moments. The free-form assemblage of memories, as if a visual scrapbook we have the privilege of piecing together, recalls the wondrous structural filmmaking of RaMell Ross, while Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, also finding great beauty in the same neighborhoods, is an unmistakable touchstone. There’s even a Spike Lee-like dolly shot thrown in for good measure.

With these influences clearly felt, If I Go Will They Miss Me doesn’t necessarily suggest a novel filmmaking voice, but one that can synthesize a medley of strong visions into a style that captivates. We need more filmmakers seeking to capture the divine in everyday life and, with this second feature, Walter Thompson-Hernández proves a director to anticipate whatever he takes on next.

If I Go Will They Miss Me premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2026 Sundance coverage. The film is now on YouTube.

What exactly is artificial intelligence? Where does it come from? And precisely how powerful is (or will) it become? Valerie Veatch’s documentary Ghost in the Machine digs into these answers and finds things both disturbing and unsurprising. This is a fairly brisk, fairly standard documentation of the evolution of artificial intelligence—effective, dispiriting, and disappointingly mundane.

We get a lot of talking heads and a lot of research telling us where the idea of artificial intelligence and its application ultimately comes from: eugenics theory. For those who may not know, eugenics is a series of beliefs and pseudo-scientific ideas that claim to aim to improve the human race, when in fact much of their theories are built around racist assumptions. Veatch separates her film into eight chapters, building a fairly effective crescendo as we approach our present day.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is featured quite a bit in archive clips, specifically one from 2016 in which he states: “I think AI will lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.” We also get plenty of Elon Musk, along with a slew of philosophers, physicists, historians, linguists, and many more. In speaking about the rules that A.I. follows, Dr. Dan McQuillan (author of Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence) says: “You tell it to find a pattern, and it will find a pattern.” Simply put, the prejudices inherent in the systems that design the artificial intelligence will direct it how to think. Objectivity is impossible when prejudicial assumptions are presented as fact.

There are reminders of racist chatbots, as well as the more recent, Nazi-sympathizing Grok updates. There’s the overpromise of A.G.I. (Artificial General Intelligence), which has been walked back by those who once oversold it. Also the idea of effective altruism (how best to spend fortunes to help all people) and its bastardization into some form of techno-fascism. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the essential question: what larger, practical use does A.I. actually serve?

Ghost in the Machine is an uneven piece of work. It’s as if Veatch and her team gathered so much information that they felt compelled to pack every little bit of it into this one film. The result is sometimes effective, at other times overwhelming. The pace is quite relentless, and the focus of the overall project tends to slip. Still, historian Dr. Becca Lewis offers some powerful context throughout and Dr. Sorelle Friedler provides succinct commentary in the final, worrying chapter.

There’s a lot here, and the biggest lesson learned seems to be this: technocrats will not save us. And neither will A.I. They will save themselves, and they will save all the money and water for themselves while they’re at it.

Ghost in the Machine premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of Modern Art
A Yuen Woo-ping series has begun, featuring films by the choreographer and Ang Lee alongside prints of Kill Bill Vol. 1, The Matrix, and Kung Fu Hustle.

Film Forum
Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan continues playing in a 4K restoration; Wild Style plays on Saturday and Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman screens Sunday with live piano accompaniment.

Paris Theater
Big & Loud brings Lawrence of Arabia, West Side Story, and Babylon on 70mm.

Film at Lincoln Center
Marketa Lazarova continues playing in a new restoration.

BAM
A series on composer Lim Giong features The Assassin, The World, Kaili Blues, and a print of Pink Floyd The Wall.

Roxy Cinema
A retrospective of 2006 continues with a 35mm print of Fast Food Nation on Sunday; Hell’s Highway and a print of Viva Las Vegas show on Saturday; Outfitumentary plays on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives
Films by Pedro Costa, Ou Ning (read our interview), and José Luis Guerín play in Rubble On Screen.

Museum of the Moving Image
House of Dreams screens on Friday; Your Name and The Birds play on Saturday and Sunday, the latter day bringing a print of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in a double-bill with the Star Trek episode “Space Seed.”

IFC Center
Heathers continues; A Clockwork Orange, Angel’s Egg, and Stop Making Sense play late.

Nitehawk Prospect Park
The Best of Betty Boop and a print of Above the Rim screen on Saturday and Sunday.

Metrograph
Clash of the Titans, The Warriors, Knock Off, Time and Tide, The Little Mermaid, and Seven show on 35mm; A Cyberpunk Canon begins while Breaking Free, Classical Cinema, Darius Khondji, and Tsui Hark continue.