Death comes for us all in the darkly hilarious Wild Horse Nine

 

Bittersweet dark comedies. Those three words neatly sum up playwright and feature film writer/director Martin McDonagh's cinematic exploits. Melancholy ambiances linger over his motion pictures like a storm cloud hovering above a picnic or U.S. government forces preparing to attack a democratically elected leftist leader. Titles like The Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges make that aesthetic apparent. McDonagh films feature bleak yuks (often derived from witty vulgar verbiage) within mournful, deeply vulnerable atmospheres.

Even his wacky Hollywood yukfest, Seven Psychopaths, ends with a mournful exchange in a phone booth where Colin Farrell’s protagonist quietly accepts that death will eventually come for him (“That's good,” his character remarks upon hearing when he’ll die, “I'm not doing anything Tuesday.”).

Now McDonagh’s aesthetic is back with his latest big screen venture, Wild Horse Nine. Here, he zeroes in on CIA officers and best friend Chris Carlisle (John Malkovich) and Lee Chesterfield (Sam Rockwell). After laying the groundwork for the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, Carlisle and Chesterfield head to an Easter Island vacation. The former member of this pair has killed 68 people in his life, destabilized countless governments, and left a legacy of America-sanctioned bloodshed. He’s also now succumbing to his older age. His memory isn’t working. Cancer ravages his body. The Grim Reaper’s preparing to visit someone used to dishing out death.

McDonagh shrewdly heightens the tension and places audiences closer to Carlisle’s perspective by slowly unfurling key Wild Horse Nine details as the story progresses rather than unveiling everything upfront. That includes key promises between Carlisle and Chesterfield that this older spy has forgotten all about, how long this cancer-ridden character has to live, as well as their boss, MJ (Steve Buscemi), demanding Chesterfield kill his best friend. Easter Island is one of the world’s most beautiful places. Glorious sights abound in this domicile. Yet even here spies can’t escape conspiracies and potentially fatal secrets.

Midway through Wild Horse Nine, Carlisle and Chesterfield are sitting on a hill and conversing. As they chat, one shot of Carlisle suddenly got darker. I was temporarily worried my theater's projector system wasn’t working. However, the subsequent image of Chesterfield wielded not only the same lighting, but suddenly returned to the initial brightness. McDonagh and cinematographer Ben Davis kept in images where clouds briefly obscured the sun. They couldn’t control that reality-based wrinkle, yet they rolled with it during their practical location shooting.

That might sound like a weird, superfluous detail to obsess over. Maybe it is. But after watching The Social Reckoning’s artificial rendering of exterior rainy spaces, I absolutely cherished these remnants of reality. Tiny elements like that make Wild Horse Nine’s world extra believable. These aren’t characters discernibly existing only on blue-screen simulacra of the outdoors. They’re outside, breathing the air and beholden to when clouds briefly overtake the sun. Embracing such visual elements accentuates the believability of Wild Horse Nine’s characters.

Nobody can dispute that McDonagh is a master of insults. Whether it's "you're an inanimate object!" or declaring someone "fecking mental," his films are littered with characters creatively lambasting one another. Wild Horse Nine happily continues that trend. Chesterfield’s intensely uttering "you dumb Iowa cunt" is especially sublime. McDonagh’s writing isn’t just rife with jeers. It’s also heavy on immensely engaging conversations between Carlise and Chesterfield that intriguingly evolve tonally as Wild Horse Nine progresses. At first, they’re mostly just amusing as Carlisle rambles on about his supposed “wisdom.” Monologues regarding the correlation between gayness and democracy, as well as how having a heroin addict for a wife is superior to being married to an alcoholic, are particularly memorable in this regard.

However, as the story marches on, more dramatic impulses begin seeping into their conversations. Carlisle isn’t sure he can trust his longtime friend while Chesterfield finds himself pulled between dueling alliances. Inevitably, their rapport gets more strained. This still produces amusing material, like in one scene where Carlisle comes clean about how much he really wanted to see Venice, Italy rather than Easter Island. However, McDonagh wrings impactful power out of contorting an initially comedic dynamic into something outright tragic. Wild Horse Nine is often a two-hander between Rockwell and Malkovich. Whatever mode that two-hander inhabits, it proves engrossing.

The only real problem in the script is that the women characters needed more dimensions. Cinema legend Parker Posey (Party Girl forever!) is just around for two scenes playing Chesterfield’s wife back in the States. Chilean college student Monica (Mariana di Girolamo), meanwhile, has an understandable bittersweet function in the plot with her friendship with Carlisle ("She's life and I'm departing it," Carlisle bemoans). However, her interior world remains surface-level. At least her screentime, though, lets Girolamo demonstrate her serious mastery of an instantly shattering crying face. Tears welling up in her eyes resonate as achingly soul and believable rather than manipulative.

Besides that screenwriting foible, though, Wild Horse Nine is another divine film script from the In Bruges writer. While a dialogue-driven affair, McDonagh gladly maintains sharp visual instincts beyond maintaining takes where clouds obscured the sun. That includes littering the screen with bright colors. Hotel room phone cords are bright blue. Chesterfield never goes anywhere without a vibrant shirt on his body. Key automobiles are decked out in sumptuous colors like red. Folks like production designer Denis Schnegg and costume designer Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh prove essential in draping the on-screen world in enough vivid hues to evoke a postcard for an island getaway.

Committing to those colors (not to mention Easter Island’s natural beauty) ensures that Wild Horse Nine’s melancholy elements hit extra hard. It’s like how a storm makes it easier to appreciate sunlight. An evocatively staged shot depicting Chesterfield drinking alone at the hotel bar, empty space surrounding him, is one of several memorable images conveying this bittersweet tone. Inhabiting these visuals are a bevy of immensely memorable performances, including John Malkovich as Wild Horse Nine’s deeply vulnerable protagonist.

It's been a long while since Malkovich appeared in a top-shelf movie. After a few years of attempting to liven up titles like Fool's Paradise and Opus, Malkovich finally excels in a sublime motion picture once more. Especially memorable is any instant where he portrays Carlisle silently sitting, ruminating on his impending demise. Malkovich’s eyes suggest caked-in resignation with just a hint of fear. His character’s motormouth comedic digressions may suggest otherwise, but this actor's quietest details poignantly convey how much mortality weighs on Carlisle.

Sam Rockwell, reuniting with McDonagh for the third time, meanwhile, is also tonally dexterous in his performance. He’s an absolute riot bouncing off his elderly companion. Plus, Rockwell’s the master of hysterical facial expressions, a talent informing Wild Horse Nine’s greatest scenes. However, when it’s time for Rockwell to sell Chesterfield’s emotionally conflicted sequences, he absolutely crushes it. He and Malkovich uncover discernible and engrossing humanity within two monsters. On paper, that sounds like a paradox. Given that Wild Horse Nine is yet another bittersweet dark comedy triumph from Martin McDonagh, though, conceptually contradictory endeavors are the name of the game here.

So Is David Ellison's 30+ Warner Bros./Paramount Movies a Year Plan Remotely Feasible?

This isn't a very upbeat piece, I'll admit, so how about an image from one of those Jim Henson Wilkin's Coffee commercials that always brings me joy?

First of all, here are some fun facts about Skydance head David Ellison, who now owns Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures:

David Ellison was paid $63.5 million in 2025. Every dollar had to go to him, as 1,000+  Paramount jobs for the proletariat were eliminated.

The royal families of Saudi Arabia will have a significant financial stake in the new Skydance that owns Warner Bros. The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund that's pouring $10 billion into Skydance has been linked to allegations of human rights abuses. Appalling anti-Semitism has run rampant in government-approved school materials, while LGBTQIA+ human rights abuses are also normalized.

Hey, speaking of countries with human right violations, David Ellison made a big show (just under two months after Skydance bought Paramount) out of Paramount+ acquiring the October 7 miniseries Red Alert. David's father, Larry Ellison, is one of the most prolific supporters of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, along with countless other organizations, have concluded that Netanyahu and his IDF forces are committing a genocide against the Palestinian people.

As if that weren't enough corrupt world leaders to pal around with, David Ellison has also been incredibly chummy with US President Donald Trump. ICE custody deaths have ballooned under Trump's presidency. His implementation of Elon Musk to lead DOGE and gut USAID led to hundreds of thousands of deaths. Millions of Americans have lost their healthcare under the Trump administration. Trump was also found liable for sexual abuse in court and has been accused countless times of sexual misconduct by women.

The qualifications for being in David Ellison's friend group are apparently (1) being powerful, (2) being rich, (3) having blood on your hands.

It's estimated that 4,500 Los Angeles jobs could be eliminated because of him buying Warner Bros.

Keep that in mind as Ellison blabbers on cable news shows about Skydance now being the king of "content" or various rich people like Tom Cruise and James Cameron bootlicking this corporate king.

Faith and fighting collide in the excellent Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

Existence is improv. We're all stumbling through life, struggling to figure out what to do. That's true even when you become a parent and are tasked with guiding young souls through this agonizing yet beautiful world. Latif (Mahershala Ali) knows this better than anyone. His life's been chaos since his wife passed away, leaving this deeply committed Muslim struggling to raise his three children, including a newborn baby, ten-year-old son Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and teenage daughter Fatiha (Adia). Throwing an extra wrench into the proceedings is Latif’s job. He’s a hitman slicing throats by night and kneeling before Allah by day.

Writer/director Bassam Tariq's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother follows Latif on a quest to procure breastmilk for his youngest. This odyssey puts him in constant opposition to his boss, Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli), as well as local Christian icon Hwan Yoon (John Cho). Draped in cowboy gear, shimmering grills on his teeth, and an army of followers behind him, Yoon is Latif's latest target. All this man wants, though, is to feed his baby. Time for Latif to grab his sword and protect his family.

I love it when art combines glorious craftsmanship with sillier impulses. Beyoncé's 2022 tune "CUFF IT," for instance, is so perfectly made in its tiniest instrumentation intricacies. It's also a song where Beyoncé sings the word "thotty," a joyous use of internet verbiage sounding triumphant with her vocals. Meanwhile, my beloved Hundreds of Beavers demonstrates pervasive attention to detail in executing the most outlandish gags imaginable. There’s an artistry in how icicles plunge into the eyes of wolves or a puppet frog screams in terror.

Similarly, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is rich in powerful imagery and emotional potency. Tariq’s artistic command is towering. His creative vision, however, also makes this the first (that I’m aware of) movie featuring the phrase “halal jizz." Similarly, even though the story makes the consequences of violence achingly potent, there are still some great “here we goooooooo” fight scene beats putting countless lackluster 87North movies to shame.

Balance is crucial for carving out a fulfilling existence. It’s also an ingredient Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother masters to deeply impactful effect. Something else this feature has a strong command of is creativity. The first big face-to-face scene between Latif and Hwan, for instance, is already a tense set piece just based on the dialogue and performances. However, Tariq underpins this exchange with the sound of Latif’s youngest getting burped just off-screen. The constant “pat pat pat” noise on the soundtrack works sonically reminds audiences of what’s at stake here for Latif. His newborn child’s in danger even when she’s not on-screen.

Devoid of any context, though, the rhythmic pats excel in making your heart race as the conversation keeps going and Hwan’s words grow increasingly menacing and bigoted (“You’ve got that Ramadan smell on your breath,” he remarks to Latif). What a fantastically innovative and character-centric sound choice accentuating tension. Such profoundly specific achievements flow throughout Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother like water slipping through a creek bed. This includes Tariq and cinematographer Katelin Arizmendi’s richly moving imagery. The duo’s close-up shots, especially when utilized in flashbacks, beautifully place viewers in the memories of Latifa and Fatiha.

An especially evocative example of such visuals comes early in the film as Latif drives his family to a mosque. On their way, Fatiha stares outside, rain trickling down the window, and remembers her mother’s fingers adjusting and fine-tuning her hair. There’s no abrupt word or phrasing triggering this sudden digression to the past. Fatiha just suddenly dives into yesteryear. This vividly signals how the pain of missing her mother interrupts her life at any random moment. The immediately moving lighting and tender atmosphere Tariq and Arizmendi conjure up in these brief flashbacks both move the soul and make it clear why Fatiha years for the past.

In contrast to these tight, intimate shots, there’s also the grander Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother visual impulses. Certain images, like Latif standing on a balcony above Hwan’s congregation in a wide shot, evoke an outright mythic quality. The blocking and atmosphere evoke ancient religious paintings plopped into modern Houston, Texas. Whatever mode it’s operating in, Your Mother is a visual tour de force.

The various fight scenes are also impressively realized. Tariq leaps from his grounded, naturalistic directorial debut Mogul Mowgli to this gunfire and punch-heavy feature without breaking a sweat. Creative backdrops (like a ritzy mansion or a strip club being converted into a church) abound in these set pieces. Potent fight choreography and editing keep the hand-to-hand skirmishes visually coherent. Some of these scenes feature a handful of unforgettable “oh, shit!” crowdpleaser moments. Particularly impactful is Latif slathering Vaseline and then shards of glass on his gloves for one confrontation. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s action isn’t about spectacle.

Instead, the consequences of violence reverberate throughout this entire movie. When characters perish, there’s tangible weight to their passing. Tariq’s script shrewdly uses this reality to inspire new forms of compelling tension. After all, every punch has consequences and often brings Latif more trouble rather than resolving his woes. However, this pivotal aspect also accentuates Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s emotional and character details. Sure, it’s endlessly cool seeing Mahershala Ali wield a sword. However, the horrors of taking a life make it abundantly clear why Latif wants to leave this occupation behind. His greatest triumphs come from saving lives and helping his kids rather than being Charles Bronson in Death Wish.

Mahershala Ali beautifully communicates the psychological costs of this hitman life and so much more through his top-shelf performance. In only his second live-action theatrical movie appearance since 2019’s Alita: Battle Angel (following last year’s dismal Jurassic World Rebirth), Ali reaffirms why he was one of the great acting discoveries of the 2010s. For starters, he’s outstanding handling an understated character like Latif. Certain actors (like Brad Pitt in Heart of the Beast) just come off as vacant inhabiting subdued roles. Ali, meanwhile, deftly offers peeks into Latif’s inner world even though this character plays his cards so close to his chest.

That aforementioned initial Latif and Hwan conversation, for instance, sees Ali masterfully communicating flickers of intensity in his eyes even while Latif maintains seemingly perfect composure. Ali’s portrayal of a man keeping so much (his secret hitman life and his pain over losing his wife, namely) bottled up compels you to want to know more about him. It’s a magnificent performance rich with humanity and, when the time calls for it, momentousness.

The latter quality is especially impressive since Ali’s tremendous in communicating how Latif, like any person or parent, is making this up as he goes along. Ironically, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’s moving portrait of people improvising their next moves is realized through meticulously crafted lyrical imagery. The canon of Texas cinema has received a phenomenal new entry, with this production making both Carl Theodor Dreyer (with its use of filmmaking contemplating theological matters) and Johnnie To (with its bone-crunching action you can feel) proud. All that plus “halal jizz” too.

If The Social Network Is Aaron Sorkin's Pet Sounds, The Tedious Social Reckoning Is His Summer In Paradise

MINOR SOCIAL RECKONING SPOILERS AHEAD

Aaron Sorkin must persistently hang out in laundry rooms because The Social Reckoning solidifies that he’s washed. This status quo becomes immediately clear with the film’s first on-screen words: “Prologue: White Girl Wasted.” What follows is a sloppily shot and edited prologue depicting a Caucasian lady going on a drunken tirade against two non-white cops. The scene is basically “we have Beth de Araújo’s Soft & Quiet at home.”

It’s also, unfortunately, a tragic distillation of the overall film's quality. Buckle up. Writer/director Aaron Sorkin isn’t done disappointing viewers. "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies"? More like, "You don't make a 2026 Aaron Sorkin movie without making countless mistakes."

That white lady was a casual friend of Facebook data engineer Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison). She's concerned that the social platform she loves is actually corrupting people and making society worse. Wanting to sound the alarm, she reaches out to tech luddite and newly minted Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White). The duo meets in isolated parks or Puerto Rico locations, and Haugen grows increasingly more comfortable divulging dirty Facebook secrets. It’s all a lame All the President’s Men/The Insider/Spotlight pastiche occuring in 2019 and 2020.

Occasionally, the story cuts to January 2021, when Mark Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) is training to act like a human in front of the U.S. Senate by Raya (Wunmi Mosaku). Occasionally, Zuckerberg's former cohort Charlie (Bill Burr) interrupts these efforts. He's the sole voice of reason amongst the billionaires' yes-men.

Sorkin scripts used to have such zest. Not only did they have incredibly memorable lines about “fuck you flip-flops”, "You can't handle the truth!", and "He gets on base a lot,” but it was also compelling to see how idiosyncratic filmmakers translated this verbiage to the screen. Mike Nichols, David Fincher, Rob Reiner, Danny Boyle, Bennett Miller- these geniuses could compellingly realize Sorkin’s vivid prose with equal levels of visual finesse. Combining two distinct artistic flavors (like Fincher and Sorkin) created something extraordinary.

Unfortunately, this West Wing veteran is now directing his own scripts. Not only are his images lame, but his Social Reckoning writing is even more of a snooze than his Being the Ricardos or Molly’s Game scripts. Perhaps Sorkin thinks this material is “weighty” enough to need a heavier touch, but The Social Reckoning is a flatline. Laughs are few and far between. Colorful verbiage is similarly scarce. Only some of Zuckerberg and Charlie's exchanges elicit chuckles or energy. Otherwise, the dialogue here is monotonous. The screenwriting faults also include the characters lacking dimensionality. In The Social Network, the on-screen characters had rich lives beyond just coding or accomplishing Facebook-centric historical events. Think of the scene where a young Zuckerberg pulls Eduardo Saverin away from a party to talk in the snow, or the unforgettable Winklevoss twins rowing scene.

Here, though, none of The Social Reckoning figures have personalities or larger lives. I couldn’t describe Jeff Horwitz beyond him liking musicals, hating technology, and being written like a 65-year-old. Frances Haugen similarly has no definition beyond arch details suggesting she’s a nerd and a Facebook devotee. There are no romantic relationships here, no larger friendships to add texture to the central players. All the President’s Men and The Insider were about ordinary people compellingly confronting larger institutional forces. The Social Reckoning is about tedious mannequins exchanging statistics and hints at early 2020s historical events (“have you kept track of the virus?”) at each other.

Beyond these flatly written characters and Sorkin being in “serious movie” mode, The Social Reckoning is a snooze-inducing affair. Sorkin’s writing only comes “alive” when he has a bone to pick with young people. Whilst describing her racist and under-30 acquaintance, Haugen remarks that this woman “used to be progressive” but got frustrated after “the presidential candidate she supported…she thought the DNC sabotaged him.” Sorkin’s still mad at Bernie Sanders supporters in 2026, in other words. Then there’s his weird seething contempt for young women, which he filters through “slams” Horwitz directs at Haugen.

The most irritating of these is him responding to Haugen’s accusation of him “mansplaining” by saying that he and all other men have decided “that’s just a word women use when they’re losing an argument.” Horwitz also chastises Haugen and his college-aged lady intern for not knowing enough about Frank Capra movies and old musicals, respectively. As a cherry on top of these frustrating gender-based problems, the films finale involves Horwitz's stern boss, Kris (Betty Gilpin), asking if all the men in the room can leave the room so she and Frances can have a chat. This could be an interesting exchange, even if only it'd allow two master performers like Madison and Gilpin to bounce off each other.

Sorkin, though, immediately cuts away from this room to Horwitz and his editor standing outside. We never see Kris and Frances talking. God forbid two women have a conversation in this movie. The Social Reckoning just swerves out of passing the Bechdel Test like Neo narrowly dodging bullets.

These comically stupid “old man yells at cloud” moments are the only really “memorable” thing about such a disposable feature. Sorkin certainly doesn’t give viewers anything to chew on visually. He and cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth staunchly refuse to frame multiple characters in one shot. Instead, they persistently opt for static medium shots/reverse medium shots. The greatest visual flourish is draping briefly seen flashbacks to 2017 in black-and-white. Otherwise, The Social Reckoning further dilutes its already lifeless writing with tepid images.

Everyone here is in autopilot mode, alas. Composer Alexandre Desplat, for instance, conjures up various generic compositions so far removed artistically from his iconic tracks for movies like Fantastic Mr. Fox. Unfortunately, most of the actors are also just delivering what you’d expect. Jeremy Strong’s Mark Zuckerberg is what you’d expect Jeremy Strong playing Zuckerberg to look like. Intense. Surface-level. Not particularly specific. White is directed to play a hollow version of his Bear character. Similarly, Burr channels a more muted incarnation of his stand-up persona.

Only Mikey Madison steps outside of her comfort zone. In contrast to her phenomenally outsized Anora performance, her Frances Haugen is withdrawn, shy, always looking at the ground and fiddling with her fingers. She’s reasonably convincing exploring new territory as an actor, though Sorkin hands her the absolute worst Social Reckoning dialogue (including so many speeches about how her character “believes in Facebook!”). Not even Mikey Madison can salvage this capsized cinematic ship.

The Social Reckoning’s greatest transgression is how sleepy it is. This should be a movie bubbling with anger at tech oligarchs running rampant. Pervasive rage at the horrible status quo we’ve carved out for the next generation should permeate every second. Instead, Sorkin sleepwalks through a hollow regurgitation of journalism thriller storytelling touchstones. This includes an outright insulting happy ending concluding things on a fist-bump. How can Social Reckoning act like everything wrapped up all happy and hunky dory in 2021? Facebook and other tech companies are still ruining lives and exerting undue influence on society. Who would actually cheer and applaud this delusional revisionism of history?

When The Social Network came out, people worried it'd immediately age poorly. Instead, its performances, visuals, and score were so sublime they could work in any era. Its tale of toxic dudes building their own empires for petulant reasons, meanwhile, is also tragically relevant. In contrast, The Social Reckoning’s meditation on 2019-2021 history is immediately and hopelessly out of touch with reality.

From the “Prologue: White Girl Wasted” on-screen text to that closing fist-bump, The Social Reckoning combines groan-inducing creative choices with utter tedium. Those who manage to stay awake will be “rewarded” with Sorkin chastising young women and stunningly lame filmmaking. If you want an actually good 2026 investigative movie with potent rage at the status quo, watch Coyote vs. Acme instead. That Looney Tunes feature deserves your "full attention." The Social Reckoning deserves less than "the minimum amount" of your concentration.

The Social Reckoning begins playing in theaters on October 9.

Digger's admirable in concept, wobbly in execution

MASSIVE DIGGER SPOILERS

MASSIVE DIGGER SPOILERS

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

*******************

Dorothy is rife with excellent camerawork and pleasant surprises

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR DOROTHY AHEAD

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I Saw Weird Al in Concert And My White & Nerdy Self Will Never Be The Same

Me just before the Weird Al concert began

You never know what art you experience as a teenager will profoundly alter your psyche. In these formative years, your eyeballs will catch a painting, your heart will be captured by a movie, or some music will transfix your dreams...and suddenly, you're never the same. "Weird Al" Yankovic's music was like that for me, though, funnily enough, I can't remember the first tune of his that I heard. I just know I was constantly listening to comedy-themed Pandora music stations in 2010 and 2011 and, inevitably, "Weird Al" Yankovic kept showing up (his album Alpocalypse dropping around this time undoubtedly bolstered his Pandora presence). Right away, I could tell this guy's music was something extraordinarily special.

How A24 (and other indie studios) abandoned women filmmakers

You'll be seeing that A24 logo a lot on the big screen in 2026's final months. Between September 1 and December 31, 2026, the studio/distributor behind Moonlight and Lady Bird will release six movies (that includes Onslaught and Primetime, which have already been released). They all range heavily in aesthetic, tone, and filmmaking styles. Primetime's very transfixing, often heightened visual scheme, for instance, looks wildly different from Jesse Eisenberg's imagery in The Debut. However, one thing absent from all six of these titles is women directors. There are no movies from women directors on the docket for A24's final four months of 2026.

A24 isn't alone. None of Neon's seven movies across the final four months of 2026 (which includes the already released Hope) are from women filmmakers. Sony Pictures Classics has no women-directed titles on the docket for 2026's concluding months. These are the studios that supposedly counterbalance the major studios, which have done dismal work hiring women directors in recent years. Yet these major indie studios have contributed to this erasure, rather than subverting. How on Earth did we get here?

A Flicker of Hope Quickly Snuffed Out

Let's backtrack a little bit and go back to a soul-sucking Walgreens in January 2020. I was helping to close up this location, tidying up the aisles, making sure there were no bodily fluids on the floor that needed mopping up. In this domicile littered with odd smells and the same pop songs flickering through the speaks day in and day out, I grasped for any distractions I could. Thus, with no customers in sight, I whipped out my phone and pulled up Wikipedia's "List of A24 films" page. What A24 motion pictures were in store for the impending year? 

To my surprise, several women-directed features were on the horizon. Of the 15 upcoming A24 movies slated for release at that time, eight of them were from directors belonging to marginalized genders. My face lit up in that Walgreens, a triumph given how intrinsically the place filled me with despair. Similarly, at the start of 2020, out of the ten Focus Features films set for release that year, six were from women filmmakers. This collided with exciting news that, in 2019, per a USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study, the presence of marginalized directors among the year's top-grossing films had reached a new high. Gender inequality had been far from solved in terms of offering opportunities for oppressed voices. However, the Variety piece reporting this study noted that 2019's figures for women directors were "a big jump from 2018 when a meager 4.5% of the top films were overseen by women." If that kind of jump from 2018 to 2019 was possible, further improvements were very much possible.

Those improvements were direly needed in all sectors of cinema, including the indie filmmaking world. A24, for instance, had a dismal track record with distributing and/or financing features from marginalized gender filmmakers. Out of its 11 2014 features, only two (Obvious Child and Laggies) came from directors who weren't men. Out of its 18 2016 releases, only two (American Honey and The Adderall Diaries) were from non-male filmmakers. Out of 15 2018 movies, A24 only put out two titles (Never Goin' Back and Woman Walks Ahead) from directors belonging to marginalized genders. The initial A24 slate suggested a new cinema movement that, like the New Hollywood movement of yore, promised a revolutionary approach to cinema...provided you were a white guy.

So huzzah that A24's 2020 slate was heavier on women and marginalized gender filmmakers. Unfortunately, COVID-19 put the film world into a tailspin when it shut theaters and the entertainment industry down in March 2020. For a second, though, it looked like there might still be some hope for opportunities for marginalized gender-identifying filmmakers even after this ongoing health crisis. 2023, for instance, brought out 18 A24 films and seven of them hailed from non-male filmmakers like Celine Song, Savannah Leaf, and Raven Jackson. Now, though, A24's 2026 slate has demonstrated a return to the studio's 2013-2019 norms. Out of the total 18 movies that will house the A24 logo this year, only three* will come from people who aren't cis-men.

Erasing Marginalized Gender Filmmakers Isn't New

A24 is a microcosm of both the erasure of marginalized gender filmmakers in the broader cultural scene and longstanding gender-based issues ingrained into the American film system. Alice Guy-Blaché created the first fictional narrative film. Madame E. Touissant and Tressie Souders established a precedent for Black women directors as early as the late 1910s and early 1920s. Unfortunately, the American film industry had been molded by rich men who dehumanized and erased people belonging to marginalized genders. The Walt Disney Company flatly refused to hire women. MGM co-founder Louis B. Mayer's got a long list of sexual abuse allegations. 

Peter Biskind's 1998 novel Easy Riders, Raging Bulls details countless reports about Easy Rider performer and co-writer Dennis Hopper physically abusing wife and partners. Former Pixar head John Lasseter was accused of years of sexual harassment and misogynistic behavior. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger, in announcing Lasseter was leaving the Mouse House in June 2018, put out a fluffy statement praising Lasseter and remarking that "we are profoundly grateful for his contributions." Thandiwe Newton alleged that former Sony Pictures head Amy Pascal pitched her one of the lead Charlie's Angels roles by "basically reeling off these stereotypes of how to be more convincing as a Black character." On and on the list goes. The examples of dehumanization never end. 

The treatment of women in 30s Hollywood is disturbingly similar to how they're treated today, a distillation of larger American society's hesitancy to treat people belonging to an array of marginalized identities with respect. 

More Money, More Adhering To Gender-Based Status Quos

Circling back to A24, something especially frustrating about the studio dialing back financial support for marginalized gender directors is it intersects with the Brutalist distributor financing bigger and bigger movies. After Everything Everywhere All at Once took off at the box office, A24 kicked its already brewing plans for expansion to the next level. The budgets for titles like Civil War and Marty Supreme now regularly exceed $75 million. The incoming Elden Ring movie from director Alex Garland allegedly costs over $100 million.

Typically, throughout Hollywood history, women filmmakers are considered especially persona non grata when it comes to handling costly titles. That's why only two $100+ million budgeted live-action movies in history (A Wrinkle in Time and The Marvels) have Black women filmmakers. Former 20th Century Fox head Stacey Snider frustratingly tried to justify the gender gap between filmmakers when it comes to costlier projects by saying: 

"Studios don’t intend to block access, but the price for a first-time movie is so high that we get conservative in terms of wanting to work with people who have done it before...We partnered with AFI and created a competition for female students to pitch projects that were effects-laden adjuncts to our franchise films. What happens is that often first [women-directed] films, because they’re confined by their resources, are about 'my life on the farm.'" 

Jon Watts can direct a movie about two kids stealing a cop car in (wait for the unexpected title) Cop Car and get the MCU Spider-Man movies. Colin Trevorrow can helm the tiny time travel dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed and immediately leap to helming Jurassic World. White men like Carl Rinsch and Joseph Kosinski can make their feature-length directorial debuts with $150+ million budgeted blockbusters. Yet years of helming genre films is somehow never enough to get Karyn Kusama or Rachel Talalay these gigs. Non-male indie directors like Cheryl Dunye, Dee Rees, and others don't get the chance to helm larger-scale titles. Safety Not Guaranteed is a "testing ground" for blockbusters. The Watermelon Woman isn't. That's the reality Hollywood keeps reinforcing.

It's also a reality A24 is now dabbling in. For a second, A24 was willing to co-finance super tiny (and high-quality) indie movies from marginalized gender filmmakers like Earth Mama and All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. However, now that it's time to drop movies with $15+ million budgets, only white men get the keys to these projects. Director Alex Scharfman got $15 million to make his directorial debut, Death of a Unicorn, for A24, but filmmakers who aren't dudes have yet to receive such a budget. Ari Aster can plop a script down on an A24 executive's desk and get $30+ million easy, while Lily Wachowski struggles to get any financing for her movies. Funny how Aster can make box office bombs and still get moolah for features, but not Wachowski. Huh.

A24's ambitions to produce more costly titles that can contend with major studio works mean that the indie outfit is lapsing into the "only men can direct expensive movies" film industry norm. Any hopes that A24's 2020-2023 output offering more opportunities for artists belonging to marginalized genders would become a new permanent standard at the studio are long gone. Back in early 2018, the biggest A24 movie ever domestically was Lady Bird, written and directed by Greta Gerwig. Now, the studio's forthcoming titles are largely expensive, male-directed and led projects.

A24 Is Not Alone In This Phenomenon

The chasm between what A24's slate looked like in early 2020 and fall 2026 in terms of gender representation inspired me to write this piece. However, the primary takeaway from that gulf shouldn't be that the problem lies exclusively with A24. This studio/distirbutor is a microcosm of greater American film industry trends that dehumanize experiences that don't belong to cis-men. Remember Issa Rae's fall 2024 comments about how Hollywood executives were apparently waiting for the Presidential election before deciding whether or not to commit to "diverse" projects? The very existence of stories that star people who don't look like Chris Pratt comes down to rich people largely devoid of guts or creativity. 

Such problems are only bound to get worse as Hollywood shrinks and fewer people control the opportunities for non-male artists. Take Skydance Media, the David and Larry Ellison-owned media company that's poised to absorb Warner Bros. Pictures after it purchased Paramount Pictures last year. In the 20 years Ellison's Skydance has been co-financing motion pictures, the Skydance logo has appeared in front of 46 movies. Just five of those features (or roughly 11%) had directors belonging to marginalized genders. That statistic alone is disturbing, suggesting what kind of filmmakers won't get opportunities at a Skydance-owned Warner Bros. Pictures. 

David Ellison hosted in April 2026 a party honoring Donald Trump, a man convicted of sexual abuse in 2023. Regarding that conviction, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan declared:

"The jury's finding that Mr. Trump "sexual abused" Ms. Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally - in other words, that Mr. Trump did in fact 'rape' Ms. Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York Penal Law.

David Ellison, who proudly buddies around with this man, now controls a good chunk of Hollywood. How on Earth can he be presumed to offer equal opportunities for marginalized gender filmmakers in this new position of power? He'll almost certainly reinforce the capitalism-informed status quo that erases non-male filmmakers. These gender-based injustices are everywhere, both in the film industry and society writ large. The contempt for Palestinian women or the slaps on the wrists given to alleged sexual assault perpetrators at Cornell University, they're all part of the same hideous tapestry normalizing the dehumanization of non-male perspectives.

It's unsurprising A24 and other indie film studios (which are supposedly designed to "counter" the impulses of larger movie operations) would succumb to these problems. You have to be actively anti-misogyny to begin recognizing and countering these issues. That's certainly not the M.O. of mainstream studios like A24 all too happy to embrace the status quo, including collaborating with Google's A.I. program (which, hey, has its own string of allegations of poorly handling women and sexual assault allegations). Just like saying "I don't even see skin color!" does nothing except reinforce systemic racism, apathy towards gender-based matters similarly only creates further problems.

I keep looking at the dearth of fall 2026 A24 movies directed by non-male filmmakers with despair. There are so many talented artists out there belonging to all kinds of genders who deserve opportunities to helm movies. However, major indie movie labels like A24 only have room for one or two films annually from such voices. Titles from marginalized gender artists, like Shatara Michelle Ford's Dreams in Nightmares, languish for years on the indie film circuit waiting for distribution before opting to go the fully independent route. What's really crushing, though, is that A24 suddenly going 50/50 in terms of gender equality for its annual film slates wouldn't suddenly solve this problem in the larger film industry. A24's cinema priorities are a microcosm of greater systemic woes rather than the be-all end-all of this problem.

What can any of us do against these towering challenges? Support art from marginalized voices whenever we can.

Here's a helpful list of exceptional debut features from women and non-binary filmmakers.

Here's another list chronicling 373 examples of motion pictures from marginalized gender directors.

Here's a list of classic features helmed by Black women filmmakers and another capturing Letterboxd's 100 highest rated films from Asian women directors.

Finally, I want to just highlight marginalized gender directors who haven't helmed a feature-length movie since either 2018, 2019, or 2020:

Dee Rees 

Regina King 

Eliza Hittman 

Autumn de Wilde 

Regina King 

Alice Wu 

Reed Morano 

Melina Matsoukas 

Roseanne Liang 

Patty Jenkins

Karyn Kusama

Sarah Gavron 

Lorene Scafria 

Lulu Wang 

Sophia Takal 

Sally Potter

Shannon Murphy 

Radha Blank 

Mimi Leder

Amy Seimetz 

Jasmila Žbanić 

Tamara Jenkins

Miranda July

Debra Granik

Desiree Akhavan

Jennifer Kent

Meanwhile, since January 1, 2018, McG has directed FIVE feature-length movies.

* = I'm being generous and counting the documentary Nuisance Bear, an A24 documentary sold to Mubi after its 2026 Sundance premiere. Bear doesn't have a 2026 release date yet, but I'll be charitable and say it gets an awards-qualifying 2026 run.

Zach Cregger hits a high score for video game movies with Resident Evil

An accurate visual representation of trying to navigate the internet these days while evading AI slop

Writer/director Zach Cregger switches up his storytelling impulses for Resident Evil, and not just because he’s working from pre-existing material for the first time. His first two horror features, Barbarian and Weapons, were non-linear exercises hopping between different points of view. They could suddenly grind one plotline to a halt before jumping to a wholly separate character's story to immensely compelling effect.

Though Resident Evil draws on a Capcom franchise spanning 11+ games (not to mention countless other pieces of media, including seven prior movie adaptations), it uses a simpler story structure. Cregger’s 93-minute chase movie is like a zombie-riddled After Hours. One guy just navigating a chronological series of increasingly madcap ordeals over a solitary night. Weapons was a horror epic. Resident Evil is intentionally more streamlined.

Cregger and Shay Hatten’s screenplay begins with medical courier Bryan (Austin Abrams) walking into a hospital on a phone call with his girlfriend. Their tense chat about his partner being pregnant is cut off by his job obligation. This guy always juggles so many plates and mundane hurdles. Just as he's departing to clock out, a hospital staffer asks him if he wants to make one more delivery to the snow-covered, mountainside domicile of Raccoon City. Since this important gig pays double, Bryan accepts.

Armed with a portable green cooler containing the pivotal item, Bryan’s off on his quest. Immediately, Resident Evil’s protagonist encounters trouble when a disoriented woman leaps in front of his car. Suddenly, a guy with no survival experience whatsoever is stuck in an isolated, snowy Hell that keeps throwing new pursuers at him. Said pursuers are a malicious bunch prone to bursting out tentacles or taking a chomp out of his body. So begins Bryan’s grueling night fueling Resident Evil. Those Umbrella Corps. folks who ordered this delivery better tip well.

It's akin to saying "Terminator: Dark Fate is the best Terminator since Terminator 2!", but Resident Evil is automatically up there with Exit 8 and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 as the best live-action video game movie ever made. Cregger's route to that accomplishment is simple. Past video game movie misfires often fell into two categories. One boondoggle functioned as a tedious prologue too obsessed with teeing up potential sequels that would be faithful adaptations of their source material (2018's Tomb Raider, 2021's Mortal Kombat, Assassin's Creed). Then there were failures Warcraft and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. These focused on the most tedious characters imaginable and trapped audiences in excessively convoluted narratives.

The sweaty creative impulses binding these foolhardy video game movies are absent in Resident Evil. Cregger isn’t interested in saving all the fun stuff for potential follow-ups. Nor does he bake everything in too many “twists” or subplots. No matter your pre-existing Resident Evil knowledge (I have none, for the record), this feature excels at delivering enjoyable scares. Just focusing on cromulent filmmaking and entertainment puts Resident Evil heads and shoulders above most denizens in this tortured cinematic realm.

Much of that entertainment comes from Cregger and Hatten rendering Bryan’s exploits as one lengthy series of dominos colliding into each other. Randomly firing off his gun at a zombie ends up inhibiting his car, for example. Similarly, impulsively tossing a ladder down at a pursuing dog comes back to bite him. On and on, the ripple effects of his behavior go. Like Walter White or that foolish person who gave a mouse a cookie, everything Bryan does has consequences. Committing to that informs Resident Evil’s most pulse-pounding sequences and its darkest laughs.

That quality’s connected to another critical virtue of this script: Bryan’s everyman nature. This character doesn’t start Resident Evil a clumsy oaf and then immediately become a hero once chaos emerges. If a dark corridor looks too ominous, he’ll likely bounce rather than venture forth without blinking. He’s constantly a decidedly ordinary guy reacting to everything around him vulnerably. It’s constantly engaging to see that persona clash up against increasingly unhinged zombies. Plus, emphasizing this quality ensures there’s always tension for whatever gory set piece Resident Evil cooks up next. This guy's ability to perish is always potently palpable.

It isn't just Bryan making Resident Evil a hoot, though. The various undead/enhanced adversaries are also terrifically realized. Artists like concept designer Dean Sherriff, makeup artists like Jakub Gründler and Vera Boyadzhieva, and animatronic designer Johnnie Spence (among many others) deliver exquisite, grody work manifesting these creatures. Happily, their creativity also becomes more prominent as the runtime progresses.

As Resident Evil’s story transpires, Bryan encounters increasingly bizarre zombies. Initially, he just runs into (literally) a woman with odd eyes and rigid limbs. Over an hour later, Bryan’s contending with a massive toad/human hybrid with acid vomit. Letting the Resident Evil foes ramp up in visual outlandishness ensures the artists behind these characters fly their freak flag high. The movie is all the better for such remarkable makeup and design work. Plus, this narrative approach ensures there’s always something new around the corner to freak audiences out.

Unfortunately, several of these entities materialize via CGI. That tool isn’t inherently bad, some of these warped creations couldn’t come to life any other way. However, the heavy presence (especially in the third act) of digital foes automatically ensures Resident Evil is a step down from the more tangibly realized Barbarian and Weapons. Meanwhile, the scripts gives Bryan way too many superfluous lines commenting on the world or challenges around him. I don’t need Bryan saying “I am so bad at shooting” after he proves subpar firing a gun once again. The visual of him constantly failing is amusing before an extraneous line poking you in the ribs.

That flaw is extra frustrating since Austin Abrams is a strong physical performer. He can sell Bryan’s internal world without these asides. After stealing the show in Weapons, Abrams proves more than capable of headlining a feature with Josh Brolin and Julia Garner nowhere in sight. I especially love how instantly believable his franticness is. When he’s portraying Bryan scrambling to get bullets into a shotgun or running for his life as zombies jump off nearby rooftops, you can feel the sweat pouring down his forehead or the trembling of his fingers. His conviction in portraying Bryan as a normal human who somehow wound up in a Resident Evil storyline is sublime.

Two other returning Weapons artists, composers Hays and Ryan Holladay, also deliver quality work in Zach Cregger’s latest concoction. Their often sparser compositions, heavy on clanking noises, sometimes effectively echo the “James” track that introduced Abrams’ Weapons character. However, that musical route also captures how ill-prepared Bryan is confronting Raccoon City’s chaos. He doesn’t have a lush orchestra backing up his exploits. Instead, much like how he has only his cooler and whatever weapons he uncovers, Bryan’s got ominous, stripped-down, electronic-informed creations accompanying his voyages. Also, one of their early tracks ("Arms & Legs") features an absolutely inspired use of a snare drum, an instrument one doesn't normally associate with horror movie scores.

The Holladay duo delivers superb sonic parallels to this guy’s journey. Their craftsmanship and commitment to emphasizing Bryan’s outmatched nature are two virtues heavily informing Resident Evil as a whole. The digital frights and self-aware remarks are unquestionably frustrating. However, this fusion of Brian Yuzna and After Hours also features the dynamite bleak yuks, sharp visuals, and excellent scares Zach Cregger’s name is associated with. The director's “weakest” horror project yet is still a great time towering above most other zombie films and video game movies.

Disney's continued butchering of Fox Searchlight Pictures crystallizes corporate lethargy

Live photo of me screaming about how much cultural power Disney has

In 2014, then-presidents of Fox Searchlight Pictures (the arthouse division sister company of 20th Century Fox) talked to Variety about the creative impetus behind a studio that had produced multiple Best Picture Oscar winners and countless box office hits. "You take creative gambles under pretty rigorous budget guidelines. The constraints on the budgets allows us a lot of freedom on how we can distribute the movie, so it is liberating in a lot of ways," Gilula declared. 

A few years earlier, Utley sang the praises of having Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life made at the studio to Deadline Hollywood. "This film is daring; it’s not a traditional three-act narrative. Not everyone appreciates the movie, but those who do are absolutely evangelical about it," Utley observed, "Its originality and audacity rattles people and is getting attention and gaining fans."

"Originality and audacity" were often in high supply at Fox Searchlight, while the studio often admirably backed diverse filmmakers. In the final four months of 2014, for instance, Fox Searchlight Pictures put out four movies. Three of them were directed by Black filmmakers and two were directed by women directors. That year, Fox Searchlight supplied North American theaters with eight theatrical releases, the same amount of titles Fox Searchlight delivered in 2010. In 2017, the year Searchlight's slate included The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the arthouse studio got 11 theatrical releases onto the big screen.

Then Fox Searchlight, like so many News Corp. entities, was bought by Disney in March 2019. Rechristened Searchlight Pictures starting with the February 2020 feature Downhill, Searchlight's theatrical slate for 2026 includes four movies. Two of them are sequels to features greenlit and produced before the Disney merger. The announcement of Searchlight's 2027 slate now featuring a Family Stone sequel reflects the chilling reality of studio mergers and how Disney has butchered a once vital source of theatrical arthouse films.

For starters, why is Searchlight releasing multiple sequels in a single year? Ready or Not 2: Here I Come and Super Troopers 3 launched in 2026 under this banner, bombed, and mostly looked like Disney execs trying to applying their "franchises, franchises, franchises!" mentality to a studio that once distributed Malick, Mira Nair, and Tamara Jenkins movies. Last years Searchlight slate included a War of the Roses remake (The Roses), a Family Stone legacy sequel is on the way.

Like with Disney's bastardized version of 20th Century Fox now limping along as a home for Avatar, Ice Age, and Planet of the Apes, Disney's exploitation of Fox Searchlight reflects corporate cowardice. Executives the Mouse House long fired took chances and risks on making Ready or Not, The Family Stone, and other notable 20th Century Fox/Fox Searchlight movies. The Disney brass don't have the guts to pursue such original fare. However, they will exploit the hard work and creativity of other artists. A Love, Simon Hulu show is a great idea. Making a new original theatrical film in the vein of Love, Simon, no can do. The Family Stone 2? Yes! Letting Searchlight executives nurture and finance artists who could make the next original film that echoes The Family Stone? That's an automatic no no.

Yes, Searchlight still releases some two (sometimes three) original theatrical releases at the end of the year. Not only do these titles exist, but they're often some of my personal favorite movies of the 2020s, like Poor Things, All of Us Strangers, and The Testament of Ann Lee. This year, Wild Horse Nine and Behemoth! are the two original Searchlight releases getting the big-screen treatment. The immense artistry of Things and Ann Lee is indisputable. However, pre-Disney merger, Fox Searchlight released eight original movies a year, including giving major Sundance acquisitions theatrical releases. 

Limiting Searchlight to only two or three original movies, all crammed into the final six weeks of the year, is not a sustainable business model. Searchlight's Disney form must return to releasing movies of all shapes and sizes year round. 

Here's a "fun" fact too about the new version of Searchlight: Disney's version of the arthouse studio has drastically whittled down the amount of women-directed movies it puts out. Searchlight has put out 29 theatrical-exclusive titles since Downhill's February 2020 debut. Of those, only four (Nomadland, Nightbitch, The Testament of Ann Lee, Theatre Camp) were either directed or co-directed by women (and I'm being charitable putting Nightbitch in there, since it was dumped to a handful of theaters, had no reported box office numbers, and is now considered "A Hulu Original"). Only roughly 15% of Searchlight's theatrical releases over the last six-and-a-half years were helmed by folks belonging to marginalized genders.

Fox Searchlight was not perfect with gender representation in its theatrical output, not by a long shot. Its eight 2015 films, for instance, had no women-directed titles. However, it's worth noting that, in 2017, three of its movies were helmed by women, 75% of Searchlight's women-directed output for the entire decade. Black women filmmakers once helming multiple titles for the studio, like Amma Asante and Kasi Lemmons, have "mysteriously" vanished after the Disney/Fox merger. Perhaps if a Black lady director has an idea for Belle 2: The Belle Awakens, Disney executives will consider them for a Searchlight Pictures gig. 

Not only has Disney's version of Searchlight limited the overall number of movies released each year, but it's also tremendously constricted who gets money, promotional energy, and easier access to movie theater screens. As usual with any corporate merger, marginalized lives (especially when they're not white) pay the highest price.

What's bizarre is that other major studio arthouse divisions like Searchlight Pictures have been consistently releasing movies year-round during the 2020s. Focus Features, the arthouse sister studio to Universal Pictures, has been dropping tons of new releases (even more annually than it did in some pre-COVID years), which has offered up more chances for the studio to deliver massive hits like Obsession. When you have more times up to bat, you have more opportunities to score home runs. That sounds like a better idea than cramming your only three annual theatrical releases in the final six weeks of the year.

Anyone who's read my pieces for a prolonged period of time knows me and Sony Pictures Classics (the arthouse counterpart to Columbia Pictures) don't often see eye-to-eye. However, the studios constantly putting out new titles into theaters during every corner of the year. This approach has delivered some recent hits, like I'm Still Here and Becoming Led Zeppelin. While Sony Pictures Classics gets international titles and documentaries to the broader public, Disney is busy shoving Fox Searchlight Pictures into the same M.O. as its big, mainstream-skewing labels (Marvel Studios, Pixar, etc.). Specifically, the Mouse House is making Searchlight akin to Marvel and Pixar in emphasizing both as few annual releases as possible and tons of sequels.

Amusingly, this approach isn't even delivering major box office hits to Disney. Adhering to "FRANCHISES! FRANCHISES! FRANCHISES!" is proving to be a bad move when you're dealing with an arthouse studio and not Star Wars movies. Super Troopers 3 and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come were both bombs. Among this year's titles hailing from arthouse studios, Ready or Not 2 will end up below Sundance 2026 acquisitions Buddy and The Invite. Super Troopers 3, meanwhile, couldn't even crack $7.5 million in its North American run, putting it behind Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, I Love Boosters,  Tony, and the documentary Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert. 

Boiling things down to the most basic cynical capitalistic impulses, letting Searchlight acquire original indies certainly seems like it would produce better box office results than Ready or Not or Super Troopers sequels. Indie and arthouse hits are built on delivering the unexpected (see: Obsession, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Marty Supreme). Orienting your arthouse label largely around legacy sequels is antithetical to that. To boot, putting out more titles a year would give a studio more chances to deliver those kinds of sequels. Focus Features putting out so many movies a year produces bombs like Black Bag (an artistically awesome movie with a killer score, FTR), but also ensures hits like Hamnet, Conclave, and Obsession are possible. 

Conglomerates like Disney aren't about logic, common monetary sense, or even (God forbid) doing good things for art. They're about making sure executives never look foolish or made a bad call. Thus, Disney's still committed to those live-action remakes of old animated films even after Snow White and Moana cratered financially. Even after a summer where audiences shrugged their shoulders at arcane brand names, the Mouse House is gearing up to spend countless millions on a new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. And Searchlight Pictures is still dedicated to further sequels of pre-Disney merger 20th Century Fox/Fox Searchlight Pictures movies.

Much like city councils ignoring wide swaths of citizens who hate invasive Flock cameras or the U.S. government ignoring increasing public support for Palestine, the bourgeoisie ignore reality to ensure their pockets are lined further. Relying on sequels and "safe" franchise fare makes shareholders and Disney executives happy. Thus, that's the mold this once-prosperous arthouse studio must inhabit under Mouse House leadership. A corporate merger didn't open up new exciting horizons for Fox Searchlight Pictures. The quality films emerging from this era of Searchlight (like my beloved Poor Things, All of Us Strangers, and The Testament of Ann Lee) are testaments to the artists behind those films flourishing despite countless obstacles in their respective paths. Quality films managing to get released with the Searchlight Pictures logo can't erase the larger problems plaguing this studio as a result of its Disney ownership and pointless consolidation. 

So prepare, dear readers, for Little Miss Sunshine 2, 2 Napoleon 2 Dynamite, Black Swan 2: Here We Go Again, Return to Cedar Rapids, and Martha Marcy May Marlene: Attack of the Clones, and other legacy sequels at the expense of original films. Bask in the regurgitation of the past at the expense of new art tapping into the present. And cheer for when David Ellison gets his hands on Warner Bros. I'm sure he'll treat that studio as well as Disney's handled Searchlight Pictures. 

Lisa Laman's Bite Sized Reviews: The Weight and Dreams in Nightmares

Howdy folks! Lisa Laman here, how about two capsule reviews for arthouse titles that either recently debuted in theaters or are preparing to reach multiplexes?

The Weight

Immediately, The Weight made me feel like I was watching a cross between a 30s drama and a 50s noir. Perhaps any feature chronicling chain gang prisoners smashing rocks in the Great Depression era will conjure I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang memories. It wasn’t just surface level visual trappings, though, that thrusted me back to films like The Big Heat. The Weight effectively evokes the artistry and evocative atmosphere dominating those 20th century films.  

Down-on-his-luck mechanic Samuel Murphy (Ethan Hawke) and his daughter Penny (Avy Berry-Worrall) were already facing tremendous turmoil after getting evicted while at church. Then Murphy crossed some cruel, violent-prone cops and ended up in prison. This incarcerated man only has a short time before his child is put up for adoption, and he never sees her again. This makes an offer from Warden Clancy (Russell Crowe) extra enticing. That offer? Murphy and three other prisoners will move gold bars across rough forest terrain.

If no bars go missing and they arrive on time, they all get their freedom. While on the road, though, the vivid personalities of Murphy and the other prisoners inevitably begin clashing. More ominously, the dehumanizing approach to people emanating from every Weight authority figure grows increasingly inescapable.

Ethan Hawke’s one of the best American performers around. He’s spent decades reaffirming that reality. However, comparing his Weight work here to his Blue Moon turn as Lorenz Hart from just last year really solidifies his quiet range. Whereas Hawke’s Hart was a boisterous soul with a witty retort and story always on the tip of his tongue (while sorrow lurked beyond his eyes), his Samuel Murphy is a palpably agonized soul. Even before he’s locked up, Hawke makes the man’s years of anguish hauntingly tangible. Profoundly believable world-weariness permeates this performance. The man defaulting to whispers and withdrawn body language achingly reflects this reality. 

Last year, Hawke rendered a playwright of the past with magnetic and emotionally rich externalization. In The Weight, he proves equally adept at more understated acting tendencies caked in dirt and regret. The range here is remarkable. That microcosm of Hawke’s acting prowess ensures The Weight’s dramatic anchor is mighty engrossing. 

The Weight’s intimate scope lets this performance and the distinctive personalities of the other prisoner characters flourish. Much of the films runtime is about folks like Indigenous woman Anna (Julia Jones), leftist Singh (Avi Nash), and Scandinavian immigrant Olson (Lucas Lynggaad Tonnesen) recounting their respective pasts. These anecdotes about American authority figures dehumanizing them are hauntingly realized, especially the understated performances of Julia Jones portraying her character recounting her childhood experiences at school driven by the motto “kill the Indian, save the man.”

Such stories transpire on a mission where their superiors constantly reaffirm that gold bars are infinitely more valuable than any human lives. Looking out for oneself and stigmatizing “the other” is the norm in this land. The pervasiveness of those tendencies, and how they inevitably lead to rot, fuel much of The Weight’s tension. Meanwhile, emphasizing the humanity of characters like Murphy and Anna accentuates the effectiveness of that suspense.

Director Patrick McKinley and screenwriters Matthew Booi and Shelby Gaines certainly come up with some enjoyably realized Weight sequences certain to make people hold their breath. A scene where Murphy tries helping a jeopardized comrade only to end up stuck underwater is especially sublime. This set piece’s timing and steady introduction of new sources of conflict are both top-notch.

If there's a drawback to the film, it's just that McKinley and cinematographer Matteo Cocco's visuals could've used extra doses of distinctiveness. The films crisply filmed, with plenty of wide shots and controlled camerawork. However, the persistent blue and grey color grading is both not super interesting to look at and too reminiscent of other movies. Some weird editing also frustrates, namely an awkward third-act cut from Murphy walking around to Anna in jeopardy. A largely strong enterprise like The Weight deserved consistently excellent imagery.

Still, despite these shortcomings, striking shots do emerge throughout The Weight. Overall, the film’s a finely tuned endeavor that’s especially impressive in its execution of both suspense and letting talented actors strut their stuff. Offering plenty of breathing room for artists like Ethan Hawke and Julia Jones to excel benefits the project to no end. Plus, The Weight’s final 15 minutes (which conclude with one of the year’s best closing lines) are tremendously successful. As if that weren’t enough, this film uses the same end credits style as Predator, where each cast member gets to be on-screen with their title card, often smiling.

The Weight just knows how to keep delivering the goods. Those awesome 30s and 50s movies would be proud.

The Weight begins playing in theaters everywhere on September 18.

Dreams in Nightmares

With their devastating 2021 directorial debut Test Pattern, filmmaker Shatara Michelle Ford immediately threw down the gauntlet as an artist worth keeping an eye on. For their next directorial effort, Ford’s gone in a fascinatingly opposite direction. The intimate gaze and emphasis on everyday interactions endure. However, their new title Dreams in Nightmares is a lighter, more comedic enterprise. Test Pattern intentionally kept its number of locations limited to reflect the horrifying circumstances its lead character endured. Nightmares, meanwhile, is a road trip feature bouncing across several different North American locales.

Ford's script focuses on longtime pals Z (Denée Benton), Tasha (Sasha Compère), and Lauren (Dezi Bing). Reuniting in New York City after Z and Tasha both lost their respective jobs, the three chums have a wonderful night out. As they're sitting in Tasha's apartment, recuperating from all the dancing and bathroom stall sex, a question keeps coming up: where is Kel (Mars Storm Rucker)? The fourth member of their friend group has been AWOL for so long. Where did they go?

A plan suddenly begins brewing. The trio will go on a road trip to try and find Kel. The hesitant, practical-oriented Tasha isn't exactly ecstatic about this idea. However, they all pile in a car and begin tracking down spots Kel might be hiding away in. This includes Kel's chipper, chatty ex Sabrina (Jasmin Savoy Brown) as well as Kel's parents, who refuse to acknowledge that their child uses they/them pronouns. Like any road trip comedy, Dreams in Nightmares sends its lead characters through outsized antics on their way to their destination.

Ford’s script, though, realizes those hijinks as deeply specific to the three leads. Poet Lauren, for instance, insists the group’s Chicago exploits include stopping by to see fellow trans lady Toni (Joss Barton) perform poetry. This produces a strikingly realized sequence where Toni recites evocative verbiage related to modern trans existence, accompanied by warmly captured footage of a trans woman navigating everyday life. This stirring mixture of words and images is like nothing else I’ll see in a 2026 movie. From Barton’s personality-drenched line deliveries to the emphasis on depicting mundane trans lady existence, this set piece is tremendous.

This detour epitomizes how Dreams in Nightmares uses the familiar road trip movie form to create an utterly unique and absorbing creation. You’ve surely seen indie comedies before where characters pile up in a car to find a friend or important person. However, focusing on these fictional individuals and performers immediately gives Dreams in Nightmares numerous idiosyncrasies. The easygoing, lived-in rapport between the three leads alone renders this a must-see.

Dezi Bing’s Lauren especially fantastically realized, especially regarding comic timing. However, communicating her role’s gung-ho demeanor without uttering a word is particularly special. A scene where the three Dreams in Nightmares leads encounter Kel’s parents initially features Lauren largely sitting silently. Even here, though, situated between Tasha and Z, Bing exudes a compelling, dedicated aura that makes it clear Lauren's brain’s always scoping the situation at hand. All the subdued build-up just makes her blunt comments towards these parents extra impactful.

Throughout Dreams in Nightmares, Dezi Bing’s engrossing whether Ford hands her externalized or deeply withdrawn material. Rucker’s screen presence is similarly transfixing. Whenever they’re on-screen, their infectious buoyancy inspires an automatic smile. Bing and Rucker’s engrossing personas crystallize how Ford and casting director Rebecca Dealy absolutely hit a bullseye assembling the Dreams in Nightmares cast. When your movie heavily focuses on long car rides or characters scouring maps in gas stations, you need talented performers to make the mundane compelling. The Dreams in Nightmares leads firmly accomplish that.

Best of all, Ford keeps impressing viewers right up until the credits roll. One of the last Dreams in Nightmares sequences depicts Z and her partner Reece (Charlie Barnett) on a crucial phone call. I’ve never seen a telephone chat rendered on-screen quite like this one, as Ford and cinematographer Ludovica Isidori toss the camera around various lovingly rendered images. Each new line inspires a cut to an image of either one or both of these characters basking in romantic sunlight. Their words are rooted in here-and-now communication. However, the visuals reflect a dreamlike bond between two people defying time.

It’s an evocative sequence as tenderly realized as it is idiosyncratic. This dedication to uniquely and memorably rendering the connections between people flows throughout Dreams in Nightmares. Like a sublime road trip with friendship, this movie lodges itself in your memory.

Dreams in Nightmares is now playing in select theaters. 

History and the present collide in the grandiose experience La bola negra

In 1919, Different from the Others put gay experiences on German movie theater screens. Over a decade after its debut, Nazi's obliterated every copy of the project they could get their fascist palms on. Authoritarianism wiped out visual evidence of queer community and existences. Partial copies of the feature endure, but Different from the Others’ annihilation from the art canon encapsulates the difficulty of preserving queer history. These stories and lives have always existed. Widespread erasure and suppression don’t erase that reality.

It’s no wonder that wide swathes of queer cinema have fixated on preserving history and creating connections with the past. Documentaries like Barbara Forever and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed vividly explore the urgency of these missions. Narrative features like Velvet Goldmine, The People's Joker, Flee, and countless others, meanwhile, fixate on the past, present, and letting queer stories endure. Into this pantheon comes the historical epic La bola negra, courtesy of directorial duo Los Javis (consisting of Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, who also penned the script with Alberto Conejero).

This creative pair deliver an absolutely towering Spain-set title that hops across three different time periods and a wide swath of pre-existing source material, namely Conejero's 2013 play La piedra oscura and Federico García Lorca's unfinished play La bola negra. One of the eras chronicled is 1917, where young Carlos (Milo Quifes) is riddled with anguish over whether or not he'll get into a local casino. Allegations of him being gay are plaguing him and his family's reputation, much to Carlos' frustration. Then there's Sebastián's (Guitarricadelafuente) 1937-set yarn. This trumpet player was the only survivor in his village from a grisly bombing.

Fleeing the carnage, he fakes his way into the Nazi-endorsed Nationalist army so that he can live to see another day. His "keep your head down" plans go sideways when leftist fighter Rafael Rodríguez Rapún (Miguel Bernardeau) is captured and Sebastián finds the man...absorbing. Irritable. A body he wants to caress and a soul he yearns to know. Finally, in 2017, there's Alberto (Carlos González), presumably a stand-in for co-screenwriter Alberto Conejero. He's a former playwright with a contentious relationship to his mother, Teresa (Lola Dueñas), who suddenly learns his grandfather's passed away. This discovery and some kind of “inheritance” this man left sends Alberto on a rabbit hole defined by the past.

La bola negra’s roots come from the stage. However, Los Javis and cinematographer Gris Jordana imbue this feature with staggering imagery that’s only feasible in cinema. Though it chronicles eras of chaotic war and modern domestic strife, nearly every La bola negra image is painterly. Sumptuous theatricality informs Los Javis and Jordana’s ingenious compositions. This quality is already remarkable in how many downright mythic images it produces. No wonder this film features Carlos and Sebastián walking or scrambling above marble statues of gods. These imagery impulses echo the grandiose aesthetic emanated by finely chiseled sculptures.  

However, this facet’s also effective in restoring grandeur to lives erased. The queer existences chronicled here are told to suppress themselves. Keep their personalities under wraps lest they “shame” their fathers or incur Nazi wrath. Even Alberto often feels inclined to withdraw himself thanks to his abusive mom. Los Javis and Jordana’s visual impulses, meanwhile, lather these lives in majestic tableaus as grand as their emotions and yearnings. Lives once existing solely through whispers and subtle glances now materialize on-screen in a masterful visual landscape proudly calling attention to itself. Rich sunlight cascading on two men tracing fingers on each other's bodies or a bright red flare speeding across a beach at nighttime are just two of the countless pronounced images La bola Negra delivers with maximum characterization and showmanship.

Also impressing on this front is this title’s channeling of Quo Vadis, Aida? in manifesting impactful empty spaces. Binding every disparate era explored here is this visual motif, which specifically materializes as voids in the top half of the frame. Quo Vadis, Aida?’s emptiness hauntingly suggested the lives lost to genocide. Here, vacant areas communicate both queer existences erased from society and the gulf between Carlos, Sebastián, and Alberto’s internal and external lives. Not only does this visual fixture lend insight into the characters, but it also produces incredibly memorable images infused with precise blocking. Gris Jordana’s cinematography is a gift that keeps on giving.

Unfortunately, a problem does frequently plague La bola negra. There’s this strange inclination to hammer home visually obvious elements with obtuse dialogue. Maybe it’s a relic of this film’s stage play roots and/or the screenwriters being theatre veterans. Whatever informs this problem, I kept wanting Los Javis to let the images do the talking. Yet another monologue relaying the title’s themes isn’t necessary when a single magnificent image proclaims a thousand words.

Inevitably, certain corners of La bola negra get the short thrift whilst the film juggles so many narrative beats. Alberto’s personal life, for instance, gets lost in the shuffle against the more towering Carlos and Sebastián’s early 20^th century woes. Biting off more than it can chew means La bola negra can’t quite reach the heights of other 2020s films hopping between disparate time periods, like The Secret Agent. Luckily, so much of the proceedings are a delectable enough feast to make these shortcomings less fatal than they’d normally be. On the one hand, the scripts eyes can be bigger than its stomach. On the other hand, holy moly, these painterly images!

Beyond those luscious images, La bola negra’s well-crafted charms are abundant. Case in point: Raül Refree's score is a creative collection of compositions. His tracks often contrast period-era imagery with distinctly modern instrumentation. This includes one beach-set World War II scene transpiring against what sounds like club tracks. These distinctive auditory flourishes blur the lines between the past and present, a perfect trait for this story. Meanwhile, the performances are largely excellent. Guitarricadelafuente gets the most to do with his tormented Sebastián work, and he certainly thrives with all this material. Penélope Cruz is also a wonder in her one-scene appearance as show woman Nené Romero. Her deftness alternating between Romero's boisterous stage persona and her more haunted everyday demeanor is astonishing.

107 years after Different from the Others, La bola negra has emerged to continue the legacy of time-fixated queer films. Admittedly, its polished sensibilities can’t erase certain shortcomings, namely over relying on dialogue. The ragged edges, though, still speak to the La bola negra creative team’s impactful audacity. Such audacity produces a David Lean-style epic championing lives quietly erased and understated yearning communicated in glances or alleyways. In one of her final lines, Romero notes that queerness and challenging gender norms are about embracing everything that’s possible. In its most towering images and evocative sequences, La bola negra vividly communicates such infinite possibilities.

La bola negra begins its U.S. theatrical run on October 16.