Dive into our expert Oscar predictions and analysis, staying ahead of the curve on the films and performers destined for Hollywood glory. Awards Button Button Awards Update: Pre-Fall Festival Season Predictions September 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Final 2026 Academy Award Predictions March 12, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen Oscar Nomination Predictions Last Updated: 09/25/2026 Next Update: 10/25/2026 1 The Odyssey 2 La Bola Negra 3 Wild Horse Nine 4 Dune: Part Three 5 The Debut 6 Project Hail Mary 7 The Invite 8 All of a Sudden 9 Elsinore 10 Fjord Best Picture 1 Christopher Nolan (The Odyssey) 2 Los Javis (La Bola Negra) 3 Martin McDonagh (Wild Horse Nine) 4 Olivia Wilde (The Invite) 5 Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (All of a Sudden) Best Director 1 Wild Horse Nine 2 The Debut 3 Club Kid 4 Tender Loving Care 5 Fjord Best Original Screenplay 1 La Bola Negra 2 The Odyssey 3 The Invite 4 All of a Sudden 5 Project Hail Mary Best Adapted Screenplay 1 Matt Damon (The Odyssey) 2 John Malkovich (Wild Horse Nine) 3 Andrew Scott (Elsinore) 4 Ryan Gosling (Project Hail Mary) 5 John Turturro (The Only Living Pickpocket in New York) Best Lead Actor 1 Julianne Moore (The Debut) 2 Inde Navarrette (Obsession) 3 Sandra Hüller (Rose) 4 Virginie Efira (All of a Sudden) 5 Renate Reinsve (Fjord) Best Lead Actress 1 Paul Giamatti (The Debut) 2 Sam Rockwell (Wild Horse Nine) 3 John Leguizamo (The Odyssey) 4 Edward Norton (The Invite) 5 Guitarricadelafuente (La Bola Negra) Best Supporting Actor 1 Anne Hathaway (The Odyssey) 2 Penélope Cruz (The Invite) 3 Penélope Cruz (La Bola Negra) 4 Tao Okamoto (All of a Sudden) 5 Olivia Colman (Elsinore) Best Supporting Actress 1 The Odyssey 2 La Bola Negra 3 Wild Horse Nine 4 The Debut 5 Obsession Best Casting 1 The Odyssey 2 La Bola Negra 3 Dune: Part Three 4 Fatherland 5 Werwulf Best Cinematography 1 The Odyssey 2 La Bola Negra 3 Disclosure Day 4 Project Hail Mary 5 The Debut Best Original Score 1 La Nieve (La Bola Negra) 2 By Any Means (By Any Means) 3 This City May Have Chewed Me Up (The Debut) 4 How to Write a Song (Without You) (Power Ballad) 5 Let Me Sell You a Dream (Musk) Best Original Song 1 La Bola Negra 2 The Odyssey 3 Project Hail Mary 4 Dune: Part Three 5 The Debut Best Film Editing 1 The Odyssey 2 Dune: Part Three 3 Project Hail Mary 4 La Bola Negra 5 The Mosquito Bowl Best Sound 1 The Odyssey 2 Dune: Part Three 3 Werwulf 4 La Bola Negra 5 Project Hail Mary Best Production Design 1 The Odyssey 2 La Bola Negra 3 Werwulf 4 Sense and Sensibility 5 Dune: Part Three Best Costume Design 1 Werwulf 2 Digger 3 Clayface 4 The Odyssey 5 Rose Best Makeup & Hairstyling 1 Dune: Part Three 2 The Odyssey 3 Project Hail Mary 4 Whalefall 5 Godzilla Minus Zero Best Visual Effects 1 Wildwood 2 Toy Story 5 3 Ray Gunn 4 Iron Boy 5 Tangles Best Animated Feature 1 La Bola Negra (Spain) 2 All of a Sudden (Japan) 3 Fjord (Romania) 4 Possible Love (South Korea) 5 Minotaur (France) Best International Feature 1 Once Upon a Time in Harlem 2 American Doctor 3 You Can See Everything 4 Rehearsals for a Revolution 5 NAZA Best Documentary Feature

Digger September 29, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen A few moments into Digger , Tom Cruise, playing the titular Digger Rockwell, recounts a story from his youthful days in Texas. He says he hit a home run as a kid, sending the ball twenty feet over the fence and sealing the win for his little league team. After the game, he expected his stern grandfather to congratulate him on the feat of power. Instead, he was disappointed. He told Digger that any dummy with enough muscle can get lucky every once in a while to hit a home run. In his view, the ultimate showcase of baseball skill is hitting a triple, as that takes speed, finesse, and gumption. There's a reason it's the least common type of hit in baseball. Perhaps director Alejandro G. Iñárritu could have taken that advice for his newest film, his first in English in over a decade. Or maybe one of his four credited co-writers (Sabina Berman, Jez Butterworth, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone) snuck the story in as a way to temper Iñárritu's eyes as they quickly became bigger than his stomach. But Iñárritu is not a filmmaker who has ever done anything lightly, only stepping up to the play when a grand slam is in play. Babel featured multiple globe-trotting storylines, her served as director/writer/producer/editor/composer and the central basis for the story in Bardo ; performed one-take trickery in Birdman ; and braved the frigid elements for The Revenant . He earned back-to-back directing Oscars for the latter two works, proving that his sights are often on target. Digger joins those works in ambition, but not outcome. Shot by Emmanuel Lubezki (also an Academy Award winner for Birdman and The Revenant ) in widescreen VistaVision, Digger looks like a million bucks. The reported budget is $125 million, probably the same amount Mr. Rockwell put into his palatial compound. The film opens in an unknown serene location, a mysterious place where jungles, marshes, fields, and oak trees co-exist. Inside are decorations one would expect from a Texas-born oil tycoon: lots of dead animal furs, guns adorned above the fireplace, and massive paintings illustrating the kill-or-be-killed law of nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORTe1wW3Wg But all this material beauty is just window dressing for a deeply ugly movie, made by those with either a deep contempt or twisted sense of compassion for humanity. Rising out of Digger's lake are air bubbles, the same ones coming out of the ice caps he's drilling up in Greenland. The more he drills, the more air that gets released, and the more the caps melt. One of the caps, about the size of a small US state, reaches a critical melting point, breaks away, and is hurled toward northern Europe by Arctic Ocean currents. Mother Nature has finally fought back, with millions of lives being lost and/or displaced within a matter of days. Hustling and bustling through the dozens of rooms at Digger's compound are a host of wacky characters. There's Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), Digger's head of environmental science who tries to supply facts and reasoning in these dire times; Emma Rockwell (Sandra Hüller), Digger's angered half-sister; President Compson (John Goodman), who should be questioned as to how he got elected in a less fraught time period; and the Vice President (Michael Stuhlbarg), timidly appeasing every whim of the dictator-in-chief. Each brings strong personalities, bristling against the words "if," "possible," and "could" that Ganesh uses in his science-focused presentation on the impending catastrophe. These people only deal in absolutes, with facts being malleable pieces used to build a narrative. Despite all of this being packed within the first twenty minutes, so many questions are raised. Where are we? What year is it? It seems pretty modern, but some of the tech is a little different than we're used to. Why does the president leave the White House and come to Digger? How does he get there so fast? Why is everything else moving so fast? Why is everyone yelling their lines and being the most obnoxious versions of themselves? Why am I not laughing at any of the jokes? Eventually, a sudden story shift answers most of these questions. I know what it is, and you don't. And I can't and won't tell you about it here. Sounds a bit cheeky, right? That's the tone Iñárritu strikes here, replacing his prior pretension with an obscene amount of smugness. Combined with Cosmo Sheldrake's frantic score, the ear-splitting IMAX soundscape, and dialogue scenes packed with aggressive shouting, this becomes an extremely unpleasant viewing experience. Should I praise a movie for giving me a headache and putting me in a generally sour mood afterwards? Simultaneously, the structure and ideas percolating here are deeply fascinating. The only difference between a tragedy and a comedy is time, and we've reached the point where we can only laugh at our own ineptitude. Everything is literally crumbling right before our eyes, and our only worry is not being the one holding the hot potato when it all comes crashing down, as if that matters. There should be more movies like this, armed with pokes and prods as it sends the audience home questioning what they just witnessed. There should also be more roles like this for Tom Cruise. As he did for Michael Keaton in Birdman , Iñárritu brings Cruise out of his self-controlled action movie shell and back to a similar lane as his turn as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder . To play someone his own age, the sixty-four-year-old actor dons thinning grey hair, wrinkly skin, and a bulging gut. Iñárritu and Lubezki certainly don't flatter him by shooting primarily from a low angle, the light bouncing off his bald, spotted forehead. They give him plenty of monologues, mostly done in a single take as the actor's superhuman energy and athleticism grab our attention. Digger is a film I want to learn everything about. I want to read every review, interview, and essay. I want a Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse documentary made about it, capturing everything from inception to presentation. It'll be in my head for the rest of my life, intermittently reappearing to make me ponder its ideas. But I never want to rewatch it, as that sounds like a miserable use of my time. It's quite the conundrum, one that can only be achieved by a film whose swing perpetually flirts with being fair or foul. Warner Bros. Pictures will release Digger in theaters nationwide on October 02nd. More Reviews The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Animals October 8, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Cinema Dispatch is your one-stop-shop film review website that also offers lists, awards updates, and essays relating to the world of cinema. Reviews The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Animals October 8, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Awards Button Button Awards Update: Pre-Fall Festival Season Predictions September 1, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Final 2026 Academy Award Predictions March 12, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen 1 The Odyssey 2 La Bola Negra 3 Wild Horse Nine 4 Dune: Part Three 5 The Debut 6 Project Hail Mary 7 The Invite 8 All of a Sudden 9 Elsinore 10 Fjord Oscar Nomination Predictions - Best Picture Hunter Friesen Lists TIFF26 Recap September 23, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen TIFF26 Preview September 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen

Verity September 30, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen In film, it never feels like an accident for two beautiful people to meet. They can’t just happen to walk by each other on the street or be at a coffee shop at the same time. Of course, they can, but there’s always a reason for it to happen, either intentionally by one character or by the universe. If it’s the latter, then it’s probably a sign of what’s to come, something that should be heeded before jumping off the deep end. So, when Lowen Ashleigh (Dakota Johnson) first meets Jeremy Crawford (Josh Hartnett) on a street corner because she gets sprayed with blood after a cyclist gets hit and instantly killed by a car, she probably should have taken that as a warning to stay far away from him. But how could she, when he’s standing there with his dark brown eyes and hair? That’s how these stories always start, with a jaded and reluctant protagonist at their worst. For Lowen, it’s immediately after her mother died of cancer in her own apartment. The only thing left of her is her pills, which Lowen washes down with freezer vodka and a dash of pity for her stalled career as a novelist. A lifeline appears in the form of an offer to be a ghostwriter for a bestselling thriller series by Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway), Jeremy’s wife, who has secretly become catatonic after a recent car accident. Not more than twenty minutes after they both witnessed manslaughter, Jeremy and Lowen are discussing having her come to the Crawfords’ Vermont house to make sense of Verity’s copious notes and begin writing the new novel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdPMKhjMSFs As nice as the house is, Lowen can’t help but feel a darkness permeating the air. Death had already taken over the place when one of Jeremy and Verity’s twins accidentally drowned in the nearby lake. Now Verity is essentially dead, sitting motionless in her wheelchair as the years go by. Stumbling around, Lowen discovers a secret manuscript by Verity, one that serves as both an autobiography and a confession. It reveals Verity’s deepest and darkest thoughts and actions, revealing that nothing about her has been what others have said. If the basic beats of this story all sound a little too similar to last year’s The Housemaid , then you’re not alone. A lonely protagonist with a dark and troubled past? Check. A palace-like house that features lots of dark hallways and rooms? Check. A husband who is extremely handsome and dutiful to his fraught wife? Check. Parts of the story are revealed through the wife’s account of the past? Check. Sexual chemistry begins to bud between the protagonist and the husband? Check. It’s neither Verity author Colleen Hoover nor The Housemaid author Freida McFadden’s fault for this large overlap. These are the types of stories that sell, ones filled with sex, death, and dark secrets. Hoover has become a cinematic goldmine for it over the years, with churned-out adaptations of It Ends with Us , Regretting You , and Reminders of Him . Each has its own twisted sense of romance, with this one at least being smart enough to put it within the shell of a dark thriller. But it does always feel like a shell of itself, going through the motions without much fanfare. Director Michael Showalter, who has become quite the journeyman over the past few years, makes us wait an awfully long time for something good to happen. And when the secrets finally get spilled, they’re without a biting edge. Johnson’s character says that she has a resting bored face, which is also what I had for the majority of the runtime. As expected, the leads are incredibly attractive. By nature of her having to sit in a wheelchair in the present timeline, Hathaway’s involvement is strictly limited to recreations of past events in her writing, as well as plugs for the Call Her Daddy and Hot Ones podcasts. A little bit of her goes a long way, an oasis in a desert filled with monthly book club filler. Amazon MGM Studios will release Verity in theaters nationwide on October 02nd. More Reviews The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Animals October 8, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen Despite being one of the defining shows of its era, largely thanks to my generation's memory of it solely through an ironic lens of memes and YouTube clips, it's surprising to find out that To Catch a Predator only aired twenty episodes, presented as specials from 2004 to 2007. During that time, the show framed itself as being part of the larger corporate television news magazine program Dateline NBC. By placing itself under that umbrella, it made it serious journalism, something that host Chris Hansen vehemently claimed it was. But as seen through the lens of the new film Primetime , the show acted more like a privatized sting operation than a news outlet, favoring ratings over reporting. By taking us behind the scenes of the show's production, Primetime reveals just how much of it was made up. The online conversations with suspected sexual predators were done by Xavier Von Erck (Matthew Maher), founder of the watchdog group Perverted-Justice. An adult actor, known as a "decoy" because of their physical resemblance to that of a prepubescent teenager, played the child on the phone and in person. The house for the meeting was rented out, with hidden cameras in every room. It has all the makings of a Hollywood production, with producer Andie Bender (Merritt Wever) steering the ship from the video village. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fHXyqQOKL8 In theory, cutting through all that artificiality and lending some integrity should be the hosting duties of Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson), already a winner of multiple News & Documentary Emmy Awards throughout his tenure at Dateline NBC. But when we first meet Hansen, he's performing vocal exercises while reading a prepared script. Possibly sensing how much audiences would be fascinated by Pattonson’s voice work, director Lance Oppenheim lets the actor extensively riff during this preparation phase, and later places him in a recording booth for a commercial spot. Once the predator hits their mark on the metaphorical stage, Chris reveals himself from behind a curtain, a grand entrance fit for a superhero crime fighter. The audience can then cheer as the predator is berated for his misdeeds and physically assaulted by arresting police officers. “What would have happened if I wasn't there?” is the supposed bulletproof defense that Chris flings at any skeptics of his work. To him, these predators are part of an ancient evil that cannot be tamed or fully understood, just exposed for the world to see. After all, the more light shed on darkness, the less dark it is. But can journalistic integrity be maintained when you’re making the news instead of solely reporting it? Is all this chatroom sleuthing and acting a form of entrapment, meant to parade around the prey in a humiliation ritual? When asked by a (seemingly deranged) fan why Chris doesn’t just kill the predators on the spot, he says that what he does is probably a fate worse than death. These ethical dilemmas have surrounded the show since it first aired, so screenwriter Ajon Singh isn’t exactly breaking much new ground here. Fortunately, he finds a fresher vantage point through the eyes of Dan Plumb (Skyler Gisondo), a twenty-something aspiring actor hired to become the new decoy of a thirteen-year-old boy. Without preparation or knowledge of what exactly is going on, he’s thrust into a scene with a predator, given stage instructions on how to get them over to the kitchen for Chris. It’s only after the fact that he grasps that he was performing a “scene” with a real sexual predator. If these people are as dangerous as Chris claims, was Dan unknowingly put in extreme danger? For as much as Dan is conflicted by all of this, he’s paid quite well and can be easily convinced that there is some form of justice being served. That’s exactly the attitude the NBC executives and audiences take as well, all of it presented with the least amount of professionalism needed to assuage guilt. The age of polished, scripted television is over, replaced by the grungy muck of “reality” television. A documentary filmmaker, Oppenheim takes those aesthetics and applies them to his film. The cinematography is presented with a garish videotape quality, the static so exposed you could feel it coming off the screen if you placed your hand there. Dial-up internet sounds and an unnervingly hilarious placement of Jared Fogle capture the era’s Wild West feel. Bathed in all that grotesquerie is Pattinson, adding another nutcase character to his ever-expanding collection. He is simultaneously a predator and prey to himself, relentlessly driven to gain bigger ratings than Lost once he’s promoted to a primetime slot. As much of a fool’s errand as that is, it’s something he commits his damnedest to achieve. That means no more small fish, just white whales, which any knowledgeable viewer of To Catch a Predator knows is what sunk the ship. It’s proof that Batman can only exist in comic books, as our world’s view of justice has more in common with that of The Joker. A24 will release Primetime in theaters nationwide on September 25th. More Reviews The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Animals October 8, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen Whether we know it or not, the government regulates almost every second of our daily lives. We drive cars according to the law, eat food that has passed safety inspections, watch television that is deemed socially responsible, and sleep in beds that have been made with approved materials. Recent polls and studies suggest the average person spends about 1-2 hours on social media per day. That number almost doubles as the age bracket gets younger, with platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok being just as big a part of daily life as food and air. And yet, there's hardly an ounce of regulation tying it down, with users free to project and/or ingest anything they want. As alluded to by the apt title, writer/director Aaron Sorkin feels that we are at the moment of reckoning with the Pandora's box that is social media. As much as mythology is never strictly factual, its lessons on the dangers of total free will have always been pertinent, warnings that when kerosene and matches are nearby, we can't help but feel the need to play with them. Perhaps this is Sorkin's way of atoning for the responsibility he feels in aggrandizing the rise of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook in The Social Network . However much his intentions were with his script, under David Fincher's slick direction and the decade-defining techno score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, a certain swarm of viewers couldn't help but see how cool it was for an idea to immediately turn into an empire with 2.8 billion followers and over $1 trillion in value. Billed more as a companion piece rather than a direct sequel, The Social Reckoning never aims to be cool. It is vehemently old-school, featuring a protagonist who is introduced as not being able to work the navigation system in his rental car. Whether that is a fact or script invention, it's one of many things that make Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) into the ideal Sorkin character. He's an investigative tech reporter who's almost a Luddite, makes references to Old Hollywood musicals and Frank Capra films, and personally handwrites letters to each employee of the Facebook Civil Integrity team. His goal is to get hard facts on how Facebook has become the global disseminator of political and social information, specifically how the algorithm pushes hyperactive users further down the rabbit hole of radicalization and disinformation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4LkaXwGuY The Deep Throat to his Woodward/Bernstein is Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison). She's part of the Facebook "family," one that prides itself on never allowing employees to ask ethical questions or put their concerns in writing. Frances is an awkward person: fidgety with her hands and hair, eyes usually looking down during a conversation, and wearing wrist warmers from her neurological condition. Between her technological expertise on the inside and his investigative skills, the often reluctant pair work to define the specifics behind a downward trend that we all generally feel. With his signature mile-a-minute dialogue and ability to make exposition dumps feel incredibly entertaining, journalism is a genre that suits Sorkin incredibly well, so much so that he even created an entire television show for it ( The Newsroom ). Scenes with multiple characters often have overlapping and turn-taking dialogue, each constantly proving to be the smartest in the room. The more barbed the exchanges are, the more they crackle through the teal-toned frames by cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth. Bill Burr plays Charlie, a former friend of the billionaire, who serves as a vessel so Sorkin can debate Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong, replacing Jesse Eisenberg), and becomes an adversary once he sees the darkness take over the light. During a congressional hearing prep session that just so happens to take place on January 06, 2021, the pair engage in a heated argument over Facebook's deprioritization of oversight on its content. Guardrails create friction for engagement, with Zuckerberg seeing the platform as a nonpartisan public square. But how much impartiality can Zuckerberg claim when his platform is literally engineered to supply outrage content perpetually? For as much as these scenes amount to little more than wish fulfillment on the part of Sorkin, they create a good excuse for Strong to portray Zuckerberg as a modern-day Roman emperor. He is a natural, more grown-up version of Eisenberg's version of the character, still with clipped speech patterns and poorly disguised narcissism. Madison proves that her Oscar win for Anora was no fluke, and White is a sturdy beacon of professionalism. Sorkin leaning into sentimentality creates a deadly pit of syrupy nonsense, which has stymied his previous two directorial projects, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Being the Ricardos . That same self-inflicted wound is enacted here with an unbearably hokey final stretch that attempts to put an inspirational little bow on everything. Even Alexandre Desplat's Hollywood score swells to a crescendo, making this no-nonsense presentation feel more like a gentle reminder. Sony Pictures Releasing will release The Social Reckoning in theaters nationwide on October 09th. More Reviews The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Unabomber September 24, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen In 2023, Shailene Woodley starred in the film To Catch a Killer . In it, she played a law enforcement officer working with the FBI to investigate a string of murders. The suspected killer is assumed to be highly intelligent, with a clear strategy for enacting and covering up their deadly deeds. Despite some reluctance from her colleagues, Woodley's out-of-the-box thinking is what cracks open the case. It is eventually revealed that the killer is hiding out in a rural area, where officers descend, preparing for a standoff. In 2026, Shailene Woodley stars in the film Unabomber . In it, she plays a law enforcement officer working with the FBI to investigate a string of murders. The suspected killer is assumed to be highly intelligent, with a clear strategy for enacting and covering up their deadly deeds. Despite some reluctance from her colleagues, Woodley's out-of-the-box thinking is what cracks open the case. It is eventually revealed that the killer is hiding out in a rural area, where officers descend, preparing for a standoff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3tR6qQjbgI Save for the fact that the total number of people who have seen To Catch a Killer probably doesn't eclipse four digits, an ambitious lawyer (probably also in desperate need of work) could look for a copyright case against Unabomber screenwriters Sam Chalsen and Nelson Greaves. Then again, the Unabomber killer and extensive FBI manhunt for him is one of the most documented cases in American history, so the finger could be pointed back at the writers of To Catch a Killer for copying real life. In the end, it doesn't really matter, as neither movie has or will instill any passion within an audience likely watching because it was the first thing that appeared on their streaming service home screen. At the very least, Unabomber passes the Netflix test of staging a major action sequence within the first five minutes. Menacingly, the film opens inside a mailbox, with a random person receiving a mysterious package. The package explodes upon being opened, killing them instantly. They are another victim of the Unabomber, later revealed to be Ted Kaczynski, who killed 3 and injured 23 with this method from 1978-1995. The FBI was clueless about his identity and whereabouts, with their only tip being the killer's 35,000-word manifesto published in several national newspapers. Titled "Industrial Society and Its Future" and free of a single grammatical mistake, Kaczynski illustrated his twisted ideology in this cruel world where machines have become more important than individual autonomy. In an effort to dig up the root of this mode of thinking, a second timeline set in 1958 is introduced, going back to Ted's years as a sixteen-year-old prodigy at Harvard. Played by Jacob Tremblay, Ted is skinny and awkward, never adjusting to his classes or his peers. Happiness is only achieved when he's under the tutelage of philosophy Professor Henry Murray (Russell Crowe, returning to the Ivy League a few decades after A Beautiful Mind ). Ted agrees to participate in a series of mental tests centered around philosophical debates. For as prepared as Ted is, he's instantly ragebaited by a graduate student who treats the debate as a roast session. Already emotionally unstable, Ted decides to fight fire with fire. His anger does most of the talking, exasperating his views on the weakening value of ideas in the modern world. It's an interesting angle for Chlasen and Graves to take, one that could easily be interpreted as a warning in our increasingly fractured times. Chaos can only breed more chaos, a chain reaction that can lead a generation to believe the only way to silence your enemy is to kill them. However, those potent ideas don’t fully come alive in this film, buried under so-so acting and/or Janus Metz's direction. A digital sheen robs the richness of both time periods, and the crosscutting between them never feels purposeful. A few chase scenes are horribly staged and edited, coming off as perfunctory excuses for action in this dialogue-heavy story. Excise the later timeline, and those problems are fully solved. We’ve already got several television shows and documentaries about the manhunt for Kaczynski, so it feels like a waste of an opportunity to make only half a commitment to doing something different. Netflix will release Unabomber on its streaming service on September 25th. More Reviews The Social Reckoning October 7, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Elsinore September 14, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen For me, there isn’t a smoother way to start a film than by listening to the hum of the studio logo for Focus Features. The gentle strings take me back to when I first dove deeper into movies. My lexicon was the Oscars, and I'd dig into each year’s Wikipedia page to see the nominees and winners. Naturally, my gaze shifted towards the 2000s, the period when I would recognize the names of famous movie stars who appeared in some of my favorite blockbusters. With big award hits like The Pianist , Brokeback Mountain , and Atonement , Focus Features was prominently featured in those Wikipedia pages, placing itself as the preeminent distributor for serious-minded cinephiles. Of course, that’s a bit of a hoity-toity way to see things. But I was a teenager who wanted to take movies seriously, and to seem serious to other people. Who didn’t back then? Many of those films became some of my favorites, relics of a different era that I fondly look back on. Trying its hardest to recapture that unashamed sense of Oscar earnestness (“bait” is the pejorative word used sometimes) this year is Focus Features’ Elsinore , proudly splashing its emotional gamut across the screen for all to see, inviting tears, laughter, and catharsis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzopCeFAWF0 Much of the laughter comes from the predicament actor Ian Charleson (Andrew Scott) has put himself in by starring in the 1981 Best Picture-winning film Chariots of Fire . Myself included, it’s a film people only remember for its opening scene: young men racing barefoot along the beach, accompanied by the famous piano anthem by Vangelis. You’ve definitely heard it before, even if you didn’t know that it originated from that film. Charleson never got the career boost one would expect from leading such a major motion picture, continuing the decade as a working actor in less-than-ideal parts for television and film. In every audition, someone reminds him of that film, a curse he has to politely laugh off. Not a laughing matter was the secret of Charleson’s homosexuality, as well as his HIV/AIDS diagnosis. The marks on his skin from the disease make him a professional liability; the stigma permeates throughout both casting halls and doctors’ offices. Luckily, he has an ally in National Theatre artistic director Richard Eyre (Johnny Flynn), who’s been put in a tough spot after Daniel Day-Lewis abruptly walked out halfway through a performance of Hamlet and refused to ever come back (true story). Eyre gives Charleson the role he’s always dreamed of, establishing a new sense of life for a man on a death sentence. While few remember Charleson’s performance in Chariots of Fire , everyone will remember Andrew Scott’s portrayal of him during this period. It is acting in all capital letters, offering a raw look into someone grappling with their own mortality as they take on an immortal role. He is witty with a joke, especially to the disapproving Dr. Margaret Johnson (Olivia Colman, coming full circle after playing a theater owner who hosted the regional premiere of Chariots of Fire in Empire of Light ). She grants years when other doctors can only muster weeks; her stern methods eventually pioneer practices for medical research. Of course, a steely doctor always warms up to their most rascally patient. It’s not hard for her to do that when Scott/Charleson is lighting up every room he walks into with his sincerity. It’s why he’s such a good actor, somehow never telling a lie as he makes you believe he’s the Prince of Denmark. Director Simon Stone keeps the depth of field shallow and the palette cool, allowing Scott’s face to be our north star throughout this largely weepy story. As a famous performer of Hamlet himself, it’s endlessly fascinating to watch him channel the role within another role, adding new layers of context to material that has spanned almost half of a millennium. This is a film that bluntly wants you to feel exactly what it wants, when it wants. It can be a bit aggravating at times to be steered so hard in each direction, with screenwriter Stephen Beresford underlining and bolding each point with a dark felt pen. Stefan Gregory’s orchestra and piano score share the same strategy, grabbing hold of our ears as editor Valerio Bonelli cuts montages of the rehearsals and performances. This is Shakespeare after all, so a little melodrama is par for the course. Elsinore had its Canadian premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Focus Features will release the film in select theaters on November 20th. More Reviews Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Verity September 30, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Double click the dataset icon to add your own content. 1/1/2035 By: Author Name Hunter Friesen

Look Back September 16, 2026 By: Button Hunter Friesen By shepherding a live-action adaptation of the 2021 manga sensation Look Back , which already got an anime adaptation in 2024, writer/director Hirokazu Kore-eda could have easily faltered and made a copy of a copy of a copy. After all, once those boxed frames from the pages have been granted motion through animation, how much more can a live-action version hope to achieve? It’s a valid question, especially in an age when Disney has self-imposed the stigma of sloppification on its greatest animated works by mass-producing exponentially inferior live-action versions. They may each make hundreds of millions to almost a billion dollars (well, except for the latest version of Moana , thank goodness), but I doubt anyone felt the realism added an ounce of new context to the emotional power of these stories. Of course, what separates those Disney films from this version of Look Back is a world-class filmmaker like Kore-eda. Having a nearly flawless thirty-year filmography filled with emotional richness and deeply humanistic values, the revered Japanese auteur is the perfect person for this job of adapting such a touching story of youthful creativity. At the very least, his involvement makes this inherently needless version fully satisfactory for both die-hard fans and newcomers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNQJAIgYRwE Despite being beholden to Tatsuki Fujimoto’s illustrations and Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s animations, Kore-eda and cinematographer Senzo Ueno imbue them with lush warmth. Captured in 35mm with a boxier 1.66:1 aspect ratio across each of the four seasons, the Japanese countryside is presented in its most breathtakingly beautiful form. Swans float on a calm lake as light snow falls, the wind blows across a spring meadow, and the trees begin to obtain their autumnal glow. Witnessing those seasons through her window is Fujino, a grade school girl whose popular in her class because of her whimsical manga drawings. They’re published each week in the class newspaper, usually about some silly situation she’s imagined for her classmates or teacher. The praise is motivation for her to commit to her craft all day and night, destined to be a professional when she’s older. Except that all turns around when she’s made to share her column with Kyomoto, who attends school remotely. In contrast to Fujino’s, Kyomoto's drawings are like an architect's; filled with straight lines, highly realistic settings, and perfect shading. It’s enough for Fujino to quit drawing altogether, as there’s no point in pursuing this dream when people like Kyomoto are so far ahead. More seasons pass, with the children eventually crossing paths. To Fujino’s surprise, Kyomoto is her biggest fan, her awkward enthusiasm likely coming from her being on the spectrum. And so, the two decide to create a manga together, forming a deep friendship through the power of creativity. Tenderly, Kore-eda captures their creative process, which seemingly spans multiple years. Each subsequent scene takes place in a different season than the last, and the actresses change as they grow into the next phase. Each transition into a new pairing is seamless, carrying forward the sweet notes of innocence. There really aren’t any stakes or drama, just heartwarming fulfillment. That charm is eventually lost once the pair reach young adulthood. A tragedy ignites the third act, one that feels totally out of place and a little excessive for this story. As a newcomer to this story, blame should first go on Tatsuki Fujimoto for its origination, and also on Kore-eda for its depiction here. There are still fleeting moments of brilliance, but they are clouded by a disappointing feeling over this sudden pivot. Even with that bitter taste, the whole is still very nutritious for the heart and soul. This is a perfect film for Sunday afternoons in all seasons, best complemented by a blanket and some tea. Shed a tear, have a laugh, and feel a smile on your face during and long after. Look Back had its North American premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. GKIDS will release it in theaters at a later date. More Reviews Digger September 29, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Unabomber September 24, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Elsinore September 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

Smile 2 October 16, 2024 By: Button Hunter Friesen It’s crazy that Smile 2 so casually assumes that you haven’t seen Smile , the $200 million smash hit and global marketing sensation. How else could one explain the gumption that writer/director Parker Finn has to repeat all of the beats of his previous film, even down to the exact same twists and explanations for what is going on? There could be a slight excuse if this was released several years later and given a semicolon title like Smile: Rebirth or Smile: A New Chapter . But no, this is literally Smile 2, and it’s only been two years (or one day for someone like me who watched the first film in preparation), so we’re all left to experience déjà vu. Finn is a talented craftsman, engineering some decent setpieces through brilliant camerawork and sound design. His use of creeping camera pans is commendable, stirring up the tension as he allows our minds to create temporarily unseen terror. The opening sequence exemplifies all of this, taking place almost immediately after the ending of the first film. Joel (Kyle Gallner) is afflicted with the curse that besieged Rose, needing to rid himself of it through either murder or suicide. He attempts one of those options in an extended long take that traverses in and out of a drug house, capped with the other option. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HY6QFlBzUY Time goes by, and the location changes, but the circumstances remain the same. Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is your average pop star attempting to make a comeback world tour after a falling out with drugs and alcohol. She still has a drug dealer, but only for Vicodin to help with her back pain caused by a car accident that killed her then-boyfriend. What begins as a suspected bad drug trip turns into something much more sinister once the dealer sports an eerie smile and bashes his face in with a barbell plate. The chain of haunting ensues, ranging from terrible visions to… well, pretty much just visions. If you were to list all of the terrible things that happened to Skye in this film, the majority of them didn’t actually happen. The stakes get increasingly lowered each time something gets interrupted by Skye jolting awake, only to realize it was all just a dream. It’s no different than the age-old complaint of the Marvel movies undercutting every emotional moment with a joke. But even in those dreams, the scares aren’t conveyed as effectively as they were the first time. For as much as Finn knows how to set something up, he opts for the balloon-popping jumpscare nearly every time. If you listen for the silencing audio cue, you can guess when it’s going to come without fail. It takes a lot of skill to scare people, and a whole lot less to startle them. Finn has what it takes to truly scare you, and there were several moments here where I could almost taste it. There are inklings of other themes outside of the well-worn topic of trauma that the first film embraced so enthusiastically. The pressures of fame compress Skye at every moment, with hundreds of people depending on her at every moment. She never smiles outside of performing, hoping that faking it will eventually lead her to making it. The increased production budget, most likely supplied through the blatant product placement of Voss Water, allows for some of those intricately choreographed stage shows to highlight the physical and mental demands placed on those just looking to entertain us. Of course, if you want to see the total unraveling of a popstar due to the metaphysical darkness that lurks behind every corner, you’re better off with Vox Lux , which should be all the rage now with the director’s new film, The Brutalist , making waves on the festival circuit. Smile 2 saves its best idea and single shot for the absolute end, presenting a unique idea for what could be in store for Smile 3 . If only Finn had decided to expedite that process and save us the two tedious hours to get there. Paramount Pictures will release Smile 2 in theaters nationwide on October 18th. More Reviews Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Unabomber September 24, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Look Back September 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Elsinore September 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

After Yang March 7, 2022 By: Button Hunter Friesen What does it mean to be human? It’s a question that has baffled the greatest minds for thousands of years. There is no single answer, and just about every possible answer produces another exponential round of questions. But despite the daunting task set upon by any sedulous searcher, 2021 and 2022 have seen several filmmakers offer their own opinion on the matter. Revered master Apichatpong Weerasethakul gave us Memoria , a film with a meditative atmosphere that not so much answers questions, but leads the viewer down their path of contemplation. Through the process of human cloning, Benjamin Cleary’s Swan Song begged the question, can human identity be passed on and perfectly emulated by inorganic beings? Through the use of two brilliant Mahershala Ali performances, Cleary’s delicate parable of lost love showed the power of interconnectedness. And now, debuting before and after the previously mentioned films with its early Cannes world premiere and its U.S. premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, comes After Yang , a mixture of reality and poetry that breathes through its slow-brew atmosphere. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwp32zLc08c The second half of the title comes from the name of the perfectly human-like android within the multi-racial household of father Jake (Colin Farrell), mother Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), and child Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja). Yang was brought into the fold at the same time as Mika was adopted from China as a way to connect her to her ancestral roots. For years, life has gone by as planned with Jake overseeing his tea shop, and Yang acting as Mika’s main point of contact for her identity crises. One day, that peaceful cycle breaks down when Yang enters a catatonic state. As they attempt to bring him back, Jake and Kyra learn more about Yang’s deeper connection to their daughter and the memories he harbored in a life outside his family. Writer/director Kogonada started out in video essays examining the themes of some of cinema's greatest auteurs, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Yasujirō Ozu, and Ingmar Bergman. And now, with only two films to his name, Kogonada is already entering the conversation as one of the best humanistic directors of the modern era. His previous feature, Columbus , made use of precise visuals that synchronized with the gentle storytelling. It was a high-wire act of writing and directing made to look remarkably simple. After Yang maintains that same level of stillness as it transplants its setting from modern Indiana to the distant future, where all of humanity has melded into a semi-perfect homogenous society. Production designer Alexandra Schaller takes an East Asian inspiration for the architecture, complete with straight lines, tranquil gardens, and minimalist spaces. The stillness transfers to the performances as well, with Farrell at his most introspective and compelling. It harkens back a bit to his work with Yorgos Lanthimos in The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer , with the dialed-back emotions and an everyman disposition. He serves as a perfect gateway into this strange, new world. The parts where the film reaches its peak are the sequences where Jake accesses Yang’s memories. In those moments, everything within the film seemingly comes together, as Kogonada (also serving as his own editor) leans into the humanistic side of Alexander Weinstein’s 2016 short story. From his memories, Jake sees the empathy and compassion that Yang experienced and shared over time, and how he passed them on to Mika through everyday lessons. The string-filled music of ASKA brings overwhelming emotional power when it gets paired with heartbreaking visuals. After Yang is full of grace and compassion, with a touch of melancholy to make it a truly reflective experience of the human soul. It merges American sci-fi with the softer side of independent cinema, which makes it a perfect project to be under the A24 umbrella. An official release date has yet to be announced, which has justifiably angered cinephiles who have been left out in the cold. But when the day comes that this gem is opened for all to see, that patience will be greatly rewarded. A24 and Showtime will release After Yang simultaneously in select theaters and on streaming on March 04th. More Reviews Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Unabomber September 24, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Look Back September 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Elsinore September 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen

The Holdovers September 12, 2023 By: Button Hunter Friesen Between its retro production titles, popping sound, dissolved editing, and grainy cinematography, Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers is not just a film that is set in 1970; it looks and feels like it was made during that time. The Omaha-born writer/director (only directing in this outing) returns from a six-year hiatus after the disappointing Downsizing , delivering one of his best films through a great story and equally great characters. The titular band of misfits at Barton Academy are those who have been left behind during the two-week holiday break. They’re the ones who can’t go home to their families, either because they don’t have one or they’re not welcome. The curmudgeonly history teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) presides over them. He’s been handed this shit detail because none of the other teachers like him (the students share that sentiment), and because he’s also all alone. The worst of his troublemaking leftovers is Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa). He has a supernatural talent for getting into trouble and pushing Paul’s buttons. But he’s also a very gifted student, consistently getting the top score in class, a nearly impossible feat due to the rigors of the course and Paul’s torturous teaching style. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhKLpJmHhIg Also left with Paul and Angus is the school’s cook Mary. She’s decided to stay put to be with the memory of her son, as he was enrolled in the school before being drafted and killed in Vietnam a few months back. These three unlikely companions form a holiday family, going on misadventures together and learning something about each other and themselves. Nothing about writer David Hemingson’s past indicated that he would make such a bitingly funny and introspective script, let alone on the first try, at least in the realm of feature films. He’s written for a couple of television shows, none too noteworthy except for the short-lived Kitchen Confidential starring pre-fame Bradley Cooper. Paul’s insulting Latin phrases and general disregard for his students’ confidence put up a tough exterior, one that will take a large tool and persistence to crack. Giamatti is masterful with his barbs, getting under your skin with ease as you consistently plead, “Why can’t you just be nice?” Yet he’s always likable, with the later sections of the movie interestingly pulling back the layers of his past. Much of that later warmth also comes from Sessa and Randolph’s performances. Sessa delivers an astounding debut performance, overcoming many of the rookie tropes. The pain of Randolph’s character is felt in every scene, but she refuses to make it her whole personality. She’s hilarious when she checks Giamatti’s callousness and provides the warmth Angus needs at this difficult time. I expect and fully support Oscar campaigns for each of these performers. Through his directorial choices, Payne makes The Holdovers into a Christmas classic for adults. The cinematography glows like a warm fire and the relaxed pacing allows these characters to breathe. This is a melancholic film, with Payne knowing that the holidays are not full of yuletide cheer for everyone. But there are still seasons' greetings to be had, just enough to make you want to be a better person and stay close to those that matter most. What more could you ask for in times like these? This review was originally published from the international premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Focus Features will release The Holdovers in select theaters on October 27th, followed by a nationwide expansion on November 10th. More Reviews Primetime September 22, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Unabomber September 24, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Look Back September 16, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Elsinore September 14, 2026 By: Hunter Friesen Hunter Friesen