Looking for what to see in theaters? Our feature, updated weekly, highlights our top recommendations for films currently in theaters, from new releases to restorations receiving a proper theatrical run.
While we already provide extensive monthly new-release recommendations and weekly streaming recommendations, as distributors’ roll-outs can vary, this is a one-stop list to share the essential films that may be on a screen near you.
Backrooms (Kane Parsons)
The opening five minutes serve as an ideal primer for anybody unfamiliar with Parsons’ Backrooms web series, and who maybe need a little extra convincing that a 20-year-old YouTuber has some juice: a found-footage recording of a researcher lost in the endless liminal space who gets chased by some unseen force of evil. Even when seen in the extremely low resolution of period-appropriate early-1990s camcorders, there’s something immediately disquieting about the uncanny production design (courtesy of Perkins’ regular collaborator Danny Vermette), where signs appear as their mirror image, various objects of furniture have melted into the floor, and the only living souls are seagulls. It’s an uncomfortable space to be in before the echoes of footsteps begin gathering speed behind our cameraman, and as this tape ends in offscreen devastation, we flash forward approximately ten days to meet Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a failed architect and owner of the fabulously named furniture store Cap’n Clark’s Ottoman Empire. – Alistair R. (full review)
Blue Film (Elliot Tuttle)
“Provocation” has become watered-down in recent times. All it takes to provoke someone is tossing off a bunch of half-assed offensive statements or aiming your cannon at every divisive mainstream issue on a quest to push people’s buttons. Getting a reaction out of people is easy; actually making them consider things is another matter entirely. Blue Film, by that token, is provocative in the truest sense of the term. Elliott Tuttle’s film seeks to unsettle, question, and, yes, provoke you. But his masterful two-hander wants, more than anything, to extend understanding to both men at the center, asking you to see them as flawed humans with depth and complexity, even if we’d rather not. – Devan S. (full review)
Blue Heron (Sophy Romvari)
Blue Heron, Romvari’s feature debut, once again mines the director’s own history, following a Hungarian family of six as it settles in a nondescript stretch of suburbia outside Vancouver. The opening line, “I struggle now to remember much of my childhood,” belongs to the youngest child, Sasha (Eylul Guven), the film to her older stepbrother Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), a sullen, taciturn adolescent with a history of self-destructive behavior no one has learned how to deal with, much less address. Yet Romvari refuses to write him off as a troubled child. Yes, the kid is most certainly not all right, but he traverses Blue Heron as its most mysterious, elusive character, and that impenetrability is a measure of Romvari’s empathy. Rather than pathologizing his pain––a tendency his own parents succumb to––she invites us to sit with it and bask in his drawn-out silences, in the gaps between the words and imperfect memories that grown-up Sasha (Amy Zimmer), in the film’s second half, will try piecing together. – Leonardo G. (full review)
Carolina Caroline (Adam Carter Rehmeier)
How do you tell when you stop being good people pretending to be bad and realize you’re just bad people who can’t even trick themselves into thinking they’re anything but? Caroline (Samara Weaving) asks this aloud earlier than you might expect, considering the crime escapade she and new boyfriend Oliver (Kyle Gallner) enjoy commenced at her behest. She didn’t just take his advice and wonder why she’d never left the one place she’s ever known. She didn’t just reject the notion of staying because it’s safe. No, Caroline chose to meet those realities with the decision to become a full-blown outlaw because it made her feel truly alive. – Jared M. (full review)
The Currents (Milagros Mumenthaler)
A selection at TIFF, NYFF, San Sebastian, and more, Milagros Mumenthaler’s acclaimed, mysterious character study The Currents is now in theaters. Jourdain Searles said in her NYFF review, “Writer-director Milagros Mumenthaler paints an intimate portrait of a woman trying to reckon with her fractured identity, trying not to fall into the grip of madness. Mumenthaler understands that motherhood requires an element of performance that reminds the mother that her life is no longer hers alone. Though the love for her daughter is still there inside, she cowers from it, preoccupied with inspecting the current shape of her life. In therapy, Lina expresses a fear of water’s power and the strength of a current that could wash her away. It’s as if she now knows the fragility of her existence, and that the confidence that once governed her was washed away when she jumped off the bridge. Despite the eccentricity of her fears, the emotions behind them are painfully relatable to any woman who feels that the inertia of her life has taken over.”
Disclosure Day (Steven Spielberg)
Certain beliefs unite all of humanity. Take, for example, the idea that the extraordinary is possible. Or, even more, that the impossible is possible. Steven Spielberg isn’t shy about believing in extraterrestrial life, and he doesn’t think you should be either. He’s so sincere about this aloof-yet-sky-high-stakes concept that he’s returning to it again with a very simple profundity in tow: “Empathy is the core of animate existence–our evolutionary advantage.” And he intends to remind us of our capacity for such. – Luke H. (full review)
Forastera (Lucía Aleñar Iglesias)
It starts as a gag. Pepa (Núria Prims) rings to apologize to her mother and believes it is she who picks up the phone. Her teenage daughter Cata (Zoe Stein) plays along, pretending to answer as she assumes her grandmother would, until her mother finally catches on and says her name. When it happens again, however, Catalina (Marta Angelat) has died. But instead of telling the hairdresser this news, Cata once again pretends to be her grandmother to cancel the appointment and assure the woman that she’ll ring soon for a touch-up. – Jared M. (full review)
The Little Sister (Hafsia Herzi)
In her mosque’s perfect world, Fatima (Nadia Melliti) is on the right path. A good family. A tight-knit group of protective and loyal friends. A boyfriend ready to propose. A devout faith in Islam. In many ways, this teen is doing better on the wife checklist than her older sisters (besides kitchen skills). And maybe she would have followed that path in Algeria or Egypt. But this is France. The opportunity to live her true self is here if she wants it. – Jared M. (full review)
I Love Boosters (Boots Riley)
A parody of dialectical materialism (you’ll understand what this means when you see the film), superficial economies, and the cult of fast fashion, I Love Boosters—the second feature from rapper, activist, and filmmaker Boots Riley—proves a spirited and hilarious comedy in its first two acts before falling back on action-comedy tropes in its finale. Perhaps there’s no way to fully sustain the gonzo energy delivered in its set-up, which initially offers a sharp critique of capitalism as biting as Riley’s debut feature Sorry to Bother You. – John F. (full review)
Jinsei (Ryuya Suzuki)
Maybe it’s harder than it looks to present the end of the world calmly, especially in only 93 minutes. That’s one of the major achievements of the new, relatively lo-fi anime film Jinsei. Over a hundred years—all through the prism of pop music and Japanese identity—one quickly learns how much millennial- and zoomer-doom mindset is just as present in the land of the rising sun. – Ethan V. (full review)
Obsession (Curry Barker)
Even if he hadn’t recently landed the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, you’ve likely heard the name Curry Barker. He’s the latest in the recent spate of former sketch comedians/YouTubers turning to horror-directing with an online feature under his belt. Obsession—his theatrical debut—fully lives up to both his promise and the title. For whatever familiarity lies within it, there’s a strong seed just begging to flourish into something great. – Devan S. (full review)
Pressure (Anthony Maras)
Can you make an engaging film about predicting the weather? Pressure, directed by Anthony Maras, answers this question in the affirmative. Set mere days before D-Day is set to commence, General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) needs an accurate forecast to ensure the operation will go as planned. The film’s stark opening minutes portray the vicious aftermath of Operation Tiger, a D-Day training exercise gone horribly wrong only months earlier. Hundreds of American soldiers were killed by friendly fire after some deadly miscommunication. We find Eisenhower steadfast but shaken, surrounded by British generals who believe they can do a better job leading the Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) to victory. Damian Lewis represents this feeling in his outsized portrayal of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of all D-Day land forces. – Dan M. (full review)
Promised Sky (Erige Sehiri)
With Promised Sky, French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri offers an intimate view from the diverse perspectives of those caught in the mess of systemic prejudice, and how difficult it can be to play fair when the deck is stacked against you. Though uneven at times, strong performances and a ripped-from-the-BBC story make for a heartbreaking reflection on the challenges of being moral in an immoral place. Promised Sky’s glimpse of the uncertainty ingrained into the lives of a vulnerable population is set in Tunisia, yet it’s unnerving how seamlessly it could take place in the United States. – Kent M. W. (full review)
Silent Friend (Ildikó Enyedi)
Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi is best known for her 2017 Golden Bear-winning film On Body and Soul, where an unlikely pair of characters met in a dream and, as deer, fell in love. This remarkably tender Berlinale winner is, in many ways, the precursor to Enyedi’s newest film, notwithstanding the fact that in-between came The Story of My Wife (2021), a period drama of an obsessive love affair starring Léa Seydoux. Not to say the latter is irrelevant: the English-language debut allowed Enyedi to expand the details of her singular worlds beyond language and cement herself as a European auteur to whom actors flock. While Silent Friend stars the indomitable Tony Leung (and also Seydoux in a small role), the real star of this film is a ginkgo tree. If On Body and Soul was fauna, Silent Friend is flora. – Savina P. (full review)
Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Sho Miyake)
Two Seasons is the third in a wonderful recent run by Miyake, joining Small, Slow But Steady (2022) and All The Long Nights (2024). With each he has shown a remarkable ability for mixing porcelain-like levels of craft and detail with stories of comparatively messy human compassion––a cinematic mix that never fails to delight. Despite racking up some awards for those films, his work plays at the kind of modest register that often keeps filmmakers of his ilk relatively below-the-radar or, at the very least, just shy of name recognition. Winning the Leopard might be the push that elevates him to auteur status and perhaps (with respect to Locarno) the biggest of the big competitions, where I feel he belongs. – Rory O. (full review)
With Hasan in Gaza (Kamal Aljafari)
While there are no documentaries in the world that can give true justice to the pain experienced by the Palestinian people, Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza is one of the most poetic and profound to arrive thus far. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “The new documentary With Hasan in Gaza––a poignant, meditative portrait of a city now fighting for its life––works as both a travelogue and time machine. In 2001, the filmmaker Kamal Aljafari journeyed to Palestine in the hopes of finding Adder Rahim, a friend he made while serving seven months in the juvenile section of Israel’s Naqab Desert prison when he was 17 years old. During filming, Aljafari met Hasan, a guide who agreed to drive him the length of the country, down its coastal strip, during which time the director documented what he saw: children playing, rows of cars and buildings, bustling city streets.”
More Films Now Playing in Theaters
Read all reviews here. For our NYC-specific repertory round-ups, including many films that will tour the country, bookmark NYC Weekend Watch.