Lee Byung-hun lends a delicious lead performance of dark desperation as a father and gardener who finds himself on the outs in a career crossroads in Park Chan-wook’s sneaky satire No Other Choice (B+). The antihero at the film’s center sets violent targets on his competitors for a coveted job, and the movie keeps upping the ante with zany episodes. As his spouse, Son Ye-jin is the film’s unsung MVP, lending diabolical support to the story’s central conflicts. Chan-wook’s mastery of tone, pace and picturesque cinematic frames help carry a very dark premise over the finish line. Expect nothing short of relentless.
Anyone with kids will understand how stubborn they can be to get what they want. Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea (B+) explores the very fraught geopolitical complexities in Israel through the eyes of a tween Palestinian boy named Khaled who just wants to wade in the waters of the Mediterranean while he’s young. Unfortunately the beach is out of his reach as he’s singled out on a field trip and denied entry at a checkpoint, so he sneaks into Israel, sparking a journey for freedom and a desperate search by his father. Young actor Muhammad Gazawi is magnificent as the 12-year-old at the film’s center, and his mature, emotive abilities keep audiences locked in on his unlikely plight, in the style of a Hope and Glory or Empire of the Sun. Khalifa Natour plays his father Ribhi, an undocumented laborer working in Israel, and his quest to reunite with his runaway son adds poignant layers to the story. The film was Israel’s submission for the 98th Academy Awards. It is noted for its portrayal of Israeli occupation, drawing both acclaim and controversy within Israel for its depiction of soldiers and policies at large. Carmeli-Pollak keeps the journey moving, even though its plot and pace meanders in the middle. All in all, it’s a movie of both ideas and action, a tender tale with tense underpinnings . The child’s viewpoint on justice and the nature of borders will surely spark conversation.
Here are the dates to book an in-person viewing of this landmark film at the 2026 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival:
Jodie Foster plays an idiosyncratic American psychiatrist in Paris and flexes her remarkable language skills in Rebecca Zlotowski’s largely unremarkable dramatic thriller A Private Life (C). While the protagonist’s tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient, the viewer can’t help but contemplate the lead actress in full French-speaking mode attempting to also emote within the confines of a fairly flimsy and meandering mystery. Her character is seen alternately puffing cigs, gulping wine or muttering “merde” while en route to each subsequent scene. Zlotowski doesn’t give Foster much to work with in terms of story, ensemble or even relics of modernity. For every reference to long Covid grounding the tale in modern times, there are countless conversations about missing cassettes and a tense trip to the card catalogue. The drab cinematography and dreary atmosphere fail to give the film the pick-me-up that might have helped hasten the pace. I kept waiting for my seventh grade French class teacher to invite us all to a “surprise-partie.” There’s one sequence of hypnosis that almost takes viewers to an alternate otherworld, but the film largely remains steeped in potboiler tropes without that veritable pot ever boiling. One sexy subplot goes absolutely nowhere; another goes further than one would wish. Thankfully there are a few anticipated moments of joie de vivre in the final act.
Dueling piano players, hit makers of the karaoke leaderboard and all-out tribute bands rarely get their proper due in the limelight. But get ready for the latter musical misfits to enjoy cinematic comeuppance. The true life story of two down-on-their-luck musicians who perform in a Neil Diamond cover band in grunge-era Milwaukee, Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue (B+) is one of those movies they just don’t make anymore, the idealistic tale of two good but imperfect souls overcoming incredible odds to make amazing music and life together. A jubilant Hugh Jackman and a resplendent Kate Hudson co-star as Lightning & Thunder, two halves of a novelty act that doubles as an excuse for mutual burgeoning love interests. The film is unabashedly melodramatic and formulaic, and yet it still hits all the right notes to keep viewers deeply engaged. Hudson in particular is wonderful in her role, acting and singing her way through a crucible of challenges as a salt-of-the-earth everywoman. It’s a triumph for this popular actress. Brewer stages montages such as “Sweet Caroline,” “Play Me” and “Holly Holy” with gregarious gusto, with several standout montages mirroring stage life and behind the scenes travails. The film is the genuine article, with legitimately nice people being good to one another and lifting each other up in community. This is an enjoyable crowd pleaser successfully turning on the heart lights of communal multiplex patrons everywhere.
There goes Disney again with the preposterous notion that all should be equal; that’s right, follow-up features generally aren’t. Jared Bush and Byron Howard’s Zootopia 2 (B-) poses the premise that second-class citizen reptiles should be regarded equally in the pantheon of all-animal new urbanism. The spry duo of Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman returns as undercover cops in bunny and fox form, respectively, joined in the fun and puns by the amusing voice talents of Quinta Brunson, Fortune Feimster and Ke Huy Quan. The fast-paced action is fairly nonstop with few amazing animations or detours to distinguish the sequel from the original. Still, as global blockbusters go, this proves pretty entertaining for both kids and adults (including the overall Chinatown vibe and The Shining references) and gets a marginal recommendation as a family outing.
Those wondering if the third film in the saga about clashes between humans and blue alien creatures would live up to the epic stature of its predecessors can hold their collective Pandora breath. Despite a lush rendered environment, James Cameron’s latest opus Avatar: Fire and Ash (C) is just as head-scratching in its mediocrity as the two films before it. In some ways this one’s a little worse as it flagrantly rehashes many of the themes in the last bloated entry. Rarely has so much meticulous craft been invented at the service of such benign characters and pedantic a storyline. Riffs on loss, conflicts with warring tribes and meddling humans, meditations on the nobility of sea creatures and even Biblical parables about fathers and surrogate sons don’t make this entry any better. The soggy story and screenplay extinguish most of the intrigue here, with flickers of action sequences filling the ample running time between the senseless sermonizing. None of the CGI-coated actors get much of a showcase as this glorified screen saver parades before us.
Timothy Chalamet’s titular character in Josh Safdie’s fresh, funny and mightily maximalist Marty Supreme (A) is ostensibly a champion table tennis player in 1950s America, but more than that, he’s a big talker of the first order. In successive sequences of powerful propulsion, the ambitious young man asserts one prattle after another in his pursuit of his own form of gamified survival and world domination. Call it hustle memory as the upstart fakes it or takes it ‘til he makes it. In a form of art meets reality, the celebrity on the rise behind the commanding central performance creatively markets his film product in every manner possible or practical, and Safdie and collaborators bottle this delirious derring-do in consecutive kinetic sequences of dramatic dialogue and action. Chamalet successfully carries the burden of his toxic central character on solid shoulders with rounds of vigor, charisma, gusto and bravura emitting from his agile acting pinwheel; even if you don’t like his cunning character, you can’t help giving him points for pulling out all the stops. One moment he’s hawking women’s shoes and the next he’s selling international dignitaries on ways to change the course of human destiny. Even if it’s half true, it’s tough not to be swept up in the bombast as he ping pongs through hyperlocal and global adventuring. This talky epic may suffocate some viewers in its angst and anxiety producing power, but it proves consistently winning and watchable fun. There’s hardly breathing room for any other acting surrounding Marty’s supremacy, but Gwyneth Paltrow and Odessa A’zion contribute some graceful screen time as a luminous movie star and scrappy neighborhood gal, respectively, who both become love interests and land mines in the protagonist’s vision quest. Daniel Lopatin’s infectious music is unstoppable in its rise, interlaced with dreamy pop music from decades to come. Darius Khondii’s stunning period-era cinematography is you-are-there visceral. In addition to his assured direction, Safdie is also co-writer and co-editor with Ronald Bronstein, and together they fashion a powderkeg of distinctly American invention and resilience in the pursuit of greatness. It’s an embarrassment of riches with such a handsome production design, breakneck pace and zinger-filled dialogue and an awesome reason to support your local cineplex.
A trio of spellbinding performances anchors a sometimes successful new domestic thriller, Paul Feig’s The Housemaid (B-). The twisty film follows a young woman with a troubled past, played by a deadpan and eerily relatable Sydney Sweeney, hired as the live-in help for a wealthy family, the delightfully cuckoo Amanda Seyfried and smoldering hubbie Brandon Sklenar. Their seemingly idyllic life unravels when it becomes quickly clear the household hides some scandalous Stepford-level secrets. Rebecca Sonnenshine’s screenplay based on the 2022 Freida McFadden novel popularized on BookTok mostly delivers on the delicious conceits of the three-hander, although it pushed toward a hopeful level of campiness not fully realized. Both women are glorious in their equally emotional and physical roles, and Sklenar proves a powerful screen presence in his scenes opposite each. The movie is not overly scary or suspenseful and takes its time introducing grislier themes. It works best when snarkiness or sexiness rise to the occasion. The film’s crafts are top-notch with Naomi Munro’s posh production design and John Schwartzman’s cinematography providing a bountiful take on a garishly hypnotic and vaguely Hitchcokian suburbia. The film should have been more judiciously edited but is largely the kind of fun throwaway thriller we don’t get enough of at the movies these days.
Eva Victor announces her arrival on the independent cinema scene as sardonic writer, star and director of the tragicomic Sundance sensation Sorry, Baby (B+); and her raw, fragmented plot structure makes for a sneakily emotional knockout of an experience, set in and around New England academia. Given much of the narrative covers heavy subject matter, Victor wisely frames the film and starts it as a friendship story opposite the magnificent Naomi Ackie, with Victor’s grad student character’s signature wit and idiosyncratic outlook remaining center stage throughout, even during dark passages. The interplay between these two is hilarious and healing. The nonlinear story takes viewers through the protagonist’s variety of memories both playful and painful and sometimes overtly ordinary. It doesn’t depict the sexual assault that forever changed her life: in fact, it’s the clever scrambling of events that makes the film’s emotional and physical violations so potent and powerful. Victor’s unflinching near-soliloquy about the story’s inciting incident, tucked tenderly in a middle passage, is one of the best sequences captured on film this year. Reliable trauma film fixture Lucas Hedges and an adorable gray tabby kitten (not to worry, the feline survives) are enjoyable in small emotional support roles. It’s ultimately an uplifting and moving film about caring for one another from a perspective of someone who tells it like it is. Via these “Victorious” authorial hands, this movie is an apt exploration of how every day can be so much better than our worst day.
A peculiar mix of existential road trip journey and deeply human dystopian drama, this year’s international film contender from Spain is a curiosity made more memorable through the trance of its soundscape. Oliver Laxe’s transfixing drama Sirat (B-) is a puzzling tale set in Morocco rave culture and follows desert denizens through a series of raw, uncompromising and disturbing episodes. The main throughline is a quest for a missing girl, but a variety of congregating characters contribute to a narrative about people facing their limits. The ensemble of actors plays its respective parts with no clear standout (Nashville it ain’t), but Kangding Ray (aka David Letellier) is the film’s MVP providing the atmospheric electronic score. The movie’s high points are visceral, experimental and observant as it plays witness to earth’s people as playthings and random occurrences as part of cosmic universal truths. The film nearly begs for concessions served in a dime bag. Like many who may imbibe and watch this, it loses significant steam toward the end.
Kleber Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent (B+) is a B-movie with a purpose. Even its title is a disguise for what it actually is. The movie follows a former professor played by a towering Wagner Moura who is caught in the political turmoil of the final years of the Brazilian military dictatorship, attempting to flee persecution and resist an authoritarian deceitful regime. Time jumps, all-out action scenes, even fantastical sequences punctuate a ‘70s stone-cold simmer. Leveraging the conventions of a pulp picture or drive-in style film helps some of the director’s headier themes rise to the surface. Moura is a charismatic and expressionistic vessel for the director’s intentions. It’s an engrossing film with carefree detours and hot takes on the way to profundity.
In a year with legitimate soaring music in a film set in the music industry (the rap face-off plus the pop songstress finale in Highest 2 Lowest) and moving film-within-a-film (the virtuoso director character in Sentimental Value lensing truly moving footage), Director Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? (C) manages to make stand-up comedy look about as boring as could be. Will Arnett’s protagonist is down in the dumps as his marriage to Laura Dern’s character crumbles, and he takes on open mics as a form of therapy. The cinematography gives a “you are there” quality despite it not being clear why any of us are there. The best sequences in the film are opposite child actors (they’re great). The film is neither funny nor insightful enough to stand out as either root word of “dramedy.” Arnett and Dern embody authenticity as real people, but they’re forced into scenarios and situations that don’t feel incredibly thought out. No star is born here nor any act of a maestro is on display. This one feels a little like they’re making it up as they go along.
