The 16 Best New Films That Premiered at the Fall Festivals

‘April’ (dir. Dea Kulumbegashvili)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich:

“There isn’t a horror director alive who wouldn’t kill to create frames as tense, ominous, and viscerally captivating as those of Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili, who applies her talents toward elemental character studies about rural women suffering under the yoke of patriarchy at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains. 

“Her debut feature, 2020’s masterful ‘Beginning,’ tells the story of a disillusioned Jehovah’s Witness who starts to unravel after her church is firebombed by extremists in the very first shot, a static tableau held for several minutes before its Haneke-like remove is shattered with a molotov cocktail. Kulumbegashvili’s even more accomplished and terrifying follow-up ‘April’ — which concerns a hospital obstetrician whose career is put at risk when a rare stillbirth threatens to expose her unsanctioned night job as an abortion provider — requires even less time to crush your entire being in its brace.”

‘Babygirl’ (dir. Halina Reijn)

From IndieWire’s review by Ryan Lattanzio:

“The worst thing your partner could possibly say to you after sex, after you’ve said ‘I love you,’ is the dreaded ‘love you.’ No ‘I.’ And that’s not the most demoralizing response Romy (Nicole Kidman) has for an amorous confession by her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) in ‘Babygirl,’ writer/director Halina Reijn’s provocative erotic dramedy that begins and ends with an orgasm. One of them is faked, but in between, this perversely funny and absorbing new film explores the pleasure gap between men and women, and how our inability to talk about sex limits our ability to just do it.

“And there’s lots of sex here, with Kidman going raw inside and out for one of her top performances in a career built on risk-taking. That’s all the way back to her psychosexual breakout in ‘Dead Calm’ and as recently as ‘Big Little Lies,’ where she played a woman in a more blatantly toxic kind of S&M relationship than the sex-positive one her powerful CEO shares in ‘Babygirl’ with a seductive intern, played by Harris Dickinson.”

‘The Brutalist’ (dir. Brady Corbet)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich:

“It might seem too easy to observe that Brady Corbet’s ‘The Brutalist’ — a 215-minute slab of a film that spans 30 years in the life of Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who flees to America in the hopes of building a better future — has been constructed to embody the aesthetics of its title character. Shot in VistaVision and projected on 300lbs.’ worth of 70mm film stock, Corbet’s epic draws a perfectly self-evident connection between the weight of its raw material and that of the concrete monolith Tóth creates over the course of the story, and the same could be said of its minimalistic framing, its bone-deep aversion to nostalgia, and, most of all, the movie’s efforts to reveal the soul of its subject through the geometry of its design.

“But anyone familiar with Corbet’s previous features (‘The Childhood of a Leader’ and ‘Vox Lux’) will recognize that the seismic and shuddering obviousness of his style provides its own point. A deadly serious and fetishistically Euro-centric young auteur who’s fascinated by the cyclical relationship between trauma and culture (‘The Childhood of a Leader’ was about the abuse suffered by a fascist tyrant during his formative years, ‘Vox Lux’ about how a school shooting gave rise to a pop star whose celebrity is then repurposed towards even more fatal ends), Corbet delights in the violent cause-and-effect of the 20th century, which shook the Earth off its axis in a way that invited people to reimagine it in their own image.”

‘The End’ (dir. Joshua Oppenheimer)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich:

“It’s a classic story prompt: The last man on Earth hears a knock at the door. In Joshua Oppenheimer’s delirious and delicately monumental ‘The End,’ the man is an über-affluent family. The ‘door’ (so to speak) connects the scorched ruins of our planet to the cavernous underground bunker where these characters have buried themselves for the last 25 years. The knock reverberates with a force powerful enough to dislodge all the feelings they’ve worked so hard to bury along with them — the humanity they’ve had to deny somewhere deep within themselves in order to make peace with the humanity they chose to leave behind on the surface. 

“Despite the broad familiarity of its premise, however, this story doesn’t unfold like any post-apocalyptic fable before it. For one thing, it’s a full-throated musical that starts with Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton leading the rest of the survivors in a forced smile of a song about the brightness of their shared future. For another, a traditional plot — the kind often predicated upon the discovery that ‘the last man on Earth’ is much less alone than he thought — never really threatens to materialize, even if the film’s characters are seen preparing for that scenario through a series of amusingly theatrical fire drills.”

‘Familiar Touch’ (dir. Sarah Friedland)

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland:

“Ruth (Tony nominee Kathleen Chalfant) is preparing for a visitor. But she can’t find the outfit she wants to wear, no matter how many times she flips through her closet. And the meal is coming together oddly, with extra ingredients tossed to the side (or, in one evocative case, lined up neatly in the dish dryer). And Ruth, while she knows enough to get dressed and to make one of her signature meals for the event, can’t quite remember who she is hosting. What is his name? Why is he here? Are they on a date?

“The man who appears in her cozy home is reserved and nervous (he’s played by H. Jon Benjamin, offering the rare and welcome dramatic turn for the comedian and voice actor). And when Ruth slowly turns their stilted conversation into more flirty directions, he looks as if he’s about to jump out of his skin. And then he gently packs her up, gets her in the car, and drives her to what will later be termed a “geriatric country club.” Ruth may be shocked to her core when kind nurse Vanessa (a luminous Carolyn Michelle) thanks Benjamin’s Steve for bringing his mother — ‘I don’t have a son?!’ — to her new home, but things have snapped into place for us long ago.

“In ‘Familiar Touch,’ filmmaker Sarah Friedland’s achingly intimate drama, we follow Ruth as she attempts to acclimate to her new life (and where it will eventually take her) over the course of her early days in the home and, specifically, in its memory care unit. Friedland, who also wrote the film‘s script, is not given over to histrionics or blaring displays of emotion, instead asking us to follow Ruth and experience the world through her eyes. The impact is profound.”

‘The Friend’ (dirs. David Siegel and Scott McGehee)

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland:

“There’s no way to play this part cool: for the entire second half of David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s “The Friend,” this critic was reduced to a blubbering, sobbing, heaving mess, clutching damp paper towels and alternating between choking and laughing. While the filmmaking pair’s latest might sound squarely aimed at Naomi Watts super-fans and intense animal people, what they actually present in ‘The Friend’ isn’t so very niche at all: instead, it’s the sort of witty, wise, and warm character study we seem to be running out of these days. And that’s just when it comes to its standout dog star, the Great Dane (emphasis on great) Bing.

“The film opens both before and after the arrival of Apollo, the Great Dane at its center. Through shared voiceover narration, Iris (Naomi Watts) and her mentor Walter (Bill Murray) set the scene, recounting the time that Walter, while on a seemingly everyday run around Brooklyn’s river walk, first encountered an abandoned Apollo. Awestruck by the great beast, the impulsive Walter had no choice. He took him in. Or Apollo took him in. It’s hard to say, really. But bringing someone — anyone — into your life comes with its own questions, and when Walter muses, ‘What will happen to the dog?,’ he’s not just talking about the dog.”

‘Friendship’ (dir. Andrew DeYoung)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich:

“Craig Waterman is a middle class suburbanite who works at an office company that makes their clients’ products more addictive — whether those products are apps, foods, or politicians. In lieu of friends, Craig is casual acquaintances with his co-workers, and he looks forward to seeing ‘the new Marvel’ because he hears it’s so crazy that it’s literally driving people insane. His entire wardrobe comes from a company called Ocean View Dining, he’s obsessed with trying the ‘SEAL Team 6’ special at a local restaurant (a 22,000-calorie meal that replicates what its namesake ate after killing Osama Bin Laden), and his wife Tami still kisses their teenage son on the mouth. 

“From a distance, he might appear to be the most normal man in America, but Craig Waterman is (obviously) played by ‘I Think You Should Leave’ maestro Tim Robinson, so if you look just a little bit closer it snaps into focus that he’s more like an alien impostor who could only figure out how to mimic 99.97 percent of human behavior, and has grown to be completely defined and enraged by the tiny portion that continues to elude him. Then again, that might be the most normal thing about him.

“Sure, the average man probably wouldn’t eat an entire bar of soap in the middle of a group hang as a form of self-punishment for violating bro code, but who among us doesn’t want to be accepted? Who among us doesn’t feel — either occasionally or always — like social codes are a chaotic second language that other people were born speaking like a mother tongue? Who among us wouldn’t sell our souls for even the briefest taste of what everyone else seems to enjoy for free? 

“Robinson’s obsessive and volatile (but also hyper-earnest) screen persona so perfectly crystallizes a modern form of impotent male rage that it’s become a language unto itself on the internet, where everyone leads with their id. But Andrew DeYoung’s frequently hilarious ‘Friendship’ — which stretches its star’s comic schtick to multiplex dimensions in a movie that feels very much like a feature-length ‘I Think You Should Leave’ sketch — helps clarify that Robinson’s humor is rooted in confusion more than anything else.”

‘Hard Truths’ (dir. Mike Leigh)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich:

Pansy is to Poppy what Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Glass was to David Dunn — the existence of one implies the existence of the other. They will never cross paths, much as all of Leigh’s characters seem to occupy a shared universe that so honestly resembles our own, but if they did I suspect that it would result in an apocalyptic collision of psychic distress. And what a shame it would be to lose either one of these women. While Poppy is an SPF 100-strong blast of sunshine and Pansy might be the single most vituperatively unpleasant character the movies have ever produced, Leigh renders them both equally worthy of love — even if one of them seems to have nothing but hate on her mind.

As played by an absolutely titanic Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whose performance somehow lives up to the standard that she and Leigh once set with ‘Secrets & Lies,’ it would be impossible to overstate the raw spectacle of watching Pansy make her way through the world; a spectacle that Leigh exaggerates further by confining the character to a modest little film that’s only a touch bigger than the working class London home she shares with her husband Curtley (David Webber) and their stunted 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Of course, ‘shares’ doesn’t accurately reflect the dynamic inside of a house that Pansy rules like a dragon, her hair-trigger fury so violent that Curtley and Moses tend to creep through the halls in silence (not that it helps), her grievances so pervasive they appear to have scared all traces of color off the walls. If anyone else dared to walk around in something as vibrant as Pansy’s soft pink bathrobe it would surely give her a migraine.

‘The Last Showgirl’

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland:

“Following the world premiere of Gia Coppola’s deep-feeling Las Vegas drama ‘The Last Showgirl,’ star Pamela Anderson teared up during a Q&A while sharing that Kate Gersten’s script was the only good script she’s ever received. And while we don’t doubt there have been plenty of good scripts around in the many decades the Canadian starlet has been working, we don’t doubt they weren’t sent to her — the product of a profound underestimation of the erstwhile ‘Baywatch’ star’s prodigious talents.

“Like the character at the heart of Coppola’s film — the eponymous ‘last showgirl’ Shelly — Anderson has been forced to spend most of her life contending with unfair expectations and unreasonable requests. And while ‘The Last Showgirl’ follows Shelly as she deals (and, often, doesn’t) with the fallout from a lifetime spent blazing her own trail, Coppola’s film seems destined and designed to do the opposite for Anderson: to open up an entirely new series of possibilities for the actress. ‘The Last Showgirl’ is both the role of a lifetime for Anderson, one that can fully capture her incredible emotional intensity and vulnerability, and (we can only hope) the start of a brand new career for her.”

‘The Luckiest Man in America’ (dir. Samir Oliveros)

From IndieWire’s review by Christian Zilko:

“At their best, game shows have always been defined by their juxtaposition of genuine stakes and utter ridiculousness. Audiences see flashing lights, gaudy neon color palettes, and spray-tanned hosts with unconvincingly dyed hair, but contestants see a battlefield where fortunes can be won and lost. Daytime shows revolve around games of chance deemed simple enough to provide the most mindless of background noise while people do chores around the house, but the money involved often has life-changing implications for those involved.

“Samir Oliveros’ ‘The Luckiest Man in America’ successfully exploits that tension in its semi-fictionalized telling of Michael Larson’s (Paul Walter Hauser) record shattering 1984 win on ‘Press Your Luck,’ in which he took home over $110,000 by figuring out that the show’s seemingly randomized wheel spins were all based on the same five light patterns. Unfolding almost exclusively on the CBS lot where the game show was taped, the film treats the producers’ quest to figure out his impossible knack for the game with all the seriousness of a Secret Service counterfeiting operation. At the same time, its candy-colored set and ’80s game show kitsch prevent audiences from ever forgetting about the asininity of the setting. It all combines to form a delightfully sleazy ensemble thriller that goes down easy in 90 minutes — and yet another reminder that Hauser is one of his generation’s most interesting movie stars.”

‘Nickel Boys’ (dir. RaMell Ross)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich:

“In its way, and in the context of a mainstream film that Amazon MGM Studios will release into hundreds or thousands of theaters across the United States, [RaMell] Ross’ aesthetic is as radical as Whitehead’s reimagining of the Underground Railroad as an actual train line. It’s also every inch as successful. Collaborating with the brilliant cinematographer Jomo Fray (‘All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt’), who shares his prismatic attention to detail, Ross has devised an astoundingly effective way to express the relationship between how we see things and what we glean from them. The result is a rare testament to the transformative potential of cinematic adaptation (Ross co-wrote the script with Joslyn Barnes), and a staggeringly beautiful reminder that America’s most enduring narratives are only subject to change when people are invited to look at them in a different light. (‘Cell phones didn’t allow a new kind of violence,’ Ross says in the film’s press notes, ‘but an uptick in witnessing’).”

‘On Falling’ (dir. Laura Carreira)

From IndieWire’s review by Sophie Monks Kaufman:

“This debut feature from Portuguese director, Laura Carreira, produced by the company Ken Loach co-founded, Sixteen Films, is far better than anything living-political-legend Loach made during the final innings of his career. Using a social realism that is all the more powerful for its restraint, Carreira avoids wild swings and contrived speeches, and trusts the audience to be swept up by a devastating performance of a woman being hollowed out from within by inhumane working conditions. 

“We are dropped in with Aurora (Joana Santos) as she shows up to work as a packer at a Scottish factory. Carreira has a docu-realistic eye for setting and a dramatist’s instinct for pacing and mood. The pitter-patter of workers footsteps, the squeaking of a metal turnstile gate, the beeping of Aurora’s scanner — a tool of her trade — form a rhythm so that there is an assured quality that marks the film as a work by someone who is has not fallen into the trap of thinking that social realism means no production values. Instantly, there is a charge to events despite the fact that the film is painstakingly fashioned from plausible locations and scenes are allowed to breathe.”

‘On Swift Horses’ (dir. Daniel Minahan)

From IndieWire’s review by Christian Zilko:

“‘On Swift Horses’ is a stunning tableau of almost-romances, weaving together ephemeral moments of magic with the pain that inevitably follows when the universe takes them away. One of the best aspects of Daniel Minahan’s film is the fact that it lacks a conventional villain. Everyone — even Lee, whose very existence is the biggest obstacle towards Julius and Muriel living honestly — makes their best effort to be a good person in a world that seems determined to take everyone away from them.”

‘Queer’ (Luca Guadagnino)

From IndieWire’s review by Ryan Lattanzio:

“As an adaptation of ‘Junkie’ author William S. Burroughs’ second novel, ‘Queer’ is about chemical addictions, yes. But it’s even more about being so addicted to a person that, no matter how much you turn yourself inside out trying to get them to love you — charming them with your literary voice, lathering yourself into a stupor on drugs, or even going to the far reaches of a jungle — they will never love you the way you want them to, and even telepathy couldn’t help explain to you why.

“Luca Guadagnino’s profound and kaleidoscopic new film begins in a post-World War II Mexico City of the mind and ends in the Ecuadorian rainforest on an ayahuasca trip that’s part Apichatpong Weerasethakul, part ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ but fully the ‘Call Me By Your Name’ director’s own strange, sui generis creation. All sweaty, raw, self-lacerating, and debauched, William Lee (Daniel Craig) is an ex-pat who wanders from bar to bar in the Mexican capital in the 1940s, here recreated at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios with the rigorous detail, scope and strangeness of the warehouse mindscape in Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York.'”

‘Separated’ (dir. Errol Morris)

From IndieWire’s review by Christian Blauvelt:

“The cruelty is the point. We’ve heard that sentence a lot over the past eight years. At no time was it ever more blisteringly accurate than during the family-separation policy the Trump administration enacted within days of taking office in January 2017. Watching Errol Morris‘s urgent reminder of a documentary — possibly the most enraging film yet made by a director who’s certainly known how to illuminate infuriating topics over the past 45 years — will raise your blood pressure considerably. Especially on one point that ‘Separated,’ produced by NBC News, implies, but never underlines: How is it that we forgot about this shocking inhumanity so quickly?”

‘The Wild Robot’ (dir. Chris Sanders)

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland:

“Somewhere on a distant island, a verdant little slice of nature filled to the brim with all of North America’s greatest hits creatures (bears, raccoons, skunks, foxes, geese, all the recognizable stars), a snazzy robot has crash-landed. Her name is ROZZUM unit 7134, she’s winningly voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, and she’s a real striver. Like all ROZZUM units — imagine the love child of The Iron Giant and WALL-E — she’s built to serve, and will ‘always complete its task, just ask.’ Unfortunately, when a technological marvel like ROZZUM unit 7134 unexpectedly arrives on an uninhabited island, finding a human master to actually tell them her what to do is a hefty ask.

“Such is the starting point of Chris Sanders’ gorgeously rendered — both in style and tone — ‘The Wild Robot,’ which the filmmaker himself adapted from Peter Brown’s bestselling novel of the same name (spoiler alert: the books are a trilogy, and here’s hoping we get more films to match them). Crafted in a painterly 2D style, the world of ‘The Wild Robot’ is instantly immersive, even as it takes a while for the plucky Roz (as she will eventually come to be known) to settle in. The animals are not exactly welcoming to Roz, early evidence of the film‘s occasionally darker elements (this is, after all, an ostensibly kid-friendly feature that features an early and awesome joke about baby possum death).”