At 93 years old, Thelma Post (June Squibb) remains fiercely independent, living in the California home she shared with her late husband despite her family’s concerns that she’s too frail to be on her own. Her grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) has more faith in her – maybe because she’s the only one who seems to have any faith in him – and visits regularly, helping Thelma learn how to use her computer and filling her in on how things are going with his ex-girlfriend.

But one morning, Thelma gets a frantic phone call from someone claiming to be Danny, explaining he’s been in a car accident and needs her to bail him out of jail. Sweet Thelma springs into action to help her grandson and promptly posts $10,000 to a PO box…only for it to transpire that Danny was fast asleep in bed, and Thelma has been the victim of a particularly insidious phone scam.

When the police are indifferent to Thelma’s plight, she refuses to take no for an answer, and sets out on a mission to reclaim what was taken. After convincing her friend Ben (Richard Roundtree) to lend her his mobility scooter – which he agrees to, as long as they’re back in time for his starring role in the care home’s production of Annie – she sets off to track down the thieves and get her money back.

A zany road movie follows, taking cues from The Straight Story (although lacking the rambling magic of Lynch’s film) and Little Miss Sunshine as Thelma makes her way to the PO Box in question while her daughter (Parker Posey), son-in-law (Clark Gregg) and Danny try to track her down. The narrative is pretty straightforward, though Squibb and Roundtree’s delightful exchanges keep the energy up as they bicker about her stubborn quest for retribution.

Even with its feather-light tone, the film does effectively ramp up the tension when Thelma appears to get in over her head, and she’s able to weaponise the perception of her as a doddering old lady. The drive of the film as an inspirational riposte against ageism seems a little patronising (in the vain of ‘They’ve still got it!’ classics such as Going in Style and The Bucket List) and Thelma fits rather too neatly into the classic Sundance formula (quirky but sort of forgettable American indie comedy) but there’s no doubting June Squibb’s charisma, and it’s refreshing to see her in a lead role at the grand age of 94.

A grieving mother and grandfather attempt to go about their daily routine after the death of her young son. An elderly woman says goodbye to her recently deceased partner. A husband is devastated after his wife dies in a car accident. These three narratives never quite converge, but all find their trajectories altered when a mysterious event reanimates the dead in Thea Hvistendahl’s debut feature.

Adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel of the same name (the author behind Let the Right One In and Border), Hvistendahl’s take on the zombie genre deviates from the familiar with its glacial pace. The sparse script and sparing use of the typical violence associated with zombie movies are a refreshing change; we learn precious little about the characters on screen, which adds a growing uneasiness to the storytelling.

Although it’s hinted that the phenomenon has awoken the dead across the city (and potentially the world) the story remains steadfastly focused on the three separate stories. Anna (Renate Reinsve) and her father (Bjørn Sundquist) attempt to protect her reanimated son from the authorities. Tora (Bente Børsum) lovingly cleans up Elisabet (Olga Damani) in their home. David (Anders Danielsen Lie) attempts to explain to his children Flora (Inesa Dauksta) and Kian (Kian Hansen) that their mother died, but only temporarily.

The three groups all react to the return of their loved ones in similar ways, which does feel a little repetitive – it would have been interesting to see some divergence in their feelings – but the transformation of a zombie film into something slower and stranger than we’re used to is novel. Hvistendahl’s acutely close focus puts us directly in the room with her characters, whose grief has rendered them almost catatonic in turn. The loss of her son has left Anna suicidal and unable to eat. Tora doesn’t know how to live a life without Elisabeth. David only kissed his wife goodbye hours before, briefly discussing their plans to pick up a pet rabbit for their son’s birthday. The return of their loved ones almost brings them back to life too, but also forces them to turn a blind eye to some obvious, worrying complications.

Horror has long proven a rich prism through which filmmakers and screenwriters can explore the thorny nature of grief, and Handling the Undead is a reflection on the difficulty of saying goodbye, as well as how far we might go for a few more stolen moments with a loved one. Its glacial pace and the distance placed between the audience and the characters – the static wide shots position us as voyeurs encroaching on private moments – are unusual for a “zombie” film, creating something haunting and tragic, all the more shocking in its few truly horrifying moments. Instead, there’s a sense of sadness and dread that haunts every frame; the rolling fog that those left behind know all too well.

The first shot of I Saw The TV Glow is quite the opening salvo. The camera creeps along a suburban street just after dusk, passing over tangled veiny chalk art, the world covered in a blue so deep it seems to spill off the screen. The image precedes a film no less vibrant or eerie; its brash, attractive color palette pulls you under, and only when you’re fully submerged does it start to feel like you’re drowning. Director Jane Schoenbrun, whose debut film We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was shot almost entirely through webcams, announces themself as a vital new cinematic talent.

In their sophomore film, Schoenbrun focuses on two outcast teens, sheltered Owen and antisocial Maddy, who bond over The Pink Opaque, a Buffy and The Secret World of Alex Mack-inspired fantasy television series. On The Pink Opaque, the two spunky leads use their telepathic connection to fight surprisingly gruesome monsters – a dynamic which unsettles and entrances the pair. What we see of The Pink Opaque is remarkably compelling for a 90s children’s show, and Schoenbrun takes pains to avoid judgmentally depicting it as cheesy or inept, making it easy to see why our leads become so fixated on its mysteries.

“Sometimes The Pink Opaque feels more real than real life, you know?” says Maddy, who patterns her queer presentation after one of the show’s protagonists. The show becomes a neutral space where the two can grow close to one another while stifling the uncomfortable, painful facts of their suburban lives. I Saw The TV Glow spends most of its first half in a daze of nostalgia for the queer 90s, affectionate towards the period in a way that’s never saccharine.

As the film goes on, though, its disparate horror elements coalesce into a gut-wrenching portrait of anxiety and repression. Surreal agents of terror surround Owen: Fred Durst is terrifying in his brief appearances as Owen’s father, his stony silence and fleshy face recalling a Lon Chaney monster, while cult comedian Conner O’Malley channels his off-putting brand of humour into the familiar malevolent energy of a bullying coworker. The world around Owen seems increasingly hostile, and the film’s bright, deep colors begin to feel like they’re taunting him. Even scenes from The Pink Opaque go from a kid-friendly Are You Afraid of the Dark? style of horror to something genuinely nightmare-inducing. I Saw The TV Glow creeps up on you, holding your focus so intently you hardly notice when it begins to fray at the margins.

To discuss the film’s relationship to themes of transgender identity would be to delve too deeply into spoilers; I Saw The TV Glow is a film best experienced knowing as little as possible beforehand, and it is uniquely structured such that its plot only really begins at the halfway mark. But its bombastic depiction of the emotional distress which can accompany transgender life is among the most potent in cinema – perhaps the most so since a film it recalls quite a bit: Robert Hiltzik’s 1983 slasher Sleepaway Camp. It’s rare that a film attempting to tell a trans story – whether on purpose or accidentally – has any success. I Saw The TV Glow reaches even higher, and assuredly hits its mark.

Gottleib is in trouble. Since the death of his wife, Ben (Jason Schwartzman) has found himself in a place of personal and professional crisis. He’s moved back in with his mothers, Meira (Caroline Aaron) and Judith (Dolly de Leon), following the sudden death of his wife a year ago, and still can’t perform his job as the cantor for his local synagogue because he’s lost his voice. Depression and loneliness lead Ben to a dive bar, where, after one too many mudslides (that’s vodka, Irish cream, coffee liqueur and heavy cream in case you were wondering) he gets into it with another patron, who promptly knocks his lights out.

When he comes to, a kindly older lady – who had earlier been performing karaoke in the back room – is standing over him concerned. Carla Kessler (Carole Kane) helps Ben to his feet and insists on driving him home. Later, she turns up at the bar and bat mitzvah class he’s teaching…hoping to become his latest student. It turns out that Carla used to teach Ben music when he was a fifth grader, and despite the odd situation the pair find themselves in, they forge an unlikely – but very sweet – friendship.

Although Between the Temples boasts a significantly higher profile cast than director Nathan Silver’s eight previous features, the film retains many hallmarks of the New York indie scene mainstay. He wrote the script with his collaborator C. Mason Wells, while Sean Price Williams – the city’s hottest cinematographer, recently turned feature filmmaker himself with The Sweet East – shot the film on 16mm, giving the footage a wonderful warmth and intimacy. John Magary, another Silver regular, compliments the images with his playful, jittery editing, creating a viewing experience that is as fractured and whirling as our cantor in crisis.

As Ben opens up to Carla about his painful circumstances, the well-meaning but meddling Judith attempts to set up a potential date between him and their friend Rabbi Bruce’s daughter Gabby (Madeline Weinstein), a struggling actress embarrassed by her father’s interference in her love life. While Gabby is instantly intrigued by the neurotic, hangdog Ben, he’s still grieving and struggling to get his life back on track (or even know what track he wants to be on).

The odd couple set-up is reminiscent of Harold and Maude, and the excellent soundtrack even feels like a nod to the Hal Ashby classic, but Ben’s problem isn’t so much that he wants to die (in fact, he’s very concerned about what happens after death) but that he’s completely forgotten how to live. He’s unsure if he wants Carla to be a friend, lover or parent, taking to staying in her house in her adult son’s bedroom and wearing his pyjamas (something that her son is extremely unhappy about when he finds out).

Although Schwartzman and Kane are playing characters within their wheelhouse, their chemistry together is a joy with every line of dialogue feeling completely natural to the extent it feels like we’re peeking through the window to catch their private conversations. Ben’s initial defensiveness and Carla’s tendency to deflect through whimsy soon give way to a genuine connection, forged out of a desire to be truly seen by another person. Dolly De Leon is also a treat in her first major role since Triangle of Sadness, showcasing her brilliant comedic timing (surely a meaty lead role can’t be far away?).

This is a wonderfully observed (and often very funny) film about the faith we have in a higher power and each other, and its uncertain conclusion mirrors the apprehension both Ben and Carla have about where they’re going in life. The stylistic flourishes stay on the right side of ‘quirky indie’, and Between the Temples easily hits its darker story beats, anchored by its infinitely charming leads.

Writing can be a lonely pursuit, and authors must often rely on those closest to them for support and feedback as they attempt to navigate the process of constructing a story. So it goes for Beth (Julia Louie-Dreyfus), a novelist who has just finished her second book – a follow-up to her reasonably successful memoir. She has what she believes to be a good marriage therapist husband Don (Tobias Menzies), until she overhears him criticising her new novel to her brother-in-law Mark (Arian Moayed). Devastated by what she perceives as an emotional betrayal, Beth turns to her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) for advice about how she should proceed.

Holofcener has built a career out of crafting intimate relationship studies (centered, more or less, on the white middle class) and it’s worth acknowledging as much if only to indicate that it’s remarkable she manages to create such rich characters within the framework. Perhaps it’s a case of ‘write what you know’ being genuinely good advice, but at any rate, her wry script is populated with people who feel flawed but lived-in and familiar. Louie-Dreyfus and Menzies have a delightful report, to the extent that when their son Elliott (Owen Teague) accuses them of being codependent, it’s easy to understand where he’s coming from.

Elliott also tells his mother that she should have been less supportive of him when he was younger, as her unwavering positivity gave him an inflated sense of his own talent. This parenting dilemma harkens back to Beth and Don’s ongoing argument about him not liking her work, and the age-old question of how honest we should be with our loved ones when it comes to their insecurities.

It’s a small but perfectly formed comedy of manners, with Menzies particularly great as a therapist who finds himself unable to care about the lives of his patients. Although a subplot involving Beth’s sister and brother-in-law weighs the script down (despite the always charming Arian Moayed) it’s a sweet, slight film about the nagging worry at the back of every artist’s head: they’re actually just a mediocre talent, being politely humoured by their friends and family.

Charlotte Regan has long been a promising talent on the shorts and music video circuit, with her film Standby nominated for a BAFTA in 2017. She makes the leap to features with Scrapper – a charming, effervescent story about grief set on a housing estate in East London that turns the kitchen sink genre on its head, crafting a brightly-coloured world of possibility and hope.

12-year-old Georgie (newcomer Lola Campbell) lives on her own, following the death of her mother. She’s crafted an elaborate ruse to fool social services into thinking she’s living with her uncle, and spends her time with best mate Ali (Alin Uzun) nicking bikes to sell as scrap in order to put food on the table. She’s hard as nails and doesn’t need any help from anyone, thankyouverymuch – so when her estranged father Jason (Harris Dickinson) turns up on her doorstep, fresh off the plane from Ibiza where he was working as a club rep, Georgie doesn’t want anything to do with him.

She’s particularly resistant to the idea of Jason parenting her, arguing that she was doing just fine before he turned up. Jason isn’t thrilled about the new arrangement either, still a kid himself at heart, but he sticks around, attempting to make a go of it despite Georgie’s loud protestations.

Comparisons to Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun – another UK debut about a preteen connecting with her dad – may seem appropriate, but while Wells’ film blurred the line between memory and reality with a protagonist attempting to make sense of her father’s death as an adult, Scrapper is perhaps a more matter-of-fact narrative. Georgie’s grief is swallowed deep down, and while she clearly misses her mum, it seems she’s either unwilling or unable to process the loss, instead opting to make herself impervious to the cruelties of the world around her.

She retreats into her own world, which is depicted through snapshots of talking spiders and mockumentary-style footage of the local people that know her. Meanwhile, her big project is constructing a large structure out of scrap metal in her mother’s bedroom, that she keeps locked at all times. These flourishes of magical realism temper the rather grim reality of Georgie’s situation, in which she’s been failed by the state repeatedly and left to fend for herself, as does the vibrant cinematography, a refreshing change of page from the pervasive grimness with which British culture usually depicts working class stories. Moreso than Aftersun, Scrapper feels reminiscent of a Jacqueline Wilson story – required reading for any British tween – and Campbell plays Lola with a spiky determination which stays just the right side of precocious.

Her chemistry with Dickinson is delightful as the pair size each other up and attempt to navigate their strange new relationship (one scene in a local train station is a particular highlight) and Dickinson adds to the growing pile of evidence that he’s a true generational talent, all big, vulnerable eyes and moody scowls. While Scrapper might not have the most original conceit, it’s a sweet, heartfelt take on the difficulty of father-daughter bonding, and processing grief when you’ve made yourself hard against the ills of the world. Regan has announced herself as a feature filmmaker with style, and this energetic feel-good film is a lovely cure for the winter blues.

For a long time sci-fi films have depicted the possibility of an alien invasion of earth as something terrifying. Buildings will crumble, humans will be subjugated, and all will feel the wrath of our extra-terrestrial overlords. In a refreshing change of pace, M T Anderson’s Landscape With Invisible Hand – adapted here for the screen by Cory Finley) imagines close encounters of the third kind as something much more mundane: the replacement of one oppressive system (human capitalism) with another (alien capitalism). In a near-future, Earth has been colonised by a group of coffee-table-sized aliens called the Vuuv – it rhymes with love – who have brought with them incredible advanced technology…which is only available to those with the deepest pockets.

For teenage artist Adam Costello (Asante Blackk) the Vuuv have had very little positive impact. Since their arrival his parents have split up, his mother (played by Tiffany Haddish) has lost her job as a lawyer due to alien advancement, food has been replaced with a cheaper synthetic version, and his school are implementing the Vuuv’s tech in a cost-cutting measure, replacing the human teachers. Things start to look up when he bonds with new student Chloe (Kylie Rogers) whose family lost their home due to intergalactic property developers, and he invites her to live in his mum’s basement along with her father (Josh Hamilton) and older brother (Michael Gandolfini) who are equally unenthused about the Vuuv.

The problems begin, for Adam and Chloe, when she suggests they livestream their budding romance for alien onlookers, who are fascinated by the human concept of love and will pay top dollar to watch relationship live feeds. At first they find it a lucrative option, but teenagers are fickle things, and as the weeks go on, Adam and Chloe start to experience friction which threatens their moneymaking scheme.

This concept is considerably more fantastical than Finley’s previous work, which has focused on murderous students and a crooked school teacher, but it’s evident that he has a sort of creative affection for grifters – though in this case, it’s a sort of accidental scam that quickly snowballs into a ludicrous nightmare of alien bureaucracy. Finley undoubtedly benefits from rich source material, translating Anderson’s book with what is quickly becoming his deadpan sense of humour. The world which these characters inhabit is mostly similar to our own, save for the inconveniences of alien neighbours lurking in the sky to which the majority of humanity have become accustomed.

It’s an ambitious story to tell, but Finley stages it with a lived-in familiarity. Moments in the world of the Vuuv show they have tried to replicate human design aesthetics (down to a very ’70s legal office) in a way that is slightly endearing but also hints at a comical aesthetic fascination mirrored by our own society, in which trends are recycled and that which was once considered cheap can soon become the height of luxury. The banality of the alien occupation is itself a comical concept, reflecting how one form of oppression can quickly be traded for another, and Asante Blackk does a fine job of playing the disaffected, drifting Adam, whose only real passion is his art.

If there is one gripe, it’s that the film itself moves at a glacial pace, yet when the climax arrives, it’s unsatisfying how quickly it seems to be resolved. Even so, it’s novel to see a sci-fi film which proposes a more mundane threat, suggesting that the evils of capitalism transcend our society and could easily be emulated by more fantastical overlords. The only real outlet is art – but that too can be bought and sold for a hefty price. Finley (whose excellent last film was snatched up and subsequently buried by HBO Max) might know a thing or two about that.

William Oldroyd’s searing 2016 period drama Lady Macbeth was a thorny tale of female repression and desire that made a star out of its leading lady Florence Pugh – it’s been a long wait for his follow-up, which arrives in the form of an adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel Eileen.

Similarly the narrative plays with an awkward young woman existing under the bootheel of the patriarchy, whose life is upended by a whirlwind love affair with disastrous results – in this case, the woman is Eileen (Thomasin McKenzie) who works at a prison in 1960s Boston, living with her unpleasant, alcoholic father who constantly berates Eileen, comparing her to her older sister and her deceased mother. She struggles to form connections with her colleagues, until the glamorous Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) takes up a position as the prison psychologist. Instantly infatuated, Eileen begins to spend time with Rebecca, who encourages her out of her shell and takes her dancing.

Eileen owes much to Todd Haynes’ Carol spiritually, though adopts a more buttoned-up tone with little of the latter’s erotic charge (Eileen is a compulsive masturbator, and while this might seem edgy in the context of the 1960s setting, it’s not as interesting as the film seems to think it is). This could, in part, be down to the casting – McKenzie is unconvincing as Eileen, never managing to create the spark of deviousness her character purports to have, while Hathaway is beautiful but forgettable as Rebecca, her performance too breezy and open to give the impression she’s keeping dark secrets.

The abrupt ending – while lifted from the book – also feels disappointing and confusing, lacking Eileen’s narration which at least gave it context on the page. While the film attempts to be a twisted take on female liberation, it feels instead unendingly somber and unsatisfying, save for a bleak monologue delivered by supporting player Marin Ireland which briefly seems to hint towards a more interesting film. It’s a disappointment as Oldroyd is clearly a gifted filmmaker, but Eileen does nothing that Lady Macbeth didn’t do better, some seven years ago.

In the cut throat world of corporate trading, there’s little room for sentimentality. Young lovers Luke (Alden Ehrenreich) and Emily (Phoebe Dynevor) seem cognisant of this, even as they carry on a clandestine affair after falling for one another while serving as Wall Street analysts at the same hedge company. When the firing of a colleague creates a power vacuum, it’s assumed that Luke will step up to fill it, to the delight of the couple – until their boss Campbell (a woefully miscast Eddie Marsan) throws a spanner in the works by opting to promote Emily instead.

While Emily promises to make sure Luke is next in line for a cushy project manager job, the new power imbalance in their relationship – along with the toll of keeping it a secret from their colleagues – puts considerable strain on the couple. In theory, this might set the stage for an interesting examination of gender and sexual politics in domestic and professional settings. How might Luke deal with feeling emasculated by his fiance’s success? Will Emily be able to make it as the only women in a bullish male team? Unfortunately Chloe Domont’s debut drama (which she directed and wrote) fails to make the most of its scintillating premise.

Out of Sundance some were quick to herald Fair Play as an erotic thriller, but this feels like an inaccurate descriptor – while the film does feature several sex scenes, the lack of chemistry between Dynevor and Ehrenreich and poor direction means these moments are devoid of intimacy, and serve as a lazy shorthand for emotional connection between the characters. As the film drags on it becomes difficult to see why exactly Luke and Emily are together in the first place, aside from their professional proximity. They profess their love for one another, but don’t seem to like each other very much, and there’s no sense of their identities outside of their workplace – or even that for them, the workplace is their entire identity.

For a brief moment it seems as though Luke is about to fall down a dangerous MRA rabbit hole when he discovers an online self-help course with queasy alpha male rhetoric, but in its struggle to keep focus on both protagonists, the film plays as a dour version of Working Girl as Emily tries to retain the killer instinct which her boss saw in her.

It’s a shame, as Ehrenreich is a compelling presence, believable as the sort of entitled young man able to switch between charming and conniving at a moment’s notice. Dynevor is more of a blank slate, and there’s little that sets her apart from the current crop of young British actresses heralded as the next big thing. But ultimately the failure is with the script, which lacks imagination or insight, culminating in an act of sexual violence that feels predictable and almost spiteful in light of the fact we’ve barely come to know these characters. Like fellow Sundance disappointment Cat Person, it attempts to take on contemporary ‘Battle of the Sexes’ territory, but the worthiness of its subject matter alone is not enough to save this buttoned-up psychodrama from fizzling out before it really catches fire.

Since he broke out in 2019 with his impressive supporting role in Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Jonathan Majors has become one of the most captivating young actors working today. With his deep voice and masterful command of screen presence, it’s no wonder he’s already been tapped as the next big Marvel villain (he’ll show up as Kang the Conquerer in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania). He’ll also soon face off against Michael B Jordan in Creed III – but first comes a mesmerising turn in a different drama about male fragility and the quest for bodily perfection in Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams.

Killian Maddox is a shy, socially awkward (possibly neurodivergent, though this is never explicitly stated) amateur bodybuilder, who divides his time between caring for his elderly grandfather and working in a local supermarket, where he harbours a crush on sweet checkout girl Jessie (Haley Bennett). In his free time, Maddox works on his biceps, triceps, deltoids, glutes and every other muscle in his body, and writes to his bodybuilding idol Brad Vanderhorn (Mike O’Hearn) for guidance. This detail feels reminiscent of the Eminem classic Stan, about a psychologically unstable fan who would write increasingly desperate letters to the musician, angered at a perceived lack of attention, before eventually killing his girlfriend and himself.

Similarly, there’s a sense of increasing desperation for Killian, who we meet already struggling with anger issues that have led him to court-mandated therapy with a sympathetic counsellor (Harriet Sansom Harris). Killian’s loneliness and desire to achieve his dreams has manifested in disordered eating and a vehement hatred of fat people; he finds it difficult to speak to other people, and has no friends outside of his grandfather, who raised him after the death of his parents. Unable to make sense of the world around him or form meaningful connections, and notably after experiencing a violent racist attack, Killian starts to unravel.

The film is a showcase for Majors’ formidable talent as a performer – he captures both Killian’s external stiffness and his internal yearning for connection with a remarkable precision and empathy. While the script feels like it leans heavily on Taxi Driver and even Joker for inspiration (the Potentially Dangerous Lonely Young Man has become a familiar trope in cinema) it’s Majors’ committed and captivating turn which serves as its beating heart and elevates otherwise cliched material. In particular Bynum’s third act feels disappointingly predictable, and while he wisely avoids going totally down the shock value path, it’s frustrating that a story with such a magnetic central presence can’t quite keep pace.

Similarly, Adam Arkapaw’s cinematography is impressive in its austerity (though, he could stand to lose the strobes, which are becoming a bit of a signature) and Jason Hill’s haunting score of strings creates a link between the supposed high art of classical music and the pageantry of bodybuilding, a past-time frequently ridiculed in the media. Majors is lit like a Neoclassical statue, all sharp angles and strong poses with a degree of timelessness – even if Bynum’s concept can’t quite deliver, Magazine Dreams is yet further evidence that Majors is a force to be reckoned with.