There is something fitting about seeing Joe Swanberg back at SXSW with a full-length feature. For a certain generation of American independent film, Swanberg was one of the defining architects of a loose, intimate, improvisation-driven style that would eventually get folded into the ever-clumsy label of mumblecore.
I Love Boosters opened the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival with its world premiere at the Paramount Theatre, and it felt exactly like the kind of film you would want to launch a festival with: loud, unruly, politically charged, funny, abrasive, beautifully designed, and impossible to confuse with anyone else’s work.
Certain films are built for a packed theatre, and Ready or Not 2: Here I Come is absolutely one of them. I caught the film at its SXSW premiere at the Paramount Theatre, where it played as a Headliner screening, and it felt like one of the marquee crowd events of the festival.
My introduction to Emma Donoghue’s screenwriting was a memorable one: watching Room in a confined space—in my case, the middle seat of an aircraft—and realizing mid-flight that it would be an uphill battle to not let out an ugly cry surrounded by strangers.
Connor Storrie is currently monopolizing a specific corner of the cultural conversation via Heated Rivalry. While his portrayal of Ilya Rozanov is the catalyst for this recent attention, viewing it in isolation ignores the groundwork laid by his earlier indie appearances. To understand the mechanics of Storrie’s current performance, one needs to look back at Benjamin Howard’s 2023 drama, Riley.
Honey Bunch Film Review: A Meta Relationship Thriller Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli are the filmmaking duo best known for their uncompromisingly brutal debut, Violation, which premiered at TIFF and…
Sleepwalker Film Review: Out on VOD January 9, 2026 Sleepwalker, written and directed by Brandon Auman, stages a familiar horror proposition with immediate formal confidence: trauma rendered as an invasive…
Another year, another “best of” list. These are the movies that hit me hardest in 2025 — the ones that will stick, formally and emotionally, long into 2026.
The nominations for the 2026 Film Independent Spirit Awards are here. The 41st edition of the awards will once again spotlight the best in independent film and television, with this year’s ceremony set for Sunday, February 15, 2026.
I had the chance to sit down with Alexander (Sandy) Carson to talk about Alberta Number One, and it quickly became clear that he is most comfortable marching to the beat of his own drum.