Indie Reviews
Available Light 2026 Review: CARIBOU COUNTRY (Wədzįh Nəne'), Exemplary Arthouse Activism
There are oh so many, singular, memorable images in Luke Gleeson’s Wədzįh Nəne’ (aka Caribou Country). The film is so beautiful, and meditative in its execution, that it is almost possible to forget that it is a call to action...
BY DESIGN Review: Beautiful and Heartbreakingly Singular
Juliette Lewis stars, supported by Mamoudou Athie, Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney, Alisa Torres, Clifton Collins Jr., Keir Gilchrist, with Udo Kier and Betty Buckley. Narrated by Melanie Griffith. Amanda Kramer directed.
THE MORTUARY ASSISTANT Review: Video Game Adaptation Gets Lost in Translation
Willa Holland and Mark Steger star in director Jeremiah Kipp's adaptation.
GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON'T DIE Review: Sam Rockwell Dominates In Gore Verbinski's Anti-AI Screed
Haley Lu Richardson, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz, Asim Chaudhry, Tom Taylor, and Juno Temple also star.
Sundance 2026 Review: UNION COUNTY, Will Poulter Leads Devastating Examination of Opioid Addiction
By one estimate, more than 550,000 people have lost their lives to the opioid epidemic over the first quarter of the 21st century. That number doubles or even triples when it includes those who’ve fallen prey to opioid addiction...
SWEETNESS Review: Ain't She Sweet? The Nightmares Come Later.
Kate Hallett and Herman Tømmeraas star in writer/director Emma Higgins' completely unhinged, uniquely stylish, and intense thriller.
Available Light 2026 Short Film, Short Review: MY KNITTING CIRCLE
Perhaps the most cozy short film on the festival circuit this year, My Knitting Circle puts on the kettle for a cup of tea and surveys the fibrous wares and spinning equipment of Itsy-Bitsy Yarn Store. A small group of...
Sundance 2026 Review: HANGING BY A WIRE, Fascinating Documentary Leaves You Wanting More
On the morning of August 22nd, 2023, eight young men, six of them still in school, climbed into a cable car to traverse a valley 900 feet above the remote foothills of Pakistan, a trip the young men took at...
Available Light 2026 Review: BEYOND THE LEFT HAND PATH, Or, A Temple of Set Guide in How to Live a Full Life
James C. Kirby was an intense man. He lived not one life, but several: A priest of the Temple of Set, a hotel chef, a social worker for traumatized men, a craft jeweller, and the former owner of Canada’s...
Sundance 2026 Review: GHOST IN THE MACHINE, A Must-See AI Primer
Valerie Veatch directed the "mind-expanding, investigative essay" documentary.
Sundance 2026 Review: I WANT YOUR SEX, Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman Headline Gregg Araki's Welcome Return to Filmmaking
Between 1987 (Three Bewildered People in the Night) and 2010 (Kaboom), queer filmmaker Gregg Araki wrote and directed 10 films, solidifying his status as a New Queer Cinema visionary with few, if any, peers (only arthouse favorites Derek Jarman and...
Sundance 2026 Review: THE INVITE, Who's Afraid of Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen?
When we first meet Joe (Seth Rogen), a failed musician turned conservatory music instructor, in director Olivia Wilde’s (Don’t Worry Darling, Booksmart) superbly engaging third film, The Invite, he’s mired in a miasma of self-doubt, disappointment, and frustration. Indifferently...
Sundance 2026 Review: NIGHT NURSE, Promising Psychosexual Thriller Dissipates Into Abstraction
Filmmaker David Lynch (Lost Highway, Wild At Heart, Blue Velvet) may have left this mortal plane for the next, but his influence — not to mention his filmography — survives in the work of filmmakers who found a kindred spirit...
Available Light 2026 Review: TRACY & MARTINA GOIN' OUT WEST Lovingly Mocks A Refined Flavour of Canadian Delusion
Canada is far from the only country that has a tradition of lovingly mocking some of its stranger, often poor and delusional, white-trash subcultures (I am looking at you Australia, New Zealand and Britain). However, the Canadian flavour often takes...
Sundance 2026 Review: EVERYBODY TO KENMURE STREET, Collective Presence Stalls the System
Director Felipe Bustos Sierra documents a spontaneous act of civic resistance in Glasgow, examining how collective presence can momentarily disrupt the mechanisms of state authority.
Sundance 2026 Review: BIRDS OF WAR, War Reporting and Love Collide
Directors Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak are also the film's protagonists, following a 13-year collaboration that unfolds from professional exchange into personal involvement amid the realities of reporting on the Syrian war.
Sundance 2026 Review: SOFT BOIL, Anxiety and Cringe Collide in an Acid Quarter-Life Crisis Rom-Com
In the pilot of Soft Boil, director Alec Goldberg and lead actress and co-writer Camille Wormser sketch a tightly observed portrait of early adulthood that channels contemporary American indie comedy through anxiety, volatility, and low-stakes personal collapse.
Sundance 2026 Review: EXTRA GEOGRAPHY, Idiosyncratic, Brit-Set Coming-of-Age Story Elevated By Duel Leads
When ultra-posh, Brit high-schoolers Flic (Marni Duggan) and Minna (Galaxie Clear), supposed best friends (forever) at the center of Extra Geography, BAFTA Award-winning director Molly Manners’s (One Day, Lazy Susan, In My Skin) splendid feature-length debut, decide to undetake a...
THE ARBORIST Review: Slow-Burning Forest of Intergenerational Guilt
Lucy Walters, Hudson West, and Will Lyman star in the horror drama, directed by Andrew Mudge.
Sundance 2026 Review: TUNER, Star-Driven Crime-Thriller Hampered by Predictable Plotting
After winning an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2022 for Navalny, filmmaker Daniel Roher (Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band) shifted his focus from the documentary format (Blink) to narrative storytelling with Tuner, an engrossing, if uneven,...
