OPENING September 14 to 20, 2026- Margaret Barton-Fumo reports

The Alliance of Women Film Journalists highlights movies made by and about women. With a vigilant eye toward current releases, we maintain an interactive record of films that are pertinent to our interests. Be they female-made or female-centric productions, they are films that represent a wide range of women’s stories and present complex female characters. As such, they are movies that will most likely be reviewed on AWFJ.org and will qualify for consideration for our annual EDA Awards, celebrating exceptional women working in film behind and in front of the camera. Our members are feature writers, columnists and regular contributors to a variety of media outlets and many of us publish regularly on the festival circuit. Our critical voices are widespread and diverse. We invite you to join us in tracking weekly releases of particular interest. And we welcome information about new films that will help us to keep our records updated and our critics alert. Below is a concise list of new releases set for the week of September 14 – 20 that are of particular interest. Titles highlighted in red have links to full reviews:  

Tuesday, September 15

• Fwends – Tribeca Films (Cinemas) – Australia – Dramedy co-written and directed by Sophie Somerville. Old friends Em and Jessie reconnect for a weekend. Their conversations flow naturally, covering light topics and deep emotions. They represent a generation of resilient young women navigating life’s ups and downs with honesty and humor.

Friday, September 18

• Arsa – Obscured Pictures (Cinemas) – Italy – Drama. Arsa, 18, collects waste stranded on her home island, a nature reserve. Inspired by her father’s sculptures, she remodels the objects found, giving them a new life.

 

• Bad Apples – Republic Pictures (Cinemas) – UK – Comedy. A struggling primary school teacher begins to make some questionable decisions after one of her students is injured.

 

• Best of the Best – Netflix – USA – Directed by Lena Khan, a raucous comedy set in the cut-throat world of collegiate Bollywood dance competitions.

 

• The Fisherman – Filmhub – Ghana – Comedy written and directed by Zoey Martinson. A Ghanaian fisherman teams up with a talking fish and a few companions for an adventure to Accra. They chase the dream of owning a boat while balancing the modern world and traditions.

 

• Give it a Shot – Coast to Coast Films (Cinemas) – Canada / India / USA – Documentary directed by Vaishali Sinha. Follows researchers as they strive to successfully launch a reversible male contraceptive, the first breakthrough since the modern condom was invented 200 years ago.

 

• The Musical – Blue Harbor Entertainment (Cinemas) – USA – Comedy directed by Giselle Bonilla. When a frustrated playwright/middle school theater teacher finds out his ex-girlfriend has started dating his nemesis, the school’s principal, he decides to ruin the principal’s chances of winning the Blue Ribbon of Academic Excellence.

 

• Sunny Dancer – Quiver Distribution (Cinemas) – UK – Coming-of-Age dramedy. As if conquering cancer wasn’t hard enough, 17-year-old Ivy’s parents sign her up to spend her summer at what she calls “chemo camp”, where she manages to find unexpected friends in a group of misfits and has a summer she’ll never forget.

 

• Traces of Home – Watermelon Pictures (Cinemas) – USA – Documentary co-written and directed by Colette Ghunim. Filmmaker Colette Ghunim takes her parents to find the ancestral homes in Mexico and Palestine that they had fled from decades earlier.

 

• Without Blood – Brainstorm Media (Cinemas) – USA / Italy – Drama co-written and directed by Angelina Jolie. A parable-like tale exploring themes of family, war, and revenge.

 

• Women Laughing – (Cinemas) – USA – Short documentary co-directed by Liza Donnelly and Kathleen Hughes. In Women Laughing, longtime New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly sets out to explore her lifelong passion for humor and cartooning by speaking, laughing, and drawing with a diverse group of remarkable women who create cartoons for the iconic magazine.

Film descriptions are adapted from press releases. Titles highlighted in red have links to full reviews. Stay tuned in for next week’s releases! Contact us if we’ve overlooked anything.