AMARGA NAVIDAD/BITTER CHRISTMAS (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
In Amarga Navidad/Bitter Christmas, Pedro Almodóvar intertwines stories Noted Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is at heart an experimental filmmaker working
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Festivals
NOWHERE TO LAY MY EYES (NYFF 2026) – Review by Margaret Barton-Fumo
There is a lot of eating and drinking, as is par for the course in Hong Sangsoo’s films. Nowhere to Lay My Eyes unfolds at a comfortable pace, punctuated by nuanced, often illuminating conversations. Small musings can lead to revelations over the course of mere minutes, usually aided by glasses of Soju. Devoteés of Hong’s cinema tend to revel in these familiar beats, and here Nowhere to Lay My Eyes pleasingly delivers.
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ROSE (NYFF 2026) – Review by Margaret Barton-Fumo
Markus Schleinzer’s third feature Rose is a formal marvel, as well as an excellent vehicle for its lead actor, the always impressive Sandra Hüller. Set in the 16th century during the Thirty Years War, Hüller plays a world-weary woman who disguises herself as a male soldier and sets out to claim a fallen associate’s inheritance.
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PAPER TIGER (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
A get rich quick scheme tears a Jewish family apart in 1986 Queens, New York. Ex-NYPD cop Gary Pearl and his brother Irwin, an engineer, husband and father, become involved with Russian operatives. Quickly becoming a nightmare, it begins as a beneficial financial agreement to follow federal regulations in disposal of oil drums containing toxic waste at the Gowanus Canal. When the Russian criminals opt for illegal dumping, which they always intended, the entire Pearl family, including Irwin’s two sons, become a threat to be intimidated into capitulation or eliminated.
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FATHERLAND (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland reminds viewers of the attentive commitment of Thomas Mann’s daughter Erika (an always superb Sandra Hüller) to her father (Hanns Zischler). In fact, the formidable Erika enjoyed a full life as an actress, writer, and rally driver. In 1946 she reported on the Nuremberg war crimes trials before traveling to California to care for Thomas who was being treated for lung cancer. In Fatherland’s 1949 Germany Erika and Thomas drive in their black Buick sedan across the ruins of Germany, from Frankfurt to Weimer, from the former city under US control to the latter under Soviet domination where Thomas delivers a passionate, courageous anti-Nazi address advocating freedom from tyranny.
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THEY’RE HERE (NYFF 2026) – Review by Diane Carson
Unfolding in the style of horror film, which it is, directors Laura Poitras’ and Rachel Lauren Mueller’s They’re Here documents ICE’s illegal, combative activity in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this past winter. Immediately mimicking the menacing, stalking point-of-view shots that evoke anxiety in that genre of films, the association is apt given ICE’s threatening, frightening, even terrorizing men, women, and children. In a revealing, informative 25 minutes, They’re Here presents the array of tactics used by ICE agents in military uniforms and, almost universally, with partial masks covering their faces, thereby concealing their identity.
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UNION TOWN (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Ostensibly about the power of unions and workers uniting for better wages and improved job conditions in the microcosm of New York City, Union Town truly creates empathy and even admiration for the people who keep the Big Apple and America moving, one delivery at a time.
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A GOOD LITTLE SOLDIER (TIFF 2026) – Review by Rachel West
A Good Little Soldier raises all the familiar questions about ambition and corporate culture, as well as the sacrifices – especially by women – for their careers. The challenge of balancing work and home life is real, and it is refreshing to see a film about a woman who doesn’t have it all figured out. Alba Rohrwacher gives a commendable performance as a middle manager in the otherwise lethargic workplace drama from Stéphane Brizé. While the themes in A Good Little Soldier are as literal and blunt as they come, it is an overall quiet and subtle drama.
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PHOOLAN (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Newcomer Sneha Kumari is fiery and magnetic as teenage Robin Hood-style outlaw Phoolan Devi in Phoolan, a biographical drama focusing on forty-eight hours where the future Indian politician and two colleagues struggled to evade capture during the siege of a tiny village. Inspired by Devi’s 1996 autobiography, Phoolan fills in the early years of India’s “Bandit Queen,” who in the film takes on a leadership role in an armed gang that initially kidnaps her. Having learned to shoot, she attacks rapists and brutal landowners, returning deeds for property to the lower castes, who cheer her for her mercy. The film opens as seventeen-year-old Devi hides her hair under a turban, scurrying with two colleagues away from police trying to flush them out of hiding. She’s wanted for killing at least twenty men, and thousands trying to capture her are told her gang is agile, like dragonflies. She’s seven feet tall. She’ll castrate you before killing you. (That much, at least, is true.) Phoolan is an effective contained thriller that serves as an intriguing introduction to a fascinating woman.
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SMUDGE THE BLADES (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Smudge the Blades, which earned writer-director Cody Lightning a “Best Canadian Discovery” award from the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, is not the type of sports film where the down-on-his-luck coach gets a second chance, inspiring a team of scrappy underdogs in the process. Rather, it’s about finding a precious space that validates one’s worth, even if no one calls it that. Smudge the Blades builds to a championship hockey game, but it’s down-to-earth in its ambivalence about what happens to the teams afterward. There’s more to life for a lot of these people than hockey, but hockey also is a haven, offering seconds of glory but often just a way to fight through everything else.
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