Adult Supervision (2026) | Fantastic Fest 2026 | REVIEW

Directed by Alex Schulman – Screenplay by Alex Schulman.

These are exciting times for writer-director Alex Schulman. Earlier this month, Alex Schulman’s debut feature, Adult Supervision (known as Arkipelag in Sweden), was announced as Sweden’s official submission for the upcoming Academy Awards’ Best International Feature category. Just last weekend, a few days ago, it had its world premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and its theatrical release in Sweden is set to kick off on October 9th. Swedes and audiences around the world have something great to look forward to. Adult Supervision is a well-cast, thought-provoking, and sometimes even disturbing film that takes a closer look at modern parenting and troubling modern social dynamics in school classes.

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The Squirrel (2026) | Fantastic Fest 2026 | REVIEW

Directed by Markus Lehmusruusu – Screenplay by Markus Lehmusruusu.

Hot on the heels of this month’s announcement that it is Finland’s official submission for the Best International Feature category at the upcoming Academy Awards, Markus Lehmusruusu’s The Squirrel just had its international premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The feature – an international co-production between Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden – had its world premiere in Finland earlier this year, and it marks the second feature film from Lehmusruusu. It is also relatively unique as it is a Finnish science-fiction film. I had the chance to see the film, and I can say that I think it works quite well despite some pacing issues.

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No Rest for the Wicked (2026) | Fantastic Fest 2026 | REVIEW

Directed by Kasper Kalle – Screenplay by Rasmus Birch.

Following its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival earlier this year, at which it won two awards for directing and acting, Kasper Kalle’s No Rest for the Wicked just had its US premiere at this year’s Fantastic Fest. It is a remarkable horror-romance film that I found to be deeply moving and often outright stunning.

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A Prayer for the Dying (2026) | Fantastic Fest 2026 | REVIEW

Directed by Dara Van Dusen – Screenplay by Dara Van Dusen.

Following its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale, the western-adjacent drama, A Prayer for the Dying, from debut feature filmmaker Dara Van Dusen, just had its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026. As part of my remote coverage of the latter festival, I got the opportunity to watch this ambitious debut. Dusen’s Western-adjacent debut, which is being prepared for a post-festival US theatrical release on October 9th, contains fascinating surreal imagery, pitch-black dark character predicaments, and a challenging role for its competent leading man. Although it has some blemishes, I thought it was mostly quite effective.

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Fantastic Fest 2026 | Preview

Later this month — from September 17th to September 24th — the 21st edition of Fantastic Fest takes place at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX. Over the years, the beloved film festival all about genre film has featured world premieres of such films as There Will Be Blood, Zombieland, and Apostle, as well as the U.S. premiere of Obsession, which now, just a year later, has taken the world by storm following its theatrical release. Now, while I won’t be in Austin, I have been approved for remote coverage of the festival. Thus, I plan to post standalone reviews of select films over the course of the week of the festival, which I am very much looking forward to.

In this preview, I’ll highlight some of the major premieres, screenings, and titles. But this article also dives deeper into Fantastic Fest‘s fascinating line-up, as I have prepared a list of ten films that have caught my eye based on intriguing loglines, the creative team involved, or, in certain cases, the cast that appears in the film. Although it is unlikely that I’ll get to see all of them during my remote coverage, these are some of the films that I think you should seek out if you are going to be in Austin, TX this month.

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Mayday (2026) | REVIEW

Directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley — Screenplay by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.

The latest straight-to-streaming Apple TV+ film, Mayday, is the third directorial feature for creative duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, best known for their hit comedy Game Night. Although their directorial debut, Vacation (a 2015 sequel to the National Lampoon’s Vacation film series), was critically panned (It’s not great, but I think it has its moments), they’ve managed to garner a solid reputation over the years. They bounced back, in a great way, with the aforementioned original comedy Game Night, before they tried their hands with another major franchise, namely Dungeons & Dragons in 2023. Though that fantasy comedy, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, was classified as a box office disappointment, it was a really fun film that deserved a much better fate than it got. So, with such a reputation, and with those films under their belt, I was excited to see what their first straight-to-streaming film would look like. Thankfully, it’s a really effective action-comedy, despite some blemishes.

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‘Cold Storage,’ ‘The Wizard of the Kremlin,’ ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2,’ and More (2026) | Bite-Sized Reviews

In this edition of Bite-Sized Reviews, I want to share my thoughts on six films released this year. This time around, I want to talk about 1) an underseen zombie-adjacent film with a surprisingly strong cast, 2) a political drama about Putin’s rise to power, 3) a genre-blend from the director of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, 4) Mortal Kombat II, 5) the long-awaited sequel to a beloved fashion-focused film, and 6) John Travolta’s directorial debut. If you follow me on Letterboxd, do know that some of these bite-sized reviews have previously been posted on my Letterboxd profile (either partially or entirely). Should you wish to get a sneak peek at what films I see, I advise you to follow me on that social media platform.

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How to Make a Killing (2026) | REVIEW

Directed by John Patton Ford — Screenplay by John Patton Ford.

John Patton Ford’s How to Make a Killing is a black comedy thriller about the wealthy Redfellow family and its inheritance. Before our film’s protagonist, Becket (played by Glen Powell), was born, his mother was disowned for choosing not to end her pregnancy prematurely. When he loses her, the rest of the Redfellows stay as far away from Becket as they had been during his mother’s adult life. After encountering a woman named Julia (played by Margaret Qualley), whom he knew when he was younger, he decides to avenge his mother and fight for the life she deserved by trying to murder the family, one by one, so that he can claim the family inheritance.

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Who Should Be the Next James Bond?

You don’t find many movie characters that are as iconic as James Bond. At this point, the torch has been passed from actor to actor and reboot to reboot for several generations, and the character has been redefined more than once. After Cary Joji Fukunaga’s No Time To Die, Daniel Craig has relinquished the role and is passing it on after having been the longest-tenured actor in the role (even though he doesn’t have the most films under his belt).

But what comes next? There are so many questions right now. Will the character’s next adventures take place today? Will they be standalone adventures? Will it even be the same character? And, hey, who should actually be the next James Bond? So, please do join me in this article as I try to answer some of those questions, or, at the very least, give my opinions on the matter. I have thoughts.

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The Whisper Man (2026) | REVIEW

Directed by James Ashcroft — Screenplay by Ben Jacoby and Chase Palmer.

Every once in a while, something goes straight-to-streaming that looks the part, so to speak, of something that, once upon a time, would not only go to theaters but also draw a crowd. As The Whisper Man is evidence of, a serial killer movie with an A-list star and an otherwise recognizable cast is now likely to land on a streamer and face the potential sad fate of being buried in a vast and ever-growing content library while the world moves on. Although The Whisper Man is certainly nowhere near as good as the stone-cold classics of the genre that it is clearly inspired by, it is, however, too watchable to deserve being fully ignored or be treated as background noise for your nightly doomscrolling. It definitely won’t wow you, but I suspect that thriller die-hard fans will feel that this is the kind of film that definitely scratches the right itch, even if it isn’t particularly memorable.

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