- Telluride Film Festival 2026: Table of Contents (September 9, 2026)
The 53rd annual Telluride Film Festival runs from September 4th-7th in Telluride, Colorado. Every year, the RogerEbert.com team returns to the fest to cover some of the festival’s most notable releases, as well as some under-the-radar curiosities we feel deserve to be discussed.
Below is our compiled writing from the fest, courtesy of Associate Editor Robert Daniels and contributors Cortlyn Kelly and Tomris Laffly. Keep checking this space as our coverage continues.
Reviews
You Can See Everything (Tomris Laffly)
Gentle Monster (Cortlyn Kelly)
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Robert Daniels)
Tenzing (CK)
Fatherland (RD)
Dispatches
Telluride 2026: Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, Burgundy, Rehearsals for a Revolution (CK)
Telluride 2026: Alpha Gang, The Liberation, The Idiots (RD)
- Telluride 2026: Illusion of an Everlasting Summer, Burgundy, Rehearsals for a Revolution (September 9, 2026)
In its 53rd edition, the Telluride Film Festival remains an industry leader in showcasing strong, technically excellent stories. While its documentary slate drew significant attention for the world premiere of the secret A24 documentary, “You Can See Everything,” several other titles are worth watching. Compared to previous years, the 2026 festival’s documentary curation is quite diverse in both subject matter and style.
“Illusion of an Everlasting Summer” sounds like an idyllic, beachy CD one’s parents would play in the car with the windows down. This nod to nostalgia is exactly the lens director Alessandra Sanguinetti wants us to look through to see her new documentary. Better known for her photography, Sanguinetti expands and personalizes her practice in piecing together footage captured across 25 years.
Beginning in the late 1990s, “Illusion of an Everlasting Summer” introduces its two main subjects, Guillermina and Belinda, cousins and soulmates. The camcorder quality also contributes to the film’s desire for the past. The grainy home-video texture adds innocence to the young girls’ curiosity in play. Their life in rural Argentina is filled with each other’s company, and although they’re aware they’re being recorded, it doesn’t seem to inhibit their actions.
The girls do not age significantly until past the movie’s halfway mark; thereafter, the time jumps grow increasingly quick. In a way, this choppy imbalance symbolizes how time moves faster and faster as we grow up, but it lands as unintentional. As the years go by, Guillermina and Belinda drift apart; the movie is the only thing keeping them in regular contact. Watching their warm, tender bond harden and wither stings worse than a romantic breakup. Guillermina rightly and poignantly chops it up as part of life. Sanguinetti’s stationary camera keeps rolling, and we see her smile soften and fade.
In reflecting further on the poetic title, “Illusion of an Everlasting Summer,” it is metaphorically and intricately woven into the documentary’s key themes. While the most compelling anecdotes are concentrated at the end, this is a contemplative, casual coming-of-age documentary.
“Where pleasure is treated like a religion” was the motto that drew directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw to beautifully document one of the most illustrious wine regions in France. The duo, known for visually rich representations of niche industries (“The Truffle Hunters”), bring their aesthetic excellence to their new film, “Burgundy.” Introducing each subject as if they were a character in a narrative feature, the film maintains cinematic energy that matches the region’s rich culture and history.
Enzo, monikered “The Boy,” is an aspirational 20-year-old with an old soul. The main plot of “Burgundy” centers on his professional and personal growth, including a budding relationship with Celeste, “The Girl.” There are several other storylines, like a wine critic (Guillaume) and a sommelier (Eric), that weave together to reveal the connectivity of Burgundy’s wine-and-dine ecosystem, but none of them are spotlighted like Enzo. His dedication to the land and vineyard translates into a natural presence in front of the camera. Rather than traditional sit-down interviews with its subjects, the documentary positions itself as a fly on the wall, watching each person work from afar. In keeping the frame stationary for most shots, we’re fixated and able to catch every detail of the subjects’ craft.
Most of the dialogue comes from conversations between people. This choice also shapes the movie’s narrative, as if some moments are scripted or staged. Although we hear each person’s thoughts and feelings as they express them to another, each moment still feels intimate. To truly achieve the dreamlike state that they sought to create, Dweck and Kershaw pepper the film with Super 8 footage. A childlike segment of Enzo and Celeste reenacting “Bonnie and Clyde” adds levity, but feels like an extra effort that detracts from the authenticity of its key characters.
“Burgundy” ties up every thread it pulls with a pretty bow. Most resonant is the way the characters come together to expose how age, for the people and the wine, is a complex concept for the region.
“Rehearsals for a Revolution” is a personal letter to Iran and its people from director, writer, and producer Pegah Ahangarani. She reflects on her purpose for making the film: “Is this how I make up for not being there?” In posing this, the audience ponders alongside her, but is gutted to hear the sadness in her voice as she wishes things could be different.
Chronologically pieced together in 5 episodes, Ahangarani organizes each story around a key person. Beginning with her father, Ahangarani traces the origins of her lineage’s role in Iran’s revolutionary history. By introducing her mother, a lifelong filmmaker, the film also reveals Ahangarani’s cinematic roots. She makes it evident that “Rehearsals for a Revolution” would not be possible without this combined inheritance.
Collaged from archival photos, footage, audio, and media pieces, the film’s multimedia approach highlights common threads across each episode and through Iran’s revolutionary history from the 1980s to the 2020s. Ahangarani narrates every moment, and her steady, almost stoic, voice demonstrates the resilience at the heart of the story. Even when it’s hard, damning, or life-threatening, it’s crucial to keep going. Speaking directly to the audience creates a connection between the filmmaker and the viewer, further personalizing “Rehearsals for a Revolution.” The layered sound design of papers rustling and wind blowing immerses us in the archives.
Once Ahangarani grows up and begins carrying around a camera of her own, the state-sanctioned violence is increasingly insidious. After each episode, the film provides an informational card that recaps the current cultural relevance; this also strengthens the connectivity between each portrait. The weight of “Rehearsals for a Revolution” is not borne alone; it’s an affirmation that collectivism and activism can, and must, prevail.
- TIFF 2026: 20 World Premieres We Can’t Wait to See This Year (September 9, 2026)
It’s that time of year again! We’re back with a big team at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which starts tomorrow with one of the biggest programs in the festival’s history. Like every other year, TIFF is a mix of North American, International, Canadian, and World Premieres. It will give many people their first chance to see films from Cannes like “Fjord” and “Clarissa,” along with several Venice and Telluride options like “Wild Horse Nine” and “Ink.” While we plan to hit several films in Canada that other outlets have covered from Venice and Telluride (including highly anticipated titles like “Elsinore” and “Possible Love”), we always focus our annual preview on 20 movies playing nowhere but TIFF.
Come back for coverage of all 20 of these, plus about two dozen more, from yours truly, Marya E. Gates, Cortlyn Kelly, and Zachary Lee.
Note: All of the synopses below are from the official TIFF site.
“Babies”
Anchored by a pair of hugely appealing lead performances from Seth Rogen (TIFF ’25’s Good Fortune) and Oscar nominee Anna Kendrick (TIFF ’09’s Up In the Air), the second feature from writer-director Lauren Miller Rogen (Like Father) digs deep into the dilemma that comes for every couple: to parent or not to parent? Bolstered by an all-star ensemble that includes Issa Rae (TIFF ’23’s American Fiction), Dan Stevens (TIFF ’25’s Swiped), and Oscar nominees Sharon Stone (Casino) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck), Babies is relatable, hilarious, and wise in equal measure.
“Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo”
A dizzyingly prolific auteur who never fails to imprint his signature on every project he undertakes, Japanese maestro Takashi Miike (TIFF ’01’s Ichi the Killer) returns to the Festival with this thrilling contribution to a one-of-a-kind cinema legacy. Like Abel Ferrara’s cult masterpiece Bad Lieutenant (TIFF ’92) and Werner Herzog’s gonzo Southern neo-noir Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans (TIFF ’09), Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo is very much its own entity, not so much a sequel to its predecessors as a mood, a variation on shared themes, and a rollercoaster ride through the darkest crevasses of the Tokyo underworld.
“Being Heumann”
Every bit as moving as her Best Picture Oscar winner, CODA, Siân Heder’s Being Heumann tells the remarkable true story of the woman who led a world-changing campaign for accessibility. Judy Heumann rallied a handful, then dozens, then hundreds of ordinary Americans with disabilities to push the US government to live up to its commitments.
The year is 1977. Raised in Brooklyn by German Jewish immigrants, and using a wheelchair since a childhood case of polio, Judy Heumann (Ruth Madeley) knows it takes grit and tenacity to get things done. So when Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano (Mark Ruffalo) refuses to sign meaningful regulations for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the first national civil rights legislation designed to provide protections for people with disabilities, Judy devises a plan to force his hand, beginning with the occupation of a federal building in San Francisco, before going all the way to DC — and Califano’s front door — with a diverse team of self-described “radical crips,” creating solidarity through coalitions of marginalized groups.
“Closing Night”
Actor Cody Fern (American Horror Story, The Great Darkened Days, TIFF ’18) makes a sensational directorial debut with this sharp, emotionally astute story about family bonds and buried truths. When an internationally renowned movie star (Sarah Paulson) invites her estranged family to the opening night of her Broadway play after decades of silence, old wounds resurface almost as quickly as old habits. Her emotionally fragile sister (Naomi Watts, The Friend, TIFF ’24) remains determined to hold onto a lifetime of resentment, while her nephew (Toby Wallace, Finestkind, TIFF ’23) sees an opportunity to forge a relationship with his famous aunt.
“Diary of a Mad Old Man”
This captivating chamber drama from versatile auteur Wayne Wang (last at the Festival with 2019’s Coming Home Again) draws us into the troubled psyche of an aging widower whose sudden onset of disability coincides with the development of an unnervingly intimate relationship. Featuring a brilliantly graded performance by veteran actor Lily Franky (familiar to TIFF audiences from Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters and Chie Hayakawa’s Renoir), this adaptation of revered Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s eponymous novel ushers us into a realm of beguiling signals and unruly desire.
“Everybody Wants to F*ck Me”
Taron Egerton gives a gleefully committed performance as Adam in Jonathan Schey’s darkly comedic debut, riffing on the dating scene and the self-proclaimed “nice guys” who litter it. Adam has mastered all the trappings of enlightened masculinity: listening more than speaking in meetings with women coworkers, reading feminist literature, practicing yoga, and offering a soupçon of self-deprecation when chatting up women at bars or on dating apps. Adam’s longtime friend who once provided cover for his behaviour is growing up and growing weary of being an accomplice.
Adam has had a lifetime of f*ck around, but his find out is just around the corner when he meets Jessica Henwick’s Sofia. Intriguing and sharp, she proves to be a challenge calling out his behaviour. The encounter shakes Adam and, stranger still, everybody (but mostly women) start responding to his carefully studied charms, first with mild interest, then flat-out stalking, then vigorous pursuit — even when he’s appropriately dressed.
“Evil Genius”
Chilling, fascinating, and darkly hilarious, Courteney Cox’s second feature as director boldly dramatizes the bizarre web of stories behind the infamous “pizza bomber” incident. Featuring lived-in lead performances from David Harbour (Stranger Things) and Oscar winner Patricia Arquette (Boyhood), Evil Genius is an astonishing true-crime story brimming with bloodshed, betrayals, and a hopeless case of amour fou.
Erie, Pennsylvania, 2003. From a phone booth outside a waffle joint, Bill Rothstein (Harbour) calls the police to report the corpse of a murdered man stashed in a freezer in the garage of Bill’s former paramour, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong (Arquette). But who is this murdered man? And exactly how did his body wind up in that freezer?
“Faith”
For single mother Gina (Erin Doherty, The Crown), every day is a balancing act. Raising her young son Jamie (Smylie Bradwell) while working shifts at a local factory, she does everything she can to build a comfortable home from modest means. When Gina meets the enigmatic and charming Michael (James McAvoy, California Schemin’, TIFF ’25) — a volunteer at the local food bank — his easy companionship offers the possibility of something she has long denied herself: the chance to envision a brighter future.
Then, in an instant, everything changes.
“God Bless You, Mr. Kopu”
“Unhappy? Need a change?” It’s a question, a sales pitch, and perhaps a warning. When charismatic American salesman Marco (Simon Rex, Red Rocket) arrives in New Zealand touting a revolutionary new cleaning product, he’s looking for ambitious recruits to build an army of door-to-door salespeople. Struggling to make ends meet, Mafu Kopu (TIFF 2021 Rising Star Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Predator: Badlands) sees an offer too good to refuse. Drawn in by Marco’s effortless charm and uncanny powers of persuasion, he quickly becomes his star protégé. As the money starts to roll in, Mafu feels a growing distance from his Tongan family, his community, and the cultural values that have long defined him.
“I Play Rocky”
There is no greater movie about beating the odds through sheer determination than Rocky. But the story behind that box-office smash — which turned its unknown writer-star Sylvester Stallone into a phenomenon — is just as unlikely and inspiring. Helmed by Oscar winner Peter Farrelly (TIFF ’18 People’s Choice Award winner Green Book) and featuring a career-making performance from Anthony Ippolito, I Play Rocky vividly recreates a paradigm-shifting moment in Hollywood history and chronicles the meteoric rise of one of cinema’s preeminent multihyphenates.
“The Julia Set”
For Julia (Chase Infiniti, One Battle After Another), mathematics has always come naturally. But growing up, she learned to downplay her abilities to draw attention away from her high-needs sibling and perhaps not disrupt the expectations of others. Before long though, her intellectual talents are recognized by a teaching assistant, Pascal (Christopher Briney, The Summer I Turned Pretty), who recruits her into an elite group of student prodigies training for a highly prestigious undergraduate mathematics competition, The Putnam Exam.
Julia is thrown into the deep end, training with an infamously tough professor (Nina Hoss) who has already picked her favourites. Among them is Pascal, whose father (Jason Isaacs) is a giant in the field of mathematics. Unfortunately, his way of passing the baton is through intimidation. As the competition nears, tensions rise, sending Pascal spiralling but bringing out the best in slow and steady Julia.
“Lemonade”
After years in Ireland’s foster care system, Danny is required by law to leave the home that has been his world. On the day he turns 18, he finds himself alone in a tiny Dublin studio apartment, working an entry-level factory job, and navigating the bewildering freedoms and responsibilities of adulthood. As he struggles to find his footing — and a way back to the younger brother he was forced to leave behind — the reappearance of his former social worker Josh (Barry Keoghan, TIFF ’24’s Bring Them Down and Bird) offers both an unexpected lifeline and a painful reminder that trust, once broken, is never easily rebuilt.
“Love of Your Life”
By turns soulful, heartbreaking, and wise, this complex character study from director Rachel Morrison (TIFF ’24’s The Fire Inside) and screenwriter Julia Cox (TIFF ’23’s Nyad) provides the perfect showcase for the talented Margaret Qualley (TIFF ’24’s The Substance). Following a young woman’s romantic adventures and relationships over several years and continents, Love of Your Life is a contemporary portrait of love, loss, and letting go.
“Misty Green”
Superstar comic Chris Rock’s latest as writer-director is a hilarious, scathing satire of the institutional bigotry and soul-draining hustle that dominate the movie industry. Featuring a career-making lead performance from Rosalind Eleazar (TIFF ’19’s The Personal History of David Copperfield) and supporting turns from Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya plus Oscar nominees Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick (also at this year’s Festival in Babies), Misty Green chronicles the extremes one Black actor goes to to keep both her career and brother alive.
“Onwards and Sideways”
With heartache, laughter, and hard-won connection, the latest from Oscar-nominated director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, TIFF ’05’s Proof) stars Oscar nominee Laura Linney (TIFF ’08’s The Savages) and Rhys Ifans (TIFF ’23’s Mother Couch) as strangers whose lives become gradually entwined when both are diagnosed with Parkinson disease at the same clinic, on the same day.
“Prima Facie”
Anchored by a powerhouse performance from Cynthia Erivo, the Oscar-nominated star of Wicked and TIFF ’19’s Harriet, this piercing legal drama examines what happens when an ambitious barrister who primarily defends those accused of sex crimes unexpectedly becomes the accuser. Adapted by Australian playwright Suzie Miller from her globally acclaimed one-woman show, and directed by Susanna White (Our Kind of Traitor, TIFF ’17’s Woman Walks Ahead), Prima Facie exposes the pitfalls of a legal system that places the burden of proof on the victim.
“The Stunt Driver”
Even when compared with his fellow mavericks, misfits, and adrenaline junkies who wowed audiences with their high-speed stunts during the 1970s golden age of daredevils, Ken Carter was one of a kind. Known as “The Mad Canadian” and immortalized in Robert Fortier’s 1981 NFB documentary The Devil At Your Heels — a film whose creation is very much woven into this successor’s gonzo tapestry — Carter repeatedly risked his life for a series of car stunts that culminated in the most ambitious project of all: a historic jump in a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental across a mile-wide expanse of the St. Lawrence River. What could go wrong? In short: everything.
Powered by Jay Baruchel’s all-out performance as the man behind the wheel, Michael Dowse’s endearingly scrappy comedy honours its inspiration by portraying all the steps and missteps over the course of Carter’s years-long quest. The fact that The Stunt Driver frequently matches the anarchic energy of Baruchel and Dowse’s previous teaming on Goon (TIFF ’11) is no surprise. What’s more unexpected is the poignancy that the actor brings to his take on a man whose displays of bravado conceal a welter of fears and insecurities. It’s easy to see why he relies on steadfast allies like his wife Gloria (Laurence Leboeuf) and his car designer and technician Dick Keller (Ed Helms) — and why he’s so easily undermined by the machinations of his American nemesis, the legendary Evel Knievel (Ben Foster).
“A Talent for Murder”
This smouldering chamber thriller from director Anton Corbijn (TIFF ’07’s Control) imagines a strange confrontation between a literary agent and legendary author Patricia Highsmith, whose acclaimed, icily intelligent crime novels were the source material for such classic films as Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith from her play Switzerland and starring Alden Ehrenreich (TIFF ’23’s Fair Play), Olivia Cooke (TIFF ’19’s Sound of Metal; also at this year’s Festival in Slow Horses) and Oscar winner Helen Mirren, A Talent For Murder pits ruthless careerism against dark genius in a slippery battle of wills.
“Trash Mountain”
A dead hoarder’s houseful of holdings yields hope for a young man’s self-reckoning in this funny, wise film from director Kris Rey (It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home). Featuring winsome performances from Caleb Hearon (The Devil Wears Prada 2), Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer), and Oscar nominee Jackie Weaver (TIFF ’12’s Silver Linings Playbook), Trash Mountain is a homecoming story for anyone who dreads coming home.
“Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother”
A showcase for the immense range and singular magnetism of Oscar winner Mahershala Ali (TIFF ’18 People’s Choice Award winner Green Book), the latest from writer-director Bassam Tariq (Mogul Mowgli) is an audaciously inventive Texas-set action thriller in which the line that separates religious devotion from righteous bloodshed evaporates in a cloud of mayhem.
Latif (Ali) is a devout Muslim and a loving family man who also happens to be a contract killer. He has a strict code: he never uses guns and he only accepts targets the world would be better off without.
- Telluride 2026: Alpha Gang, The Liberation, The Idiots (September 8, 2026)
I have left the mountainous confines of Telluride and am currently winding down mountainous roads to Grand Junction. But I am also unspooling much of what I saw at a festival that included far more laughs than I anticipated. Some of those zingers are in two of these films, though one is decidedly not (you’ll know when you get there).
Verdant brushland, inviting ponds, and rolling fields of horses color my view, populating a road away from the one fest where, before every screening, the ringmaster warns attendees to be careful of roaming bears. I’d like to think this dispatch carries the same caveat of splendor and worry, though with less actual doom.
It’ll come as a shock to no one that David and Nathan Zellner’s raucous, medieval, sci-fi biker lark, “Alpha Gang,” isn’t exactly subtle. A group of aliens posing as humans, dressed in 1950s black leather studded jackets, arrives at a castle in a war-torn, vaguely European country to conquer humanity with shiny silver machine guns.
Léa Seydoux, Dave Bautista, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Lily-Rose Depp, Doona Bae, and Riley Keough make up the gang whose codenames are numerical versions of Alpha (e.g., Alpha 1, 2, etc.). They spend their days listening to music by The Crystals, Ricky Nelson, and more on their jukebox, and hiding their emotions (the latter they consider a contagious disease) from one another. They’re curious about ants, plants, and hard candy, and possess chrome armor and eat orange grull.
The Zellners don’t do conventional world-building here. We never quite discover what country the film is set in (the inhabitants range from rural to fascist to sometimes Soviet) or what planet the Alpha Gang hails from. We don’t even know their species. So when they unleash bloody violence on humanity, we only know that they’re out to kill those they consider to be evolutionarily lesser. Instability is added to their broad mission when a stoic Chris Pine, whose dress recalls Elvis from “Jailhouse Rock,” arrives, alerting them to a rival Beta Gang led by Cate Blanchett sporting a studded eye patch and a slurred Cockney accent.
In a sense, “Alpha Gang” is a trippy, hyperviolent explosion of cool style and kooky jokes. It’s also a reminder that Bautista is one of our great deadpan comedians and Harrison Jr. can do just about anything, even seemingly falling in love with a hawk named Periwinkle as he does here. But most of all, this potpourri of aesthetic and influence, similar to “Sasquatch Sunset,” uses absurdity to critique the ways humans other, destroy, and shut down empathy. And while you’ll probably find that you have to wade through the wackiness to get to those grander themes, they’re hidden grace notes worth finding in a film that’s incredibly funny.
Guy Nattiv’s “The Liberation” is a slow-simmer mystery looking for a center. That search isn’t totally shocking. Its frail protagonist Rita Cooper (Carrie Coon), similarly scans the horizon of her milquetoast life—which involves being an assistant bank manager, raising her two daughters Ella (Bella Ramsey) and Jo (Odessa Young), and being a devoted wife to her husband Reuben (Tracy Letts) and caretaker to her father—for a kind of fulfillment and healing she can’t quite locate in her suburban New Jersey community. Her unconscious quest ends when the persuasive self-help feminist guru Ricki (Lily James) walks into her bank to deposit a huge chunk of change. Rita doesn’t stop to ask where that money came from or what it’s for. She’s already invested in a woman she believes sees her for who she is.
Maybe it’s because “The Liberation” is partly based on Nattiv’s grandmother’s involvement in a cult; the film at least understands that a cult can be interesting not because of its charismatic leader but because of the psychology of its followers. Why would someone join an organization that’s so obviously controlling and manipulative?
Nattiv, an Israeli filmmaker whose past works include the Oscar-nominated short “Skin,” partly places the reason for his protagonist’s actions in her status as a Holocaust survivor. And for a while, one wonders if he’ll connect how the loss of family and one’s country could lead someone to buy into the cult of contemporary Zionism (to be clear, he never gestures close enough to the subject for one to wholly make that leap).
The overlong film is also somewhat betrayed by its ping-pong structure. It switches between showing how Rita became twisted in Ricki’s sticky web in 1982 and her daughters visiting Ricki’s secluded woodland compound in 1984 to find their mother. The latter has an undercover element that pays homage to contemporary true-crime stories but never commits enough to the intrigue to fully sustain the genre’s tension and ambiguity. The structure also undermines Coon’s unquestionably captivating performance, making it far more melodramatic than Coon probably intended.
The narrative’s ping-pong movement could spring from several wells: It might be mirroring Rita’s spiritual split or psychological destabilization via Ricki, who demands that Rita stop using her psychiatric drugs, and it could arise from Nattiv physically trying to piece together his grandmother’s perspective. While at Telluride, Nattiv alluded to his mother and aunt also being associated with the cult, even bringing him to meetings when he was younger, which all sounds like an equally fascinating story the director could’ve told about himself. Instead, he’s wading through memories that aren’t necessarily his, causing the film to feel as though we’re looking at Rita through a mirror of a mirror.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t commendable components to “The Liberation.” Nattiv smartly portrays every level of Ricki’s grooming with straightforwardness (the scenes with the cult are always brightly lit, while those with Rita’s family look grim). His lens also trusts Coon’s physical countenance, charting the character’s spiral by showing her stilted exterior melt into powerful frivolity before reverting back into painful frigidity. But “The Liberation” is too caught within the fog to maximize what is working. Instead, it feels trapped in its fractured telling of a personal history that never quite feels personal.
Some movies just never come together despite the talent attached and the genius of the premise. Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s absurdist biopic “The Idiot(s)” is such a case. It’s based on Andrew D. Kaufman’s The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky, and it concerns Fyodor (Johnny Flynn) and Anna Dostoyevsky (Aimee Lou Wood), who have just arrived in Baden from Russia in debt and in search of inspiration. Their story is told with a kind of flippancy, blending the comedic sensibilities of “Amadeus” and Lina Wertmüller to dismantle the great-man mythology surrounding the author and elevate his far more responsible wife.
Fyodor, as Flynn plays him, is a man of many vices. Though he loves his wife, particularly being flogged by her during sex, he possesses an unfocused eye. Upon arriving in Braden, he first pursues the mysterious Natasha F (Vicky Krieps), a reference to the heroine of The Idiot, Nastasya Filippovna, who almost never speaks but whose enchanting gaze spellbinds the author nonetheless. When those efforts threaten to crack open his marriage, he turns to gambling away the pittance of money he and Anna have.
Worse yet, the only prospect of him being paid is if Fyodor sends pages of the novel he’s attempting to write, The Idiot, to his editor. That wouldn’t normally be a problem, except writer’s block has hit him, leaving Anna to make a deal with his rival, the Russian expat Ivan Turgenev (Christian Friedel), to pawn off their possessions and even write some pages by hand under his name.
While all of this sounds pretty bleak, Szumowska and Englert are knowingly crass in their approach—in one scene Fyodor defecates in front of his landlady’s door—and abrasive in their resolve. They push the boundaries of the period costumes, make jokes about Fyodor’s seizures, and do anachronistic covers of a-ha’s “Take On Me.”
Flynn and Wood are equally committed to this extreme rendering, earnestly espousing desperation, love, jealousy, regret, and humiliation with an openness that, for a time, papers over the picture’s repetitiveness. Unfortunately, even they can’t forestall the inevitable. “The Idiot(s)” runs out of steam quickly once it repeats the same punchline a dozen times.
The film wears you down rather than excites you, partly because Anna is never quite as strong of a character as a modern viewer would hope. While it’s true in real life that Anna separated Fyodor’s vices from the actual man she loved, the “stand by your man” theme running underneath their relationship feels less like love and more like a personal torture—causing anyone who decides to stick around to finish the film to also feel as though they’ve been hollowed out as well. Which may be the point, even if it’s inarticulately told.
- Irony, Contradiction, and Perspective: Na Hong-jin and Hoyeon on “Hope” (September 8, 2026)
“Hope,” from director Na Hong-jin, is weirder and wilder than any simple plot description could ever hope to convey. So the best thing to share is that it’s thrilling to see such an unvarnished vision executed with the highest level of technical prowess and sincere love.
The Korean cinema that has often broken through has more often than not been its seedy revenge tales, but with the pronouncement of “Hope,” filling the contours of its frame with gregarious and uniquely Korean archetypes and stuffed with the most exciting camera angles you’ll see in a blockbuster, it feels like an invitation to taste the riches of the country’s most unhinged visions.
It is methodical and controlled in the unveiling of its central mystery, so gleeful when it lets its feet [sic] flag fly, you can’t help being swept–more like dragged–along with it. Thankfully, Na has a murderer’s row of performers, who are on his boisterous wavelength. Hwang Jung-min plays Bum-seok, a village police chief, who drives to Hope Harbor once reports come in about a strange creature that murders livestock and people alike. He’s joined by his second cousin, Ko Sung-ki (Zo In-sung), and rookie deputy, Im Sung-ae (Hoyeon), who find that the threat they face may not be of this world.
Director Na Hong-jin. (NEON)
For Na, while he delivers spectacle befitting the IMAX screens “Hope” will play on, he also wants people to consider who the real victims and perpetrators are in the film, and how, depending on whose perspective we’re seeing, that can disrupt our enjoyment. “I hope [the film] also makes you question the catharsis of the on-screen violence,” he shared.
For Hoyeon, playing Sung-ae was as gratifying as it was challenging; she enjoyed how the stunt work pushed her body to the limits while also giving her the chance to address contemporary intergenerational dynamics in Korea. “The reality is that in Korea, in many of the rural towns and smaller villages, there are very few, if any, young people who choose to stay there. What does it mean for someone like Sung-ae to stay?” she said.
As “Hope” arrives in theaters this week, director Na and Hoyeon, whose words were eloquently translated by Jiwon Lee and Haley Jung, respectively, spoke with RogerEbert.com over Zoom; this piece combines their interviews into one fluid conversation. They discussed the enduring influence of Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop,” the lineage of female Korean action heroes wielding big guns, and how the film speaks to the duo’s past work across projects like “The Yellow Sea” and “Squid Game.”
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. It contains mild spoilers.
Director Na, “The Wailing” opens with a Bible verse from the Gospel of Luke, while “Hope” ends with a modified verse from Hebrews: “Faith is the evidence of things not seen.” What excites you as a filmmaker about exploring questions of belief and faith through the language of cinema?
Na Hong-jin: I’m a believer in that religion, so I’ve long found my work in cinema as an extension of that belief. With“The Wailing,” the idea of the film started with that Luke passage. I thought the passage–where the resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples on the Emmaus road–was a striking cinematic moment. The disciples had to ask: was this figure they were seeing Jesus, or was he something else?
“The Wailing” came from me trying to expand on that moment, that rattling of faith. Conversely, for “Hope,” after making the film, I tried to reflect on the true meaning of the title, how the movie should feel, how the conclusion should feel for the audience, and what the message should really be. After considering that, I thought it best to include a direct mention of Hebrews. I can’t help but keep coming back to these Biblical passages to bookend my films.
That is why, after considering that, I tried to include the passage from Hebrews, as you mentioned, because I thought it was most adequate for that particular purpose of the film.
I’m intrigued by how your films show normal people grappling with these questions of faith. It leads me to ask about the Korean curse word, “shibal,” which your characters say a lot in the film. The English subtitles translate it differently every time, so I’m wondering how you were thinking through the significance of this word to the characters.
NH: It’s interesting, because when I was writing the script, there weren’t that many “shibals” in the script, so I did try to change it to other words. I couldn’t come up with anything because, in Korean, people don’t use many exclamations in daily life. So realistically speaking, “shibal” might be the only expression of exclamation that we use in the language, but as you mentioned–because the word itself is a cuss word–that made it a challenge in terms of how much I should include it.
What’s funny, though, is that while we were shooting, the actors, while they were performing in the scenes, couldn’t help but shout “shibal” even for lines in my script where their characters didn’t say it. As we were editing, I did realize that we did have way too many uses of the word, so I did try to take out as much as I could, but then thought that maybe it was justified to keep them in there because I see the use of the word as an expression of exclamation and surprise by characters who have to deal with a cosmically absurd situation. Despite my self-editing, I still think I ended up with too many “shibals.”
I remember from the press conference that actor Zo In-sung, who had his knee operated on before a stunt-heavy scene in the forest, said he probably wouldn’t be able to run that much, to which you replied, “no problem.” I’m sure he threw in a couple extra “shibals” during the chase sequences you had him do.
NH: (Laughs) What’s he talking about? He didn’t have to run that much.
Hope (NEON)
True. His hanging-off-of-horseback-while-being-chased-by-Michael-Fassbender experience outweighs how much he has to actually run. A lot of your past films, such as “The Yellow Sea,” featured little to no gunplay, with that film thriving on vicious, close-quarters knife combat. There’s nary a character without a firearm in the film, so tell me about their incorporation, and the new opportunities they provided you when it came to expanding your horizons as an action director.
NH: You’re correct in pointing this out, and truthfully, for this film, I wanted to try my hand at using firearms for fight scenes because we used knives so extensively in “The Yellow Sea.” My desire to incorporate more action sequences with guns was also part of the impetus for setting the film in this particular time period, because I found it not only more believable that people would be using firearms in this era, but also because of the paranoia of the times, they’d be far too trigger-happy.
It made me recontextualize the film’s opening scenes, because I was struck by the way Hwang Jung-min’s Bum-seok would grip the gun; the way he held it made it feel like the gun was its own living organism he was trying to control. Did you talk with him about how he should grip it?
He’s an actor who has been allowed to shoot guns in lots of the movies he’s been in. We’ve all had to serve in the military for our mandatory service, so between us, at least, there weren’t specific conversations about how he should hold it. What is worth noting, though, is that there are scenes where actors believe they’ve made a mistake and thought those scenes wouldn’t be included in the movie, but I saw those “errors” as a way to flesh out the characters more.
For example, there’s that scene where, as Bum-seok is racing through the town, he drops his bullets in his pursuit. I’m sure he considered it a mistake and didn’t think it would make the cut, but I thought it was perfect. It was the perfect portrayal of the character because I wanted this character to be someone who is holding a gun and using it, but is actually very scared of doing so.
It made me reflect on the ways you visually frame our “hero” characters’ shifts throughout the film; they are presented to the audience very heroically at the start, but by the film’s end, they seem smaller, more terrified, in contrast to the enormity and strength of the threat they face.
So when these humans race across the bridge, we get this final dialogue from them that is supposed to represent their situation. These human characters talk about progress and how far they’ve come, but seeing the aliens arrive also makes them reflect inward and look back. They now feel strange about what they’ve done in the past and are unsure how to behave and live in light of the revelation. I thought that dialogue was enough to represent the human perspective. They are the aggressors in the story, so I thought that conversation showed them trying to justify what they’ve done.
But the aliens are the victims, and their conversation is inverted. They talk about how, no matter what has happened to us so far, we have to move forward, not lose hope, and keep believing in the future. The film concludes by intercutting between these conflicting powers, and I thought that was the most ideal ending.
Hope (NEON)
Hoyeon, at both screenings of the film at Cannes, people cheered at your first scene when you got out of the car quite literally guns blazing. I know that director Na had you do about twenty takes. Tell me more about how your approach changed over time.
Hoyeon: From the moment I stepped out of the car to the very last U-turn sequence, he was shooting it in a long master shot. Not all the takes were at the same angles; sometimes it was wider, lower, etc. Our cinematographer, Hong Kyung-pyo, and director Na put so much effort into getting that shot right, and what I didn’t know before filming was how finely you have to adjust your eye line depending on exactly where the camera is. Even if you’re looking in the same direction, your eyeline has to adjust depending on where the camera is and what it’s covering. So that’s more of a micro-level thing I had to keep in mind. It gets more complicated when you’re holding a gun, because you also have to adjust where you point it.
I’m sure by take eighteen, though, your energy level is different from take three. Did you ever feel like you were channeling your own real-time exhaustion into Sung-ae?
I was joking during dinner after I finished shooting that scene. At first, I was very focused and looked straight ahead at the intended target, exactly the way director Na wanted. After five to ten takes, I kept the same focus but also was thinking, “Okay, do you have what you need already?” Then by take eighteen, I’ll be honest, I didn’t even know what I was looking at anymore. I would just step out of the car, aim the gun wherever, rinse and repeat.
You’d have to ask director Na which take he ended up using in the final film, but he joked that he would use the second-to-last take I did, when I was at my peak fatigue.
You mentioned incorporating the gun into your choreography, and I wanted to follow up on that. I know that it’s easy to draw comparisons to characters in Western media like Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley, but I’m wondering if you were consciously thinking about the lineage of female Korean action stars wielding big guns that you’re stepping into?
H: I think Korean cinema has been graced with many female action heroes. I think of Jun Ji-hyun in “Assassination”–she’s primarily a sniper, not the kind of gun I was using, but I digress–then you have Kim Tae-ri in “Mr. Sunshine.” I wasn’t approaching my work as “This is a completely new side of a female action hero you haven’t seen before,” but rather, I wanted to appear really focused, adept, and skilled at using the gun the same way that these women have done.
Because this was such a high-action, intense film and I’m the only female in the cast, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the first one to get exhausted. I increased my muscle mass and stamina; I practiced shooting a lot, and I did hardcore physical training for six months before beginning shooting. I knew I’d be surrounded by people who embodied discipline, and I wanted to make sure I was up to par with that.
Hope (NEON)
Director Na, I know you’ve described Paul Verhoeven’s “Robocop” as having a lasting influence on you as a creative and filmmaker. Given that the protagonists of this film are cops, I’m wondering if you found yourself drawing on that influence when it came to crafting the story here.
NH: At the time the movie was released theatrically in Korea, some of the really violent and graphic scenes had been edited out, such as the sequence where Murphy is executed. When I found out the version I was watching had those scenes removed, I knew I had to watch the film in its fullness. I learned you could watch those edited-out scenes through a laser disc version of the movie in Japan. So I found the laser disc, then found a friend who owned the player, and we watched it together.
I distinctly remember being so shocked when our hero was attacked and killed. In that process, we see body parts flying everywhere, and I remember being both shocked and impressed by Paul Verhoeven’s direction. When I watched this, I was an elementary school kid, so that shock stayed with me for a while. I probably couldn’t articulate it as well back then, but now, when I think about those brutal sequences and how RoboCop acts on his vengeance throughout the story, I realize how central catharsis is.
It’s not just catharsis, though, because as a whole, it’s a story that’s heartbreaking and saddening even if there’s triumph. There are so many complex emotions within that catharsis, and I think that complexity and how the film arrives there has served as an influence not just in this film, “Hope”–which I hope also makes you question the catharsis of the on-screen violence–but my other works as well.
When I look at “Hope” in conversation with “The Wailing,” so many of your characters have a preoccupation with bodies: how to dispose of them properly, how to care for the dead after they’ve passed. Can you speak about this throughline, particularly how you frame the improper care of the deceased as a kind of karmic act that will come back to haunt?
NH: From the aliens’ perspective in this story, just like the movie’s title, their only goal is to save this child, to find it, and to bring it to life. I thought it was interesting: what kind of person would find this important child, who represents a kind of salvation for the aliens? How would this child be introduced to the audience on the screen, and what is this child supposed to look like? I was drawn to explore the juxtaposition of royalty and commonality. Tying back to your opening question, there’s something almost nativity-esque in where we see the alien prince: in the muck and mire of the carpenter Yang-bae’s freezer.
Hope (NEON)
Hoyeon, in “Squid Game,” you play Kang Sae-byeok, a North Korean defector who crosses the South Korean border, while in“Hope,” you’re a police officer, enforcing the law. Throughout “Hope,” there’s this idea that’s pervasive about how we need to be wary of trespassers. Tell me more about playing characters on opposite sides, so to speak. I’m wondering if one informs the other and vice versa?
H: That is such an interesting point, I think, and honestly, preparing for this role, I wasn’t thinking about how Sung-ae and Kang Sae-byeok were inverted necessarily, but it’s something I’m going to be thinking more about, particularly in relation to the film’s themes about how we demonize “the other” to our peril.
With Sung-ae, she really tries to protect, maintain, and keep the line. Director Na has shared with me what’s at the core of my character: goodness or human goodwill. I thought it was interesting that she’s capable and someone who does so many things for the town … but what happens when a strong, clear, and simple sense of goodwill meets the reality of the real world, or at least a world of aliens? How does her conception of strength change?
I was fascinated to explore the contradictions and irony that could stem from her kindness meeting the situation she is in, because from the aliens’ perspective, she’s a destructive power. They don’t see goodwill. So I went into this film thinking Director Na really wanted to explore the themes of irony and contradiction that stem from differences in perspective.
What you’re saying is making me think about what Director Na shared with you to help you give insight into your character: “Isn’t Seong-ae the kind of person who knows how many spoons are in the village?” How did you internalize that line when it came to better understanding your character?
H: Obviously, Sung-ae is someone who does all kinds of chores and odd jobs all around the town. The reality is that in Korea, in many rural towns and smaller villages, very few, if any, young people choose to stay. There’s a large aging population but not many young people. What does it mean for someone like her to stay?
That’s the kind of character I interpreted her as. She’s someone who chose to stay there, and she’s simplistic–not in a reductive sense–in her desire for her community. I think that simplicity, or maybe purity is a better word, was important, and I think with the human characters you see in the film, director Na wanted to show how all of them as a collective, when put together, are not just a community unto themselves, but represent humanity writ large.
On one side, you have extraterrestrial aliens, and on the other, you have humans. So rather than director Na wanting to put or place multi-layered complexities to each human character, he almost gives them very simple and light characteristics so that way when all of them put together, you almost see one complex human being, one community as a whole.
Hope (NEON)
Your scene with Mr. Hae-sul–played by Im Hyun-sik–where he’s recounting his story about pooping in the woods is one of the film’s funniest scenes, and it only really works if Sung-ae takes him seriously. I’d love to hear more about filming that sequence, particularly because it acts as a microcosm of what director Na does so well: grounding humor in a foreboding ambiance.
H: (Laughs) It’s not any more secret because Director Na keeps saying this to everybody, but Im Hyun-sik is a legendary actor. He’s in his eighties, and so I was both nervous and excited to meet him. He’s a cute, adorable, and nice person, but the only thing is that he cannot memorize any lines. So we had a big monitor next to me, and we filmed that scene for two days.
It reminded me, in some ways, of your work as Jisoo in “Disclaimer*” because she has to take on a kind of confessional role.
H: You’re right; what you’re saying is making me think of my scene with Kevin Kline, because Jisoo, in that moment, is listening to a story from an elderly figure. I think the difference between Sung-ae and Jisoo is that Jisoo has duplicitous intent when listening to Stephen. She has her own ambition, ego, and sense of justice that affect her ability to be fully present and listen.
I think Sung-ae is more pure of hurt. When she’s hearing Hae-sul share the story, all of a sudden, she doesn’t even care about the monster anymore. She was so fully in it and radiated empathy.
I really love that scene in the hospital because we see the character more, even more so than when she first gets out of the car. You can see how she treats the elders in her town, which shows how, in her everyday life, she’s made being present for them a cornerstone. She’s been living her life “keeping track of the spoons in each household,” so you understand how severe her reaction is when she sees it threatened.
It’s a small moment, but in that scene where she’s tending to Hae-sul, Sung-ae doesn’t even look into his eyes until he brings up aliens. It’s one of the notes director Na gave: Sung-ae is so absorbed in trying to clean up his leg that she’s so focused on caring that she initially doesn’t even meet his gaze.
“Hope” is in theaters via NEON.
