Rated R for sexual content, language and brief full nudity
Profanity:
Strong, colorful, and profane language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:
Peril, character seriously injured
Diversity Issues:
Class differences a theme of the film
Date Released to Theaters:
October 30, 2026
Copyright 2026 Black Bear
“Wicker” is a joyously bawdy fairy tale, a cheeky remix of “Beauty and the Beast,” and a sly satire of social hierarchies, with some poignant themes of mortality. It is wildly unexpected and a ton of fun.
It takes place in one of those timeless, placeless, fairy tale settings where you might spot Snow White or Belle in the town square. It’s not spotless, though. It is authentically muddy, and our heroine, who is the local fisherwoman, is so often insulted about the way she smells we can almost feel we are inhaling the scene of the fish she is delivering. In this community, no one has a name; everyone is known only by job, or the profession of one’s husband. So Olivia Colman plays Fisherwoman, who thanks to her profession, her odor, and her lack of a husband, is at the lowest rung of the town’s highly hierarchical social strata. At a town wedding, where one of the customs is to put the bride’s throat in a dog collar-style choker, Fisherwoman is mocked by being told she is the next to be married.
Fisherwoman visits the town has a Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage) and asks him to weave her a husband. He readily agrees, and shortly one arrives. Inside the intricately woven wicker is Alexander Skarsgard, still extremely dashing and handsome. And sound designer Andy Neil makes the squeaky/creaky sounds of the wicker a key part of the character, subtly shifting as the character gets less stiff and more, well, human. He turns out to be a very satisfactory husband, devoted to Fisherwoman’s happiness in bed and around the house (except stoking the fire because he is quite flammable). She soon glows with the pure happiness of being devotedly loved. And the woman at the top of the social hierarchy, Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki) discovers that it makes her very uncomfortable not to be able to feel superior. Fisherwoman is much too happy to care or even notice that other women in the town are envying her, much less that one of them might want to find a way to make her life less enviable.
Thanks to a very game cast, he film transitions seamlessly from wildly outrageous humor to thoughtfully explored themes of social hierarchies, mortality, tender romance, and what it really means to be human.
Parents should know that this movie is very explicit in its portrayal of sex, with some nudity and very strong and crude language. There is some peril and a character is badly injured.
Family discussion: What do the women of this town envy about Fisherwoman’s romance? Why does that make Tailor’s Wife so upset? Why are people identified only by their professions or the professions of the men in their lives? What will happen next?
If you like this, try: “Save Yourselves!” by the same writer/directors
Rated PG for some thematic elements, partial nudity and brief violence
Profanity:
None
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Social drinking
Violence/ Scariness:
Duel (no one hurt)
Diversity Issues:
Class issues
Date Released to Theaters:
October 16, 2026
Copyright 2026 Focus
The new version of “Sense and Sensibility” is based on the classic Jane Austen book about two sisters, which has already inspired a beloved 1995 film starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet with Thompson’s Oscar-winning screenplay, as well as a 1971 four-part BBC miniseries, a 1981 seven-part BBC miniseries, a three-part BBC miniseries, two Hallmark movies, as well as many lightly inspired variations including one starring the Duff sisters and one called “From Prada to Nada.” So, any new version should find some way to justify itself by showing us some new insight or some improvement in acting or script. This latest version does not meet that test, but it does remind us why the story endures over the generations. The Emma Thompson version directed by Ang Lee is still the best, but this one, written and directed by women, is a pleasure to watch, despite some odd departures from the source material.
As in all of the previous versions and as indicated by the title, the two devoted sisters represent two different ways of looking at the world. Elinor Dashwood (Daisy Edgar-Jones) represents sense with an outlook that is practical and analytical. Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles) is passionate, impulsive, and dreamy. Director Georgia Oakley and screenwriter Diana Reid introduce us to Marianne as she is peacefully lying in a field and she is most often seen outdoors, while Elinor is usually inside.As the story begins, the girls’ father has died. As we know all too well from the literature of and about the period, that means their home will be inherited by their brother John (Tom Brooke of “Slow Horses”), because property almost always was entailed – automatically inherited by — the male heirs. John arrives with his selfish wife Fanny (Stacy Martin), who makes no effort to hide her wish that Marianne and Elinor, along with their mother, (Caitríona Balfe of “Outlander) and sister Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) would leave as soon as possible. While they try to find a place they can afford, Fanny’s shy brother Edward (George MacKay) comes for a visit. He and Elinor quickly become friends. While her behavior is perfectly proper, she and her mother begin to think he might propose. But he does not. And soon the Dashwoods have to accept the only offer of a new home they have, on the property of a distant relative, the warm-hearted but raucous and gossipy Mrs. Jennings (Fiona Shaw). Marianne, outdoors as usual, twists her ankle and is rescued by the handsome and very dashing Mr. Willoughby (Frank Dillane, who played the teenaged Tom Riddle in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”). Despite Elinor’s pleas to be careful, Marianne loses her heart to him immediately and is certain he will propose to her. When he leaves abruptly, she is devastated.
One wise choice in this film was casting actors closer to the ages of the characters in the book. Winslet was 19 when she played Marianne, but Thompson and Grant were in their mid-30s. Edgar-Jones and Creed-Miles are young enough to understand their characters’ more naive choices. The use of the settings, glowingly filmed by Arnaud Potier, enhances the story. MacKay and Balfe are very good, and so is Bodhi Rae Breathnach as the younger sister, Margaret. The stand-out is the always-great Shaw, who makes Mrs. Jennings less of a caricature than in some of the other versions.
It is difficult to imagine any reason for some of the departures from the book than a lack of confidence in the audience attention span. Changing the character of Lucy Steele (Ceara Coveney) from the crass daughter of a middle-class landlord to recently impoverished upper class makes her role in the story less compelling. And there is simply no possible reason to insert a ridiculous duel.
Austen’s story and characters, appealing young performers, beautiful cinematography and score (Roger Goula) make this a worthy watch and a reason to be optimistic about the inevitable future version.
Parents should know that this film has brief partial nudity and brief violence (a duel, but no one gets hurt).
Family discussion: Are you more like Elinor or Marianne? Why has this story been so beloved for centuries?
If you like this, try: the book by Jane Austen and the Thompson/Grant/Winslet/Rickman version
Rated R for for sexual content, some nudity, language, violence and bloody images
Profanity:
Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Alcohol, vaping, pills
Violence/ Scariness:
Murder, peril, disturbing and violent content
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
October 2, 2026
Copyright 2026 Amazon MGM
I can understand why BookTok-to-besteller author Colleen Hoover wrote a book about a bestselling author. And I can understand why two of Hollywood’s most accomplished and talented actresses would want to produce and star in a book by a best-selling author with two juicy parts for women. But ooof, despite Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson doing their best, this movie is a dumb, dull, dud.
Let’s start with one of the most misbegotten meet-cutes in movie history. Movies love to have a fun situation bring two characters together for the first time. In “Verity,” Lowen (Johnson) is an author whose book-signing attracted only three people, one who left when she got a phone call. Her agent has set up an important meeting with a publisher and she wants to get there in time. She is almost there when suddenly, she is drenched in blood when a woman is hit by a car. A handsome bystander (Josh Hartnett) takes her into a bathroom to help her clean up and even gives her the literal shirt off his back. Somehow in this brief conversation, he tells her that his eight-year-old daughter was drowned in a lake and she responds, “My mother just died.”
Lowen rushes to the meeting, and can you guess who’s in the room? Yes, in a new shirt, the very same guy. He is Jeremy Crawford, the husband of wildly popular author Verity Crawford (Hathaway), whose books are, in the world of this film, unique because they are from the villain’s point of view. Verity was in a car accident and is unable to get her new book done in time for the deadline. The publisher is looking for an NDA-bound writer “of the same genre” to finish the book.
At first, Lowen says no. But Jeremy tells her that Verity loves Lowen’s book, and soon she is moving into the Crawford’s lavish country house in snowy Vermont, with architectural details along the roof making it look like a buzzsaw, as though it is an omen or something. Lowen meets the Crawford’s young son, Crew (these names!) and Verity’s nurse, Anna (Irina Dvorovenko). Verity is paralyzed and mute, unable to communicate. Lowen has to sort through all of the notes for the book on her own. She finds a hidden thumb drive that contains Verity’s memoir, with a disturbing description of her selfishness and neediness.
It gets more disturbing and Jeremy gets more intriguing and Lowen either thinks she sees Verity standing and looking at her or….
There are too many shots of people holding beverages. Parallels of hands being pricked and mouths being cut/bitten are not as meaningful as they intend. There are some very funny flashbacks as we see Verity at the height of her fame, interviews about her books with the media big three — Gayle King, Alex Cooper, and Sean Evans on “Hot Ones.” It’s turgid and it’s slow. Which is bad because it gives you more time to think about how unimaginative it is and wonder why a child who is supposed to be at least eight years old i is clearly younger, why Lowen always wears black nail polish and when it will be over so you can go home.
Parents should know that this movie has nudity and explicit sexual situations, graphic and disturbing images, very strong language, reference to suicide, murder, drinking, pills, and smoking.
Family discussion: What would this movie be like if it was presented as the villain’s point of view? What made Verity’s books so popular? What will happen next?
Rated R for pervasive language, drug use, and sexual content/nudity.
Profanity:
Constant very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:
Alcohol and drug use, casual and to excess
Violence/ Scariness:
Scuffles, fire
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
August 14, 2026
Copyright 2026 A24
“Tony” begins with a quote from the late author and chef Anthony Bourdain describing himself at age 19: “a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.” Add in depressed, arrogant, angry, terrified, and desperately crushing on a girl he has no possible capacity to attract, and you’ve got the anti-hero in this, I have to say, delicious new film about a pivotal summer when Bourdain was 19.
Dominic Sessa (“The Holdovers“) gives one of the best performances of the year as Bourdain, still called “Tony.” As the film opens, he is explaining with great confidence but very little substance to an academic committee why he should receive a writing grant for the summer. He is so certain his proposal cannot lose that he tells everyone, including his family, that he has won it. But he has not. With no money, no plans, and no idea what to do, he decides to follow a girl who has shown pretty definitively that she is even less impressed with him than the committee. She mentioned she was spending the summer in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, so that is where he goes, with no job, no place to say, and very soon, no money.
I really appreciate the new style of biographical films that pick one pitival moment instead of trying to cram an entire lifetime into two hours, skipping from some trauma in childhood to meeting a series of significant people to being discovered to letting down people who care about him, etc. etc. Here, Sessa keeps us on the side of Bourdain, still being called by the diminutive “Tony,” behaving very badly, making many mistakes, hurting other people, but, in truly thrilling fashion, getting a glimpse of a future where he will become fully himself, fully “Anthony.”
Screenwriters Todd Bartels, Lou Howe, Matthew Miller, and dirctor Matt Johnson sensitively adapted from just a few dozen pages in Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, capturing the reality of the emotions and reactions instead of being overly didactic about the details. This means that three years are encapsulated into one summer and the characters other than Bourdin are composites adjusted for dramatic purposes. In the film and in reality Bourdin worked at a low-end Provincetown restaurant called The Flagship. In the movie, he gets drunk, insults the waitress, gets thrown out, and gets robbed. Then the owner (Anonthy Banderas as Chef) takes pity on him, and lets him sleep on his hammock — waking him up every morning by throwing cold ocean water on his head, and then gives him a dishwashing job in his kitchen. It is unlikely any of that really happened.
But that set-up is just a way of making palpable what is going on internally. Leo Woodall, fast becoming one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, gives another outstanding performance as Sal, the louche, amoral sous-chef who carves a chip out of the doorway every time he has sex with a woman so he can keep them as souvenirs of his conquests. Chef is someone the Bourdin we meet at the beginning of the film would have dismissed as simple and uninteresting. But like a cartoon character with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other, Sal and Chef present two choices that Bourdin will continue to struggle with until his sad death at his own hand in 2018. It is a tribute to the screenwriters and the performers that the film hits the usual notes of a three-act coming of age story and yet every minute is fresh and specific. So it is fitting that the movie ends with one of Bourdain’s real-life friends from the restaurant world, Eric Ripert, playing an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America. We know what happens next. But the part of Bourdain’s story he dismissed in his book as “the less said about that part of my life, the better, believe me,” makes a very fine film.
Parents should know that this film has a lot of adult material and bad behavior including nudity and sexual references and situations, alcohol and drugs used casually and to excess, and very strong language.
Family discussion: How did Tony’s ideas about what he needed to be happy change over the course of the summer? Why? What food tastes like the future to you? If not food, what does feel like future to you?
If you like this, try: Bourdain’s books and television series and “Julie & Julia”
Extenseive war-time peril and violence, monsters, many characters injured and killed, graphic and disturbing images
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
July 17, 2026
Copyright 2026 Universal
One of the foundational stories of the Western canon has a grand, sweeping, meticulously diligent new version in writer/director Christopher Nolan’s epic film, bristling with Oscar-winning talent and impressive seriousness of purpose. It is, with a few significant exceptions, true to Homer’s story dating back to 700-800 BC. But there are also vestigial reflections of Nolan’s previous film, “Oppenheimer,” both stories of men who must grapple with the consquences of their destructive, even ruthless, acts during wartime.
Matt Damon plays one of history’s most complex heroes, Odysseus, whose name and story still define journeys of adventure thousands of years later. The Odyssey follows Odysseus on his long voyage home after the victory of the Greeks, led by Agamemnon, with Achilles, Ajax, and Odysseus, in the Trojan War. Paris, a Trojan prince, had been asked to decide which of three goddesses was the most beautiful. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, bribed him by saying that if he picked her, she would give him the most beautiful human woman in the world. That woman was Helen (Lupita Nyong’o). She was the wife of the Greek king, Menelaus of Sparta (Jon Bernthal). But she is known throughout history as Helen of Troy, because she was kidnapped (or ran away with) Paris, leading to the war that made her known as “the face that launched a thousand ships.”
That war lasted ten years. It was Odysseus, known for his trickery, who came up with the idea of getting the soliders inside the Trojan’s impenetrable city by hiding in a gigantic statue of a horse, with a soldier named Sinon (Elliot Page) left behind to lie that the Greeks had retreated, leaving the horse as a tribute to the goddess Athena (Zendaya). When the Trojans drag it into the city, the Greek soldiers come out to win a decisive battle and end the war. This story is told in Virgil’s Anead, and in Nolan’s film we see parts of it more than once in flashbacks, part of elliptical, non-linear story-telling that may be confusing to those not familiar with Homer’s tale. (To refresh your memory or just get a quick recap, try this.)
But really, all you need to know is that Odysseus is on his way home, leading his men in (to start with) three boats, hoping to make it back before Agamemnon reaches his home just to be competitive. (Agamemnon will get home first but then be murdered by his wife, Helen’s sister (also Nyong’o).
It will take Odysseus a decade, with many stops along the way as the crew tries to replenish their provisions. The most well-known of their adventures are all brought to screen in unprecedented splendor by Nolan, and his “Oppenheimer” team, editor Jennifer Lame, production designer Ruth De Jong, and Oscar-winning cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, filming in Greece, Italy, Iceland, Morocco, and Scotland. This is the first-ever feature movie filmed entirely with IMAX cameras (in tribute, you can even get an IMAX camera popcorn bucket) and shown in 70 mm. The visuals are never less than spectacular. Odysseus and his men are traveling by boat and the sky and “the wine-dark sea” Homer described is filmed with a power and grandeur of a true epic. We get a visceral feeling of just how alone these men are, not just before GPS but before maps and navigation, entrusting to the gods to guide them home but knowing that the gods may be even more devious tricksters than Odysseus himself.
Odysseus tries to follow the “laws of Zeus,” particularly with regard to hospitable treatment of strangers, and killing even animals with honor, plucking his bow string to give them a chance to escape. When lives are at stake, though, he will do what is expedient. On their first stop, he leads his men onto an island where a cave is set up as a home, with a cozy fire. According to his beliefs about what the laws of Zeus require and assuming that the inhabitant of the cave will believe the same, he orders his men to stoke the fire to welcome their host. But the inhabitant is not a man. He is a gigantic cyclops, and in a genuinely terrifying moment, as soon as he enters the cave, he grabs one of the men and bites his head off. It is hard to understand why Nolan chose to omit one of the key elements of the story, Odysseus refusing to give the cyclops his name, instead saying he was called “Noman.” This is a very significant part of the story that is parallel to his not using his own name when he returns home, both relating to his sense of himself and his identity.
After a few more deaths, Odysseus is able to lead his men to an escape. But he violates his obligation to give the murdered men a decent burial. The conflict between his obligations under the law of Zeus and the choices to save as many lives as possible are a theme.
Copyright 2026 Universal
This conflict is presented in the immediate consequences of killing the cyclops. Odysseus learns that the monster was the son of the god Poseiden, who will now express his grief and anger by keeping them from reaching home. As in Homer’s original story, it explores the theme of human agency and the interference of the gods. We often see Odysseus near the goddess Athena.
Other adventures include two enchantresses. Calypso ( Charlize Theron) feeds Odysseus lotus flowers that make him forget the PTSD of his agonizing choices but also the fact that he has a family. Circe (Samatha Morton) turns his famished men into pigs (an extraordinary scene of transformation and body horror), and we see how clever Odysseus is in figuring out what she has done and forcing her to reverse the spell and help him get home. He travels to Hades where he meets the ghost of Sinon. He straps himself to the mast of his ship while his men have their ears blocked with wax to pass through the jagged rocks where the sirens sing men to their deaths.
Meanwhile, his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) are back in Ithaca, with dozens of suitors eating their food, drinking their wine, and trying to get Penelope to marry one of them so he can take over the kingdom. The most odious of the suitors is Antinous (Robert Pattinson), a maniuplative schemer who got Sinon to take his place in the war. Telemachus leaves Ithaca to see if he can find any news of his father from Menelaus.
It will take all of Odysseus’ craftiness and strength to defeat the suitors and reunite with his wife and son. Damon’s performance shows us all of the complexity that makes Odysseus an eternally enthralling hero. Pattinson continues to impress as he subverts his considerable looks and charisma to create a despicable, cowardly character. John Leguizamo is superb as the loyal Eumaeus. Even the three-hour run time cannot find enough time for Theron, Zendaya, and Morton, but each of those encounters could be an entire movie.
Nolan’s screenplay veers into colloquialisms that take us out of the movie now and then. But he has an unsurpassed gift for the language of cinema. The scenes of exploration, combat, and in Penelope’s castle in Ithaca are striking and narratively clear. Penelope fends off the suitors by telling them she cannot move forward until she finishes weaving a burial shroud for her late father-in-law. She weaves during the day and then unravels it at night. She appears modestly behind a screen as the suitors crowd the dining hall.
Nolan’s style is chilly and cerebral, with the female characters thinly sketched and too often just creating problems for or taking power away from men. That may be one reason that draws him to a story where a military hero has encounters with literal enchantresses who impede his progress. His exploration here of the conflicts even successful warriors feel about what they have done and what they have seen is moving. He made very significant changes to Homer’s concluding scenes (admittedly, contested by some scholars as added by others later). But the ending he chose has the same problems as the disputed version and it undermines the weight of what he has presented so compellingly throughout the story.
Parents should know that this film is extremely violence with many characters injured and killed, many with throats slit, monsters, ghosts, and graphic and disturbing images. Odysseus is drugged and characters drink wine. There is some strong language.
Family discussion: Why is this one of the most enduring stories in history? What does Odysseus regret the most? What decisions did he make that you think were wrong?
If you like this, try: the book (Fagles or Wilson translation) and a modern re-imagining from the Coen brothers, “O Brother Where Art Thou.”
