The Last House (2026)

It's been 5 years since the 2021 height of Covid (as we remember Covid) and a movie about being trapped in your house with your family, unable to go outside because something out there will kill you still feels incredibly on the nose. Attempting this is bold in that it could tap into the angst we now tie to that time or it could feel like retreading ground we don't want to revisit? I'm not sure we have good memory of that time as our politics and emotions have coloured everything we discuss and exchange regarding lock down. There hasn't been a lot of appetite for films which touch on what it felt like to live through that time. 

Leterrier's film is ostensively horror but attempts to be more hopeful in its treatment of its themes, flirting with some darkness without getting too deep into those weeds and eventually making its way to its happy ending of being outside in the sun again. It takes no political positions in its analogy, picking a metaphor that doesn't implicate are argument for or against anything specific. Instead it is about survival and togetherness at least on a family level. In the end that means it doesn't really have a lot to say beyond celebrating enduring and coming out the other side, no matter who you are. 

The Last House ends up feeling a bit surface level and safe. The film works better than it should due to the strong performances of Lee and Moura who are both up for bringing gravitas here that might not be in the script entirely. The film's basic premise is interesting enough to keep you invested and the final act has pretty decent action movie set pieces so that it isn't boring. That's not the same as being interesting. When the film does reach its final moments its ending takes a pretty big leap that I'm not sure it earns. Leterrier really tries to push that it does but it feels a bit forced. Still, The Last House, with its central performances ends up being entertaining enough, even if its story carries less weight than one might hope. 

The Last House

Starring: Greta Lee,Wagner Moura

Director: Louis Leterrier

Writer: Matthew Robinson

One Night Only (2026)

One Night Only is a very high concept rom-com, set in a world where pre-marital sex is illegal, everyone has a chip in the body which measures if they are having sex or not, and there is a Purge like night where singles can have sex for a 12 hour period. On that night our two heroes meet, bicker, and fall in love (the perpetual rom-com formula) while the clock for their window to have sex ticks down. Does it work? My answer would be sort of....

One Night Only struggles to figure out what it is trying to be. Is it a straight up rom-com just set in this dystopian plot or is it a critique of social norms told through the lens of love in a 1984-yet-modern world? It will occasionally have moments of sharp commentary on sexual control by societal norms. One of my favourite lines is when a queer woman says to (her friend) our leading lady "Tonight is for the straights. We have been dancing around your laws for many years." But more often than not the film leans into its rom-com sensibilities where we're obsessed with the will-they-or-won't-they even though we konw damn well they will cause they always do in these things. 

And when it is being its most rom-comy it's kind of rote. It pretends to have an edge by having its leads keep being distracted with potential hook-ups with other characters that come along. But in its over-predictable way the film keeps bringing them back together, going through the motions of trying to create some barrier to their eventual "Empire State Building moment" which we all know is coming. If it wasn't for its two charming leads the film likely would fail entirely but Turner and Barbaro are just so damn cute together. Both are better than this film and they elevate it making it rather watchable despite its predictability. 

Director Gluck hasn't really directed a strong film since way back with Easy A and One Night Only isn't a return to greatness. Is One Night Only going to be bring back the rom-com genre? No. There are some questionable choices (such as a 12 year old character that keeps making sexual innuendo?!?). But there is also a pairing that feels like it needs a better movie who at least make this one as watchable as it is. 

One Night Only

Starring: Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Maya Hawke, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Michelle Hurd, Pete Davidson, Bobby Cannavale

Director: Will Gluck

Writer: Travis Braun

 

Peter Hujar's Day (2026)

There are certain films that just align all the right stars for my personal tastes, in all their weird configurations, and I sit there fascinated throughout. The film Peter Hujar's Day, with its idiosyncratic premise and conceit, is that sort of film, a film like few others, that works despite all the factors working against it. 

For those unfamiliar, in 1974, writer Linda Rosenkrantz had photographer Peter Hujar over to discuss how his day went (the day before). She had an idea to do a book about the daily lives of artists she knew. That book never happened but she had recorded the conversation and a transcript was discovered decades later and published. This film is a recreation of that conversation. It's just two actors, Whishaw as Hujar giving a tour de force, and Hall as Rosenkrantz. It's just him talking about the day he had just had. And the whole time I'm enraptured. 

Yes films where people just talk to each other are my kryptonite, especially when exploring queer or counterculture themes. But Sachs' film is brilliant in how visually engaging he is able to make a film about one man rambling. The film is gorgeous to watch while you listen to the remarkable story being recounted. It is an understatement to describe Hujar's day as anything other than outstanding. He encounters Sontag, Ginsberg, Orlovsky, Burroughs, Lebowitz, and others... it is breathtaking to just contemplate what a day like that would have felt like. The film captures both its audacity and its mundaneness. The film infuses all these contradictions.

I am often struck by Whishaw's work but here he is so deeply impactful. He is asked to carry a whole film just through a running monologue, and not one that was crafted to be a compelling speech but a reproduction of the real Hujar's words as he describes something so remarkably personal but also so routine, the events of the past day...

The fact that Peter Hujar's Day works as a film at all is a marvel. The fact that it manages to be such a beautiful little piece of cinema that I can't stop thinking about makes it a miracle.  

Peter Hujar's Day

Starring: Ben Whishaw, Rebecca Hall

Writer/Director: Ira Sachs

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

I haven't been a fan of the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. That's not due to the actor. I think he makes a great Spider-Man. It's that the movies have constantly had to dance around the rest of the MCU and these often leads to overstuffed films with plots that feel packaged around other ideas tied to other characters and movies. They mostly feel like they are trying to tell a Spider-Man story but keep getting derailed. I had hoped that Brand New Day, a film that purports to reset Peter Parker's life, might be a straight up Spider-Man story. It's not. It is at its best when his story is what is being focused on, but it ends up being just another Marvel team up film this time with *redacted* (I don't want to spoil that yet. So like his other films, there is a lot being worked through here and it doesn't all come together cohesively. 

What I liked? Well Holland is a great, charismatic everyman which is just who Parker should be. I felt his pull towards his old life and how isolated he felt. I liked the film had him "evolving" or "mutating" (oops! sssshhhhhhh) and dealing with becoming something new. I didn't really appreciate how they packed in The Punisher, The Hulk, the new Black Widow, and... others cause all those little bits felt like they got short shrift due to the sheer amount of the appearances that needed to be packed in. 

Spider-Man may be the only movie character (other than Batman) who can carry a film just on his name alone. People want to see Spider-Man and will see him in pretty much anything. The film isn't bad and it has enough going for it to really satisfy audiences. So if you desire to see it, go for it, and more power to you. You'll likely enjoy it. If you aren't in a hurry waiting for it's inevitable streaming release wouldn't be a bad choice. 

But for me to really get into my thoughts I do have to spoil the film's big reveal so stop reading here if you don't want to know...

*Spoilers*

Since Disney bought Fox, they have been itching to bring us the X-Men and they have been working towards that in numerous ways through their various movies and series. Some of the Fox cast have been appearing here and there in MCU movies and Deadpoool and Wolverine made a spectacle of bringing that world around for another go. But this may be (I could be wrong) the first time that a major X-Men character has been introduced into this MCU's main universe in the MCU version. And they started with Jean Grey, the character the Fox universe never seemed to be able to get right. That's a bold move, starting with one of the most challenging areas, and if it pays off for them that will be a big win. 

I'll give Sink credit, she does a great job with the character. Like this version of Spider-Man, the MCU version will have significant variations on her origin to help fit her (and I assume the other Mutants) into this world. I also liked how this tied into Peter's own "mutating" making the classic X-Men analogies for discrimination. Peter's attempts to shrink who he is out of fear is a good "in" for the concepts and that part mostly works. 

But I felt the script sort of fumbles her intro. She is brought to us as an "antagonist" at first so they can do a switcheroo and have her become an anti-hero later. But they lean into this a little too much making her more evil than she needs to be. I'm not sure the redemption arc they then require her to go through works, especially after the film goes to great lengths to make her seem evil (even having Peter describe her actions as unforgivable at one point) before they reveal who she is. 

So for me the intro feels a little forced and also complicated by all the other baggage these films tend to have as I discussed above. Also it leaves a lot of questions which may or may not be answered later. Is she the only mutant? If not how come another powerful mutant isn't also attempting to address her as she is making herself known (you know who I mean)? The film takes a lot of short cuts dealing with Spider-Man's secret identity issues in the plot and it kinds does the same with Jean. 

So while I know Brand New Day will be a huge movie I still find it an awkward watch. It has a lot of pros and cons and didn't resolve it all for me. But for me Marvel's best characters by far are the X-Men and if this means we're getting new versions, and not just the legacy actors coming back to play alternate universe visitors, than that is promising. 

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Liza Colón-Zayas, Tramell Tillman, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo, Florence Pugh, Keith David, Michael Mando, Naomi Watts, Marisa Tomei 

Director:  Destin Daniel Cretton

Writers: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers

I Want Your Sex (2026)

After more than 12 years away from making a feature film, legendary New Queer Cinema Movement director Gregg Araki has come back with what turns out to be a somewhat mainstream Hollywood film that plays with our expectations about where desires meet comfortable limits. It is a fairly funny and rather accessible comedy about a boss who begins a BDSM relationship with her awkward young employee but underneath there is a lot of things the film asks us to think about which remain uncomfortable despite the film's rather candy coated aesthetic. 

Araki appears to be wrestling with the tension between being a sexual rebel in a time which has shifted the goalposts around puritanism. Remember he began making underground films in the late 80s and early 90s pushing back against the AIDS panic and Lavender Scare in the age of the Regan/Thatcher social control. Jump forward to the 2020s and the western world sees itself as having been liberated through mainstream LGTBQIA+ and feminist movements. What Araki seems to be suggesting here is how little has changed, how much puritanism remains embedded in our cultures, and how we continue to embrace the shame and social control of sexual repression. 

I Want Your Sex centres a straight relationship and heavily critiques the two involved, often making both of them the butt of the joke while also making you like them both, albeit in different ways. Hoffman's everyman doofusness is deliciously relatable while Wilde's manufactured confidence is appealing in its own way whether we want to admit it or not. But they are both making terrible choices and the film appears to be sympathetic to them, showing us just how much the constraints of our so-called modern sensibilities keep them from having the connections and the fucking that they both want without paying a price for it. Hoffman's girlfriend and his best friend are both unhealthily unable to connect with sex in a meaningful way and the cops interviewing Hoffman in the film's framing sequence can't focus on anything but the inappropriateness of what turns out to be a big nothing-burger. Araki is showing just how modern values on sexuality have simply found new ways of limiting and controlling us no matter how far we think we've come. Araki juxtaposes this with the Gooding's queer character who appears to be the only character living their best life who is constantly having sex exactly how we wants without any hang ups or limits. 

And that what makes I Want Your Sex so fascinating. Araki remains a sexual liberator, arguing for the necessity of carnality in our lives while exposing and laughing at how fumbling mainstream culture can be with it. He sugarcoats this by making a fairly mainstream comedy about it but that might just be a little Trojan Horse. He plays with it. His sex scenes are fun and silly and yet oddly compelling. He doesn't make his characters pay a real price for their "deviance". If anything the movie suggests they are both better off for what went down. I'd argue both had fairly pathetic lives, relationships, friendships prior to their relationship. And yet they both remain weirdly obsessed and transfixed on that connection.

Araki is embracing sexuality, with all its joyous absurdity, especially when it doesn't fit into a neat box or acceptable standards, and offering a charming little olive branch to those convinced they need to feel ashamed to experience what they want in this life. 

I Want Your Sex

Starring: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, Charli XCX, Daveed Diggs

Director: Gregg Araki

Writers: Karley Sciortino, Gregg Araki

Rosebush Pruning (2026)

If you're going to make a mess of a movie, why not make it a big mess? Rosebush Pruning, inspired by the Italian film Fists in the Pocket, is a darkly comic tragedy featuring a toxic rich family who end up killing each other (oops... spoilers) after sexualizing each other. It is often random in its plotting, rather nonsensical, and thinly drawn. But it is visually and narratively bold, taking big audacious swings that often don't amount to much. I was surprised at how much of it managed to be funny while also finding myself bored a lot. Rosebush Pruning might be the sort of film that you are glad to have seen so you can talk about it but never want to have to sit through again. 

But the film can't be dismissed entirely. The performances by Keough and Anderson are delightful. They seem to be on board with how absurd a story they are telling. None of the characters make sense or act like real human beings. They articulate their inner thoughts in their dialogue and no background is provided which explain their bizarre behaviour. But those two actors really embrace the ludicrisness of what they are doing and just go for it. I wasn't convinced by the rest of the cast but these two were saving graces. 

The movie is blessedly short. Perhaps that leads to some of what makes the film feel so thin, no time to really develop any of what is going on. But it also means less to endure. It also shortens the time between the moments of real hilarity which often come out of nowhere (as does most of the plot points). So while it would not be accurate to say that Rosebush Pruning is a good movie, it certainly is not, I actually had fun watching the nonsense, mostly. 

Rosebush Pruning

Starring: Callum Turner, Riley Keough, Elle Fanning, Jamie Bell, Tracy Letts, Pamela Anderson

Director: Karim Aïnouz

Writer: Efthimis Filippou

Her Private Hell (2026)

Refn makes incredibly beautiful films. Imagine if he ever got his hands on a story that was worth telling. Instead we get this hollow, rather tedious story which he seems to love to tell. Her Private Hell might be one of his most painfully boring stories yet. It's complete lack of emotional investment makes it a tedious slog no matter how gorgeously he crafts his art direction, costumes, cinematography. Movies are very much a visual medium and I love when a director understands this. But they also need to resonate emotionally or intellectually and so far I have seen little evidence Refn gets this part. 

Her Private Hell feels like an AI verson of a David Lynch film. Minimalist yet stunning sets, slow moving pans, lingering shots of the cast being reflective. But it's missing all of the underlying tension, horror, and emotion that Lynch captures. I'd rather have flipped through a photo book of stills from this film than had to sit through its plot. 

I feel for the cast who are doing their best with what they are given. This pretty much falls at Refn's feet for creating something with so little substance. This is reportedly a horror story in a way, yet it evokes no horror of any kind, not even an coldly intellectual existential horror. The only horror is that I sat all the way through it. 

Her Private Hell

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, Shioli Kutsuna, Aoi Yamada, Dougray Scott, Diego Calva, Hidetoshi Nishijima

Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Writers: Esti Giordani, Nicolas Winding Refn