TIME AND WATER (2026) review
written by: Sara Dosa, Jocelyne Chaput, Erin Casper, and Andri Snær Magnason
produced by: Jameka Autry, Shane Boris, Sara Dosa & Elijah Stevens
directed by: Sara Dosa
rated: not rated
runtime: 90 min.
U.S. release date: May 29, 2026 (limited)
“Time and Water,” director Sara Dosa’s follow-up to her award-winning, Oscar-nominated 2022 documentary “Fire of Love,” continues her exploration of fascinating connections between humans and nature. She deemed that film, which followed married French volcanologists and their passionate obsession with volcanoes, a love story. In her latest documentary, Dosa focuses on Andri Snær Magnason, Icelandic writer/poet/environmentalist, as he simultaneously tackles two tragedies: the death of one of his country’s glaciers and the passing of his beloved grandparents. These losses are covered by sharing personal video archives of the past and present, inevitably succincly weaving together themes of family and memory with time and water. Read more…
STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU (2026) review
written by: Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor
produced by: Kathleen Kennedy, Ian Bryce, Jon Favreau & Dave Filoni
directed by: Jon Favreau
rated: PG-13 (for sci-fi violence and action)
runtime: 132 min.
U.S. release date: May 22, 2026
Despite being a fan since 1977, I can’t say I’ve looked forward to every theatrically-released Star Wars movie. When “Rogue One” came out, I maintained that we didn’t really need a story about the plans and creation of the first Death Star, nor did we need a movie that synced with the minutes leading up to “A New Hope”. That movie did both. I had hoped that a Star Wars outside of the trilogies we were familiar with could expand on the existing universe, but that didn’t really happen. We may not get that until next year’s “Starfighter”, but I remain skeptical about that. Meanwhile, there’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu”, the first theatrical release since the lackluster “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019, the same year “The Mandalorian”, created by Jon Favreau, debuted on Disney+ and became a major hit. Read more…
OBSESSION (2026) review
written by: Curry Barker
produced by: James Harris, Haley Nicole Johnson, Christian Mercuri, and Roman Viaris
directed by: Curry Barker
rated: R (for strong bloody violence, grisly images, sexual content, pervasive language, and brief graphic nudity)
runtime: 109 min.
U.S. release date: May 15, 2026
After watching writer/director Curry Barker’s feature-length directorial debut, “Obsession”, I thought to myself, “They are missing out if they don’t market this with the tagline, ‘Be Careful What You Wish For”, but the official tagline, “Be Careful Who You Wish For” for the movie is actually more appropriate. That’s because the young man’s wish in this unsettling, twisted horror flick has a wholly unexpected and alarming impact on someone else. Granting wishes has been around as long as fairy tales, often accompanied by a degree of understandable caution for the wisher. Barker updates that longstanding tradition while also riffing on The Monkey’s Paw, a short horror story written by W.W. Jacobs published in 1902 that finds three wishes fulfilled with enormous repercussions. While there are darkly comedic moments incorporated into “Obsession”, what stands out is how grim and gutsy things get as the filmmaker and his actors lose themselves to this unsettling tale of despair. Read more…
ODYSSEY (2025) review
written by: Austin Collings and Gerard Johnson
produced by: Isabel Freer, John Jencks, Patrick Tolan, Matthew James Wilkinson
directed by: Gerard Johnson
rated: not rated (language and violent content equivalent to an R-rating)
runtime: 110 min.
U.S. release date: April 28, 2026 (VOD)
“There’s always a bit of light somewhere, may not be much, but it beats the fucking darkness.”
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you just have to go through it? Everything piles up on you, seemingly out of nowhere, and you have no choice but to plow ahead. Natasha Flynn (Polly Maberly) has one of those weeks in “Odyssey,” a film set at the surprisingly robust intersection of the real estate world and the criminal underworld.
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN (2026) review
written by: Olivier Assayas and Emmanuel Carrère
produced by: Olivier Delbosc and Sidonie Dumas
directed by: Olivier Assayas
rated: R (for language, some sexual material, graphic nudity, violence and a grisly image)
runtime: 136 min.
U.S. release date: May 15, 2026
“The Wizard of the Kremlin” is a film adaptation of a 2022 book of the same name from Italian writer Giuliano da Empoli, which explores the fictional tale of a young man’s rise in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Before the story begins, there’s an emphasis on the “fiction” aspect of real-life characters and events, thereby distancing it from any claims of accuracy. While the story touches on how Vladimir Putin became such a power player, going from government spy to the new “Tsar,” the focus of director Olivier Assayas’s film is the titular character, who helped groom and guide Putin. Like his other works of historical fiction, Assayas clearly shows a passion for this era in Russia’s history, offering insight into power plays and relationships that helped shape the country as we know it today. “The Wizard of the Kremlin” is interesting in politics, exploring shifts in control and information as Putin grew accustomed to running things his way. But it also drags on for a long time, which makes you really feel the runtime, while Assayas focuses on character tensions that don’t really add up to much. Read more…
TWO WOMEN (2025) review
written by: Catherine Léger
produced by: Catherine Léger and Martin Paul-Hus
directed by: Chloé Robichaud
rated: not rated
runtime: 100 min.
U.S. release date: May 15, 2026
Two women from Quebec, screenwriter Catherine Léger and director Chloé Robichaud, got together and decided to remake the 1970 sex farce “Two Women in Gold (Deux femmes en or),” by Canadian filmmaker Claude Fournier, about two unfulfilled housewives in suburban Quebec. While not an initial hit with critics, it became one of the most commercially successful movies to come out of Quebec at the time. Such a subject was fully embraced during the “sexual revolution” of the 70s, popularizing unrestrained sexuality and marking a significant cultural shift towards open dialogue, liberation, and experimentation. So, the question that comes to mind is, will a modern take on the subject offer anything different or new? Well, yes and no, because the more things change, the more they stay the same. Read more…
MY FATHER’S SHADOW (2025) review
written by: Wale Davies and Akinola Davies Jr.
produced by: Rachel Dargavel and Funmbi Ogunbanwo
directed by:
rated: Akinola Davies Jr.
runtime: 93 min.
U.S. release date: February 6, 2026 (limited) and April 10, 2026 (MUBI)
“My Father’s Shadow” is the semi-autobiographical feature-length debut from British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother, Wale Davies. It’s no wonder, considering how heartbreakingly personal the story set in 1993 Nigeria feels. That summer was a contentious one, as Major General Ibrahim Badamasi refused to accept the citizens’ overwhelming vote for the people’s champion, MKO Abiola, on June 24th. It was the country’s first democratic election since the 10-year-old military coup. On this same day, two young brothers were invited by their father to take a rare trip to Lagos. Since their father was often away for months at a time, this was a big deal. Read more…
REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES (2026) review
written by: Olivia Newman and John Whittington
produced by: Bryan Unkeless, Peter Craig, and David Levine
directed by: Olivia Newman
rated: PG-13 (for thematic material, some strong language, suggestive references, and brief drug use)
runtime: 111 min.
U.S. release date: May 8, 2026 (Netflix)
American novelist Shelby Van Pelt’s 2022 novel Remarkably Bright Creatures became a New York Times bestseller and sold over 4 million copies in 30 translations. That’s impressive considering the mystery drama was her writing debut, and it also guarantees an inevitable movie adaptation, which is where Netflix comes in. Tasked with helming the project is Olivia Newman, who is no stranger to novel adaptations after 2022’s “Where the Crawdads Sing”, and she has co-written the screenplay with John Wittington (who co-wrote the recent animated feature “Swapped” for Netflix), creating a semi-whimsical, quasi-introspective tale of grief and connection. While lovers of the novel might cringe at some choices that deviate from the novel, the movie is still about a friendship between an elderly woman and an octopus at its core. Just as an octopus can adapt to its surroundings, here is an adaptation that considers what works best as the story is translated to a different medium. Read more…
CCFF 2026: I Want Your Sex
No, “I Want Your Sex” isn’t a George Michael biopic, but rather the long-awaited latest film from cult auteur Gregg Araki. The writer/director had premiered the film earlier this year at Sundance, marking his eleventh feature to premiere at the festival (starting with 1992’s queer road comedy “The Living End”), and it now continues its festival tour with a stop at the Chicago Critics Film Festival (CCFF). Araki is calling upon the Zillenials out there to stop scrolling and get out there and get laid, but this comedy would be better off if it explored why they should and why they are apparently not. Read more…
CCFF 2026: Power Ballad
While I have yet to see every film in this year’s Chicago Critics Film Festival (CCFF), it’s safe to say that “Power Ballad” is the most thoroughly enjoyable of any I’ll see in this year’s lineup. It’s the latest movie from Irish writer/director John Carney, known for the Oscar-winning “Once” and the fabulous “Sing Street”, and like those movies, this one revolves around music. Carney is a filmmaker who typically tells beguiling, heartfelt stories in which characters are connected through music, specifically the process of creating music and all its struggles and joys. We forget that coming up with your own song, a catchy one at that, is far from an easy or quick process. That is, for most of us. Read more…
