October 2025 Movie Preview
What to watch, what not to watch, what I want to watch.
Films I’ve already seen have an emoji next to the title; the meaning of each one should be easy to divine. There’s a link to any previously published review if there is one. Movies I have not seen yet have no emoji!
October 3
Anemone 💩
On a human level, I’m glad that Daniel Day-Lewis had quality bonding time with his son. On a cinematic level, viewers should spend their time doing anything else.
Avatar: The Way of Water (3D re-release) 🐋
I’m so stoked to see Fire and Ash.
The Smashing Machine
Will The Rock get the Oscar nomination he so badly wants?
October 9-21
LGBTQ+ festival Newfest takes over theaters throughout New York and I’ll be covering a handful of titles in the lineup. (Who said NYFF is gonna burn me out?) Ethan Hawke and Sydney Sweeney-starring films Blue Moon and Christy bookend the fest, but there are many titles big and small in between. Particularly keen to see Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut The Chronology of Water, which is screening on the 13th.
October 10 — a huge pileup of movies!!
Disarmingly middlebrow fare from Luca Guadagnino but very easy to write takes and essays about it. (Watch this space.)
Zero Dark Fail Safe. Kathryn Bigelow’s propulsive Rashomon thriller is engaging but seemingly lacks subtext until its final moments. It toys with the audience’s anticipations, leaving them grappling with their bloodlust.
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You 👍👍
A two-hour panic attack. Rose Byrne delivers a commanding performance as a woman who is way beyond the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unsettling sound design pushes the domestic sphere into the realm of horror.
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Jennifer Lopez in a movie musical! Jennifer Lopez in a movie musical!
Roofman
Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines) returns!
Tron: Ares
I’m pretty sure this movie is gonna stink given its director and star, but the Nine Inch Nails score will probably be amazing.
Urchin
Harris Dickinson (of Babygirl fame) in the director’s chair for an addiction street drama that has been receiving positive notices.
October 15
It Was Just an Accident 👍
A bit of a misnomer because every single element of this film was carefully put there by Jafar Panahi. Surprisingly farcical dialectical thriller about the morality of revenge and the never-ending cycles of trauma.
October 17
Blue Moon 👍👍
Movies like this only come once in a... you know. An opening night celebration for Oklahoma! may well be a wake for Lorenz Hart, mourning the end of his partnership with Richard Rodgers. The script has a zinger in every line and there are so many Broadway Easter eggs!
I’m now 0/2 for movies in which Josh O’Connor plays an art thief and directed by filmmakers whose previous films I really admire.
Frankenstein (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
It’s very fun that Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! will come out early next year.
Good Fortune
Keanu Reeves as a guardian angel, starring alongside Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari (who also directs). Seems fun!
The Razor’s Edge (New restoration)
If you missed out on this NYFF Revivals title, like I probably will, BAM will be screening it for one week!
Set amid the Lebanese Civil War, journalist and filmmaker Jocelyn Saab’s fiction feature debut centers the unlikely bond formed between Karim, a fortysomething painter, and Samar, a teenager from war-torn Beirut. Featuring Juliet Berto in a small role as Karim’s friend, this touching drama captures both a complicated friendship and the cultural and political place that forged it.
October 22
Hedda
Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss headline this adaptation of the Ibsen play.
Mistress Dispeller
Critically acclaimed documentary: “Desperate to save her marriage, a woman in China hires a professional to go undercover and break up her husband’s affair.”
October 24
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere 😐
Deliver me from mediocrity!
Bugonia
I need to watch Save the Green Planet! before Yorgos Lanthimos’s remake. Starring Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, natch.
October 29
Anniversary
Jan Komasa, director of Polish priest impersonator drama Corpus Christi, crosses over to Hollywood in a dramatic thriller starring Diane Lane and Kyle Chandler.
Dracula (dir. Radu Jude)
If there’s gonna be a movie that breaks my vampire fatigue (having watched a bunch of Dracula and Nosferatu versions last year), I’d bet this is the one to do it.
October 31
Baahubali: The Epic
S.S. Rajamouli (RRR) has re-cut his two Baahubali films into one, ahem, epic-length picture (it’s rumored to be four hours long). It’ll tide me over while I wait for his next new movie.
Lesbian Space Princess
Australian animated indie that sounds like it’ll have exactly what is promised by the title.
I’m only watching Kiss of the Spider Woman because the book is great and the original movie is pretty good. I’ll give jlo a try 🤷🏻♀️