GENRE | Aliens Attack! – Na Hong-jin Never Loses 'Hope' x TIFF 2026

"Bring forth true fate."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

South Korean genre director Na Hong-jin's new sci-fi alien action thriller, Hope, boasts the highest budget for a film ever from the East Asian nation while featuring some of the truly worst CGI seen in a major release in many years. It's difficult to describe just how electric the first hour is when audiences are dropped into the eponymous harbour town chasing monsters before the poorly rendered creatures are revealed.

REEL | 'Looney Tunes' Sues the Pants Off 'Coyote vs. Acme'

"These companies think they can do whatever they want!"

Ketchup Entertainment / VVS Films

Coyote vs. Acme, director Dave Green's nearly shelved Warner Bros. Animation hybrid live-action comedy produced by James Gunn, is finally here, and it's pretty good. Its simple but somewhat ingenious premise of famed loser Looney Tunes cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, suing the Acme Corporation for its faulty products causing him injury, distress, and failure is a brilliant stand-in for some real-life (coincidental) business shenanigans by a certain media conglomerate and its parent companies.

CABLE | DC Raises the Green 'Lanterns' on HBO

"Harry Potter went to Hogwarts, you ignorant alien f*ck!"

Warner Bros. Television / DC Studios

HBO's television adaptation of DC's intergalactic team of "space cops," known as the Green Lantern Corps, stars Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre as the two most famous incarnations of the superheroes, Hal Jordan and John Stewart (not to be confused with the venerable The Daily Show host), in a True Detective-style road murder mystery grounded firmly on Earth. The shortened and colourlessly titled Lanterns, created by showrunner Chris Mundy, screenwriter Damon Lindelof, and comic book writer Tom King, turns our emerald interstellar patrolmen into a rather compelling vehicle for an episodic sci-fi neo-noir series.

REEL | Willem Dafoe Waxes on 'Late Fame' in Life x SIFF 2026

"You must have been beautiful when you were young."

Magnolia Pictures / Vortex Media

Late Fame, based on Austrian dramatist Arthur Schnitzler's posthumous 1895 novella (translated and published in 2014) of the same name, is directed by New York film critic and programmer turned independent filmmaker Kent Jones and stars Willem Dafoe as an unknown, long lost poet who, as the title suggests, experiences a bit of late-in-life interest and newfound resurgence in his previously published works within a privileged but affluent circle of wealthy, post-graduate literary admirers in present day Manhattan.

REEL | Anne Hathaway Transports 'The End of Oak Street'

"Is that a f*cking dinosaur?"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Bad Robot

Genre filmmaker David Robert Mitchell and producer J.J. Abrams team up for the sci-fi survivalist film, The End of Oak Street. When an ordinary suburban family of four (Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, and Christian Convery) and their entire neighbourhood block in 1982 get cosmically transported back to prehistoric times, they must figure out what's going on while dodging ravenous dinosaurs.

REEL | 'Tony' (the Chef the Book the Movie) Tracks A Young Bourdain

"They taste like the future."

A24 Films

Toronto native Matt Johnson directs Dominic Sessa as the beloved chef, bestselling author, and travel host Anthony Bourdain in Tony, based on his formative experiences working at a Cape Cod seafood restaurant during the summer of 1975. As outlined in the memorable early chapters of his 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, the film tracks the angry young cook longing to become a "writer" (whatever that means) without having written anything or really experienced life at all at age nineteen.

GENRE | Slashing 'Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma' x Fantasia 2026

"Ride and take your revenge!"

Mubi / Plan B Entertainment

Talented trans filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun continues their intriguing horror genre-bending cinematic work in the teen slasher riff tribute, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Set at an eerie campground (shot on Vancouver Island) in the woods à la Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp, the film is a meta narrative about a young indie director (Hannah Einbinder) remaking a niche but transphobic 1980s horror film franchise with its original but now reclusive former scream queen final girl actress (Gillian Anderson).

REEL | Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner Purge 'One Night Only'

"Maybe the fascists were right about this one."

Universal Pictures / Olive Bridge Entertainment

One Night Only, director Will Gluck's unusually authoritarian-tinged romantic comedy about a world where premarital sex is outlawed except for a single night a year, is clearly inspired by The Purge's dystopian horror premise. It stars Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner in an entirely charming romantic pairing, as two attractive New Yorkers looking to hook up on the only night they are legally allowed to.

REEL | Tom Holland Resets the Emotional 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day'

"Enough of this soft-serve bullsh*t!"

Sony Pictures / Marvel Studios

Spider-Man: Brand New Day refreshes Tom Holland's enthusiastic interpretation of the webslinger superhero in the current Marvel Cinematic Universe canon and continuity. Led by the talented Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton this time around, we find a lonely Peter Parker struggling with his powers after the multiverse-changing events of No Way Home.