Justin Simien tries his hand at the horror genre with this new thriller, which chronicles Black women’s constant struggle against unwanted, ill-informed opinions on our tresses. Black hair has literally become a political issue, as Black women and men have been discriminated against, suspended, or even fired for wearing their natural hair, and Bad Hair turns that tragic scenario into a terrifying horror device. Elle Lorraine plays Anna, a 1980s producer who installs a weave to conform to Caucasian beauty standards; the new ‘do comes at a great cost when she realizes it might actually be possessed. Nicholas Bell of IONCineama writes “Bad Hair is a fun homage to a time and place which still manages to say something pertinent about the Culture as it stands today while celebrating its resilience and integrity.”

Available to stream October 23 on Hulu.

In the new sci-fi thriller Synchronic, Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie team up to play best friends and paramedic partners who are called out for a string of strange and gruesome incidents. When the bizarre events hit closer to home, the pair uncover a plot to produce a powerful psychedelic that could alter their reality and the time continuum. “This philosophical core, coupled with the cynical paramedic duo premise, akin to Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, makes for a unique, sci-fi-tinged drama with supernatural elements rooted in real-world stakes and emotion,” writes Katie Walsh of Tribune News Service. 

Playing select theaters and on VOD October 23.

In 1925, a group of tenacious young women set off a pro-labor lawsuit that had national implications, and Radium Girls gives that story the big-screen treatment. The American Radium Factory employed a group of young women to paint the dials of watches with glow-in-the-dark paint that contained radium, unaware of the dangers of working so directly with the element. Before the side-effects were known to the public, the girls would dip and lick brushes containing the toxic substance, causing catastrophic physical effects and eventual death. The “Radium Girls,” as they were dubbed, did fight back, however, and sued their employer, who they suspected knew about the deadly effects long before any of them started getting sick. Joey King and Abby Quinn star as sisters in the based-on-true-events historical drama that Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter says “fulfills a vital function with its dramatization of an important chapter in America’s history of labor reform.”

Playing select theaters and on VOD October 23.

Fox Rich has had one goal for the past 20 years: to see the release of her husband Rob G. Rich from prison. In our spotlight selection this week we have a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary that chronicles the human cost of mass incarceration, highlighting the inequities of who can truly find justice in our current system. Directed by Garrett Bradley, Time follows Rich as she tirelessly works to free her husband, incorporating home videos and private moments to drive home the message. Time is “heartbreaking and passionate,” according to Alissa Wilkinson of Vox, and a “chronicle of love deferred and the life that hope can provide.”

 Available on Amazon Prime.