SXSW 2024: Movie Scorecard

Critics Consensus: Offering an uproariously unvarnished look at motherhood and female friendships, Babes finds Pamela Adlon making an assured feature-length directorial debut with a big assist from stars Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau.

Synopsis: BABES follows inseparable childhood friends Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), having grown up together in NYC, now firmly in different phases of adulthood.... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Ilana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, John Carroll Lynch, Hasan Minhaj

Directed By: Pamela Adlon

Critics Consensus: Carrying off painful subject matter with a light touch, My Dead Friend Zoe invites audiences to a healing process that comes with both chuckles and tears.

Synopsis: MY DEAD FRIEND ZOE is a dark comedy drama that follows the journey of Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green), a U.S. Army Afghanistan veteran who is at... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman

Directed By: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes

Critics Consensus: A startling example of using any tools at your disposal to make memorable art, Grand Theft Hamlet's experimental approach does justice by the Bard.

Synopsis: In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, two out-of-work actors, Sam and Mark, face a bleak future. Desperate for purpose, they stumble upon an idea:... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Sam Crane, Mark Oosterveen, Jen Cohn

Directed By: Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane

Critics Consensus: An elegant and spooky ghost story punctuated with clever jolts, Oddity hews to the fundamentals of fright and achieves shout-inducing results.

Synopsis: When Dani is brutally murdered at the remote country house that she and her husband Ted are renovating, everyone suspects a patient from the local... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Gwilym Lee, Carolyn Bracken, Tadhg Murphy, Caroline Menton

Directed By: Damian McCarthy

Critics Consensus: Leveraging fantasy to explore how bad life choices are evergreen, Timestalker is a clever and imaginative sophomore feature from director and star Alice Lowe.

Synopsis: Timestalker follows hapless heroine Agnes through time as she repeatedly falls for the wrong guy, dies a grim death, gets reincarnated a century later, before... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Alice Lowe, Jacob Anderson, Nick Frost, Kate Dickie

Directed By: Alice Lowe

Critics Consensus: Secret Mall Apartment unspools a wild story full of relatable wish fulfillment and social commentary, making for a highly entertaining treatise on artistic expression.

Synopsis: In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and kept it going for four years, filming everything along... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Michael Townsend, Colin Bliss, Adriana Valdez-Young

Directed By: Jeremy Workman

Critics Consensus: Amusing as a satire of Americans abroad but less convincing as a horror hybrid, I Don't Understand You gets some mileage from Andrew Rannells and Nick Kroll's chemistry but can't quite overcome its tonal language barrier.

Synopsis: An American couple, on the verge of adopting a baby, goes on an Italian vacation -- an opportunity to reconnect before the new addition arrives.... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Andrew Rannells, Nick Kroll, Amanda Seyfried, Morgan Spector

Directed By: David Joseph Craig, Brian Crano

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: When Amy, Marina and Hanna's rape cases are dismissed by the Austin police, all three women try to find a way to rebuild their lives.... View Full Synopsis

Directed By: Julie Lunde Lillesæter

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: In unearthing the revolutionary synthesizer her late father invented in the 1970s, Alison Tavel not only revives his mission to share it with the world,... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Jon Anderson, Fred Armisen, Alison Tavel, Grace Potter

Directed By: Alison Tavel

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: Filmmaker Simon Ennis examines the massive subculture of modern board games, featuring personal stories of competition, compulsion, creativity and connection.

Starring: Dan Corbett, Irving Finkel

Directed By: Simon Ennis

Critics Consensus: An audacious effort from debuting director Dev Patel, Monkey Man dispenses action and sociopolitical commentary with equal aplomb.

Synopsis: Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Dev Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma

Directed By: Dev Patel

Critics Consensus: With action, comedy, romance, and a pair of marvelously matched stars, The Fall Guy might be the rare mainstream movie with something to entertain everyone.

Synopsis: He's a stuntman, and like everyone in the stunt community, he gets blown up, shot, crashed, thrown through windows and dropped from the highest of... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Blunt, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Stephanie Hsu

Directed By: David Leitch

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Starring: Ruth Wilson, Ben Chaplin, Lucinda Lee Dawson Gray, Allan Corduner

Directed By: Benjamin Finkel

Critics Consensus: Led by a trio of strong performances, Arcadian blends family drama and post-apocalyptic horror to visceral, emotionally stirring effect.

Synopsis: In a near future, life on Earth has been decimated. Paul (Nicolas Cage) and his twin teenage sons, Thomas (Jaeden Martell) and Joseph (Maxwell Jenkins),... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins, Sadie Soverall

Directed By: Benjamin Brewer

Critics Consensus: Tough and unsettling by design, Civil War is a gripping close-up look at the violent uncertainty of life in a nation in crisis.

Synopsis: From filmmaker Alex Garland comes a journey across a dystopian future America, following a team of military-embedded journalists as they race against time to reach... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen Henderson

Directed By: Alex Garland

Critics Consensus: Lead by another bloody fantastic performance from Samara Weaving, Azrael sacrifices depth on the altar of storytelling economy but delivers pure adrenaline in the bargain.

Synopsis: In a world in which no one speaks, a mysterious, devout community hunts down a young woman named Azrael (Samara Weaving) who has escaped their... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Samara Weaving, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Sebastian Bull Sarning, Eero Milonoff

Directed By: E.L. Katz

Critics Consensus: Directed with inventive flair by Tilman Singer while given flavorful personality by stars Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, Cuckoo is a madcap madhouse horror that's on the right side of deranged.

Synopsis: Reluctantly, 17-year-old Gretchen leaves her American home to live with her father, who has just moved into a resort in the German Alps with his... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Hunter Schafer, Dan Stevens, Jessica Henwick, Marton Csokas

Directed By: Tilman Singer

Critics Consensus: Road House updates a cult classic for a new generation, happily replicating the original's emphasis on cheesy brawn over narrative brains.

Synopsis: In this adrenaline-fueled reimagining of the 80s cult classic, ex-UFC fighter Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse,... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams

Directed By: Doug Liman

Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.

Synopsis: From reporters to lawyers to politicians, many have attempted to define Stormy Daniels. Stormy tells the unvarnished truth about an unlikely American icon -- this... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Stormy Daniels

Directed By: Sarah Gibson

Critics Consensus: Immaculate in conception if not always in execution, this religiously themed horror outing is saved by a divine performance from Sydney Sweeney.

Synopsis: Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, Euphoria, The White Lotus) stars as Cecilia, an American nun of devout faith, embarking on a new journey in a... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Sydney Sweeney, Álvaro Morte, Benedetta Porcaroli, Simona Tabasco

Directed By: Michael Mohan

Critics Consensus: Y2K earns points for ambition and sheer audacity, even if it struggles to keep the laughs coming while maintaining a messy tonal blend.

Synopsis: On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Years Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in... View Full Synopsis

Starring: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison, The Kid LAROI

Directed By: Kyle Mooney