Tina Kakadelis
As the winter snow begins to thaw, it’s time for Film Obsessive to return to the warmth of Austin, Texas, for the 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Running from March 12-18, SXSW is known for its love of genre movies and character-driven indies. News Editor Tina Kakadelis and Staff Writer Michael Fairbanks will be on the ground in Austin, and the two share some of their most anticipated movies.
Your Attention Please
I’ve long said that I came of age in a sweet spot. As a ’90s baby and an aughts kid, I had the best of both worlds. Technology was around, but it wasn’t the overbearing force it is today. I had a cell phone in case of emergency, but it didn’t rule my life. I don’t want to sound far older than I am, but kids these days have it rough. Technology has slowly become more than a means of connection, and world-premiering documentary Your Attention Please looks to examine the impact of Big Tech on the younger generation.
Directed by Sara Robin, Your Attention Please examines the spell the attention economy has cast on us and what it means to find our humanity again. The documentary balances its more tech-heavy insights with personal stories of humans who are on the receiving end of digital decision makers’ actions. — Tina Kakadelis
Hokum
Damien McCarthy’s Oddity featured one of the creepiest creatures in recent horror cinema. A wooden golem man who rarely moved on screen. One can only shudder at what he has in store for us with the seemingly more mobile creatures in his new folk horror outing, Hokum. Last year, witches made a comeback in Zach Cregger’s Oscar-nominated Weapons. These witches seem to have even less decorum than Aunt Gladys. The teasers have been vague on story details. All we know is that an author (Adam Scott) will be having hallucinations at an inn while attempting to scatter his parents’ ashes. That’s all I want to know. I’m ready to be relentlessly startled for 101 minutes.
Exciting to see Adam Scott lead this type of movie between seasons of Severance. We got a little taste of his horror chops in Osgood Perkins’ The Monkey, and he seems to be embracing genre fare. A little generic as a smarmy comedian but he’s really opened up in these types of roles. He’ll also be starring alongside Danielle Deadwyler in the thriller The Saviors, which is sure to be another highlight of the SXSW Film Festival. —Michael Fairbanks
Edie Arnold Is a Loser
One of my favorite films is Lady Bird, the instant coming-of-age classic from Greta Gerwig that takes place in a Catholic school. Something about the clash of a teenage girl who doesn’t want to be in a Catholic school with the historic imagery of the religion is so compelling. It looks as though Megan Rico and Kade Atwood’s world-premiering Edie Arnold Is a Loser will fit nicely in this unofficial genre of the worst Catholic girls in school.
Edie Arnold (Adi Madden Cabrera), like many girls her age, has a brilliant plan to start a band. She and her fellow “turd” outcasts form a punk band that rockets them to high school stardom, but also puts them on the shit lists of the hottest girls in school, the nuns, and what the filmmakers are calling “the horniest altar boy you’ve ever seen.” — Tina Kakadelis
Normal
I’ve had a bit of trouble buying into Bob Odenkirk as an action star. Sure, the two Nobody movies were fun but the second one was already showing major signs of wear and tear. Nevertheless, he’s going to give this tough guy another shot in Ben Wheatley’s Normal (awfully similar title to Nobody). Very exciting to see the journeyman British filmmaker return to a more straightforward shoot ’em up flick in the vein of Free Fire, his best film. You’ve got to play your hits once you’ve failed at making both a Hitchcock remake (Rebecca) and a giant shark movie (Meg 2: The Trench).
Normal seems to blend Free Fire’s anarchic gun violence with a bit of Fargo style small town kitsch. That seems like a perfect pairing with Odenkirk’s persona. He plays the town’s sheriff with a checkered past who will have to foil a bank robbery. Hopefully some hyper-violence that is a bit bolder than what we might get from Nobody allows him to convince us that this career transition isn’t just shtick. —Michael Fairbanks
Forbidden Fruits
Forbidden Fruits is one of the few films coming into the 2026 SXSW Film Festival with a trailer, but I haven’t seen it! I plan to keep it that way because part of the fun of a film festival is experiencing movies with few pre-conceived expectations. All I like to go on is the film’s description and the promotional image.
For Forbidden Fruits, that’s more than enough to wholly sell me on the idea. As someone who grew up in the dying days of mall culture, I’m genetically predisposed to being intrigued by a movie about a secret witch cult whose members are employees from a store in the mall. On top of that silly, fruitful (no pun intended) premise is a stacked cast: Hal & Harper’s Lili Reinhart, The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Lola Tung, The Haunting of Hill House’s Victoria Pedretti, Barbie’s Alexandra Shipp, and Gabrielle Union, who needs no introduction.
The final line of the description says that these women will be forced to “confront their inner darkness or meet violent ends.” Something tells me we’re going to get a little taste of emotional growth and a bloody finale. — Tina Kakadelis
Crash Land
It feels like we’ve fumbled the ball on Gabriel LaBelle. He showed such tremendous warmth and promise in Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans, in which he played a barely fictionalized version of the iconic filmmaker. Ever since, we’ve seen him in the amusing coming of age flick Snack Shack and the insufferable Saturday Night. Felt like tempting fate to take on another industry figure so soon. He’ll also star in an upcoming romantic comedy with Mille Bobby Brown, also not promising…
But first, he’ll star alongside fellow Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfhard in Crash Land. This seems to be a filmmaking comedy about a couple of outcasts who finally decide to attempt a real project. Think American Movie if it wasn’t a documentary. Seems like a great opportunity for both young stars to come out of their shells a little and deliver a moving on screen friendship. In the one image we have, LaBelle is rocking a karate gi. I’ve got to see what that is all about. —Michael Fairbanks
Mallory’s Ghost
Insecurity is a common theme in relationships. We often measure ourselves against our partner’s ex, and that can send anyone into a spiral. It’s in this spiral that we find the main character of Arabella Oz’s world-premiering Mallory’s Ghost coming to SXSW 2026.
Pulling quadruple duty, Oz is director, writer, co-editor, and the titular Mallory, who joins her playwright boyfriend, Sam (Nick Canellakis, also co-editor), on a retreat to the coast of Maine. While there, Mallory learns of the glamorous Louise (Anjelica Bosboom), Sam’s ex-girlfriend. Mallory becomes obsessed, haunted, and curious about this ghost who hangs over her relationship. — Tina Kakadelis
Kill Me
Despite his phenomenal comedic talents, Charlie Day has never quite found the right film vehicle as a leading man. He’s worked best in ensemble comedies like Horrible Bosses, which might as well be episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He took a big swing in 2023 with his directorial debut Fool’s Paradise, in which he played a mute man who accidentally becomes a movie star, but it fell on deaf ears and he’s been a bit MIA ever since.
Now he’s arrived to SXSW in Peter Warren’s Kill Me. This is a dark comedy following a man who wakes up with his wrists slit in a bathtub, even though he did not attempt suicide. He must prove that someone set him up. Sounds like the kind of anxiety inducing rolling bolder comedy of It’s Always Sunny with a bit of a Knives Out twist. Feels like the exact movie Day has been waiting for. —Michael Fairbanks
