Mise en Screen

This year Ben was able to once again attend the Virginia Film Festival and saw 12 films which he recorded on-scene audio diaries of which we intercut into our debriefing conversation a few days afterward. Timestamps: (0:01:57) The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Noah Segan, 2026) (0:12:12)  Giants Do Fall (Megan Ponder, Stiv Wilson, 2026) (0:22:11)  Cherry and Virgin (Masanao Kawajiri, 2026) (...

Blue Heron is a 2026 semi-autobiographical drama, the debut feature of writer-director Sophy Romvari, based on her short film Still Processing. In the mid-1990s, a Hungarian family emigrates to Vancouver Island. The eldest of the children, Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), exhibits increasingly defiant and dangerous behavior, to the dismay of his parents, played by Iringó Réti and Ádám Tompa. The film also f...

Street Fighter the 2026 film adaptation of the world famous Capcom fighting game series, directed by Kitao Sakurai from a screenplay by T.J. Fixman and Kitao Sakurai. Callina Liang stars as Chun-Li who recruits Andrerw Koji as Ryu and Noah Centineo as Ken to participate in the World Warrior Tournament alongside Joa "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i as Akuma, Cody Rhodes as Guile, Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki,...

The Social Reckoning is a 2026 legal thriller written and directed by Aaron Sorkin and is a sequel to the 2010 film The Social Network. We find Mark Zuckerberg twelve years later and now played by Jeremy Strong as his company experiences a whistleblower leak by data engineer Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, who feeds information on Facebook's algorithmic changes, their consequences, and Fa...

Digger is a satirical black comedy film directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu who co-wrote with Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., and Nicolás Giacobone. Tom Cruise stars as oil tycoon Digger Rockwell who triggers a catastrophic global environmental disaster and scrambles to control the narrative in its wake. Costarring Riz Ahmed as Dr. Nirav Ganesh, Digger's head of environmental safety, John Go...

Primetime is a 2026 psychological thriller film directed by documentarian Lance Oppenheim and based on the 2007 Esquire article "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die" by Luke Dittrich. Robert Pattinson stars as Chris Hansen, the host of To Catch a Predator as he sets out to make television history with his program. Costarring Merritt Wever as Hansen's producer at Dateline NBC Andie Bender, Skyler...

Resident Evil is the latest reboot and entry in the Resident Evil film franchise. Directed by Zach Cregger and co-written by Cregger and Shay Hatten, this film follows Austin Abrams as Bryan, a medical courier making a delivery to Raccoon City General Hospital that is waylaid by an encounter with a flesh-eating zombie (Andrea Miltnerová), forcing him into a fight for survival. Costarring Zach Cher...

Hope is a 2026 South Korean science fiction thriller written, directed, and co-produced by Na Hong-jin. A police chief, a policewoman and a group of hunters try to track down and kill a mysterious creature that's laying waste to the South Korean village of Hope. This stars Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung, Jung Ho-yeon, Taylor Russell, Cameron Britton, Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. Timestamps:...

Our main feature is Onslaught , in which Adria Arjona is Celeste, a single mother and former Army sniper who unleashes her lethal skills to protect her young daughter Daisy from a rogue squad of genetically engineered super-soldiers created by third generation Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Kammler, played by Dan Stevens. The film is directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, taking place in...

Coyote vs. Acme is a 2026 live action and animated hybrid comedy film based on a 1990 New Yorker article of the same name by Ian Frazier. Directed by Dave Green and screenplay by Samy Burch, this film stars Will Forte as a billboard attorney hired by Wile E. Coyote to sue Acme corporation for their faulty products that he has purchased in his chase after the Roadrunner. Costarring Lana Condor, Joh...

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is a 2026 horror metatext written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. Hannah Einbinder plays Kris, a trans horror director developing a legacy sequel for the mothballed slasher series Camp Miasma . She goes to the mountain home of the reclusive actress who as a teenager portrayed the Final Girl in the series' first installment, Billy Presley, played by Gillian And...

The End of Oak Street is a sci-fi adventure film written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. It stars Ann Hathaway and Ewan McGregor as Denise and Greg Platt, a seemingly idyllic 1980s suburban couple whose marriage behind the scenes is falling apart and beginning to affect their children, thirteen year-old Brian and seventeen year-old Audrey, played by Christian Convery and Maisy Stella, respe...

Nirvanna the Band The Show the Movie is a 2025 comedy film directed by Matt Johnson, written by Johnson and Jay McCarrol, and starring Johnson and McCarrol as fictionalized versions as themselves as they continue to try and finagle at playing a gig at The Rivoli. McCarrol becomes tired of Johnson's constantly ludicrous plots and failures and attempts to go solo, but a bottle of Orbitz powering Joh...

The Invite is a 2026 dramedy directed by Olivia Wilde, written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones, remaking the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs or, Sentimental, in Spanish by Cesc Gay, which was in turn an adaptation of his play Els veïns de dalt / Los vecinos de arriba. The film stars Seth Rogan as Joe and Olivia Wilde as Angela, a couple whose marriage is on thin ice. When their upstairs...

Her Private Hell is the latest feature film from Nicolas Winding Refn, who wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Esti Giordani. In the future a strange mist descends on a metropolis. Sophie Thatcher plays Elle, daughter to Dougray Scott's Johnny Thunders, who has recently married Elle's best friend Dominique, played by Havana Rose Liu. New in town is Kristine Froseth as Hunter, who join...

The Odyssey is director, writer, and producer Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer. Here we follow Odysseus, king of Ithaca, played by Matt Damon, as he attempts to find his way home after the Trojan War. Awaiting his return are his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, played by Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland respectively, who must continually defer the queen's...

The Odyssey is director, writer, and producer Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer. Here we follow Odysseus, king of Ithaca, played by Matt Damon, as he attempts to find his way home after the Trojan War. Awaiting his return are his wife Penelope and son Telemachus, played by Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland respectively, who must continually defer the queen's...

Evil Dead Burn is the sixth Evil Dead film, produced once again by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, this time directed and co-written by Sébastien Vaniček alongside writer Florent Bernard. After the death of her abusive husband William (George Pullar), Alice (Souheila Yacoub) is invited to the funeral with his miserable family and ends up trapped together with them in their dilapidated vacation home when...

Director and writer Julian Schnabel reunites with Oscar Isaac for In the Hand of Dante , an adaptation of a 2002 book by Nick Tosches that follows a dual narrative with Isaac in dual roles. The first: as Dante Alighieri as he is banished from his hometown of Florence and sets out to write his famed Comedy . The second: as a fictionalized version of Nick Tosches himself in the early 2000's as he is...

Disclosure Day is a science fiction thriller from director/producer Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by David Koepp based on a story by Spielberg. This film stars Josh O'Connor as Daniel Kellner, a cybersecurity specialist who is fleeing with girlfriend Jane Blankenship, played by Eve Hewson, from his former employer Wardex's CEO Noah Scanlon, played by Colin Firth, after stealing video footage...

Scary Movie is a horror spoof directed by Michael Tiddes and written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans, and Rick Alvarez. As a parody of legacy sequels and the Scream series in particular, it follows Sara Campbell (Olivia Rose Keegan), daughter of the original movie's Cindy Campbell (Anna Faris), who returns to her hometown with her conspicuously suspicious boyfrien...

Backrooms is a horror film directed by Kane Parsons and written by Will Soodik. It is based on the web series created by Parsons in which individuals accidentally find themselves within the liminal backrooms, an infinite maze of familiar spaces laid out in increasingly illogical ways. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark, a divorced furniture store owner who becomes trapped in the backrooms connecte...

I Love Boosters is a crime-comedy written, directed, and produced by Boots Riley and starring Keke Palmer as Corvette, leader of the Velvet Gang, which includes Naomi Ackie as Sade and Taylour Paige as Mariah, who boost from fashion stores throughout the Bay Area to resell themselves to low-income community members. Demi Moore plays Christie Smith, owner of the fashion stores being boosted from wh...

Is God Is ,  is a thriller written, directed, and produced by Aleshea Harris based on her play of the same name. It stars Kara Young and Mallori Johnson as twins Racine and Anaia who are summoned by their long lost mother Ruby, Vivica A. Fox, to be sent on a quest to kill their father, Sterling K Brown, who set the fire that immolated the family, and left each with extensive burn scars.  Timestamp...

Mortal Kombat II is the sequel to 2021's Mortal Kombat and directed by Simon McQuoid and written by Jeremy Slater, a reboot of a film series based on the long running fighting videogame series of the same name. New heroes introduced in this film are Kitana, played by Adeline Rudolph, adopted daughter of Shao Khan, played by Martyn Ford, ruler of Outworld, and Johnny Cage, played by Karl Urban, a w...