- Home Entertainment Guide February 2026: “Predator: Badlands,” “Song Song Blue,” “A Little Prayer,” More (February 27, 2026)
10 NEW TO NETFLIX
“The Black Phone““Blue Moon““Colossal““East of Wall““Ema““Fall““How to Train Your Dragon““The Iron Claw““Mississippi Grind““Triangle of Sadness“
12 NEW TO BLU-RAY/DVD
“3:10 to Yuma” (Criterion)
Often undervalued when it comes to discussion of the best Westerns of all time, Delmer Daves’ 1957 banger was resurrected by James Mangold’s remake in 2007 with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. Five years later, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, and Criterion added it to their collection a year later in 2013. This great film adaptation of a short story by Elmore Leonard stars Glenn Ford and Van Heflin in the story of a rancher who tries to get a notorious criminal to the titular train so he can go on trial in Arizona. It’s gorgeously framed, perfectly paced, and now it’s the 4K section of the Criterion Collection.
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Interviews with author Elmore Leonard and actor Glenn Ford’s son and biographer, Peter Ford
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones
“Cloud“
One of the best living filmmakers, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, released this thriller quietly in 2025, which means most of you probably haven’t seen it. Criterion has spotlighted the film through their Janus Contemporaries brand, giving it a slight but effective release. The important thing is not the special features but that you see this great film, one of my favorites of 2025, and one that seems timelier every day. It’s about a guy named Yoshii who crosses paths with the wrong people during one of his online retail scams. Kurosawa has made a smart thriller that embeds its social commentary in riveting suspense. It’s great.
Special Features
Meet the Filmmakers: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, a Criterion Channel original interview
Trailer
Notes by critic Sean Gilman
“A Little Prayer“
Angus MacLachlan’s “A Little Prayer” premiered at Sundance 2023, but then fell down a rabbit hole of licensing and distribution issues, getting stuck in the pipeline for every two years. Finally getting released in Summer 2025, it also played Ebertfest and the Chicago Critics Film Festival that year, with the wonderful MacLachlan and Levy as a guest at the latter. MacLachlan also made the journey to Ebertfest, and that panel is included on this Blu-ray, co-moderated by yours truly. The “Junebug” writer/director returns to a world he knows in this tender character study of a man who discovers that his son may not be a decent person, and what that means for his relationship with a daughter-in-law he now sees as his own child. It’s smart, moving, and wonderful.
Special Features
Audio Commentary by Director Angus MacLachlan
Inside the Arthouse with Angus MacLachlan and Jane Levy
Panel Discussion from EbertFest 2025
Image Gallery
Theatrical Trailer
“The Man Who Wasn’t There” (Criterion)
The Coen brothers loved to switch up genres, jumping from “O Brother, Where Art Thou” to this noir that couldn’t be more different if it tried. One of the more underrated films in the Coen filmography, this 2001 noir stars Billy Bob Thornton as Ed Crane, a California barber who devises a plan to blackmail his wife’s lover. Featuring some of Roger Deakins’ most striking cinematography, this one also has a great Coen ensemble that includes Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Scarlett Johansson, James Gandolfini, and a standout turn from Shalhoub. The Criterion release includes not only a previously-available commentary by the Coens but a new conversation with the brothers and the phenomenal author Megan Abbott, a writer who knows about the James M. Cain influence on this gem.
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director of photography Roger Deakins, with 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Audio commentary featuring filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen and actor Billy Bob Thornton
New conversation between the Coens and author Megan Abbott
Archival interview with Deakins
Short making-of documentary and deleted scenes
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by author Laura Lippman
“Minority Report“
Steven Spielberg has arguably the best 2-movie year in history with 1993’s “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List,” but another candidate for consideration if one was making a listicle of such things would be his similarly distinct 2002: “Catch Me If You Can” and “Minority Report,” which made its 4K debut this month. The special features remain the same, but this is a film to own in 4K, one of the best sci-fi features of the 2000s, a prescient story of how technology and surveillance would impact the world. It’s a movie that gets better every time I see it.
Special Features
The Future According to Steven Spielberg
Inside the World of Precrime
Philip K. Dick, Steven Spielberg, and Minority Report
Minority Report: Future Realized
Minority Report: Props of the Future
Highlights From Minority Report: From the Set
Minority Report: Commercials of the Future
Previz Sequences
From Story to Screen
Deconstructing Minority Report
The Stunts of Minority Report
ILM and Minority Report
Final Report
Production Concepts
Storyboard Sequences
Original Trailers
“Network” (Criterion)
This November marks the 50th anniversary of a movie that feels like it should be necessary watch in a time when journalism is under attack. As newspapers cut staffs and networks are increasingly under the control of outside forces, go back and watch Paddy Chayefsky’s devastating prediction of where the world was headed. Peter Finch plays Howard Beale, who has a total breakdown on live TV, revealing how much people love to watch personal demons made public. Roger understood the power of the film, and Sidney Lumet’s underrated work on it, writing in his Great Movies essay: “In “Network,” which is rarely thought of as a “director’s picture,” it is his unobtrusive skill that allows all those different notes and energy levels to exist within the same film. In other hands, the film might have whirled to pieces. In his, it became a touchstone.”
Special Features
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Audio commentary featuring director Sidney Lumet
Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words (2025), a feature-length documentary about the screenwriter by Matthew Miele
The Making of “Network” (2006), a six-part documentary by Laurent Bouzereau
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by political commentator and New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie
“Now You See Me, Now You Don’t“
If you’re wondering how a sequel got made to a 2016 movie that most people forgot, two words for you: International audiences. These movies are shockingly huge around the world, proving that the language of magic is universal, I guess. The second film made over $330 million; this one only about $230 million, but still well in the black on the profit sheet. Why the decrease? The lengthy wait between films didn’t help, but this is also a pretty lazy flick, a movie that uses cheap effects to tell a familiar story with an overcrowded cast. On the one hand, it’s a serviceable distraction on a rainy Saturday if you don’t want to be challenged more than that. On the other, it’s kind of a waste of time. Although it is worth noting that Lionsgate has given it a pretty robust Blu-ray with commentary, featurettes, and deleted scenes. They know about that international physical media dollar, too.
Special Features
Audio Commentary with Director Ruben Fleischer and Producer Bobby Cohen
Lord of Illusions
Now You See Me… Again
Heart of Stone
Quick Change
Nothing Up My Sleeve
The Magic Castle
Deleted and Extended Scenes
Original Trailer
“Predator: Badlands“
Everything old was new again in Fall 2025 with a reboot of “The Running Man,” the sequel “Tron: Ares,” and this standalone “Predator” action flick, easily the best of the bunch. Matt Zoller Seitz’s 4-star review at this site was one of our most divisive of last year. I can’t quite go that far, but I get it. This is such an original, fun movie, the right way to build on an existing property instead of just remaking what worked before. Director Dan Trachtenberg’s love for this world is palpable, and Elle Fanning is legitimately great, as she so often is. It also looks incredible with some of the best sci-fi cinematography of last year from Jeff Cutter, even more vibrant in 4K.
Special Features
Audio Commentary: Watch the film with audio commentary by Director Dan Trachtenberg, Producer Ben Rosenblatt, Director of Photography Jeff Cutter and Stunt Coordinator Jacob Tomuri.
Deleted & Pre-Visualization Scenes with Optional Audio Commentary:
Sand Trap – An early animatic version of Dek’s very different first encounter with Thia.
Squirt Canyon – The full version of Dek and Thia traversing the water-filled trench while trying to survive Genna…and each other.
Tessa vs. Abe – Tessa faces off against a superior synth in this deleted scene and storyline.
Razor Grass – The original previsualization of Dek, Thia, and Bud’s first hunt together…sort of.
The Outpost – Thia takes Dek to a small Weyland-Yutani field facility where they experience a few things that ended up being used elsewhere in the final film.
Super Power Loader Extended – Special additional moments during Dek’s climactic final battle with the Super Power Loader and the Kalisk.
Featurettes:
Embodying the Predator – Meet the talented team of designers, performers, and effects artists responsible for bringing one of cinema’s most terrifying creatures to life on screen in ways we’ve never seen before!
Authentic Synthetics – Get up close and personal with synths Thia and Tessa as star Elle Fanning walks us through the process of crafting two characters who may look the same but have evolved in surprisingly unique ways.
Building the Badlands – With razor sharp grass, killer trees, and terrifying animals, never has a planet been more deadly than Genna. Uncover how a team of artisans built this threatening landscape, transforming real locations into the dangerous environments seen on screen.
Dek of the Yautja – For the first time ever, director Dan Trachtenberg has given audiences an extended peek at Predator culture. Follow the evolution as filmmakers reveal the process behind developing the Yautja’s home world, spacecraft, and family dynamics.
“Rental Family“
A relative hit on the fest circuit, this dramedy seemed to die in a crowded awards season. It’s too bad because there’s enough to like here to warrant a look. Brendan Fraser stars as an American actor who gets a job pretending to be real people, such as a mourner at a funeral. When he’s asked to pretend to be the estranged father of a little girl, he goes along with it, leading to inevitable heartbreak. “Rental Family” is unapologetically melodramatic, but so are the real-life actors it centers. It needs to be pitched to an emotional 11, and there are strong supporting performances from Akira Emoto and Mari Yamamoto that help ground it when Fraser’s puppy-dog look gets a bit too saccharine.
Special Features
Featurette: Rental Family Revealed — Go behind the scenes with Brendan Fraser, director HIKARI, and the Japanese cast as they explore friendship, culture, found family, and filming in Japan in this intimate look at the making of Rental Family.
Deleted/Extended Scenes:
Columbus
Crying Session
Apology
Aiko’s First Client
Clearbright
Tickets
Audition
Phone Call
Final Montage
“Sisu: Road to Revenge“
The best action movie of 2025 that you probably haven’t seen is now available on streaming and Blu-ray. Jorma Tommila returns as Aatami Korpi, who has become something of a legend for his skill dispatching Nazis from the first film. Joined by great character actors Richard Brake and Stephen Lang, “Sisu: Road to Revenge” is like Looney Tunes meets “Mad Max: Fury Road,” a ludicrously enjoyable action flick that really should have a huge fan base. If just because I want to see another one.
Special Features
Upping The Ante
Alternate Ending
“Song Sung Blue“
It’s kind of funny that the big biopics of 2025 like “Springsteen: Road to Nowhere” flopped this awards season and the movie that’s about Neil Diamond but not really about Neil Diamond landed an Oscar nod for Best Actress. Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson star in the story of Lightning and Thunder, a Diamond cover duo that made it big enough that they opened for Pearl Jam. They’re effective, and the music rules, but the film is pretty standard melodrama without much true character development or visual language at all. Still, you could do worse for a bit of unexpected Oscar bait, especially if you’re trying to see all of this year’s nominees.
Special Features
FEATURE COMMENTARY WITH WRITER/DIRECTOR CRAIG BREWER
EXTENDED PERFORMANCES:
Crunchy Granola Suite
Sweet Caroline
ONE PLUS ONE EQUALS THREE – There is no Lightning without Thunder. Watch as Hugh and Kate reminisce on their characters’ love story, co-dependency, and their undeniable electricity.
LIGHTNING IN THE BOTTLE – A love letter to the small-time performers, go behind the scenes with Writer/Director Craig Brewer to see how he brought SONG SUNG BLUE to life.
EYE FOR STYLE – In this featurette, Costume Designer Ernesto Martinez reveals the art of storytelling through stitch and style.
“A Woman Under the Influence” (Criterion)
When people ask me the best performance of all time, I give one of two answers: Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon” or Gena Rowlands in this John Cassavetes masterpiece, now upgraded to 4K by the Criterion Collection. Her Mabel Longhetti is unforgettable, a simmering cauldron of emotional upheaval. As Roger wrote in his Great Movies review, “Her madness burns amid the confusions of domestic life. Nothing goes easily.” What a great line for a great movie.
Special Features
High-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
Audio commentary by sound recordist and composer Bo Harwood and camera operator Michael Ferris
Conversation between actors Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk
Archival audio interview with director John Cassavetes by film historians Michel Ciment and Michael Wilson
Trailer
Stills gallery featuring behind-the-scenes production photos
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Kent Jones and an interview with Cassavetes from 1975
- The Play’s the Thing with MGM+’s Charming Ode to the Theater, “American Classic” (February 27, 2026)
“You know how it is. You’re 21 or 22 and you make some decisions and then WHISSSH — you’re 70.” — Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”
What a pure joy it is to witness the estimable Kevin Kline so beautifully playing a beloved actor not unlike Kevin Kline in the sweet-natured, nourishing MGM+ series “American Classic.” This is curl-up-on-the-sofa comfort viewing at its finest, a “Forced Fresh Start” redemption arc story in the tradition of “Northern Exposure,” “Hart of Dixie,” “Schitt’s Creek,” and “Ted Lasso.”
We know the formula, and it works quite well here: An unexpected event sends our lead character(s) to a seemingly idyllic locale, where they reunite and/or meet a colorful cast of characters whose lives turn out to be more complex and layered than one might initially surmise. Cue the hijinks and the misunderstandings, the setbacks and the disappointments, the laughter and the tears. “American Classic” hits all those notes and sometimes falls into predictable patterns; we can see one major plot twist coming right down Main Street USA. Still, it works marvelously as a testimonial to small-town life with all its triumphs and struggles, and a love letter to every local theater company that stages production after production out of sheer love for the theater, with no thoughts of fame or glory or financial bounty.
Kline is enormously appealing, affecting a whisper of a 1930s Mid-Atlantic thespian’s accent as the acclaimed film and theater actor Richard Bean. The full-of-himself Bean is starring in “King Lear” on Broadway, but has lost much of his zest for the work, as evidenced by the earpiece he relies on to receive his lines. At the show’s after-party, Richard gets sloshed and confronts the New York Times chief theater critic, Xander Young, who hasn’t given him a positive review in a decade, and Xander’s husband, Troy, and things get so ugly that the moment goes viral, resulting in Richard getting booted from the play. (In a nice touch, Xander is played by Stephen Spinella, who won consecutive Tonys for the “Angels in America” duology, while Troy is played by Aaron Tveit, Tony winner for “Moulin Rouge!”)
Laura Linney in “American Classic.” (MGM+)
Next comes the phone call from Richard’s brother, Jon (a wonderful Jon Tenney), informing Richard that their mother, Ethel (the great Jane Alexander), has passed away. For the first time in three years, Richard makes his way home to the tree-lined and comfortable (and fictional) town of Millersburg, where the Bean family has owned and operated the Millersburg Festival Theater (MFT) for decades. Richard soon learns things have changed in good ol’ Bedford Falls, er, I mean Millersburg. Some of the townsfolk are struggling to make ends meet, the MFT has resorted to staging dinner theater productions such as “Nunsense” and “Forever Plaid” to keep the doors open, and a Potteresque developer named Connor Boyle (Billy Carter) wants to open a garish casino entertainment complex that will practically swallow the town whole.
Brainstorm time! At his mother’s funeral, Richard declares that he will stage a production of the American classic “Our Town” to restore the MFT to its glory days—but instead of following Thornton Wilder’s time-honored, high school-budget friendly stage directions of “No curtain, no scenery,” this version will include a horse, and a field, and a soda fountain…and, and, RAIN!
What could possibly go right?
Tony Shalhoub in “American Classic.” (MGM+)
The ensemble in “American Classic” is spectacularly good, led by the always masterful Laura Linney as Jon’s wife Kristen, who is now the mayor of Millersburg; the Broadway icon and virtuoso character Len Cariou as Richard and Jon’s father, Linus, who is in the early stages of dementia but is still capable of dispensing timely wisdom; and Nell Verlaque in a star turn as Richard’s niece, Miranda, who will soon be heading off to college, but has dreams of following in her uncle’s footsteps and becoming an actor in New York.
As the episodes roll on and auditions and rehearsals begin, with Richard relying on local amateur actors as his cast, the series cleverly draws parallels between many of the residents of this town and the roles they’re playing in “Our Town.” Along the way, we get some gentle but whip-smart social commentary comedy, as when the teenage Miranda tells Uncle Richard, “The world is…falling apart. It’s different from when you guys were young,” and Richard deftly replies, “We had the Cold War, we had the bomb, we had race riots, we had Richard Nixon, we had the Vietnam War.”
There’s also this: we are treated to Kline performing Shakespeare here and there, e.g., a monologue from “Hamlet” when he tries to secure a loan from the bank, and a pivotal moment when Richard is addressing the cast during a particularly challenging time and says, “This reminds me of ‘Henry V,’ the Battle of Agincourt, and he launches into a brilliant performance of the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…”)
Yes, it can be a bit contrived, and we can feel the tug at our heartstrings—but it’s a sentimentality well-earned. If the fictional town of Millersburg were to suddenly spring up in real life, I would quickly be planning a summer trip there to take in the next play on the bill at the fabled MFT.
- Berlinale 2026: A Politicized Festival with Great Political Cinema (February 27, 2026)
Given the incendiary news from this year’s edition, it may surprise you to learn that the Berlinale is among the more logistically easygoing of the major international film festivals. Part of this is the city itself; each far-flung theatre is well-connected by Berlin’s public transit, making even the sleepy, snowy February event a relative breeze where you can watch great cinema without a care. Then again, burying your head in the sand and ignoring the headlines goes against the nature of a cinematic melting-pot, so it’s worth recounting some of the controversies surrounding the event’s political ties, in addition to how the movies themselves stood out while making implicit (and at times, very explicit) political statements.
The 76th Berlin Film Festival got off to a rocky start when Competition Jury president Wim Wenders—a filmmaker practically synonymous with the city—responded clumsily to questions about the place of politics in cinema, as well as the genocide in Gaza. The latter has been a major topic of conversation at the Berlinale since the events of October 7th, 2023, given the German government’s military support in the region and its allegedly increased influence over the fest itself. Wenders, therefore, set an awkward tone when he said filmmakers “have to stay out of politics” while calling cinema “the counterweight of politics… the opposite of politics.”
Things only escalated from there. Indian author Arundhati Roy called Wenders’ words “unconscionable” before withdrawing from the festival. Berlinale Director Tricia Tuttle responded with a statement affirming free speech at the event, after which 100 major film personalities signed an open letter condemning the fest for its perceived silence on Gaza and alleged muzzling of artists. Tuttle responded again, leaving her between a rock and a hard place with these accusations on one side, and the German government calling for her ousting on the other—partially for posing with a Palestinian flag.
It was all very messy, but amidst all the talk of alleged censorship, little light was shed on the films themselves, especially those whose politics flew in the face of some of these allegations. Chief among them was the lo-fi war thriller “Chronicles from the Siege,” which won the festival’s Perspectives prize for first-time features. It tells several interconnected stories—some harrowing, some even raunchy—about young Palestinian men and women adjusting to life under constant bombings. (The film’s director, Abdallah Al-Khatib, would go on to make an impassioned acceptance speech that ruffled feathers at the German government).
The festival’s sidebar programs featured other notable films about Palestinians, too, including a couple by Israeli filmmakers that explored the limits of their own cinema. In the moving documentary “Collapse,” director Anat Even trains her lens on the destruction in Gaza from a safe distance but confronts the shortcomings of her visual and moral perspectives by augmenting them with those of Palestinian poets and more radical Israeli activists abroad, whose voices fill the soundscape with firm convictions about decolonization and Palestinian history.
A similar introspection, albeit with a markedly different approach, came courtesy of Assaf Machnes, whose drama “Where To?” finds a young queer Israeli student and a middle-aged Palestinian Uber driver forming an unlikely friendship across several rides through Berlin, on either side of October 7th—an apt geographical, cultural, and temporal dynamic for this year’s festival. It’s a tale of feeling adrift that applies to both characters, but the film seldom equivocates or tries to make symmetrical the escalating conflict. If anything, it’s one of the rare Israeli dramas that fully empathizes with the Palestinian perspective on displacement. It’s also one of the very few to be outright hilarious in its depiction of Palestinian characters responding to prejudice through humor.
For all the chatter about staying apolitical, the Berlinale’s Competition featured Berlin itself as a very intentional political backdrop. The city is, after all, a place where history and politics are visible on every street corner. For instance, the festival’s hub at Potsdamer Platz is mere steps from Checkpoint Charlie, the former Berlin Wall crossing, which is now adorned with a McDonald’s on the former West Berlin side and a KFC on the former East Berlin side, which feels like some kind of cosmic joke.
However, the city’s architecture and municipal buildings form a vital backdrop in surprise Golden Bear winner “Yellow Letters,” an oddly daring domestic drama about a couple’s gradual implosion, in which German-Turkish director İlker Çatak draws attention to Berlin standing in for Ankara. It follows the Turkish government’s ousting of various artists and academics from positions of influence—including a playwright and his more famous actress wife—a story drawn directly from contemporary Turkish politics, but one whose transposed setting speaks not only to recent concerns in Germany, but to a more universal rightward shift as well.
Turkish cinema had a particularly stellar showing, with the festival’s Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize (ostensibly second place) being awarded to Emin Alper’s “Salvation,” a chilling rural tale of mysticism and tribal animosity that, through its tale of fictitious Kurdish clans told in dreams and premonitions, carefully traces the genesis of real ethnic hatred and religious fanaticism.
The title that placed third, with the Silver Bear Jury Prize—UK-US co-production “Queen At Sea,” director Lance Hammer’s comeback after nearly twenty years—turned out to be a double winner (or triple, depending on how you slice it), since it also won the Silver Bear for Supporting Performance for not one, but two of its central roles, which the jury voted on unanimously. The harrowing morality play features honorees Anna Calder-Marshall and Tom Courtenay as an elderly woman in the throes of dementia and her caring husband, whose love is thrown into question by an ethical dilemma surrounding the fraught dynamic between Alzheimer’s and sexual consent. At the center of this emotional whirlwind is their conscientious daughter, played with pained exhaustion by the enigmatic Juliette Binoche, rounding out a trio of devastating must-see performances.
A film that many presumed would be in the running for a top prize was Markus Schleinzer’s black-and-white 90-minute period drama “Rose,” though it walked away with a Silver Bear for Sandra Hüller’s lead performance, as a woman pretending to be a male soldier in 17th-century Germany. It’s both intense and compact—a delightful combination!—and its transgender themes, which frequently bubble to the surface, imbue it with vital contemporary echoes.
Just as riveting, however, is a movie twice as long that few thought would walk away empty-handed until it did: “Dao” by French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis, an enormous yet intimate three-hour tale, bifurcated between a family’s wedding in France and the funeral ceremony for their patriarch in Guinea-Bissau the year prior. With documentarian flair, Gomis crafts a sprawling postcolonial work split between Europe and West Africa that’s as anthropological as it is deeply personal, often blurring the line between fiction and reality. It also features a sloppy, drunken fight scene that’s more enrapturing than anything you’re likely to see at the multiplex this year.
You could throw a dart at this year’s Competition while blindfolded and have it land on something interesting. The robust lineup saw major arthouse titles like Anthony Chen’s vast, decade-plus-in-the-making generational drama “We Are All Strangers,” which caps off his loose Singaporean coming-of-age trilogy—a gentle film in the vein of Edward Yang. The roster also featured idiosyncratic oddities like the documentary “Yo (Love is a Rebellious Bird),” in which a pair of directors mourns their elderly artist friend by keeping her alive through puppets, stop-motion miniatures, and various arts-and-crafts projects. This made it a worthy recipient for the Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution, and a firm reminder of the kind of offbeat, soothing cinema seldom elevated at other major European festivals.
The Berlinale is one of those fests, like Cannes, where there are a lot of prizes to go around, ensuring that even a minor miracle like “Nina Roza,” about a cynical Quebecois art dealer returning to his Bulgarian roots to verify the paintings of a feisty eight-year-old, left with the well-deserved recognition of Best Screenplay. While some of the more star-studded films were poorly received—like Larim Aïnouz’s largely panned “Rosebush Pruning,” about a rich hedonistic family, and the scattered Amy Adams rehab drama “At the Sea”—I wouldn’t hesitate to call this year’s Competition an embarrassment of riches.
It was filled with surprises from the top down, films you’d do well to keep an eye out for upon eventual release. These include the quietly triumphant, Vienna-set Blues portrait “The Loneliest Man in Town,” about an aged musician (who plays himself) being forced from his home, and parted from his memories. In keeping with this year’s broader themes, the competitions also saw the sardonic relationship drama “My Wife Cries,” which deploys Berlin as a backdrop for its tale of loneliness and introspection into marriage and gendered norms.
Some of the festival’s finest works could be found far outside the Competition, too. American coming-of-age indie “Mouse” is a stunning effort by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, a story steeped in the grief of losing a best friend at a pivotal point in life. Led by a powerhouse performance from Sophie Okonedo as a mother in mourning, it’s as gentle as it is heartrending. Meanwhile, Faraz Shariat’s tightly-controlled Panorama audience award winner “Prosecution” fashions a pulpy vigilante tale out of a meek Korean-German lawyer investigating her own hate crime, a transformative thriller about the biases quietly governing German institutions.
“Prosecution” was the last film I watched this year, late on the 12th and final day, but it proved an especially fitting capstone for an iteration of the festival where conversations were dominated by questions of whether the Berlinale ought to be political. The proof is in the pudding: it very much is already. Granted, no one in its upper ranks is likely to come out and condemn the Gaza genocide in so many words (despite reporters repeatedly posing the question), but as a festival under an increasingly hostile German government, it’s hard to imagine the Berlinale coming out unscathed, or existing at all, if its leadership were to grab a megaphone at the risk of censure, especially following recent budget cuts. So, for better or worse, perhaps the movies being platformed ought to speak for themselves. And this year, they did so loudly and proudly.
- Ebertfest Unveils Initial Slate for Final Festival, “The Last Dance” (February 26, 2026)
Honoring Rob Reiner with a Special Tribute Screening of The American President; Featuring Nuremberg with Sony Pictures Classics Co-Founder Michael Barker; and Presenting a Live Performance of SISKEL/EBERT, as Zack Mast and Stephen Winchell Bring Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel to Life on Stage
Champaign, IL, February 26, 2026 — Ebertfest: The Last Dance, also known as Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, the annual film festival co-founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Roger Ebert and Chaz Ebert and held at the historic Virginia Theatre, today announced the initial slate for what will be the festival’s final edition. The festival will be held on Friday, April 17, and Saturday, April 18, and will be dedicated to filmmaker Rob Reiner, celebrating his enduring contributions to American cinema and the humanistic storytelling long championed by Ebert.
In honor of Rob Reiner, the festival will present a special screening of The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. Directed by Reiner and written by Aaron Sorkin, the film remains a defining work of modern American cinema, blending idealism, romance, and political discourse with uncommon warmth and intelligence. The screening will serve as a centerpiece of this year’s festival, celebrating Reiner’s enduring influence and his alignment with the thoughtful, audience-centered filmmaking championed by Roger Ebert. Guest appearances connected to The American President screening will be announced at a later date.
“We are especially honored to recognize Rob Reiner this year,” said Chaz Ebert. “I had the pleasure of inviting Rob to Ebertfest last year, and while he wasn’t able to attend at the time, he shared how much he was looking forward to joining us in the future. To now celebrate his extraordinary body of work and his deep commitment to storytelling feels incredibly meaningful. We are also proud to honor Robert Redford for his immeasurable contributions to independent filmmaking; his vision helped create a path for generations of filmmakers to tell bold, personal stories.”
The lineup continues with Nuremberg, from Sony Pictures Classics, written and directed by James Vanderbilt. The film stars Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, and Mark O’Brien, with Richard E. Grant and Michael Shannon. Set as the Nuremberg trials are about to begin, the film follows a U.S. Army psychiatrist who becomes locked in a gripping psychological confrontation with accused Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring, delivering a tense and timely examination of justice, power, and moral reckoning. Michael Barker, Co-Founder and Co-President of Sony Pictures Classics, will be in attendance, with additional guests to be announced.
Bringing the spirit of film criticism itself to life on stage, SISKEL/EBERT sees Stephen Winchell and Zack Mast take the stage to embody the ultimate small-screen duo, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, in a theatrical tribute to Siskel & Ebert & the Movies. In a production that straddles the line between reenactment and parody, director Katlin Schneider brings back one of the pair’s most heated half-hours, a full-bore discussion of Full Metal Jacket and sideways sparring around other famous (and not-so-famous) films of the 1987 summer season. A cast re-creates the movie clips live on stage as Siskel and Ebert duke it out over what it truly means to be a film critic.
“Co-founding Ebertfest with Roger has been one of the great joys of my life,” said Ebert. What began as a celebration of films we loved became a beautiful community that has gathered year after year to share stories, empathy, and the magic of cinema together. I am so grateful to have been part of it all these years, along with Nate, and I truly believe Roger would be deeply pleased — and maybe a little amazed — that it has continued, grown, and thrived for so long in his absence. This Last Dance is both a celebration and a thank you to everyone who helped carry it forward.”
Ebertfest has long stood as a celebration of films that challenge, move, and connect us. With The Last Dance, the festival marks a final chapter, bringing filmmakers and audiences together one last time to honor the enduring emotional, intellectual, and humanistic power of cinema. Additional programming details and ticket information will be announced.
Ebertfest passes are currently available for purchase online or by calling the Virginia Theatre box office at 217-356-9063. An Individual Reserved Seating Festival Pass, which includes admission to all films, is $150 plus a $9.00 processing fee per pass. A Reserved 1-Day Festival Pass is available for $75.00 plus a $6.00 processing fee. Individual Reserved Seating Tickets are $20.00 plus a $3.00 processing fee per ticket. Individual film tickets will go on sale April 1, 2026, at 10:00 a.m.
Roger Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, a University of Illinois journalism alumnus, and an Urbana native.
Chaz Ebert is also the author of the indie bestseller It’s Time to Give A FECK: Elevating Humanity through Forgiveness, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness.
Ebertfest is hosted by Chaz Ebert and Nate Kohn, the festival director since the very beginning.
To become a supporting Festival Sponsor, please contact Sonia Evans – sonia@ebertdigital.com.
For additional information, please visit https://ebertfest.com/ and follow us on social media:
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- Twisty, Funny HBO’s “DTF St. Louis” is an Addictive Watch (February 26, 2026)
“No one’s normal. It just looks that way from across the street.”
Confidently written, acted, and directed, HBO’s “DTF St. Louis” could be called a suburban noir. It has all the double crosses, hidden secrets, and betrayals of the beloved genre, even if most of it takes place in suburban Missouri sunlight instead of the darkened chambers of a major city. It’s a wickedly entertaining show, especially the premiere, which sets the foundation for creator Steven Conrad’s (“The Weather Man,” TV’s underrated “Patriot”) devious tale of sexual exploration gone wrong. “DTF St. Louis” is also a wickedly difficult show to review without spoiling some of its smartest choices, but I’m down to try.
Jason Bateman plays St. Louis weatherman Clark Forrest, who becomes BFFs with his station’s ASL translator Floyd (David Harbour) from pretty much his first day on the job, as the pair survives a vicious storm. Clark and Floyd do all the suburban dude things like go to chain restaurants, work out together, and play cornhole. They also start to express a bit of malaise in their relationships, especially Floyd, who has grown sexually distant from his wife Carol (Linda Cardellini) since she got a job working as an umpire to help bring in some much-needed extra cash to help out with a private school for her troubled son Richard (Arlan Ruf). Conrad gets a lot of mileage out of footage of Cardellini in her umpire gear, looking about as unsexual as possible. The extra weight that Floyd has been working hard to shed isn’t helping matters either.
One day on a swing set, Clark tells Floyd about a story on his news program about a new app called “DTF St. Louis.” (If you don’t know what DTF means, look it up.) Suffice to say, it’s one of those apps for local married people looking for sexual connections without frills. The tender Floyd seems hesitant at first, but agrees if Clark will do it with him. Cut to months later, and one of the three members of this triangle is dead, sparking an investigation by a local cop named Donoghue Homer (Richard Jenkins) and a special crimes officer named Jodie Plumb (Joy Sunday). She immediately senses the crime scene isn’t what it first seems, sending the pair digging into the sordid saga of Clark, Floyd, and Carol.
Conrad’s writing captures how illicit and sometimes even criminal behavior can happen right under the polished perfection of suburban America. Trysts can be planned at Jamba Juice; infidelity can be considered on the swing set you built for your kid; affairs can begin at cornhole parties. It’s too character-driven to be called satire, but it winks at the ridiculousness of all of this, how violence can erupt in the most mundane places in the country, locations that have often built themselves on an illusion of safety.
Of course, few are better at selling how quickly an everyman’s life can go off the rails than “Ozark” star Bateman. He does his best work in years, but he’s really just a part of a flawless ensemble. Jenkins reminds one how confidently great he can be with the right material; Sunday works brilliantly off him by pitching her character to an entirely different register; Cardellini knows how to play the mystery of a woman who may be much more than she seems. There’s not a weak link in the entire cast, down to the smallest parts.
However, the episodes sent to press belong to Harbour, who finds the core of Floyd’s decency in a way that makes him resonate. This is a guy who loves his life but wonders if there isn’t something more out there to make him happier. He loves his wife, stepson, and best friend Clark, and Harbour sells that love without turning him into a caricature. That’s at the core of why “DTF St. Louis” works so well: there’s a version of this that cruelly mocks middle-aged sexuality or even just suburbia, but Conrad and his cast thread that needle in how they highlight the silliness of it all in a way that’s genuinely very funny without ever mocking their characters.
There are times during the third and fourth episodes sent to press when I wondered the classic question of the modern TV mini-series: Should this have just been a movie? While it never succumbs to the bloat so common in the genre, there are times when the pace feels designed more for stretching out to a season than it should, but they’re just far enough apart to never completely derail momentum. And every time that feeling surfaces, one of the cast members makes a choice that would have been cut in the movie version of this tale to push it away. After all, this kind of deception takes time.
Four episodes screened for review. Premieres on HBO on Sunday, March 1.
