We recommend: The best new movies and TV series
Editor’s note: Lots of horror releases in theatres and OTT this week, coinciding with Halloween. Do not miss Diés Iraé, Good Boy and Bugonia in the theatres. There’s also the Baahubali films back in the theatres as one giant production, trimmed of all fat that had nothing to do with the protagonist’s quest. Watch out for the true crime documentary Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers, and the new Apple TV series Down Cemetery Road.
New releases
Diés Iraé (Malayalam)
Rahul Sadasivan is possibly India's only stand-out pure horror filmmaker focusing on the classical traits of the genre without diluting it with comedy, songs, dances, any trappings of Indian commercial cinema. His previous films Bhoothakaalam and Bramayugam were sinister, slow-burn chamber pieces with exquisite sound design and solid character writing.
Diés Iraé brings together three characters, a well-to-do young architect, a middle-class contractor, and a house maid, and "conjures up a movie about trauma bonding, in a way only he can," as noted by Hollywood Reporter India.
Where to watch: Theatres
Good Boy (English)
Recently, director Steven Soderbergh attempted his own spin on the haunted-house genre in Presence, telling the story from the POV of the ghost itself. Director Ben Leonberg has picked another non-human candidate for the audience's eyes and ears: a dog. After moving with his owner to an abandoned countryside home, the dog begins sensing malevolent forces lurking about.
Film critic Peter Travers cuts to the heart of the film in his review: "For 73 tense, terrifying minutes, the audience is one with a dog who knows what we can’t."
Where to watch: Theatres
Baahubali: The Epic (Telugu, dubbed and released in other languages as well)
The grand maximalist extravagance of SS Rajamouli finds a new outlet with Baahubali: The Epic. A decade on from the original Baahubali film, The Beginning (which famously ended on a cliffhanger), and eight years after its sequel, The Conclusion (2017) , this version is a mammoth conjoined classic clocking in at a mere 225 minutes (or a shade under four full hours). It’s been re-mastered, re-edited, re-everything’d, into a brand new theatrical experience.
The reviews are positive, drawing on both the nostalgia and the makeover; as The Hindu remarks:
Part of the joy of watching a re-release lies in the unrestrained enthusiasm of the viewers, who know every song, dialogue and gesture by heart, joining in as if the film were a live performance. For a phenomenon like Baahubali, still vivid in public memory, that energy feels even greater.
Where to watch: Theatres
Bugonia (English)
Emma Stone and filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos have really discovered soulmates in one another. Bugonia is their fourth film together in seven years. This comes after The Favourite (2018), Poor Things (2023) and Kinds of Kindness (2024). Two men (Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis) convinced that a corporate CEO (Stone) is responsible for humanity's destruction, kidnap her. As Lanthimos' earlier films, this too promises eccentric performances, black humour, grotesque comedy, and existential dread.
Coleman Spilde in his review for Salon.com laid bare the film's themes thus, "Throughout, Lanthimos asks his audience to consider if there is anything left to do, or if anything can be done at all", adding that the film's "nihilism will prove too trenchant and reactive for some viewers. That’s perfectly fine: Sometimes it feels good to scream for help, even if it will never come."
Where to watch: Theatres
Black Phone 2 (English)
2021's The Black Phone, based on a short story by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son), was a neat little horror thriller featuring a scary performance from Ethan Hawke as the big baddie kidnapping little children. Hawke reprises his role in the sequel, this time returning from the dead. Scott Derrickson is back as the director, C Robert Cargill as the writer, and Mason Thames is again in the lead role of Finney, who survived Hawkes' villain in the previous film after being kidnapped.
Critic Sara Michelle Fetters of Moviefreak.com called it "a creepily inventive shocker that grows in mournful power as it moves along."
Where to watch: Theatres
Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (English)
Aileen Wuornos was a sex worker who, in the late ’80s, shot and killed seven of her clients. She pleaded self-defence, claiming that the men had either raped or attempted to rape her. However, she was sentenced to death and was executed in 2002. Her story was immortalised in Monster (2003) for which Charlize Theron won an Oscar.
Now, Wuornos’s story makes its way on to Netflix in the form of a documentary directed by Emily Turner. Featuring archival footage, audio conversations, court scenes, and previously unreleased conversations featuring Wuornos, the docu attempts to dig deeper and understand the woman behind the serial crimes.
Where to watch: Netflix
Down Cemetery Road (English)
Morwenna Banks—a writer on Slow Horses, among others—turns creator for this adaptation of a 2003 novel by Mick Herron (whose Slough House series of novels also serve as inspiration for Slow Horses). Down Cemetery Road, starring Ruth Wilson (Luther, The Affair) and serial award-winning maestro Emma Thompson, is about a woman who hires an investigator when a girl goes missing following an explosion in a quiet neighbourhood.
The eight-part British series has received largely positive reviews, and The New York Times praises Thompson in particular: “[Her] wonderfully assured performance makes you glad for every extra minute the character has been put onscreen.”
Where to watch: Apple TV
Ballad of a Small Player (English)
This British psychological thriller, directed by Edward Berger (last year’s smashing papal thriller Conclave), stars Colin Farrell as Lord Doyle, a washed-up booze hound holed up in Macau. He spends his time wasting away on casino floors, blowing up whatever little money he has left. He’s offered an out by a mysterious casino employee (Fala Chen as Dao Ming), while Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton) is hot on the chase, as Doyle seeks redemption and salvation.
Where to watch: Netflix
Bad Influencer (English)
This South African seven-episode series, created by Kudi Maradzika, is about a single mother, who also happens to dabble in counterfeit luxury bags, in debt. She crosses paths with—and instantly dislikes—a showy and self-involved influencer. Of course, the two team up and start selling the bags. What could possibly go wrong?
Where to watch: Netflix
Together (English)
Alison Brie (Community, Mad Men) and Dave Franco (Superbad)—married in real life—play a married couple in this supernatural body horror film written and directed by Michael Shanks.
Strange things start to happen to the two, Tim and Mille, after they move to the countryside. Their bodies, it seems, are being affected upon by some mysterious force. The Guardian, calling it a “fun ride”, lauds the film’s deviation from standard sexist tropes into more interesting territories. They add: “There’s something refreshingly blunt about what Together is trying to say about the dangers of codependency, a film too busy having fun to waste time writing a self-satisfied dissertation.”
Where to watch: Buy & Rent on BookMyShow Stream
This is Thailand's first major zombie series production. The idea is simple: there's a zombie outbreak on the streets, and a group of university friends try to survive the dangers outside and those inside their hearts as they are trapped within their campus.
Where to watch: Netflix
Fresh off the big screen…
Idli Kadai (Tamil, available in Hindi and other languages)
Dhanush stars in and directs this family drama released in theatres just last month. Murugan (Dhanush) returns home to his village, after chasing a life and career abroad, when his father dies. Murugan takes over the family's modest idli shop. Naturally, themes of reconnecting with roots, rediscovering your identity, and suchlike follows.
The film has a top star cast, including Sathyaraj (best-known to pan-Indian audiences as Kattappa from Baahubali), Nithya Menen, Shalini Pandey, Samuthirakani and Arun Vijay. Critic Baradwaj Rangan had a few problems with the film’s core themes: “Idli Kadai goes for easy sentimentality. We are told that it is better to come back home to our families instead of living away from them, but we don’t see the other side. It is this sacrifice that makes our children get a better education, a better life than we did.”
Where to watch: Netflix
Here’s a new chapter…
The Witcher Season 4 (English)
This is kinda awkward. Liam Hemsworth replaces Henry Cavill as the protagonist, the witcher Geralt of Rivia, after three extremely successful seasons. Cavill, a nerd in the body of a hunk, is a devoted fan of The Witcher games and books, and chose to step aside from the franchise noting the makers' plans to deviate from writer Andrzej Sapkowski’s original source material.
The Witcher saga follows Geralt of Rivia, a genetically enhanced monster hunter navigating a deadly world filled with human and superhuman terrors. Entwined with his fate are the sorceress Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) and the young princess Ciri (Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon).
Where to watch: Netflix
souk picks