‘Sharp Corner’ (2025)
This psychologically intense and often frightening character study starts innocuously enough, as the middle manager Josh (Ben Foster), his wife, Rachel (Cobie Smulders), and their young son move from the city to a dream home in the suburbs. But their newfound bliss is punctured on the very first night by a horrible automobile accident in their front yard, thanks to a particularly dangerous curve that comes to consume Ben. Adapting a short story by Russell Wangersky, the writer and director Jason Buxton methodically follows Josh’s quiet descent, as his obsession surfaces issues bubbling within his marriage, and his entire existence. Foster and Smulders are excellent as a man unspooling and the woman who’s watching helplessly, and the closing passages have a disturbing, live wire, anything-can-happen quality. This one gets under your skin, and stays there.
‘Last Breath’ (2025)
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
This tense survival thriller is based on a true story, a 2012 deep sea accident which left a young diver, part of a three-man oil-pipe repair team, stranded without access to oxygen or any way to communicate with the rest of his team. The director is Alex Parkinson, who previously directed (with Richard da Costa) a 2019 documentary account of the story, and he carries over a journalistic sensibility, refusing to juice up the tension with false crises or extraneous characters. Most of what we see is focused on these three men and their increasing desperation, and that’s all we need — particularly when one is played by Woody Harrelson, who crafts a complex and often heart-wrenching characterization solely using the tools of his face and voice.
‘The Legend of Ochi’ (2025)
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