One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s political parable about the failures and flaws of America’s wannabe revolutionaries, came out on top in this year’s Austin Film Critics Association 2025 awards. The AFCA, which includes critics from the Austin Chronicle, Cinapse, KOOP, One of Us, WE Got This Covered, Fangoria, and other publications and outlets, […]
Screens
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The Austin Chronicle’s Top 10 Movies of 2025
The Austin Chronicle’s Top 10 list, listed alphabetically, is the combined effort of Chronicle film critics Kimberley Jones and Richard Whittaker and film critic emeritus Marjorie Baumgarten, who was this week named the Austin Film Critics Association’s first Member Emeritus. Avatar: Fire and Ash Blue Moon Frankenstein It Was Just an Accident Marty Supreme Nouvelle […]
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AFS Cinema Invites You Home for the Holidays
The category of holiday film stretches around this time of year to fit basically any kino sufficiently comforting or wintry, if comfort’s in short supply. Such is the thread running through this year’s selections for AFS Cinema’s Home for the Holidays series – an annual tradition where Austin’s foremost indie cinema programs screenings to get you […]
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The Secret Agent Review: A Pulp Fiction With Political Resonance
The title of writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s last film was Pictures of Ghosts, and his latest, The Secret Agent, opens with pictures of ghosts, too, of a sort. They are black & white photos of a bygone Brazil, pictures of 1970s-era merrymaking – drinking, singing, dancing. You’d never imagine these photos were taken in the […]
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Is This Thing On? Review: Consciously Uncoupling Under the Spotlight
Let’s call the whole thing off, thinks a couple when their 20-year-long marriage appears to have run out of steam. That’s the starting point of the movie Is This Thing On?. It’s the third directorial outing from Bradley Cooper following A Star Is Born and Maestro, and like those two films, Is This Thing On? […]
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Avatar: Fire and Ash Review: Bigger, Hotter, Wetter, Longer
It’s a running joke in certain more arch circles of cinema that no one can remember the name of the hero of the Avatar films. It’s Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), but that never really mattered, since James Cameron was never really that interested in having some singular figure save the day. He’s talked about these […]
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Friday Night Lights and Homicide: Life on the Street Get Major Retrospectives at ATX TV Festival 2026
Friday Night Lights and the ATX TV Festival have gone hand-in-hand since season one of the local celebration of the small screen, when the fest held a special cast and crew screening. Then in 2016 ATX TV marked the 10th anniversary of the series’ debut with another panel. Now, for its 2026 iteration (running May […]
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Silent Night, Deadly Night Review: Santa’s New Slayride
Remakes of certain films border on heresy. You’re not going to make Casablanca more heartbreakingly heroic, you won’t make Alien scarier, and, as 2012’s inessential Silent Night seemed to prove, no one feels like they got a big gift if you remake Charles E. Sellier Jr.’s 1984 Santasploitation classic, Silent Night, Deadly Night. The original […]
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Dust Bunny Review: Hit Men and Monsters, Oh My!
With TV shows like Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me on his résumé, it’s clear that writer-turned-director Bryan Fuller has an extraordinary knack for the quirky and somewhat macabre. However, his work can sometimes wobble between charmingly, ghoulishly cutesy and simply twee, and so his debut feature as a director, Dust Bunny suggests that the […]
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One Battle After Another, Sinners Lead Austin Film Critics Association Awards Nominations
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s action-packed political allegory, leads the nominations in the Austin Film Critics Association’s annual awards for 2025 with 12 nominations. However, it’s in heavy competition with Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which scored 11 nominations. Combined, those nominations span 23 categories in competition. The AFCA, entering its 20th year, includes critics […]
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It Takes a Village: Inside the Community of Man Finds Tape
Horror and small Texas towns go together like chainsaws and massacres, but those onscreen communities are often a broad pastiche of real life. Not so in Austin-made and cosmic horror-tinged terror Man Finds Tape, where the fear springs from authenticity. “It’s very representative of what small Texas towns are,” said star Kelsey Pribilski. Directed by […]
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SXSW Film and TV 2026 to Open With Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters
South by Southwest just gave everyone an early Christmas present. The Film & TV Festival just announced that I Love Boosters, the newest film from Boots Riley, will receive its world premiere as the 2026 opening night selection. The festival has already announced a plethora of panels and a jammed schedule of speakers, as well […]