THE BEST MOVIES I SAW AT SXSW 2026

SXSW has a reputation for being the "rambunctious" fest. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the city itself, but I can attest—as someone still recovering— there's definitely something different in the air. When onlookers crowded the streets near Austin’s stately Paramount Theatre to catch a glimpse of their favorite celeb (or Eric Andre in a poncho) the excitement is deeply felt and probably heard across town. Which is good news for filmmakers; If you’re seeking the most enthusiastic festival hordes on the planet, there’s no better launchpad.

Even as a first-timer, it was obvious: this lineup wasn’t here to play it safe. The films swung big—and when they connected, they really connected. Like in I Love Boosters, a razor-sharp satire of consumer culture gone feral; Forbidden Fruits, an aggressively campy, sapphic witch thriller; and Pretty Lethal, which is essentially John Wick with a balletic quality.

And the showcase isn’t just limited to studio movies with baked-in release plans. Many smaller titles hoping to land distribution shined, too. And while trying to see and do all the things I wanted to at SXSW was next to impossible, I think I caught some good sh*t. Here are 8 films of varying stature that deserve to be hits this year.

The Crowd-Pleasers

Forbidden Fruits

Director: Meredith Alloway

From the jump—Apple (Lili Reinhart) scalding a man mid-act with a latte—Forbidden Fruits makes it clear it’s got something righteous and incendiary to say. The film follows a group of women drawn into a strange, insular sisterhood where desire, control, and identity start to blur. Director Meredith Alloway leans all the way into this maximalist, provocative vision of sapphic longing and the cost of belonging. It’s messy and a little divisive by design—but whether you read it as something cosmically tragic or just let it play in the background of a wine-soaked sleepover, it hits.

I Love Boosters

Director: Boots Riley

At its core, I Love Boosters follows a group of young women running elaborate retail theft schemes, slipping in and out of luxury spaces with practiced ease. But what starts as hustle quickly spirals into something messier, exposing the thin line between rebellion and vengeance. The film is slick, funny, and just frenetic enough to leave a mark—less interested in judging the system than showing how easily we buy into it. Almost eight years after his incendiary and brilliant Sorry to Bother You, Boots Riley is back with another righteous middle finger to capitalism.

Imposters

Director: Caleb Phillips

Imposters follows Marie and Paul, a couple already on shaky ground, whose lives fracture when their baby disappears during a neighborhood block party—only to seemingly return under increasingly unsettling circumstances. What unfolds leans into questions of identity, grief, and how much uncertainty a relationship can survive. It doesn’t fully land every idea it reaches for, but the central mystery—and two committed lead performances—are more than enough to keep you locked in.

The Essential Docs

#WhileBlack

Directors: Jennifer Holness & Sidney Fussell

While Jennifer Holness and Sidney Fussell’s documentary concentrates on two cases in particular—Darnella Frazier, who recorded the murder of George Floyd and Diamond Reynolds, who livestreamed the murder of Philando Castile—#WhileBlack serves as a generational examination of how police brutality has been exposed more widely than ever thanks to the ubiquity of phone cameras and platforms like Facebook and TikTok, even while the corporations behind those platforms have profited from the human suffering they put on display. #WhileBlack asks what it means to witness—and be changed by—trauma that the world consumes in real time. And by the end, it might just change the way you view those videos and the people recording them.

Black Zombie

Director: Maya Annik Bedward

Maya Annik Bedward’s Black Zombie unpacks the origins of one of horror’s most enduring genres, tracing the lineage from White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead to The Serpent and the Rainbow and beyond. Through film clips, historians, and cultural critics, Bedward connects the genre’s roots in Vodou to the ways it has long reflected deeper histories—slavery, colonialism, and civil rights. There are moments where you wish it stretched further because the film is at its strongest when it locks into its central thesis: how Black culture has been distorted, repurposed, and reimagined into stories of the walking dead.

The Under-the-Radar Hits

Fifteen

Directors: Jack Zagha & Yossy Zagha

Fifteen starts as a familiar coming-of-age story—two teenage outsiders, Ligia and Mayte, clinging to each other as they count down to their quinceañeras—but it doesn’t stay there for long. When Ligia’s pregnancy takes a deeply unsettling turn, the film shifts into body horror, using transformation as a lens for the quiet brutality of teen girl politics. Directors Jack Zagha Kababie and Yossy Zagha understand that the real horror isn’t just what’s happening to Ligia, but what happens between them. It’s gross, emotional, and just a little heartbreaking, beautifully balancing its genre elements against the real terrors of being a teenager.

Monitor

Directors: Matt Black & Ryan Polly

Monitor follows Maggie, a content moderator tasked with reviewing the internet’s worst material, whose already fragile grip on reality begins to slip after she encounters a video she can’t explain—or escape. The film understands the quiet horror of the job itself, where desensitization becomes survival, and leans into that psychological toll before pushing things into something more supernatural. It’s grim, disorienting, and occasionally a little on-the-nose, but when it works, it really works. More than anything, it taps into a very modern fear: what happens when the things we’re supposed to filter out refuse to stay contained.

A Safe Distance

Director: Gloria Mercer

I've been yapping about this film so much, you'd think I was part of the PR Team. A Safe Distance follows Alex, a woman stranded after her boyfriend abandons her mid-camping trip, who falls in with an off-the-grid couple who turn out to be bank robbers. What starts as survival quickly turns into something messier as she’s pulled into their relationship—and their crimes. Gloria Mercer leans into a Highsmith-coded character study, more interested in power, desire, and who’s actually in control. Not only are the performances magnetic, Director Gloria Mercer shoots her limited settings beautifully, giving the film such a lush, natural look. I think Patricia Highsmith would have dug it.