A24’s Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony by Matt Johnson starring Dominic Sessa expands to 1,640+ runs in North America, while Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma moves to 1,036 screens, both in week 3 and following stellar limited debuts. Mubi’s surreal horror by Jane Schoenbrun stars Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder.
Vertical opens fantasy adventure The Magic Faraway Tree with Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy and Nicola Coughlan. Neon horror It Ends, French hit The Marching Band, Agnieszka Holland’s Franz Kafka biopic, and Sundance prizewinner How To Divorce During The War land in limited release. Black Bear opens comedy Spa Weekend wide.
American Doctor from Watermelon Pictures adds Laemmle Royal in LA after a great $50k exclusive debut at the Angelika last weekend. And movie ticketing site Fandago is dipping a toe in distribution with concert event film House of Worship featuring 25 influential Christian music artists.
Ben Gregor’s The Magic Faraway Tree, the U.K. hit and Vertical’s first film in the kids’ space, opens on 1,600 screens. Adapted from Enid Blyton’s classic children’s book series by Wonka and Paddington 2 co-writer Simon Farnaby. Vertical is targeting the family audience with parents and kids 12 and under, and fans of Andrew Garfield. The film’s grossed $20 million in the U.K., where it opened in April, and $32+ million internationally.
Published over a decade from 1939, the original The Magic Faraway Tree books follow the adventures of three siblings displaced to the countryside by family misfortune where they connect with an enchanted tree and its eccentric residents.
Alex Ullam’s debut feature It Ends from Neon starts in limited release at five theaters in NY and LA. World premiered at SXSW 2025, it’s Rotten Tomatoes Certified Fresh at 95%. Mitchell Cole, Akira Jackson, Noah Tot and Phinehas Yoon star as recent grads on a late night drive for grub, hoping to enjoy one final hangout before their paths diverge. Instead, they accidentally turn onto a never-ending, two lane hellscape surrounded by untold horrors and cosmic forces beyond their understanding.
Greenwich Entertainment’s The Marching Band by Emmanuel Courcol begins a run at the Angelika. A world-famous orchestra conductor discovers the brother he never knew he had — a school cafeteria worker who plays trombone in a local marching band. Detecting his brother’s exceptional musical talent, he takes it upon himself to rectify the injustice of fate. Stars Benjamin Lavernhe (My Donkey, My Lover & I) and Pierre Lottin (The Stranger). Premiered at Cannes in 2024 and was a box office hit in France, grossing $28 million internationally.
How To Divorce During The War from Zeitgeist films and Kino Lorber, by Lithuanian director Andrius Blazevicius, opens at NYC’s IFC Center. Premiered at Sundance, winning the World Cinema Best Director award.
Set in Vilnius in 2022, high-flying executive Marija (Zygimante Elena Jakstaite) chooses the worst possible moment to inform her husband Vytas (Marius Repsys) she wants a divorce — one day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Suddenly the couple must navigate the process of separation as it collides with a refugee and mid-life crisis. A struggling film director, Vytas is put into a tight spot by having to move in with his Russophile parents, while Marija struggles to find her footing as the war affects both her business and home life. Lithuania’s Oscar submission. Adds LA next week.
Agnieszka Holland’s Franz from Cohen Media Group opens at the Quad and Film at Lincoln Center in NYC and a handful of other markets. A biopic of the iconic 20th-century Czech writer follows the imprint he left on the world from his birth in 19th-century Prague to his death in post-WWI Vienna. Written by Marek Epstein. Stars Idan Weiss, Peter Kurth, Jenovéfa Boková and Ivan Trojan. Premiered at TIFF, see Deadline review.
Road trip film Dreams In Nightmares by Shatara Michelle Ford (Test Pattern) opens in two NYC theaters from new specialty distributor Lunette Films. Starring Denée Benton (The Gilded Age) and Jasmin Savoy Brown (Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Yellowjackets, Scream 7), it follows a group of queer friends in their mid-30s navigating love, identity, and belonging across the American Midwest. World premiered in Berlin. Expands to LA next week.
Black Bear is releasing Spa Weekend on 2,000+ screens. Written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (The Hangover, Bad Moms), it starring Leslie Mann, Isla Fisher, Michelle Buteau and Anna Faris. Four lifelong friends, burned out and overdue for a break, escape to a luxury spa retreat for a weekend.
Sci-fi thriller Hot Spot from Focus Features, by Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska, opens at 286 locations. It’s the helmer’s second English-language feature following The Silent Twins. World premiered at the Fantasia International Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Mention for its ensemble cast. Written by Robert Bolesto, it stars Andrzej Konopka, Noomi Rapace and Reika Kirishima. A private eye investigates a murder case in a near future society ruled by sentient A.I.
Grasshopper Film documentary To Use A Mountain by Casey Carter starts a weeklong run at DCTV Firehouse in New York. The nuclear dumping ground doc world premiered at the Visions du Réel film festival in Nyon, Switzerland, where it won the Special Jury Award in the International Feature Film Competition followed by a strong festival run.
In 1982, six rural communities across the U.S. were notified that they’d been selected by the Department of Energy as repositories to bury the nation’s nuclear waste. The stewards of sacrificial territory found themselves fighting for their homes, health, history and dignity. In the end, one site was chosen, a desert ridge in Nevada called Yucca Mountain, on the unceded lands of the Western Shoshone. After decades of controversy, construction at Yucca Mountain was halted and to this day no permanent solution has been devised for America’s 90,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste.
Abramorama doc Never Stop Chasing, opening on about 200 screens, reteams storm chaser Reed Timmer and director/producer Ken Cole. The helmer follows Timmer and his crew as they pursue the world’s most powerful tornadoes. The immersive doc captures the duality of an extreme lifestyle with the euphoric highs of intercepting a tornado to the terrifying lows of being overtaken by one inside their vehicle as Timmer pushes his mind and body to the limit.
Learning To Fly by Max Lowe, executive produced by Chris Hemsworth’s Wild State and produced by Oscar-winner Evan Hayes opens in about 20 theaters. Follows former competitive runner turned photographer Aisha McAdams as she documents elite ultra marathon athletes and, after trauma forced her from the sport, wonders if she can find her way back by entering an ultra-marathon herself. Premiered at Telluride.
Event: Fandango is launching House of Worship for three nights starting Sunday on over 400 screens in partnership with The Fuel Music and Ori Music.
Indie thriller Nine Black Cats opens at Cinema Village in NYC. Written, directed, produced, edited by and starring Chris Zuhdi, the neo-noir conspiracy thriller follows a suspended police officer and a lonely waitress whose investigation into a brutal nightclub murder uncovers a mysterious glowing blue powder and a masked conspiracy operating deep beneath the city’s streets. Producer/distributor Skytrain Films.