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The story is simple, but the execution walks a tightrope: MURDAUGH: DEATH IN THE FAMILY dramatizes a well-documented tragedy without pretending the audience is coming in cold. That changes how suspense functions. Instead of asking what happened, the show keeps asking why and how—how influence hardens into impunity, how denial becomes a survival tactic, how a community can be both complicit and wounded by the same story. Grounding those questions is a character-forward approach that turns headlines into a lived-in world.

EDGAR ALLAN POE’S THE OVAL PORTRAIT has the right ingredients on paper: a cursed painting, three strangers bound by a past they don’t understand, and the perfect setting—a peculiar antique shop—that practically begs for haunts, whispers, and the feeling that every object carries a memory. What it lacks is the connective tissue that makes a Gothic thriller feel alive. The mood is present, the premise is clear, and a handful of shots achieve the eerie stillness the story calls for. But the execution, especially across the ensemble, pulls attention away from the tension the film is trying to build.

Some films capture the pulse of New York; others catch its indescribable core. THE FRENCH ITALIAN exists somewhere in between—an offbeat comedy of errors about artistic delusion, noisy neighbors, and the complicated way self-importance masquerades as creativity. It’s as funny as it is uncomfortable, not because of how it’s written, but because it's not afraid to shine a light on the satirical elements within the production.

Some horror emerges from the shadows, while others are born in plain sight—shimmering under fluorescent lights, smiling through self-help slogans, and whispering promises of self-improvement. THINESTRA lives in that unsettling space between vanity and survival, turning a mirror toward modern body culture and daring the audience to look closer, even when it hurts to do so.

WHERE DID THE ADULTS GO? arrives as a narrative feature from Academy Award nominee Courtney Marsh, a filmmaker already known for blending intimate storytelling with social conscience. The film presents a seemingly simple scenario: three siblings, a family house, and the anniversary of their parents’ death. But it’s through this structure that Marsh builds something richer—a study of grief, inheritance, and identity, anchored by performances that balance vulnerability with tension.

The hook is simple enough to pitch in a sentence: a high-school kid gets dumped, finds out she’s pregnant, and decides keeping the baby might win him back and give her life direction. The film takes that impulse seriously without mocking it, then dismantles the fantasy with clear eyes and a sense of humor that never condescends. IF THAT MOCKINGBIRD DON’T SING is a teen pregnancy dramedy that respects its characters’ naïveté while insisting on accountability; it allows Sydnie’s (Aitana Doyle) hope to be sincere and simultaneously shows why “fixing” your life by having a baby is a fragile plan at best.

Every so often, a filmmaker comes along who embraces the absurdity of a genre without apology. Steven Kostanski has made a career out of that blend. With DEATHSTALKER, he doubles down on his affection for monsters, gory practical effects, and the earnest joy of throwback fantasy. This reimagining of Roger Corman’s sword-and-sorcery staple arrives with all the foam-crafted cave walls, smoke-drenched battlefields, and stop-motion monstrosities you’d expect, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else. The result is a noisy return to pulp fantasy, one that knows its audience and rewards them with exactly the kind of spectacle they crave.

There’s a difference between describing the past and confronting it. AMONG NEIGHBORS traces one town’s suppressed history with a patient, unflinching gaze. Yoav Potash constructs the film from voices that are vanishing and artifacts that have been literally unearthed, shaping a moral inquiry that never loses sight of individual lives. The story is simple: elders from the Polish town of Gniewoszów share memories of Jewish neighbors whose presence has been erased from the streets, cemeteries, and official narratives. Yet, as the conversations deepen, so does the film’s focus, circling the murders that occurred after the war ended and the ramifications of telling the truth in the present day.

WHEN FALL IS COMING makes it clear that home life can be a costume. François Ozon sets the table with warmth and ritual—country air, routine, a grandmother fussing over lunch—then lets a single, pointed decision unshackle everything we know. The incident isn’t loud; it doesn’t have to be. In this house, gestures carry more weight than speeches. That’s the film’s core: a story of love and control disguised as everyday caretaking, with a grandmother who tells herself she’s fixing what years of hurt have broken.

THERE WAS, THERE WAS NOT stands as both an act of storytelling and an act of preservation. Emily Mkrtichian’s debut feature documentary explores a homeland under siege and the women who endure within it, weaving myth and reality together until the line between the two becomes impossible to separate. By centering four Armenian women living in Artsakh, the film transforms geopolitical headlines into lived truths. A chronicle of resilience, weaving the fabric of a community through the daily acts of survival, work, and resistance.

The heartbeat of this story is small, human, and resilient. FAIRYLAND traces a father-daughter bond through years when San Francisco felt like a home for reinvention—first euphoric, then devastating. It refuses melodrama and loud marks, favoring the fragile honesty of two people figuring each other out in real time. It isn’t trying to be a grand statement so much as a lived-in memory: the awkwardness of new routines, the quiet stubbornness of love, the mistakes we defend until we can’t anymore.

ROBOT CHICKEN has always been a sugar-rush of stop-motion mayhem—blink and an entire sketch can go off the rails. Collected as a complete-series set, the show’s two decades crystallize into a collection of pop-culture obsessions: toys, comics, late-night TV, forgotten cereal mascots, video-game NPCs, and every blockbuster myth we’ve collectively carried around since childhood. The stop-motion craft, the tactile charm of roughed up action figures, the caffeinated timing—none of it should age well, and yet it does, because the core is specificity. The jokes don’t just reference the satire; they reconstruct tiny universes with the zeal of kids on a bedroom floor at 2 a.m., then torch them for a punchline.

FAMILY GUY may be past its 25th birthday, but this Halloween special proves the Griffins can still make mischief feel fresh. A show that’s never shied away from blending parody with musical theater, FAMILY GUY doubles down on that formula in its new Halloween one-off, A LITTLE FRIGHT MUSIC. Debuting exclusively on Hulu, the special serves as a mission statement for the series' enduring appeal: irreverence delivered with precision, bolstered by a willingness to skewer both pop culture and suburban mundanity. For a series now past its 25th anniversary, the decision to anchor a holiday special in original music is both a nod to its history and a reminder that the show can still surprise.

Dave Chappelle’s KILLIN’ THEM SOFTLY is the rare kind of comedy special that manages to feel both of its time and timeless. Shot in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Theatre back in 2000, this HBO debut didn’t just capture a rising star — it proclaimed a cultural force. Twenty-five years later, Warner Bros. Discovery is marking its legacy with a new DVD release, offering fans an opportunity to revisit the hour that catapulted Chappelle from a cult comic to a household name.