Wasting no time following up his 2024 sleeper hit Final Destination franchise, which is getting a new entry later this year, making 2025 a boon for cinemagoers who enjoy elaborate death scenes. AJ reckons it feels “like Final Destination on drugs”. “Something between a Final Destination sequel and a parody of a Stephen King movie,” says Louis. Prolific Letterboxd member Claira reassures fans of Perkins’ early work that it “might be based on a Stephen King short story, but it sure does settle nicely into Osgood Perkins’ oeuvre.” Enjoy these Four Faves from Perkins and James. Now in theaters the world over.

After breaking out with talky relationship dramedy The Brothers McMullen in 1995 (it won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize that year), writer-director-actor Edward Burns made and starred in a series of talky relationship dramedies over the next several years. They may no longer enjoy the high profile of his earlier work, but Burns is still crankin’ ’em out, and his latest is Millers in Marriage, which follows the issues faced by the three titular siblings, played by Burns, Gretchen Mol and Julianna Margulies. Burns can still attract major talent—the ing cast includes Patrick Wilson, Campbell Scott and Minnie Driver. It’s not getting a huge amount of love on LB, however Rough Cut Cinema advises that “if you squint a little bit, Edward Burns’ latest turn as writer-director-actor might just help sate the near-decade-long Nancy Meyers hiatus”. JC also evokes Meyers with his observation that the film is “a mixed bag, but stay for all the beautiful large homes and apartments the characters live in”. George says it was nice to see “a film with adult themes, especially dealing with middle-age crisis, in this day and age”. Now in select US theaters.

Inspired by the true story of the biggest heist in Denmark’s history, which occurred during the 2008 financial crisis, Danish action-thriller The Quiet Ones follows a down-on-his-luck boxer (played by Gustav Giese) who is offered the chance by foreign nationals to participate in an ambitious armed robbery. Synapsidfan says “the tension is palpable throughout the entire film” and also helpfully points out that it contains “lots of screen time of fit shirtless guys, if that’s your kind of thing”. “A good old-fashioned, testosterone-filled, edge-of-your-seat, pulse-pounding heist thriller,” asserts BigNige. Kristoffer reassures concerned filmgoers that there is “no tongue-in-cheek Ocean’s Eleven bullsh*t in this heist flick. Hard, realistic and intense.” Now in theaters and on VOD in the US.

Hitting UK and New Zealand theaters this week, having opened last month in the US (and last November in Brazil), Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here is nominated for three Oscars. They’re all major categories: Best Picture, Best International Picture and Best Actress for Fernanda Torres, who plays real-life figure Eunice Paiva, a mother of five who fights to keep going when her husband is taken for “questioning” by the military dictatorship ruling Brazil in 1971. Kit appreciates how it “shows (instead of telling) how a democracy dies a little bit at a time”. “Punches you right in the heart with its poignant and powerful narrative along with marvelous performances,” says Maxine. According to Gabriel, “Salles delivers a searingly poetic exploration of loss and resilience… crafting a narrative that transforms personal grief into a universal meditation on human strength.” Rafa Sales Ross spoke to Salles and Torres for a wide-ranging Journal interview about the film, and Salles champions Brazilian cinema with his inclusion of 1963’s Barren Lives (Vidas Secas) in his Four Faves. Now in theaters in the UK, US and New Zealand.

In 2019, Richard da Costa and Alex Parkinson co-directed a documentary called Last Breath, which used archival footage to tell the story of Chris Lemons, a commercial diver who got severed from his “umbilical” lifeline hundreds of feet underwater with only five minutes of air and at least 30 minutes away from help. Now, Parkinson has directed a scripted version of the same story, also titled Last Breath. Finn Cole (who depicted young John Cena in F9) is Lemons, with his fellow seamen played by Simu Liu (Barbie), Woody Harrelson (still out to sea following Triangle of Sadness) and Cliff Curtis, who also has oceanic form as a veteran of both The Meg and Avatar: The Way of Water. Just watching the trailer gives a claustrophobe like me the serious heebie-jeebies. Yet, I will see this. In theaters in the US, the UK, Ireland, Singapore and Taiwan February 28.

Inspired by a real incident from 2016 when a Vietnamese American taxi driver named Long Mã (played in the film by Hiep Tran-Nghia) was abducted at gunpoint by three men who had just escaped from the Orange County Men’s Central Jail, The Accidental Getaway Driver is getting a US theatrical bow more than two years after premiering at Sundance 2023. Miguel calls it “a gorgeous representation of family, truth and honesty” and Ethan appreciates how it “captured a very specific vibe of living in Orange County’s Vietnamese community”. Although many reviews are citing the lackadaisical pace, Eric points out that “the movie takes its time, but what do you want? Old people move slowly.” In select US theaters February 28.

Co-written and directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, and expanded from his own 2022 short Merit x Zoe, My Dead Friend Zoe won the Audience Award (Narrative Spotlight) at SXSW 2024. Informed by Hausmann-Stokes’ experiences as a paratrooper in Iraq, and inspired by a true story (the fifth in this Call Sheet), the film stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Merit, an American veteran of the war in Afghanistan who regularly converses with her friend and fellow soldier Zoe (the great Natalie Morales, who should be a bigger star by this point), who is, as per the title of the movie, you know… dead ’n’ that. Ed Harris plays Merit’s Vietnam veteran grandfather, and Morgan Freeman is her Veterans Affairs counselor. Gabrielle calls it a “nuanced, well-developed take on grief, PTSD and making peace with the past”, while Jimmy says it’s a “great way of expressing the trauma and treachery that one may go through after war”. Dan appreciates “how invested this movie is in reflecting military culture without ever being jingoistic about it.” By the by, noted footballer Travis Kelce is an executive producer on this. In US theaters February 28.