October 2025 Release Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the inaugural piece for Below The Line and our very first newsletter filling you in on the upcoming releases to check out this month. As we move into cinema’s busiest time, it’s hard to know what to see or when it’s even coming out! We’re here to help, let’s dive in. 

The Smashing Machine

October is beginning with a bang, bringing us the first of two Safdie films for 2025. If you’re not in the know, the brother-directing-duo have split up to pursue their own directorial visions this year — by coincidentally both directing pseudo-biopics of athletes. Unlike his brother, Benny Safdie has leaned towards the classic Safdie move of “cast someone really unexpected and pull a great performance out of them.” Here he’s giving Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson probably his most challenging role in years, particularly after he attempted to change the hierarchy of the DC Universe… IYKYK. Johnson is joined by Academy Award-nominee Emily Blunt, and the shot of her in the trailer where she’s taking a photograph and a single, mascara-darkened tear falls from her cheek lives in my mind rent-free. Blunt is always reliable, she’s one of our great actresses, and I do think that Johnson can be used very well by the right director. From what I’m seeing online, that very well could be the case with The Smashing Machine.

Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri took to Twitter saying, “The Rock is fantastic in THE SMASHING MACHINE. He's the best thing in the movie. He's kind of the only thing in the movie,” following that up with his review titled The Smashing Machine Is Too Soft For Its Own Good. David Sims of The Atlantic and our beloved Blank Check Podcast gave the film 4 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd, writing, “a whole movie about coming down from apex mountain. Safdie's worthy, long-overdue follow-up to Lenny Cooke.” I for one will be sat for the performances alone, and I’m excited to see if the film overall works for me. The best way to find out? Make your way to the cinema the first weekend of October and decide for yourself. 

-McKenzie

The Smashing Machine will be released wide on October 3, 2025. 

Anemone

If you’re aware of this movie at all, it’s probably because you’ve seen the marketing tool of “Daniel Day-Lewis is BACK!” plastered just about everywhere they can get it. The 3-time Academy Award-winner officially announced his retirement from acting in June of 2017, shortly before the release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Many fans joked, “eh, we’ll see him again,” after his announcement, but as the years went on it felt less and less likely we’d see him on the silver screen once more. That is, until his son Ronan Day-Lewis decided to helm his directorial debut. The father-son duo co-wrote the script together about, “the complex and profound ties that exist between brothers, fathers, and sons.” Feels apt.

Initial reviews for this film seem to indicate that it has the scrappiness and messiness you’d expect from a debut feature film, regardless of the director’s nepo baby status and the pedigree of the cast which also includes Sean Bean and Samantha Morton. I’m sure many (including myself) will still head out to witness the return of one of our greatest living actors, in spite of the film’s issues.

-McKenzie

Anemone will have a limited release on October 3, 2025.

Roofman 

Every time I go to AMC and see this trailer I have the biggest smile on my face after. This trailer has bewitched me, charmed me, and made me so excited to go check out this movie. Channing Tatum in peak charming rapscallion mode, Kirsten Dunst as the sweet single mother who he falls for - what more could you need?! 

Roofman premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to roundly positive reactions with many critics and several people that we follow on Letterboxd who attended the festival calling it one of the best at TIFF. I’m going to say it now - expect this one to be a big surprise in October. It’s flying under the radar in a very busy month but I think this will be a film that resonates with a wide audience and people really enjoy. My heart is open!!!

-McKenzie

Roofman will be released wide on October 10, 2025.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Ian is going to laugh at me for including this one, but here I am, including it. I love musicals, and Kiss of the Spider Woman is one I’m not very familiar with. Director Bill Condon is absolutely one of the main pulls for me as a viewer. If you don’t know, Condon wrote Rob Marshall’s Best Picture-winning Chicago from 2002 and directed the 2006 film adaptation of Dreamgirls. As far as movie musicals go, that’s a pretty solid resume as far as I’m concerned. The cast is also excellent helmed by the great Diego Luna, Jennifer Lopez (who is often good when given the right material), and buzzy newcomer Tonatiuh (best known for his television work in Vida and Promised Land).

The early response for Kiss of the Spider Woman is average to good. One of my favorite Oscar pundits on YouTube, The Oscar Expert, saw the film at the Sundance Film Festival and gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd writing, “The two central characters are complex and well-written…  Jennifer Lopez dances the shit out of her dazzling musical numbers shot in a welcome old Hollywood style… The story doesn’t fully coalesce as it established a lot of layers that don’t all have equal payoff. Never experienced this story before and found a lot to like.” Jourdain Searles gives the film 4 out of 5 stars writing, “jlo… you could have been doing musicals this whole time!!! why did you deprive us???” Many other Letterboxd reviews from Sundance call Lopez out as a powerhouse and scene-stealer. Honestly? That’s all I need to buy my ticket. 

-McKenzie

Kiss of the Spider Woman will be released wide on October 10, 2025.

Tron: Ares

I have never seen the original TRON. If critics and cinephiles I follow online are to be believed, it’s not very good. But I have seen Joseph Kosinski’s TRON: Legacy several times throughout my life. It is, in my family, famously my brother-in-law’s favorite film and I’m quoting him here, “the only film [he] has rewatched and would rewatch again.” It was also very big in my household growing up for its electrifying visuals and its soundtrack, which gave me a life long love for Daft Punk and French house music. It also largely introduced all of us to Kosinski, who has inarguably become one of the most important main-stream journeyman entertainers of the current era with successes like Top Gun: Maverick and F1: The Movie (the latter being credited with saving cinemas at large). 

That all being said, the announcement that Disney was going back to this well with one half of the directing duo behind the worst Pirates of the Caribbean movie and a should-be cancelled star to boot did not inspire much confidence in yours truly. It also would appear to me that whereas the big idea for Legacy was “everything’s blue now”, with Ares Disney has taken a great leap in cinematic innovation with “everything’s red this time”.

Norwegian director Joachim Rønning is an interesting choice to helm the project in my opinion. Whereas Kosinski may have his crutches he is undoubtedly an interesting visual stylist for all his workman-like qualities, Rønning is simply the latter. He’s a journey-man who has for all intents and purposes become one of Disney’s in-house guys. Aside from co-directing the last Pirates film he has also directed the sequel to Maleficent as well as the sturdy sports programmer, Young Woman and the Sea, for Disney. I just worry about the finished product (and let’s be real, this one is a product) because the whole exercise feels a little perfunctory. But, what am I even talking about? I don’t really expect Disney to dig any deeper than a half-assed soft reboot of Tron. This is the same studio that this year has also released live action remakes of Snow White and Lilo & Stitch as well as shown it’s spinelessness when it comes to the likes of Jimmy Kimmel vs. FEC. I will see it and I will report back, but I do so under duress.

-Ian

Tron: Ares will be released wide on October 10, 2025.

A House of Dynamite

The word on the ground was that A House of Dynamite is the best film that Netflix has in awards contention this year. It was even being rumored that it was just the best thing they have made all around since maybe The Irishman. That at least was rumored to be the scuttlebutt in-house at the hegemonic streamer as well as the talk amongst industry insiders before it started early previews in NYC and LA just a few days before this piece’s publishing. With the middling reception of both Netflix’s other awards contenders, Frankenstein and Jay Kelly, it is quite disappointing to learn that Katheryn Bigelow’s first film in almost a decade amounts to not much more than “CBS Fridays 8e/7c” as Letterboxd user and host of This Had Oscar Buzz Podcast, Chris Feil, notes.

The very ominous and taut trailer was recently released by Netflix and is very loudly foregrounding the fact this is “from the Director of The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty". That teaser captivated me. It felt like exactly what I’ve wanted from Bigelow and eerily prescient during the hair-trigger times we are living in. It feels like an intense chamber drama about the knife edge our nation and government is currently teetering on while I type this up. That said, I’m sure it’s not nearly as political as I am perceiving it to be but I can’t help but think about the people who really are in the positions of power that this film looks like it is going to be depicting. It also apparently depicts the same event three times over in a Rashomon-esque style narrative which sounds like a rather interesting stylistic choice for Bigelow to take on. The negative buzz has absolutely dinged my enthusiasm for this film, but just like I always do I will seek it out if it comes to North Texas and make up my own mind.   

-Ian

A House of Dynamite has a limited release beginning on October 10, 2025 before streaming on Netflix from October 24, 2025.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

I recently rewatched Spy — yes the 2015 film starring Melissa McCarthy that I believe is an underrated comedic masterpiece — and every time I watch that film I think, “when are people going to realize that Rose Byrne is one of the most underrated actresses working today?” Well dear reader, my fingers are crossed that her leading turn in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You will be that moment. 

This film opened to incredible reviews at this year’s Sundance Film Festival with many calling it a harrowing, exhilarating examination of parenthood. Next Best Picture’s Matt Neglia described it as, “An aggressive onslaught of heightened emotions and exceptional craftsmanship, it confronts the uncomfortable but necessary conversations about motherhood that are sure to disturb and spark discussion,” while Roger Ebert’s Robert Daniels echoed a similar sentiment saying, “I love this movie. I’ll probably never watch it again. It’s a harrowing, full-frontal assault on the senses.”

It seems like this is one you’re going to want to buckle up for, but absolutely not miss. I could see a film like this slipping through the cracks this year during a time with a lot of incredible cinema to see, so if this is playing near you check it out and be one of the cool ones who said you saw Rose Byrne’s ferocious starring turn in one of the most unique films you’re likely to see this year.

-McKenzie

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You has a limited release beginning October 10, 2025.

After The Hunt

Julia Roberts was the female movie star of my childhood. She wasn’t in a lot of movies that I could watch, notably Erin Brochovich was on the top shelf which housed all of the R-rated DVDs that I was not allowed to see. That being said, one of the earliest and most formative movie-watching experiences I can remember is that of seeing the first film in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s film series. The way that Julia confidently descended the stairs from the art gallery into the foyer of Tony Benedict’s Bellagio Casino was, and remains, one of the most electric movie star entrances on screen in my mind. Considering the bonafide screen presence that she is, it’s a shame that she works so little and when she does, she has seldom graced the screens of our local multiplexes. That being the case, I was so excited to learn that she was going to be back in the cinema with the new film from Luca Guadagnino and written by Actress and screenwriting newcomer Nora Garrett. And then… I saw the trailer.

The film looks to be a MeToo/Cancel Culture thriller with the tone of a 90s erotic thriller for adults even if one of the key words in that descriptor (erotic) is likely to be thankfully absent. In his press junkets, Guadagnino would have you believe that to label this film as being “about Cancel Culture or ‘Me Too’” is reductive and not at all true to the core of what the film is about. Yet, it seems like everyone who has seen the actual film disagrees with the Italian auteur, many claiming his comments to be nothing but smug-director-bullshit™. I for one don’t need to have seen the movie to be able to glean from its marketing what so many have noted. That it’s about five years too late, not adding anything new or interesting to the conversation, or that it looks like and indeed is “Temu TÁR” as Letterboxd user and host of Oscar Wild, Sophia, puts it. Even before seeing that very good joke from Sophia, I have been saying to McKenzie for the past month that the trailer is giving me “We’ve got TÁR at home…” vibes. Nonetheless my A-List reservation is already booked and regardless of its quality, I am looking forward to chatting about it on the show with my bestie!

-Ian

After The Hunt opens in limited release on October 10, 2025 before expanding wide on October 17, 2025.

Blue Moon

Calling all theater kids! This is one for us. Richard Linklater’s first of two films releasing this year follows Lorenz Hart reflecting on his life and career on the opening night of Oklahoma, the musical that marks his colleague Richard Rogers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II. You’ve probably heard of Rogers and Hammerstein, not so much Rogers and Hart. From what I can tell, this film is banking on you having at least that general knowledge of what Richard Rogers became with his second collaborator to enhance your reflection on what failed with his first. 

Ethan Hawke stars as Lorenz Hart and I’ve only heard incredible things about his performance. From what we can see in the trailer, it seems like the script reads almost play-like, taking place almost wholly in a bar after the opening night performance. Chamber-dramas like these can be contentious amongst film fans, but I for one love single setting films that feel like a play, that are focused completely on character and dialogue. The audience for this one is bound to be niche, but those who fit into that niche are going to love this one. Letterboxd’s West Coast Editor Mia Lee Vicino wrote in her review:

“recommended for those who are interested in:

• watching Ethan Hawke and/or Andrew Scott do their thang (acting their faces off in dialogue-heavy scenes)

• those iconic caricature portraits at Sardi’s

• Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! 

• Linklater in talky mode ala Before Trilogy and Tape

• spending way too long trying to figure out how they made a 5’10 man convincingly look 5’0”

What I’m trying to say is that if Blue Moon has one million people in the audience opening weekend, I’m one of them. If Blue Moon has five people in the audience opening weekend, I’m one of them. If Blue Moon has one person in the audience opening weekend, it’s me. If Blue Moon has zero people in the audience opening weekend, I’m no longer alive. 

-McKenzie

Blue Moon has a limited release beginning October 17, 2025.

THE MASTERMIND

I personally think that Kelly Reichardt is probably the most important unrecognized American auteur making movies today. I can say with a certain level of confidence that she is unlikely to be named by even the most seasoned of film fans when asked who their favorite filmmakers are. For my money, she is the most underappreciated of our time. Whereas Paul Thomas Anderson films may not make a lot of money, they are typically canonized instantly and generate a ton of discourse. The same could be said of the likes of Quintin Tarantino and a slew of other male auteurs that started putting work out in the mid to late 90s. Reichardt has never been so lucky and maybe it’s because she is a woman, maybe it’s because she makes movies that are closer to something one might find playing at their local museum of modern art rather than a mall multiplex. I think it's a combination of the two. 

She is an incredibly esoteric artist who makes very specific movies that are hardly commercial. Whereas her male counterparts express their talent in grandiose ways with big statement pieces that announce themselves as "Masterpiece", Reichardt's films are notable for their stillness. So it's no surprise to me that those many film fans who hail Pulp Fiction or There Will Be Blood as the great works of American cinema have not sought out too many of her films let alone sometimes even heard of her. 

Her films are quiet, contemplative, and typically about people on the outskirts of their community who have been dragged under the boot of a country that forgot about them a long time ago. The Mastermind for a minute seems like it aims to break out of this mold. The elevator pitch sounds like it could be just another crime programmer - “an unemployed carpenter turned amateur art thief plans his first big heist. When things go haywire, his life unravels”. However, as soon as the trailer was released in early-September it became abundantly clear to me that Kelly Reichardt had made another Kelly Reichardt movie and that’s just music to my ears! Not only is she back, but she has cast rapidly rising star Josh O’Connor who I would be happy to see in just about anything. She also brings along Alana Haim, of Licorice Pizza fame, and probably my favorite new actor working right now. Also amidst a slew of returning regulars for Reichardt she brings along Hope Davis who I have loved seeing as a recent addition to Wes Anderson’s company, appearing in The Pheonician Scheme as a Mother Superior and in Asteroid City as the mother to a cookie trooper.

It also sounds like the filmmaker hasn’t just made one of her best films but maybe one of her funniest as one of my favorite critics, Carlos Valladares, notes on the film’s humor, “She’s actually carrying the bit to its logical conclusion, but taking her sweet ass time”. From the trailer we can see the film has this 1970s patina, a gauzy sheen that gives it an aged quality, as if Kelly has reached into the past and pulled someone’s old Super-8 home footage and assembled it herself to tell us a forgotten story of an ambitious hustler, rearing to just get by. In a year where Josh O’Connor has given several good performances The Mastermind looks to be his very best, playing a deeply emasculated and desperate man who comes up with a cockamamy scheme to make “a lot of money”! He looks to be very out of his depth, asking his mother for that “lot of money” and having no way to go about things when predictably they do not go according to plan. All of which makes for something I am very very excited to see.

I love Reichardt, I love O’Connor, I love Alana Haim, and I love pretty much every other element that I can gather about this film. There are several films at the top of my most anticipated list this year and now that I’ve seen One Battle After Another only Jay Kelly rivals the level of excitement I have for The Mastermind!

-Ian

The Mastermind has a limited release beginning October 17, 2025.

SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE

Bruce Springsteen has to think about his entire life before he heals the hole in himself… and then the world… (this is a joke for people who are also tired of seeing the trailer every time they got to AMC).

Insert the Bernie Sanders meme here because I am once again asking how we have the audacity to put out a music biopic trailer like the one that’s been playing for months for this upcoming Jeremy Allen White-helmed Springsteen biopic in a world where Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story exists. The Shameless alum and Emmy-winner for The Bear stars as the titular Boss in this film that chronicles Springsteen’s conception and recording of his 1982 album Nebraska. 

I’m definitely in the camp of cinephiles that like to doubt the power of a music biopic from sheer cynicism of the genre, but people like me were proven wrong when James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown made waves and collected awards nominations all season long last year. So far, Deliver Me From Nowhere is currently mixed to positive reviews - most of them highlighting Jeremy Allen White as a star in the making. While this is not a film I’m personally racing out to the theater to see, anyone (like me) who are interested in the Oscars would be remiss to write this one off. 

-McKenzie

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will be released wide on October 24, 2025.

NOUVELLE VAGUE

Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou was the film that introduced me to The Criterion Collection and his first film, Breathless, was the film that made me a long-life committed fan. Granted I have grown as a film lover since the fall of 2020 and my tastes have evolved, there is still something very special about the French New Wave to me and about what Godard was doing for the movement and for cinema at large. Clearly, Richard Linklater feels the same way. 

Linklater is a filmmaker that I am very hot and cold on. I love his talkier films like mentioned in McKenzie’s write-up on his other forthcoming film, Blue Moon, but I struggle with his more kaleidoscopic films such as Dazed & Confused and Everybody Wants Some. The fact that this film, at least on paper, falls in line with the latter vibe does give me some pause. So I’m kind of caught between two poles on this one, somewhat turned off due to my expectations of the film’s general vibe but someone intrigued given that what the film is about is of great interest to me. 

What’s funny about this movie to me is that McKenzie, notorious Godard’s Breathless-hater that she is, expressed to me that she is looking forward to this one. This may just be her general fondness for Linklater but I was surprised given the film’s subject matter. Regardless of how either of us are feeling when we walk out of the theatre after seeing it, I bet the conversation we have will be fascinating!

-Ian

Nouvelle Vague has a limited release beginning October 31, 2025.

BUGONIA

Yorgos is back, baby. After creating waves at the Academy Awards with his hit Poor Things and then fading back into his weirdo niche with Kinds of Kindness - Bugonia is shaping up to possibly be the film that lands somewhere in the middle of those two worlds. I wouldn’t particularly call myself a “Yorgos girlie” but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for this one. The story looks like it will feel quite resonant alongside the madness of our world while giving the incredible Jesse Plemons a complicated, fascinating role to play. It looks like Yorgos’ muse Emma Stone will be delivering another tour-de-force performance under his direction, something that is becoming par for the course with this duo.

Reviews currently are mixed to positive, with Next Best Picture’s Matt Neglia saying, “BUGONIA is a movie of the moment that speaks to our self-destructive nature fueled by conspiracy, lies, pain and anger,” with Letterboxd user and podcast host Kit Lazer saying in their review, “will make a great ‘Oh, we’re so fucked’ double-feature with Eddington. It’s often hilarious, but it’s the sort of rueful chuckle you deliver as you pour another glass of whiskey, knowing that when the sun rises the troubles you’re trying to drown away will still be barreling down upon you like the Four Horsemen.” Sounds like good or bad Bugonia will have us buckling up and ruminating on the rise of fascism in the late-capitalistic experiment that is the good ole U.S. of A. What a way to end our first release newsletter!

-McKenzie

Bugonia opens in limited release on October 24, 2025 before expanding wide on October 31, 2025.

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What will you be seeing this month? Reach out to us in the comments below or on our social media and let us know!