BREAKING NEWS: CITIZEN KANE LOSES BEST PICTURE TO HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY BREAKING NEWS: HITCHCOCK'S VERTIGO BOMBS AT BOX OFFICE, DEEMED COMMERCIAL FAILURE BREAKING NEWS: KUBRICK'S 2001 TOO CONFUSING, AUDIENCES DEMAND REFUNDS BREAKING NEWS: BRANDO REFUSES OSCAR, SENDS APACHE ACTIVIST IN HIS PLACE BREAKING NEWS: THE EXORCIST FIRST FILM NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE FEATURING PROJECTILE DEMON VOMIT BREAKING NEWS: SPIELBERG'S JAWS BREAKS ALL-TIME BOX OFFICE RECORD BREAKING NEWS: LUCAS STEALS SPIELBERG'S BOX OFFICE RECORD WITH STAR WARS BREAKING NEWS: SPIELBERG RECLAIMS RECORD FROM LUCAS WITH E.T. BREAKING NEWS: WATERWORLD BECOMES MOST EXPENSIVE FILM IN HISTORY AT $175 MILLION BREAKING NEWS: SHOWGIRLS SETS RECORD FOR MOST RAZZIES WON BY SINGLE FILM BREAKING NEWS: ACADEMY VOTERS ASKED TO ACTUALLY WATCH ALL NOMINATED FILMS BREAKING NEWS: CITIZEN KANE LOSES BEST PICTURE TO HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY BREAKING NEWS: HITCHCOCK'S VERTIGO BOMBS AT BOX OFFICE, DEEMED COMMERCIAL FAILURE BREAKING NEWS: KUBRICK'S 2001 TOO CONFUSING, AUDIENCES DEMAND REFUNDS BREAKING NEWS: BRANDO REFUSES OSCAR, SENDS APACHE ACTIVIST IN HIS PLACE BREAKING NEWS: THE EXORCIST FIRST FILM NOMINATED FOR BEST PICTURE FEATURING PROJECTILE DEMON VOMIT BREAKING NEWS: SPIELBERG'S JAWS BREAKS ALL-TIME BOX OFFICE RECORD BREAKING NEWS: LUCAS STEALS SPIELBERG'S BOX OFFICE RECORD WITH STAR WARS BREAKING NEWS: SPIELBERG RECLAIMS RECORD FROM LUCAS WITH E.T. BREAKING NEWS: WATERWORLD BECOMES MOST EXPENSIVE FILM IN HISTORY AT $175 MILLION BREAKING NEWS: SHOWGIRLS SETS RECORD FOR MOST RAZZIES WON BY SINGLE FILM BREAKING NEWS: ACADEMY VOTERS ASKED TO ACTUALLY WATCH ALL NOMINATED FILMS
FILM REVIEWS · FEATURES · FESTIVALS · INTERVIEWS Tuesday, May 19, 2026
SILVER SCREEN RIOT
Probably hates your favorite movie. Since 2012.

FESTIVAL REVIEWS

Reviews and coverage from major film festivals including Sundance, SXSW, SIFF, TIFF, and Cannes— the best and the rest of festival cinema.

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘CLAIRE IN MOTION’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘CLAIRE IN MOTION’

To look is not to see. And so goes Claire in Motion, a missing persons dramatic procedural that struggles to be more than meets the eye. College math professor and wife to a known hobby survivalist, Claire (Breaking Bad’s Betsy Brandt) is forced into a waking nightmare when her husband Paul (Chris Beetem) fails to...

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘A STRAY’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘A STRAY’

An introspective sociopolitical drama about a discarded Somalian, A Stray stars Captain Phillip’s Barkhard Abdirahman as Adan, a refugee living on the streets of Minneapolis who happens upon a lost dog. Without a home or hearth of his own, Adan is unable to provide for himself much less another helpless lot of God’s creations. Complicating...

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘KEANU’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘KEANU’

When Key & Peele premiered in 2012 on Comedy Central, it was as close to an overnight success as any sober TV producer could hope for. The sketch comedy show that covered anything from pop-culture fandom to racial relationships, all with unprecedentedly competent production value, found even more love on YouTube where many of their...

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review:  ‘MIDNIGHT SPECIAL’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘MIDNIGHT SPECIAL’

Jeff Nichols is very quickly solidifying himself as a distinct and essential American voice. The 37-year old Arkansas native blends the mystic nostalgia of Steven Spielberg’s great wonders with the romanticized bayou lyricism of a Mark Twain novel. The result is often staggering,  the heavy, heady crossroads of lock stock ultra violence and meaningfully sentimental...

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘ANOTHER EVIL’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘ANOTHER EVIL’

Anyone who ever found themselves wishing for a cross section between The Cable Guy and The Exorcism, rejoice in thy ancient cursed tongues. Carson D. Mell’s supernaturally awkward brom-dram is a conjoined twin of ghost tale hula-hoops and male acquaintanceship hoopla. A batty genre-defying lark to its close, Another Evil deals with the clumsy delicacies...

REVIEW
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘DEMOLITION’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘DEMOLITION’

Led by soaring performances from Gyllenhaal and Watts and an emotionally exploratory script from Bryan Sipe, 'Demolition' is an oddball destructo-drama that measures the invoice of grief against the constructs…

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘DON’T BREATHE’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘DON’T BREATHE’

Let me be clear, you probably can’t handle Don’t Breathe. Hitchcockian in concept and French New Wave in execution, the batshit bonkers new horror film from Fede Alvarez is a sanguine-stained guillotine of heinous intensity. The Uruguayan director has issued French extremity an American passport, inviting a true-to-form, heart-stopping gang bang of insane tension to...

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘TEENAGE COCKTAIL’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘TEENAGE COCKTAIL’

When high school student Annie heads to a new school, she finds herself surrounded by hostile faces. And needle-in-the-haystack Jules. The two attractive outsiders immediately strike up a kinship and a secret flame broils, leading them down forbidden passageways of mutual lust and peddled cajolery.

FESTIVAL
SXSW ’16 Review: ‘EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!’

SXSW ’16 Review: ‘EVERYBODY WANTS SOME!!’

There’s a moment in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some where four collegiate athletes hover around an overstuffed bong, listening to the psychedelic crackle of Led Zeppelin, competing to see who can take the biggest bong rip.  It’s an indisputably Linklater moment, one that speaks to the essence of the Austin filmmaker’s disco baseball comedy that...

FESTIVAL
Sundance ’16 Review: ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’

Sundance ’16 Review: ‘THE BIRTH OF A NATION’

Nate Parker‘s The Birth of a Nation is an urgent primal scream from American history’s darkest hour. Parker produces, writes, directs and stars in this much needed telling of the trials and tribulations of slave-turned-revolutionary Nat Turner. The relatively well-to-do preacher’s eyes are open to a new interpretation of the good book when his master...