Austin Film Festival 2025 Preview: Wake Up Dead Man, Jay Kelly, No Other Choice and more

The Austin Film Festival is just around the corner and stacked with Texas premieres of major films like Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice and Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet. Ahead of this year’s festival, which runs from October 23–30, take a look at the feature films and documentaries our Hyperreal Film Journal writers can’t wait to see.

A PRIVATE LIFE

Jodie Foster stars in this film noir about a psychiatrist who investigates the sudden death of a patient. This is Foster’s third French film of her long career, but first as the lead actor, fulfilling a career goal (she attended a French school as a child, thus her lifelong fluency). This film is directed and written by Rebecca Zlotowoski. – Paul Feinstein

DEAD MAN’S WIRE

Gus Van Sant’s first film in seven years pits Bill Skarsgård, one of 21st-century cinema’s great chameleons, against Dacre Montgomery, an underappreciated performer who’s shown his chops playing both noble (Power Rangers) and loathsome (Stranger Things). Skarsgård is Tony Kiritsis, a man desperate enough to be ruthless. Montgomery is Richard Hall, Kiritsis’ hostage by way of a booby-trapped shotgun. Van Sant dramatizes a 1977 crisis, and his leads have the skill to hone the picture’s tension and emphasize their characters’ humanity. – Justin Harrison

HAMNET

The new historical drama from Academy Award winner, Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) tells the story of Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), as they grapple with the devastating loss of their son, and how these events would go on to influence the writing of Hamlet. This film is based on the 2020 book of the same name by Maggie O'Farrell. – Hannah Dubbe

HELLO OUT THERE

First-time writer/director Otis Blum teams with Chloe Bennett (Agents of SHIELD), Phil Dunster (Ted Lasso), and Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) for an odd couple road trip adventure. One’s a journalist. One’s a punk rock guitarist. Together, they’re going to Area 51! Why? To find proof of extraterrestrial life, and perhaps something more personal. It’s a solid set-up, one that commands curiosity. – JH

IS THIS THING ON?

Bradley Cooper’s (A Star is Born, Maestro) new film stars Will Arnett as Alex, a New York City man facing a mid-life crisis and a dissolving marriage. The movie follows Will as he navigates the fallout from his ending marriage and a new beginning as a comic. The story is based loosely on real life British comic, John Bishop. – HD

JAY KELLY

George Clooney teams up with Noah Baumbach, master of the acidic but humanistic character study, to tell the tale of a wildly successful actor who is trying to rediscover who he is in the late middle age while exploring Europe. At his side is his agent and best friend, played by none other than Adam Sandler in low-key mode. Baumbach is always worth digging into, Clooney is one of the late twentieth century’s great movie stars, and Sandler playing quiet is downright intriguing. – JH

NO OTHER CHOICE

Acclaimed South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook (Oldboy (2003), The Handmaiden (2016)) returns with a satirical thriller regarding a man on the hunt for new employment after an unexpected layoff. This film adapts Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax. The film stars Lee Byung-hun, famous from the hit series Squid Game. – PF

THE LAST VIKING

For the past twenty-five years, director/writer Anders Thomas Jensen has provided some of the finest Danish dark comedies including Flickering Lights (2000), The Green Butchers (2003), Adam’s Apples (2005), and the greatest Christmas action film (since Die Hard in 1988) Riders of Justice (2020). Jensen reunites with regular actors Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Mads Mikkelsen for a crime tale about two brothers attempting to retrieve heist money. Comedy ensues as one of the brothers suffers from a dissociative identity disorder and does not remember where he buried the stolen loot. – PF

WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back in a new Knives Out mystery which is also a direct sequel to the previous Knives Out film, Glass Onion. This new chapter of the detective series follows Blanc as he investigates the suspicious death of a priest (Josh Brolin) and meets a new star-studded cast (Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Kerry Washington) of potential suspects along the way. Rian Johnson is also back as writer/director for the third installment of this acclaimed franchise. – HD

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