Fall means a harvest of films that, if not all Oscar-worthy, offer something at least akin to original visions and/or big (or bigger) ideas. I’d put Paul Thomas Anderson’s exhilarating “One Battle After Another” in that category, as well as Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming “Me Too” campus drama “After the Hunt,” which I caught recently.

And there are high expectations for such releases on the horizon as Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite,” Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Bugonia,” Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly” and James L. Brooks’ “Ella McCay,” among other titles.

Three new/new-ish movies worth checking out:

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ELEANOR THE GREAT
98 minutes; PG-13; directed by Scarlett Johansson
Critic’s grade: B-

“Eleanor the Great” has good intentions, but is it good? Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut — she’s not in the cast — thrives on yet another galvanizing turn by 94-year-old screen veteran June Squibb, as the brash but ultimately needy senior citizen of the title.

Eleanor Morgenstein, a widow who has returned to New York City following decades living in Florida with her late husband, is suffering from the recent loss of her best friend and recent housemate, Bessie (Rita Zohar). Visiting a Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, she stumbles onto a Holocaust survivors support group meeting and inadvertently cosplays as a survivor herself, presenting the Polish-born Bessie’s harrowing story as her own.

While frequently patronizing and bossy around her daughter, Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and her grandson, Max (Will Price), Eleanor takes a softer approach with college student Nina (Erin Kellyman, the movie’s other MVP), who convinces the older woman to tell her borrowed story as part of a class project for a journalism course.

Nina’s father (Chiwetel Ejiofor) just happens to be the same news personality that Eleanor and Bessie had watched religiously during their years sharing a home together, following the death of the former’s husband. The May-December friendship blossoms, but one lie leads to another, and Eleanor is ultimately faced with an apology tour.

Johansson’s movie, built on a screenplay by Tory Kamen, is sentimental, and the story unfolds in some predictable directions. But Squibb’s undeniable screen presence and natural-born feel for comic delivery hold everything together. “I’m 200 years old — just give me the gist,” she tells a rabbi at one point, when discussing a passage from the Torah.

The director’s decision to cast real-life Holocaust survivors was the right one, too; these voices and faces are affecting. Call it a promising first film that might have dug deeper into the complex themes that it tackles.

(98 minutes; PG-13; Critic’s grade: B-; In theaters)

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DEAD OF WINTER
98 minutes; R; directed by Brian Kirk
Critic’s grade: B

Veteran British actress and double Oscar winner Emma Thompson goes a bit gonzo in “Dead of Winter,” a compact, suspenseful thriller set in the wintry wilds of remote northern Minnesota, portrayed by Finland. Thompson, as recently minted widow Barb, is on a mission to spread her husband’s ashes in their favorite frozen-over lake when she comes across a teenager (Laurel Marsden) who is being held captive in a nearby cabin.

The girl’s oddball captors are a seemingly crazed woman, played to the nearly over-the-top hilt by a cast-against-type Judy Greer (also in the “The Long Walk”) and big, bearded softy Marc Menchaca, who was memorable as a crime-family redneck with a tender side in Netflix series “Ozark.”

Barb, who comes across as a chip off the block of Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson character from “Fargo” (the movie), is on the goofy end of the hero spectrum, sometimes talking to herself in that distinctive “you betcha” North Country accent. But, like Marge, she’s plenty resourceful, and she knows her way around guns.

The concept is Screenwriting 101 simple: Marge must save the girl, but she faces a seemingly insurmountable conflict — a battle with the weird, feuding couple who clearly have bad, unnamed intentions for their captor.

Director Brian Kirk (“Game of Thrones”), leveraging a script by Nicholas Jacobson-Larsen and Dalton Leeb, effectively ratches up the tension, although the too-frequent flashbacks serve to muck up the momentum; they’d be left on the cutting room floor in a better, tighter version of the otherwise engaging thriller.

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THE LONG WALK
108 minutes; R; directed by Francis Lawrence
Critic’s grade: B+; In theaters)

“The Long Walk,” adapted by screenwriter JT Mollner from a Stephen King novella published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1979, is built on a concept that, on the surface, seems paper thin.

Sometimes in the not-distant future, in an impoverished America ruled by a brutal dictator (too close for comfort?), fifty boys representing fifty states compete to be the last kid standing after a long, arduous walk. The contest winner, the kid who keeps going and never walks slower than 3 mph, gets fame and a prize of his choice. The losers are, well, never coming home. There will be blood, quite a lot of it. “One winner, and no finish line,” as one hopeful quips.

Director Francis Lawrence, who also explores dystopia in four “Hunger Games” movies and the upcoming sixth installment of the franchise, effectively turns a straightforward road-trip/horror narrative into a journey characterized by surprisingly large emotional heft.

That’s thanks to his ability to elicit strong performances from his young cast, particularly the actors who portray two fast friends — brooding but likable Ray Garrity (Cooper Hoffman, of “Licorice Pizza”; the son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) and ever-upbeat McVries (David Jonsson, of “Alien: Romulus”).

Lawrence and cinematographer Jo Willems juice the journey with a bit of an Americana vibe, with the screen occasionally giving way to the sights and sounds that the boys encounter along the way as they pass through small towns and the countryside. Here’s a junkyard with a chained-up dog, there’s a uniformed cop, standing at attention and saluting, and elsewhere there’s a young girl next to a rundown storefront, holding a “Go-Go Garrity” sign and waving. (Ironically, the film was shot in Manitoba, Canada, not the United States).

Egging the boys on is the Major (an unrecognizable Mark Hamill), a character who comes off as almost comical in his intensity, contrasting with the more realistic high drama created by a band of brothers who know that their time together will be short and capped with a violent end.

“The Long Walk” isn’t exactly a good time at the movies, but it’s impossible not to admire the craftsmanship at work and the acting chops on display.

Copyright 2025 by Philip Booth. All rights reserved.
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