Screening Report 11/19/25
Impending Thanksgiving holiday means films for the whole family.
Welcome to this week’s screening report! Richard Linklater’s second new film of the fall, Nouvelle Vague, hits Netflix after skipping Madison theaters. Jason Furhman will unveil the 2026 Cinesthesia lineup tonight at the screening of Smithereens. Otherwise, this will likely be a bit of an abbreviated writeup due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
This weekend will see the majority of the debuts for the next two weeks - Wicked: For Good is out and, like the stage show before it, the second act is receiving more mixed reviews than the first, both from those seeing it for the first time and those faithful to the stage production. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, about a strained family with ties to the film industry, is expected to be a major Oscar player, with touted performances by Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World, A Different Man) Stellan Skarsgard (among many other films, Breaking the Waves, Good Will Hunting, Mamma Mia!, and Dune), Elle Fanning (A Complete Unknown, also in theaters now for Predator: Badlands) and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in a breakthrough role. Rental Family, starring Brendan Fraser as a washed up actor who finds work as a professional "stand-in family member,” was hyped as a potential Oscar player as well - while those awards chances seem to have died down, the film still has pretty positive reviews. And Sisu: Road to Revenge, the action packed sequel to the 2022 Finnish film, is getting quite positive reviews as well.
But next week’s “new releases” will largely start playing on Tuesday of next week to take advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday. The headlining film is Zootopia 2, which is still only at the influencer reactions stage and is getting lukewarm reception from that crowd as more of the same from the first film. The high-concept romcom Eternity, in which Elizabeth Olsen’s Joan passes away and is made to choose between her husband in life (Miles Teller) or her first love who died too soon (Callum Turner) for heavenly ever-afters, is fairly well received as a witty, sweet take on eternal love. And Flix has Netflix’s Wake Up Dead Man, the third in the Benoit Blanc Knives Out mysteries, and the film has been reviewed as being by far the most compelling mystery Blanc has solved yet.
As you can see below, the rep lineup is very much dependent on the efforts of our university theaters and the Bartell during the Thanksgiving holiday. Cinematheque’s programming of the Charles Burnett neorealist black classic Killer of Sheep and of Four Nights of a Dreamer, the Bresson adaptation of Dostoevsky’s White Nights, will send us into the holiday with some kino. For those who prefer crowdpleasers, WUD’s programming of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Wild Robot, or the Bartell’s of Die Hard, Gremlins, and Looking for Mr. Goodbar might be more satisfying. And The Overture Center combines the two with For Heaven’s Sake, a Harold Lloyd silent comedy - I’d sell Harold Lloyd as more purely entertaining than Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, but no less athletic. If I were in town for the screening, I’d also love to join the Bartell Theater for their screening of Dark Side of the Rainbow, the infamous Wizard of Oz/Pink Floyd sync that I bet would be a blast on their huge sound system. Lastly, looking ahead to the weekend of December 5th, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and Hamnet lead the pack, and our university programming will return in full swing.
PLUG ZONE
-Rob Thomas has reviews of Wicked: For Good (excerpted below,) Trifole, and the new Vince Gilligan AppleTV show Pluribus.
-Danny Vincent’s It Happened One Podcast covers the David Lean masterpiece Brief Encounter and Looking for the Ocean: A Pixar Journey covers some of Pixar’s SparkShorts.
Want to see your film writing or short film here in The Horizon Line? Send a link to your work to horizonlinemadison@gmail.com.
THIS WEEK (11/20/25-11/26/25)
New Releases
-Wicked: For Good - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
”…Chu uses large practical sets and lots of extras to gorgeous effect. I just wanted to pause the film and appreciate every character in the crowd scenes, how the guy in the seventh row, third from the left has a distinctive costume and look about him.” - Rob Thomas
-Eternity - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Rental Family - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Sisu: Road to Revenge - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Zootopia 2 - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-120 Bahadur - AMC
-Mastiii 4 - AMC
-Sentimental Value - AMC
-Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery - Flix Brewhouse
-Peter Hujar’s Day - 7p 11/20 at UW Cinematheque
-Andhra King Taluka - 4:30p, 8:20p 11/26 at AMC
-Bugonia - AMC, Marcus Point, Flix Brewhouse
-Now You See Me: Now You Don’t - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Nuremberg - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Predator: Badlands - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-Regretting You - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-The Running Man - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace, Flix Brewhouse
-The Black Phone 2 - AMC, Marcus Palace
-Chainsaw Man The Movie: ReZe Arc - AMC, Marcus Point
-Die My Love - AMC
-Frankenstein - Flix Brewhouse
-Keeper - AMC, Marcus Palace
-One Battle After Another - Flix Brewhouse
-Wicked + Wicked: For Good Double Feature - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
Repertory
-Angel’s Egg - 7p, 9p 11/20 at AMC
-The Wizard of Oz - 11:15a 11/20 at AMC
-Die Hard - 8p 11/21 at Bartell Theater
-Killer of Sheep - 7p 11/21 at UW Cinematheque
-Who Framed Roger Rabbit? - 6:30p 11/21, 9p 11/22 at The Marquee Union South
-The Wild Robot - 9p 11/21, 6:30p 11/22 at The Marquee Union South
-For Heaven’s Sake - 2p, 7p 11/22 at The Overture Center
-Four Nights of a Dreamer - 7p 11/22 at UW Cinematheque
-Gremlins - 3p 11/23 at Bartell Theater
-Looking for Mr. Goodbar - 5p 11/23 at Bartell Theater
NEXT WEEK (11/27/25-12/3/25)
New Releases
-Another Sweet Christmas - Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Eternity - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Wicked: For Good - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Zootopia 2 - AMC, Marcus Point, Marcus Palace
-Now You See Me: Now You Don’t - AMC
-Predator: Badlands - AMC
-Rental Family - AMC
-The Running Man - AMC
-Sentimental Value - AMC
-Sisu: Road to Revenge - AMC
Repertory
-The Wizard of Oz - 7p 11/28 at Bartell Theater
-The Wizard of Oz (Dark Side of the Rainbow) - 9p 11/28 at Bartell Theater
-Elf - 6:30p 12/2 at Flix Brewhouse
-The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly - 7p 12/2 at La Cineteca Italiana
-Love, Actually - 6:30p, 7:30p 12/3 at Flix Brewhouse
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