The 2024 SXSW Film Festival kicked off March 8 in Austin with the opening-night world premiere screening of Doug Liman’s Road House remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor. It started nine days of debuts including for movies starring Rooney Mara, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Kristen Stewart and more. The Anne Hathaway romantic dramedy The Idea of You from SXSW stalwart Michael Showalter will close the fest.
SXSW runs through March 16 in the Texas capital.
Keep checking back below as Deadline reviews the best and buzziest movies of the festival. Click on the titles to read the full reviews.
3 Body Problem
Section: TV Premiere
Director: Derek Tsang
Cast: Jovan Adepo, John Bradley, Rosalind Chao, Liam Cunningham, Eiza González, Jess Hong, Marlo Kelly, Alex Sharp, Sea Shimooka, Zine Tseng, Saamer Usmani, Benedict Wong, Jonathan Pryce
Deadline’s takeaway: 3 Body Problem’s biggest existential threats are just how redundant it all seems, and how every plot development can be seen from a galaxy away, like Omar Sharif coming over the desert on horseback in Lawrence of Arabia.
Road House
Section: Headliners
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniela Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams, Joaquim de Almeida, Conor McGregor, Lukas Gage, Arturo Castro, B.K. Cannon, Beau Knapp, Darren Barnet, Dominique Columbus, Bob Menery, Catfish Jean, Kevin Carroll, Travis Van Winkle, Hannah Lanier
Deadline’s takeaway: In spite of a few flashes of technical brilliance in its action sequences and a few tries made by its cast, this rebuilt Road House stands as a testament to just how difficult it is to capture lightning in a bottle.
Timestalker
Section: Narrative Spotlight
Director: Alice Lowe
Cast: Alice Lowe, Jacob Anderson, Aneurin Barnard, Tanya Reynolds, Nick Frost
Deadline’s takeaway: The ambitious film recalls classic Monty Python — it’s often very, very stupid and the same time very, very clever — but most of all, it’s an idea of what might have been if that all-male team had ever had a woman or two in its core lineup. Somehow, Alice Lowe has the wide-eyed innocence to carry it all off, a very subversive gift indeed.
We Were Dangerous
Section: Narrative Feature
Director: Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu
Cast: Rima Te Wiata, Erana James, Nathalie Morris, Manaia Hall
Deadline’s takeaway: We Were Dangerous never quite comes together as the wry, subversive coming-of-age movie that it might have been, but the performances are powerful enough in Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu’s debut that its emotional heft is surprisingly indelible.