The Long Walk (2025)

Based on Stephen King's first completed novel (as Richard Bachman), "The Long Walk" is an annual event where fifty teenage boys compete to walk the furthest in order to win a hefty cash prize and a "wish" at the end of it. The catch? If you stop walking, you die. It's a dystopian survival tale reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Squid Game where we see what lengths poor people will go for money, all for the entertainment of the wealthy and powerful.

This one is a hard sell because you're basically watching people walk for two hours and there isn't a ring in sight. It's grim and harrowing and unlikely to rouse one's spirits, but I find that refreshing somehow.

3½ final warnings out of 5

The Return (2024)

20 years after the Trojan War, Odysseus washes up on the shores of Ithaca, unrecognizable and treated as a common beggar. During all that time, his wife Penelope has refused to remarry, despite the many suitors knocking down her door, and the treatment of her indignant son Telemachus who never knew his father. This adaptation of Homer's Odyssey removes most of the mythology but leaves the subtext intact. Ralph Fiennes is such a great actor whose eyes say so much; the stillness of his performance speaks volumes. It's a very slow movie—almost too slow—but it's very well made for what it is. Also marks a "return" (of sorts) for Ralph and Juliette Binoche from The English Patient.

3 arrows through the eye of an axe-head out of 5