Diving into the SXSW film line-up

In a landscape where film festivals have had to jostle violently for the attention of sales agents and studios, it helps if you’ve cultivated a specific vibe and an identifiable audience. Austin’s South By Southwest (SXSW) is eking ever closer to its fifth decade of life, and in that time has become one of the vital destinations for hoovering up all the finest alternative culture while – between movies/​gigs – drinking in the insights of some of the world’s most radical thought leaders in the worlds of culture and commerce.

Obviously, being a film magazine, we’re going to zero in on all the great movies set to receive premiers at the festival, the first and foremost being Boots Riley’s I Love Boosters, his follow-up to the coruscating workplace satire, Sorry to Bother You. The film, which stars Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie and LaKeith Stanfield, looks at a tight knit clique of expert shoplifters who divert their powers towards taking down a local fashion maven. In the headliners slot there’s also a new film written and directed by the talented BenDavid Grabinski called Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice – about gangsters, their moll and a time machine, starring Vince Vaughn, James Marsden and Eiza González.

We’re excited to catch Over Your Dead Body by Jorma Taccone, who co-wrote and directed one of 2025’s best and funniest films, the Naked Gun reboot. It sees Samara Weaving and Jason Segel as a dysfunctional couple whose decision to head to a remote cabin for some psychological healing ends up taking a turn for the deadly. In the Narrative Feature Competition strand, Will Ropp’s Brian looks interesting – a modern riff on ​’90s highschool classics like Election and Rushmore. Severance star Britt Lower leads Russell Goldman’s Sender, in which she plays a woman who descends into paranoia after receiving a series of random packages.