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5 Indie Movies This Week: The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Wicker, Bound, & More · Indie Film Weekly

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Indyfilm Weekly for the week of October 23, 2026.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: This week in theaters we've got a New York pickpocket who steals the wrong phone, a woman who orders a husband from the local basket maker, and a celebrated writer returning to Germany where everyone wants his endorsement and his daughter wants a straight answer.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Quick request, make time for a theater trip this weekend.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: Pick a film, invite somebody, and actually go.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we should go to the movies becomes we should have them over.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: On demand this week, Philadelphia's most notorious hockey team becomes America's unlikely favorite, and our classic turns 30 with two women, two million dollars, and a mobster underestimating the neighbors.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: For the written version of these picks, subscribe to the Indie Film Weekly newsletter at newsletter.com.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: Five films, one quick read every week.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: Our first indie film in theaters this week is The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Written and directed by Noah Seegan, this crime drama stars John Taturo as Harry, a longtime thief whose working day involves riding the subway, studying strangers, and quietly relieving them of their belongings.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Then he steals from a young man with dangerous family connections, and getting through the day becomes considerably more complicated.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: Tuturo makes the work itself fascinating.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Harry has to notice everything while giving people no reason to notice him.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: There's pleasure in watching that concentration, the patience before theft, and the ease with which he disappears afterward.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: You're admiring his technique while remembering to check your own pockets.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: And Siegen gives him a life worth worrying about.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: At home, Harry cares for his ailing wife.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Those scenes change the weight of his trips through the city.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: He has someone to get back to.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: A bad decision can follow him through the front door.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Stebu Shemi plays the pawn shop owner who buys his stolen goods, and their conversations have the shorthand of people who stopped needing to impress each other years ago.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: The affection is there, tucked inside the business.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: My favorite detail is Harry spotting a younger pickpocket and offering a little advice.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Even with his own problems mounting, he can't quite overlook sloppy work.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: There's professional pride in this man, which is funny, touching, and morally inconvenient.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: The city's changes also have practical consequences.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: People carry less cash.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Phones can be tracked.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Harry spent years learning to read a face, and now the thing that can get him caught doesn't have one.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: Tatura holds all of that together without making Harry a lovable old mascot.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: He's resourceful, stubborn, capable of tenderness, and still doing a very risky job.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: You become invested in the small routines he's trying to preserve.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Our second indie film in theaters this week is Wicker.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Written and directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Houston Fisher, this romantic comedy stars Olivia Coleman as a fisherwoman who has endured quite enough commentary from her neighbors about being single.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: She asked the local basket maker, played by Peter Dinklage, to make her a husband.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: He delivers Alexander Skarsgard.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: An excellent argument for supporting local businesses.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: What I love about the setup is that the village has a designated person to look down on, and she ruins the arrangement by becoming happy.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Her neighbors were perfectly comfortable with her loneliness.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Her satisfaction requires an emergency meeting.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Coleman gives that happiness a lovely awkwardness.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Being treated affectionately is unfamiliar enough that she has to find her way into it.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: The film lets her be suspicious, desirous, funny, and occasionally overwhelmed.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't have to become a different woman to deserve the attention.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And Skarsgard commits to the husband's sincerity.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Under all that woven material, he listens.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: He takes pleasure in making her life better.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: The costume has its own creaks and textures, but the performance gives you someone to care about inside it.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: The comedy gets sharper as the neighbors start comparing marriages.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: The other husbands discover that doing something simply, because it makes your wife happy, is a precedent they would prefer not to establish.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: There's plenty of sex too, and a bed frame that has been asked to exceed its specifications.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: The physical comedy belongs to the romance.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: These two are enjoying each other, and the film enjoys letting them.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes the village's interference so irritating in exactly the right way.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: You've been allowed to share something private and pleasurable with this couple.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: Then people who weren't invited decide they should have a say.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Our last indie film in theaters this week is Fatherland.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: Directed by Pavel Palakowski, this drama follows the German writer Thomas Mann and his daughter Erica on a journey through Germany in 1949.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Hans Dischler plays Mann, returning after years of exile, with Sandra Heuler as the daughter accompanying him through receptions, speeches, and encounters with people whose wartime histories have become inconvenient.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: There's a wonderfully uncomfortable social comedy running through this film.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows how to welcome a famous writer.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: They're less prepared for what he might remember about them.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: An invitation, a compliment, a request for support, each comes with a little calculation attached.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: In the West and the East, people want man's presence to validate their version of the country.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: You begin listening to the hospitality for what's being asked in return.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Zischler makes man's composure interesting.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: He has the bearing of someone accustomed to being listened to, and a dry weight to puncture a room without raising his voice.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: But that assurance becomes more difficult to admire when Erica needs something personal from him.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Hewler is exceptional at making listening active.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: You watch her assess his answers, recognize an evasion, decide whether to let it pass.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: She understands the public figure everyone has come to celebrate.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: She also knows how exhausting it can be to get through to her father.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: That gives the film its emotional pressure.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: A man can speak beautifully about civilization and still struggle to respond to the person beside him.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Erica keeps bringing the conversation back to what his principles mean within their own family.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: The black and white photography gives the official occasions a severe elegance.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: People arrange themselves around man, presenting the image they want preserved.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Heuler keeps making you look for the feelings that don't fit the picture.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: At 82 minutes, the film leaves remarkably little room for anyone to hide.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: So in theaters this week, that's The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Wicker, and Fatherland.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is Cold War in Philly.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Directed by Joe Almade, this documentary returns to January 11, 1976, when the Philadelphia Flyers faced the Soviet Red Army hockey team at the spectrum.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: The Flyers were the Broad Street Bullies, a team whose approach to conflict resolution had made them unpopular in quite a few cities.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: Now they were facing the Soviets, and suddenly people who normally hated them had found something to cheer for.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: That reversal gives the film a wonderful starting point.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: The qualities that made Philadelphia objectionable to other fans become desirable when there was a national reputation to defend.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Amade lets the players tell the story, and that's a great decision.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Their recollections give the game personalities, grievances, and a sense of how much these men still mean to one another.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: You're hearing people revisit a day they have carried around for fifty years.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: The contrast on the ice is immediately understandable.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: The Soviet team's speed and coordinated passing meet Philadelphia's determination to make every bit of progress uncomfortable.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: The game becomes a fight over whose way of playing will prevail.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Then a disputed hit leads the Soviet team to leave the ice.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: An event loaded with international symbolism is suddenly in danger of not finishing at all.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Flyer's owner Ed Snyder's response is to threaten their payment.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: After all the ideological buildup, the discussion arrives at the invoice.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: What gives the film its warmth is the connection between the team and the city.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: These players gave Philadelphia a version of itself it could celebrate.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: Stubborn, skilled, and thoroughly uninterested in becoming more agreeable for its visitors.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: The interviews preserve that attachment as much as the game itself.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Cold War in Philly is available to rent or buy on digital platforms including Amazon, Apple TV, and Fandango at home.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Our indie film classic this week is bound, celebrating its 30th anniversary.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Written and directed by Lana and Lily Wachowski, this 1996 thriller stars Gina Gershon as Corky, an ex-con renovating an apartment, and Jennifer Tilley as Violet, who lives next door with her mob connected boyfriend Caesar, played by Joe Pantoliano.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Corky and Violet become lovers, then devise a plan to take two million dollars of mob money.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: It's an ambitious next step after meeting the neighbors.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: The attraction is immediate, but the trust takes work.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Gershawn makes Corky watchful even when she's clearly interested.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Tilly gives Violet a voice and manner that people keep mistaking for helplessness.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: She knows how she's perceived, and she knows what that allows her to do.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Their scenes are sexy because both women are paying such close attention.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Every invitation also carries a question.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: How serious are you?
10:18
SPEAKER_00: What are you telling me?
10:20
SPEAKER_00: What are you leaving out?
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Once the money enters the picture, those questions become dangerous.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: The film has made you want these two together before asking whether they can depend on each other.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And the Wachowskis make extraordinary use of the apartments.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: A wall keeps someone out of sight without keeping them out of earshot.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: A sound from next door can change the meaning of what you're watching.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: You learn the space well enough to dread someone crossing it.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And then there's Petoliano.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Caesar is a man trying to solve a problem while becoming a larger problem himself.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: Watching him think is suspenseful.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: He can land on the wrong explanation with such conviction that everybody else has to scramble around it.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: The money even needs washing.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Literally.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Bloody bills become another practical complication in a film where nothing stays tidally inside the plan.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: What makes Bound so satisfying is how closely the romance and the suspense depend on each other.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: You're watching for a betrayal, but hoping for an act of faith.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: The film keeps both possibilities alive while making you care very much which one you get.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Thirty years later, it's still a remarkably assured debut.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Three actors, adjoining rooms, and an increasingly terrible afternoon.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: The Wachowskis know exactly how much movie they can make out of that.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: You can find Bound for rental or download on Apple TV, Amazon, or Fendango at home.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: And that wraps it for the October 23, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly.
11:54
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SPEAKER_00: Until next week, keep it restless, keep it curious, and keep it indie.