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5 Indie Movies This Week: Atonement, Lady, Mulholland Drive & More · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of October 2nd, 2026.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This week in theaters, we've got an Iraq war drama about a Marine seeking forgiveness from the family he devastated.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a British mockumentary about an aristocrat so desperate for attention that she begins to disappear without it.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got a family drama involving motorcycles, mysterious nickels, and the possibility that death is not quite the end.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And now my weekly plea, please go see an indie film in a theater.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Opening weekend ticket sales really matter, especially for independent films.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: You do not have to save cinema single-handedly, but buying one ticket is a pretty good start, and movies are still better in a dark room with strangers who have agreed for two hours to stop checking their phones, at least theoretically.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: On T Vod, I'm spotlighting an action thriller about a former detective who goes outside the law after his daughter is kidnapped.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And for our classic, we're celebrating David Lynch's dark trip through Hollywood dreams and nightmares on his twenty fifth anniversary.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Want the written version of these picks each week?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I also publish the indie film weekly newsletter.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same five films and a quick read.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sign up at newsletter.com.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our first indie film in theaters this week is Atonement, written and directed by Reed Van Dyck.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Atonement begins during the early days of the Iraq War.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Cachaturian family has already been displaced from its home by American military action, but another bombing forces them onto the streets of Baghdad.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: They become trapped in a firefight between American Marines and insurgents.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: One Marine makes a split-second decision that devastates the family.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Years later, that Marine played by Boyd Holbrook cannot escape what happened.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: With help from a journalist played by Kenneth Branagh, he attempts to find the surviving family members and asks their matriarch, played by Haim Abbas, for forgiveness.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: The film is based on a 2012 New Yorker article by Dexter Filkens, but Van Dyck does not approach it as a simple story of redemption.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: An apology may be necessary, but it does not repair a family or return the dead.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The real question is whether the person who caused the harm has any right to ask the survivors to help relieve his guilt.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Atonement premiered in Director's Fortnite, it can.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you like dramas that ask difficult moral questions without supplying comfortable answers, this is a strong choice.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Our second indie film in theaters this week is Lady, directed by Samuel Abrahams.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Lady stars Sean Clifford, best known as Claire on Fleabag, as Lady Isabella, a lonely and spectacularly self-involved British aristocrat living on a grand country estate.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Isabella considers herself an artist, activist, icon, and apparently several other things no one has asked her to be.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: She persuades Sam, a struggling young filmmaker played by Laurie Kinniston, to document her life and creative work.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sam sees an eccentric subject he can exploit.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Isabella sees a camera, which is really all she needed to hear.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: The setup begins as a mockumentary about class, vanity, and the strange transaction between a filmmaker and someone desperate to be seen.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then Isabella starts to disappear.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not metaphorically.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Parts of her actually begin vanishing whenever she is ignored.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: That surreal turn gives the comedy something more interesting underneath it.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Isabella is ridiculous, but her terror of becoming invisible is real.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Clifford gets to be grand, exhausting, funny, unexpectedly vulnerable, sometimes within the same scene.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you miss the particular discomfort of watching Fleabag, this may fill the elegantly decorated hole in your life.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our last indie film in theaters this week is Nichols.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Spencer King, Nichols gives Rob Riggle a rare dramatic lead as Tom Monroe, a successful businessman and devoted family man who has never recovered from his older brother's death in a motorcycle accident when they were teenagers.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thirty years later, a young neighbor named Mitch, played by Aaron Holliday, is badly injured in another motorcycle crash.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: As Tom gets to know him, strange connections begin to emerge.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mysterious nickels appear.
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  SPEAKER_00: Mitch seems to know things he should not know.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Tom begins to wonder whether his brother has somehow returned.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: That possibility draws Tom closer to Mitch, but it also begins to unsettle his wife, played by Bitsy Tullock, and his daughter, played by Odessa Azion.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Tom wants proof that loss may be final.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: His family sees a man reopening a wound that has shaped his entire life.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: The supernatural question is the hook, but the film is really about grief, faith, and what happens when hope starts to look a little like obsession.
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  SPEAKER_00: It also gives Riggle the opportunity to step away from broad comedy and play a man holding on to an old tragedy because letting go might feel like losing his brother again.
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  SPEAKER_00: So in theaters this week, that's Atonement, Lady, and Nichols.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Our spotlight indie film on TVOD this week is Men of Law.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Directed by Carl Lentini Men of Law follows Jason, a former detective trying to build a quieter life after leaving law enforcement.
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  SPEAKER_00: That plan ends when his teenage daughter is kidnapped by a trafficking operation, and the official investigation fails to move quickly enough.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jason turns to his cousin, a man with his own complicated relationship to the law, and the two launch a rescue effort.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: What begins as a missing person search becomes a violent trip through a criminal network, forcing Jason to use the skills he thought he had left behind.
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  SPEAKER_00: The film works from a clean, direct premise.
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  SPEAKER_00: What does a former cop do when he no longer trusts the system he once served?
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  SPEAKER_00: Jason knows police procedure, but he also knows how slowly that procedure can move.
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  SPEAKER_00: Every hour he waits makes the chances of finding his daughter worse.
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  SPEAKER_00: Latinny keeps the story focused on that urgency and on the uneasy partnership between the two cousins.
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  SPEAKER_00: One knows the law from the inside.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: The other is much less concerned about staying inside it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Men of Law is available to rent or buy on Amazon and other major digital platforms beginning September 29th.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our indie film classic this week is Maholland Drive, celebrating its 25th anniversary.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Written and directed by David Lynch, the film begins with a car crash on Maholland Drive.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: The only survivor is a woman played by Laura Herring who escapes the wreck but loses her memory.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: She makes her way into an empty Los Angeles apartment where she is discovered by Betty, an aspiring actress newly arrived from Canada and played by Naomi Watts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Betty is cheerful, talented, and ready for Hollywood to recognize both facts immediately.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: The injured woman calls herself Rita after seeing a poster of Rita Hayworth.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Together, they begin searching for clues to Rita's identity, including a large amount of cash, a mysterious blue key, and the name Diane Selwyn.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Elsewhere, a film director played by Justin Thoreau is being threatened by shadowy figures who insist that he cast a particular actress.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: A nervous man describes a terrifying dream in a diner.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: A hitman demonstrates that he may have chosen the wrong profession.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And at Club Silencio, a singer collapses while her voice continues.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to explain every connection in Maholland Drive is probably the fastest way to drain the life out of it.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: The mystery matters, but the feeling matters more.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Lynch turns Los Angeles into a place where fantasy and failure occupy the same room.
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  SPEAKER_00: Hollywood offers Betty the dream of becoming someone else, then asks what happens when the dream refuses to cooperate.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: The film began as a television pilot that ABC rejected.
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  SPEAKER_00: Lynch later received financing to shoot additional material and transform it into a feature.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: That history may help explain its unusual shape, but not its power.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Naomi Watts gives one of the defining performances of her career, moving from bright optimism to something far more painful and fractured.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lynch won Best Director at Can, and the film earned him an Academy Award nomination.
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  SPEAKER_00: Twenty five years later, it remains one of the essential films about Hollywood, desire, and the stories people invent to survive their own lives.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can rent Maholland Drive on major digital platforms, and it's also available through the Criterion Collection.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that wraps it for the October 2nd, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you've enjoyed the show, help it travel.
• 9:00
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• 9:02
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• 9:05
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• 9:08
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• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week, keep following the clues, keep an eye on the blue box, and keep it indie.