Movies Released on Friday October 25, From Vatican Thriller ‘Conclave’ to Berlinale-Winning Documentary ‘Dahomey’

Arriving in US theaters this weekend on Friday, October 25th is a diverse lineup of films from award-contenders to a superhero popcorn flick. Oscar-winning director of All Quiet on the Western Front, Edward Berger, returns this week with the Ralph Fiennes-starred thriller Conclave. Adam Elliot’s clay stop-motion animation Memoir of a Snail, exploring grief in a unique way. Mati Diop’s Dahomey, a documentary on stolen African artifacts won the top prize of Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival. Alonso Ruizpalacios’ La Cocina shows the nightmare of working in a fine-dining restaurant as an immigrant, starring Oscar-nominated actress Rooney Mara. For the lighthearted films, modern-day Beauty and the Beast, Your Monster, starring Melissa Barrera, and Stavros Halkias-led comedy Let’s Start a Cult are also coming to the big screen. Daisey Ridley-led neo-noir, Magpie, brings suspense to the theaters, and for fans of superhero movies, Venom: The Last Dance closes the Venom trilogy movies.

Full List of Movies Opening this Weekend

Conclave

Directed by: Edward Berger
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Lucian Msamati, Carlos Diehz, Sergio Castellitto, Brian F. O’Byrne, Merab Ninidze, Thomas Loibl, and Jacek Koman.

Conclave follows one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events – selecting a new Pope. Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with running this covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy and discovers a secret that could shake the very foundation of The Church.

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%. Entertainment Weekly: A-, IndieWire: B-.

Official Trailer:

Memoir of a Snail

Directed by: Adam Elliot
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Eric Bana, Magda Szubanski, Dominique Pinon, Tony Armstrong, and Jacki Weaver.

In 1970s Australia, Grace’s life is troubled by misfortune and loss. After their mother dies during pregnancy, she and her twin brother, Gilbert, are raised by their paraplegic-alcoholic former juggler father, Percy. Despite a life filled with love, tragedy strikes anew when Percy passes away in his sleep. The siblings are forcibly separated and thrust into separate homes. Gilbert finds himself in the care of a cruel evangelical family, while Grace, grappling with intense loneliness, gradually withdraws into her shell, much like the snails she adopts. As the years pass, and despite new disappointments and sorrows, a glimmer of hope emerges when she strikes up an enduring friendship with an elderly eccentric woman called Pinky.

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%. Eye For Film: 4.5/5, Guardian: 4/5.

Official Trailer:

La Cocina

Directed by: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Starring: Raúl Briones, Rooney Mara, Anna Diaz, Motell Foster, Oded Fehr, and Eduardo Olmos.

It’s the lunch rush at The Grill in Manhattan, and money has gone missing from the till. All the undocumented cooks are being investigated, and Pedro (Briones) is the prime suspect. He’s a dreamer and a troublemaker, and in love with Julia (Mara), an American waitress who cannot commit to a relationship. Rashid, The Grill´s owner, has promised to help Pedro with his papers so he can “become legal”. But a shocking revelation about Julia compels Pedro to spiral into an act that will stop the production line of one of the city’s busiest kitchens once and for all.

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 78%. Next Best Picture: 9/10, Times (UK): 3/5.

Official Trailer:

Your Monster

Directed by: Caroline Lindy
Starring: Melissa Barrera, Tommy Dewey, Edmund Donovan, Kayla Foster, Meghann Fahy, Brandon Victor Dixon, Ike Ufomadu, and Lana Young.

Your Monster tells the story of the soft-spoken actor Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera), who is dumped by her longtime boyfriend (Edmund Donovan) while recovering from surgery and retreats to her childhood home to recover. With her future looking bleak, insult is added to injury when Laura discovers her ex is staging a musical that she helped him develop. But out of these gut-wrenching life changes emerges a monster (Tommy Dewey) with whom she finds a connection, encouraging Laura to follow her dreams, open her heart and fall in love with her inner rage.

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 81%. Slashfilm: 9/10, Screen Rant: 4/5.

Official Trailer:

Dahomey (Documentary)

Directed by: Mati Diop

In 2021, 26 objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey leave Paris and are returned to present-day Benin. How should these art treasures, stolen from ancestors, be received in a country which has reinvented itself in their absence?

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 97%. Next Best Picture: 10/10, Guardian: 4/5.

Official Trailer:

Let’s Start a Cult

Directed by: Ben Kitnick
Starring: Stavros Halkias, Wes Haney, Eric Rahill, Katy Fullan, Daniel Simonsen, Ethan Suplee, Joe Pera, Tom Papa, and Phil Brooks.

Having missed out on his cult’s long awaited ritual suicide, an obnoxious loser teams up with his bogus ex-messiah to rebuild their doomsday commune. Traveling together through middle America, the constantly-bickering duo induct a military wannabe, a mentally unstable mom, and a mysterious foreign hitchhiker into their cult… but will this family of outcasts fulfill their transcendent destiny, or decide this life might be worth living after all? 

Official Trailer:

Venom: The Last Dance

Directed by: Kelly Marcel
Starring: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alana Ubach, Stephen Graham, and Andy Serkis.

In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 38%. IndieWire: C+, Independent (UK): 3/5.

Official Trailer:

Magpie

Directed by: Sam Yates
Starring: Daisy Ridley, Shazad Latif, Matilda Lutz, Hiba Ahmed, Cherrelle Skeete, Pippa Bennett-Warner, and Alistair Petrie.

Magpie is a stylish neo-noir thriller centered on married couple Anette (Daisy Ridley) and Ben (Shazad Latif), whose lives begin to fracture when their daughter is cast alongside a glamorous movie star, Alicia (Matilda Lutz). As Anette’s suspicions of Ben’s infatuation with Alicia intensify, their secrets and lies threaten to burst to the surface and destroy them all.

Review Summary:
Rotten Tomatoes: 64%. IndieWire: B, Cinema Daily US: B+.

Official Trailer: