Don’t-Miss Indies: What to Watch in March

So! How’d you do on your 2024 Film Independent Spirit Awards ballot? Not good? Well, don’t worry, because a brand new film year begins right now with a fresh crop of Don’t-Miss Indies ready for consumption. Only time will tell which of these titles will still be standing by the time we head back to the beach in 2025. But hey, it’s never too early to start prognosticating!

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch:  Theaters (Limited)

Director: Rose Glass

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone, Dave Franco, Ed Harris

Why We’re Excited: Billed variously as a lesbian revenge story and a psychological thriller set in the 1980s Las Vegas, filmmaker Rose Glass’s second feature (after 2019’s Saint Maud) premiered at Sundance in January. Desperate to find a way out of her desolate existence, frantic gym manager Lou (Film Independent favorite Kristen Stewart) falls in love with seductive female bodybuilder, Jackie (O’Brian). The problem: Jackie is also a drug addict with a dark past. Soon, their dual paths collide into a mangled knot of death and destruction after Lou’s maniacal criminal dad, Lou Sr. (Harris), enters the picture.

CABRINI

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Directors: Alejandro Monteverde

Cast: Cristiana Dell’Anna, David Morse, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Giancarlo Giannini, John Lithgow

Why We’re Excited: Based on the true story of Catholic missionary Francesca Cabrini (Dell’Anna), Alejandro Monteverde’s latest was released on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day. Canonized by the Catholic Church in 1946, Mother Cabrini was the first US citizen to be sanctified by the Vatican. The film follows her fraught journey to establish orphanages and hospitals in New York City to help the poor—all while in the midst of fighting lung cancer. But her efforts are hindered by the Pope (Giannini; Quantum of Solace, A Walk in the Clouds) and the Archbishop of New York, played by Film Independent Spirit Award alum David Morse (True Detective, Escape at Dannemora). Shot in Buffalo, Niagara Falls, New York and Rome, the film is distributed by Angel Studios, which utilized its unique “pay-it-forward” model to turn controversial child trafficking drama Sound of Freedom into the surprise hit of last summer.

THE REGIME

When You Can Watch: Now

Where You Can Watch: Max, HBO

Creator: Will Tracy

Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Andrea Riseborough, Martha Plimpton, Hugh Grant

Why We’re Excited: Filmed in Austria a year ago with locations including the Liechtenstein Garden Palace, HBO’s six-part Stephen Frears-directed political satire is the creation of Succession and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver writer Will Tracy. Kate Winslet’s Chancellor Vernham is a dictator ruling over a fictional autocracy in present day Central Europe. After sequestering herself within the palace for perhaps a bit too long, her paranoia beings to grow—especially when in the company of volatile soldier, trusted advisor, and “personal water diviner” Zubak (Spirit Award nominee for The Mustang, Scheonaerts). To preserve her reign, she attempts to expand her powers in the crumbling government with the help of righthand woman Agnes (To Leslie Spirit Award nominee, Riseborough)… to mixed results.

SILVER HAZE

When You Can Watch:  Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters (Limited), VOD (March 12)

Director: Sacha Polak

Cast: Vicky Knight, Esmé Creed-Miles, Charlotte Knight

Why We’re Excited: Premiering at last year’s Berlin Film Festival, this British-Dutch co-production follows 23-year-old nurse Franky (Knight), still reeling from a traumatic event in her life 15 years prior. In fact, she remains very serious about exacting revenge on those responsible. Things get more complicated when she falls in love with one of her patients, Florence (Creed-Miles). To get away from Franky’s disapproving family, the pair decides to go to England and stay with Florence’s more welcoming relatives. Her second film with Knight after the 2019 drama Dirty God, Dutch writer-director Sacha Polak wrote this film specifically for her lead actor, loosely basing the story on Knight’s own experiences as a burn victim.

THE GIRLS ON THE BUS

When You Can Watch: March 14

Where You Can Watch: Max

Creators: Amy Chozick, Julie Plec

Cast: Melissa Benoist, Natasha Behnam, Carla Gugino, Brandon Scott, Cristina Elmore

Why We’re Excited: Based on Amy Chozick’s bestseller Chasing Hillary, this new original series comes from co-creator Chozick’s own experiences as a political reporter on the campaign trail covering multiple presidential hopefuls. With a front row seat to the inner workings of yet another “do or die” election, Sadie (Benoist) joins the campaign bus three competitor-turned-friends: Grace (Gugino), Lola (Behnam), and Kimberlyn (Elmore). The new Max offering is another series going back to the weekly-episode release strategy of a bygone era. Debuting with the first two episodes this week, new episodes will drop weekly through May 9 on Max.

ARTHUR THE KING

When You Can Watch: March 15

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Simon Cellan Jones

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Juliet Rylance, Nathalie Emmanuel

Why We’re Excited: Based on Mikael Lindnord’s 2016 nonfiction book Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home, longtime TV director Jones (Netflix’s The Diplomat, HBO’s Ballers) brings us his second collaboration with star Wahlberg, after last year’s The Family Plan. While competing in the Adventure Racing World Championship—a punishing 435-mile endurance race across Ecuador—over 10 days, adventure racer Michael Light and his team befriend a scrappy stray dog, Arthur, who ends up following them throughout the grueling trek. Filmed in the Dominican Republic, the film is based on Lindnord’s own true story. Fun fact/spoiler alert: the author adopted the dog and brought him back home to Sweden, after forming a lasting bond with the pup.

ROAD HOUSE

When You Can Watch: March 21

Where You Can Watch: Amazon Prime

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Daniel Melchior, Billy Magnussen, Jessica Williams

Why We’re Excited: The opening night film of this year’s SXSW film festival, this remake of Patrick Swayze’s 1989 cult action film is directed by the 2000 Spirit Award Best Director nominee Doug Liman (Go!, Edge of Tomorrow). Spirit Award winner Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain, Donnie Darko) plays former UFC middleweight fighter Dalton, who is hired as the bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse (switched from a small-town Missouri roadhouse in the original). According to Empire’s review, Dalton is “a new kind of action hero, as caring and sensitive as he is ruthlessly violent when he needs to be.” Shot in the Dominican Republic, the film has already garnered some attention ahead of its debut on Prime, after Liman wrote an editorial on Deadline criticizing the streamer for the MGM/Amazon film’s lack of a theatrical release.

WICKED LITTLE LETTERS

When You Can Watch: March 29

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Thea Sharrock

Cast: Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Anjana Vasan, Gemma Jones, Timothy Spall

Why We’re Excited: Directed by English theater director Sharrock (The Hollow Crown, Me before You), this dark comedy is based on an absurd true story that stunned England over 100 years ago. In the small Sussex town of Littlehampton, two women are embroiled in the equivalent of 1920s online trolling—back when “poison pen letters” were a literal crime. When overly pious old maid Edith (Colman) starts receiving raunchy letters in the post, her more liberal Irish neighbor Rose (Buckley, a Robert Altman Award winner for Women Talking) becomes the primary suspect. The mystery soon launches a police investigation that threatens not only Rose’s freedom, but custody of her only daughter.

LA CHIMERA

When You Can Watch: March 29

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Cast: Josh O’Connor, Carol Duarte, Vincenzo Nemolato, Isabella Rosssellini

Why We’re Excited: A Spirit Award nominee for her Palme d’Or contender Happy as Lazzaro, writer-director Rohrwacher’s romantic period drama follows a group of tomb raiders targeting Etruscan antiquities. Still reeling from the death of his lover Beniamina, English archeologist Arthur (O’Connor, Netflix’s The Crown) has just been released from an Italian prison when he hooks up with a new crew and discovers a rare fifth-century relic. Even though Beniamina is gone, he remains close with her mother, the aging aristocrat Flora (Rossellini). Set in 1980s Tuscany, the film was shot in southern Tuscany, northern Lazio, and Umbria in the spring of 2022.

PROGRAMMER’S PICK PROBLEMISTA

When You Can Watch:  Now

Where You Can Watch: Theaters

Director: Julio Torres

Cast: Julio Torres, Tilda Swinton, Greta Lee, RZA, Isabella Rossellini

Why We’re Excited: From Jenn Wilson, Film Independent Senior Programmer: “Actor/writer/director/comedian Julio Torres (SNL, Los Espookys) has delivered a fantastic and extremely creative first feature film with Problemista. Torres plays a young immigrant to New York City from El Salvador named Alejandro, whose dream is to be a toy designer. But he struggles to find a job that will sponsor his visa. He strikes up a relationship with a chaotic art curator named Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), who is desperately trying to mount a retrospective art show of her deceased husband Bobby’s (RZA) work. Anybody who has ever wanted to work in the arts and has had to deal with the endless woes of the dreaded day job slog will find Alejandro’s struggle intensely amusing and completely relatable, but his problems are compounded by the impossible process of trying to immigrate to the U.S. Alejandro and Elizabeth’s relationship is fraught with drama, but the two have a genuine admiration for one another that’s truly heart-warming. Torres heads up a great supporting cast including a wonderful Isabella Rossellini as the film’s narrator. Clearly influenced by the dream logic and magical realism in the work of Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, Torres also shows he has developed a creative voice of his own that is very exciting.”