Hammer to Nail

NEON has done it again. After 10 days of highly buzzed new cinema and hot acquisitions, the 78th Cannes Film Festival concluded with the Palme d’Or being awarded to Jafar Panahi’s revenge thriller, It Was Just An Accident. After acquiring...

(Check out Savina Petkova’s Die, My Love movie review. The film just had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.) Eight whole years after You Were Never Really Here shook Cannes,...

(Check out Chris Reed’s Jane Austen Wrecked My Life movie review. The film hit theaters Friday, May 23. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.) Given the title, it should not surprise that writer-director Laura Piani’s...

(Check out Savina Petkova’s Sentimental Value movie review. The film just had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.) Renate Reinsve has once again captured Cannes audiences’ hearts, four years...

Rising filmmaker Roxy Sophie Sorkin brings her unique comedic sensibility to the screen with Swollen, a sharp-witted short film which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. In this 13-minute horror-comedy, two best friends recovering from facial plastic surgery find...

As we get older and our memories shift, how can we live in the present? First-time writer-director Sarah Friedland addresses this question in her gentle and moving feature debut, Familiar Touch. The drama stars Kathleen Chalfant as Ruth, a retired...

After breaking moviegoers’ hearts with his Oscar-winning melodrama The Whale, Darren Aronofsky returns to his New York roots for his ninth feature. Caught Stealing stars Austin Butler as a bartender and former baseball player living in the East Village during...

(Check out Savina Petkova’s Alpha movie review. The film just had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.) “Too much love sometimes makes people crazy,” says the despondent heroin addict Amin...

Four years after nabbing the Palme d’Or for her twisty, jaw-dropping body horror Titane, Julia Ducournau is gearing up to make another splash at this year’s Cannes Film Festival with her highly anticipated third feature, Alpha. The film, which reunited...

(We here at Hammer to Nail are all about true independent cinema. But we also have to tip our hat to the great films of yesteryear that continue to inspire filmmakers and cinephiles alike. This week, “The Curbside Criterion” continues...