San Francisco International Film Festival

Latest reviews

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  The Invite

  Review preview for The Invite

  Wilde's direction is assured, there's some gorgeous framing and frequent Rogen collaborator Adam Newport-Berra's camera makes the most of what's in front of it.

  Joe and Angela are on thin ice, and tonight might be when it all falls apart. Unfortunately, their upstairs neighbours are about to arrive for dinner, and everything that can go wrong goes worse.
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  Ghost School

  Review preview for Ghost School

  Arsalan really does have something special.

  Rabia, a ten-year-old Pakistani girl, sets out to find why her only school in the village is closed.
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  Jaripeo

  Review preview for Jaripeo

  The documentary is attentive to contradiction without flattening its subjects into symbols.

  A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
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  Nuisance Bear

  Review preview for Nuisance Bear

  By viewing the situation, at least initially, mostly from the perspective of the bears, the directors ask us to consider who exactly is trespassing on whose turf.

  A polar bear is forced to navigate a human world of tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as its ancient migration collides with modern life. When a sacred predator is branded a nuisance, it becomes unclear who truly belongs in this shared landscape.
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  Late Fame

  Review preview for Late Fame

  Burch and Jones clearly enjoy updating rich kid Myers and his literary salon pals to the present without ever falling into clownish cliché.

  Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet, works in the post office. After an eager and flattering young admirer appears on his doorstep, Saxberger is beckoned into a coterie of twentysomething admirers who anoint him as a rediscovered genius.
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  Inside Amir

  Review preview for Inside Amir

  It may be episodic but its themes are so well connected that it never feels disjointed.

  Drama revolving around the life of a young man on the verge of emigrating from Tehran to southern Italy.
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  Space Cadet

  Review preview for Space Cadet

  A film that gently tackles adult themes including grief, being an empty nester and memory but in ways that make it accessible to all ages.

  Robot’s sole purpose has always been to nurture Celeste into the brilliant scientist she has now become. But as the young astronaut sets off on her first interstellar mission, Robot is left behind.
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  The Lunchbox

  Review preview for The Lunchbox

  Sheer unadulterated pleasure often comes from the most unexpected quarters.

  A mistakenly delivered lunchbox sparks romance between two lonely people.
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  Beasts Of The Southern Wild

  Review preview for Beasts Of The Southern Wild

  There's poetry, tough love and, above all, a fierce stoicism on the bayou in Benh Zeitlin's strikingly beautiful and haunting debut.

  Waters gonna rise up, wild animals gonna return from the grave, and everything south of the levee is goin’ under, in this tale of a six-year-old named Hushpuppy, who lives with her daddy at the edge of the world.
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  Beau Travail

  An officer recalls his life in the Foreign Legion.

A–Z of San Francisco International Film Festival 2026 reviews →

Features

• Open Invite
  Olivia Wilde on reinvention, improvisation and why her latest movie had to be shot on film
• Writing hidden messages
  Arnaud Desplechin on guilt, melodrama, feeling haunted, and Two Pianos
• Bear necessities
  Jack Weisman and Gabriel Osio Vanden on working together and making naivety work for them in Nuisance Bear
• Bearing witness
  Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman on balance and perspectives in Nuisance Bear
• 'Simple is actually the hardest to do'
  Eric San - aka Kid Koala - on minimalism and cherishing the moment in Space Cadet