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Searching Reviews

Going against the Heightened Realism 101 rulebook in films of this kind, Chaganty underlines his storytelling with a terrific score and appropriate rhythm-heavy editing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 9, 2024

The writing is amazing, the use of technology is great, and it doesn't feel cheesy as it has in past films.

Full Review | Jul 8, 2024

Searching is an unnerving and touching movie that goes well beyond the gimmick of being told through a computer screen.

Full Review | Feb 1, 2024

A tremendously unique style of filmmaking elevates an almost seamlessly written mystery, containing constant twists and puzzling clues that leave the audience captivated throughout the entire runtime.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 24, 2023

If you like suspense movies, innovation, and John Cho you do not want to miss the movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Jan 17, 2023

A mystery that’s far meatier than its virtual framing would suggest.

Full Review | Sep 14, 2022

It’s a riveting thriller with interesting things to say about the online lives we live. It’s also another showcase for John Cho who carries the film through his character’s intensifying stages of emotion and desperation.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 25, 2022

Chaganty's unsubtle approach broadcasts every clue, relying on a tired formula where every detail onscreen proves significant in a dull way. Attentive viewers will see the twists coming.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 11, 2022

Here's hoping future films in this new mode of storytelling take note from what Searching does so well and avoid what doesn't exactly mesh.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2022

Episode 6: Bourbon and Smoke

Full Review | Original Score: 50/100 | Aug 28, 2021

This is screenwriting at its finest. The film just gives you one emotional punch after the next the suspense just builds and builds as more details about the mystery are revealed.

Full Review | Original Score: 9.5/10 | Aug 17, 2021

Searching is a clarion call for any parent of a teen...

Full Review | Aug 13, 2021

It's a little too conventional in its climax and conclusion but John Cho's terrific performance and some genuine thrills elevate the story past its visual gimmick.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 4, 2021

Ultimately, it's among the very best of this genre of computer screen thrillers, and I'll leave it up to you to decide how much you think that means.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2021

David Kim discovers that his 16-year-old daughter Margot didn't come home after a study session, and he searches her laptop and social media to find her.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 2, 2021

A concept that easily could have come across as cheap and tacky instead elevates Searching in ways that are exciting and surprisingly moving.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jan 29, 2021

Sometimes, your expectations for a film can enrich your experience or cripple it. With Searching, I was thrown for a loop in the best way.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2020

Searching is both an immersive and ingenious experience and because it is Aneesh Chaganty's directorial debut, one could only hope that he's got even more creative ideas on the horizon.

Full Review | Oct 5, 2020

Searching is unlike any modern thriller I've seen, and actually knows how to do social media and the online world right, without being gimmicky.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 3, 2020

What places Searching a cut above the average thrillers filling the multiplex every weekend is the resonance of the relationship between David and Margot.

Full Review | Jul 24, 2020

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‘searching’: film review | sundance 2018.

John Cho and Debra Messing star in 'Searching,' Aneesh Chaganty's contemporary spin on the missing-child thriller.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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The first thing people will always say about Searching is, “Oh, yeah, the film that’s completely set on a computer screen.” But if it were just that, it would be far from enough. Impressively, first-time filmmaker and former Google commercials creator Aneesh Chaganty has also made a real movie, the story of a family that morphs into a crime drama that gradually ratchets up the tension as all good thrillers must, one that’s well constructed and acted as well as novel in its storytelling techniques. With Sony having bought worldwide rights at Sundance and there being a virtually guaranteed audience among electronics-savvy young viewers, this fastidiously made suspense piece could potentially exceed expectations by drawing those curious about how this new narrative threshold was conquered.

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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 11 Reviews
Kids Say 27 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Digital mystery satisfies on technical, emotional levels.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 13+?

A main character dies of cancer. A teen girl goes missing. A car is found in a l

A spoken and written use of "f---ing," plus uses of "s--t," "ass," "damn," "hell

Several tech brand names are mentioned and shown throughout: Internet Explorer,

A secondary character seems to be something of a drug dealer. A jar full of pot

Brief sex-related dialogue, sex-related material. Brief, wrongful assumption tha

Any Positive Content?

Movie is all about solving problems, as well as persistence/perseverance in the

David Kim is a sympathetic character, a problem solver, a good parent who goes t

Violence & Scariness

A main character dies of cancer. A teen girl goes missing. A car is found in a lake (there's the possibility of a body inside). A man punches a teen boy. Bloody/bruised face. Spoken reference to a jaw being broken. Two men fight/brawl. A man appears to shoot himself on a video. Spoken references to beating, etc. Arguing and yelling. Threats.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

A spoken and written use of "f---ing," plus uses of "s--t," "ass," "damn," "hella," "perv," and "oh my God" as an exclamation.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Several tech brand names are mentioned and shown throughout: Internet Explorer, YouTube, eBay, Google, Facebook, Mircosoft, Apple iPhone, Uber, FaceTime, Gmail, Yahoo, Venmo, Norton Antivirus, etc. An Apple computer is turned on, with the familiar "gong" sound and logo. Pokémon is shown and mentioned.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

A secondary character seems to be something of a drug dealer. A jar full of pot is shown. Teen drug use is inferred. Photo of teen drug use. Pipe smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief sex-related dialogue, sex-related material. Brief, wrongful assumption that an uncle is having a sexual relationship with his teen niece.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Movie is all about solving problems, as well as persistence/perseverance in the face of great stress and very little hope. Generosity is a virtue, and better communication between family members is encouraged. Simple "protection" of family members, no matter what they've done wrong, is discouraged.

Positive Role Models

David Kim is a sympathetic character, a problem solver, a good parent who goes to great lengths to rescue his daughter. He's also a positive, three-dimensional Asian American character. Without giving too much away, Margot performs an act of incredible generosity; it doesn't turn out well for her, but her act is nonetheless seen as admirable.

Parents need to know that Searching is a mystery starring John Cho about a missing teen that's presented entirely through/on computer screens (similar to the horror movie Unfriended ). It's cleverly constructed and emotionally satisfying, as well as diverse and culturally relevant. Expect brief on-screen fighting, arguing, and yelling, as well as offscreen and verbal references to violence. A main character dies of cancer. There's a bit of sex-related dialogue and some sexual references, and there's a brief, wrongful theory that an uncle is having some kind of sexual relationship with his teen niece. Language includes one "f---ing" and uses of "perv." A secondary character appears to be a drug dealer, supplying pot (offscreen) to a teen girl. A jar filled with pot is shown, teen drug use is inferred, and there's pipe smoking. Many tech brand names are shown throughout (Google, Facebook, YouTube, etc.), but all in service to the story. Underlying everything are messages of perseverance and the need for stronger communication among family members, as well as the notion of the internet as both a useful and a dangerous place. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (11)
Kids say (27)

Based on 11 parent reviews

Must Watch!

What's the story.

In SEARCHING, David Kim ( John Cho ) has a happy family. He enjoys watching his daughter Margot grow up, posting pictures and videos of her to social media. As Margot hits her teenage years (played by Michelle La ), David finds himself raising her alone, and she seems increasingly distant. Finally one day she simply disappears after a supposed study group, and David hits the internet to try to find clues about where she might have gone. Her friends don't seem to know much, but he discovers that she's also been skipping her piano lessons and pocketing the money. A detective ( Debra Messing ) comes on the case, and time seems to be running out. Can David spot the final clue that will piece everything together?

Is It Any Good?

Perhaps inspired by the success of 2014's Unfriended , this mystery ventures in fresh, new directions while being superbly constructed, emotionally satisfying, and culturally relevant. The debut feature of director Aneesh Chaganty , who also wrote the screenplay with producer Sev Ohanian, Searching is notable for focusing on a Korean American family without making an issue of it. It frankly doesn't matter what culture the Kim family comes from (other than in the valuable representation sense, of course). What matters is what would matter to any human being when a family member is in trouble.

In the lead role, Cho does amazing things, performing largely by himself and within unconventional cameras and camera setups, reaching new emotional depths. The movie's filming techniques do recall some of the more effective things used in Unfriended and Unfriended: Dark Web , but Searching expands the genre's toolbox, going further in both time and space. And the screenplay, while suffering a few small, easily forgivable shaky spots, is a thing of beauty, furthering the story with desperate, constant propulsion, and dropping little clues in the most innocuous places. When it all comes together, it's with a most pleasurable snap.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Searching 's depiction of violence . How much is shown, and how much is kept offscreen? Are these incidents equally effective? Why or why not?

How are drugs depicted? Are they glamorized in any way? Are there consequences to teens using drugs? Why does that matter?

The movie shows the internet to be both useful and dangerous. How can we choose what's safe -- and what isn't ?

Margot's act of generosity turns out badly, but how does the movie view her act? Is she still admirable? Should generosity be viewed as risky?

How do the characters demonstrate perseverance ? Why is that an important character strength ?

Movie Details

In theaters : August 24, 2018
On DVD or streaming : November 27, 2018
Cast : John Cho , Debra Messing , Michelle La
Director : Aneesh Chaganty
Inclusion Information : Asian actors
Studio : Screen Gems
Genre : Thriller
Character Strengths : Perseverance
Run time : 102 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : thematic content, some drug and sexual references, and for language
Last updated : July 30, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Searching Review

31 Aug 2018

It’s easy to get fixated on the gimmick of Searching . Its entire story is told on a computer screen. Via FaceTime chats, YouTube clips, Google searches and, that most thrilling of visual media, Excel spreadsheets, we watch the unfolding drama of the disappearance of a teenage girl, Margot (La), and her dad David’s ( Cho ) desperate mission to find out what happened to her. It’s more than just a gimmick, though. It’s a highly entertaining, fast-moving and gripping drama with a solid emotional core.

The gimmick is used very well by first-time director Aneesh Chaganty. In the opening ten minutes, he sets out his conceit by giving us Margot’s entire childhood on a computer screen. We see saved photos of her first day in each school grade, her parents beaming behind her; video clips of piano lessons with her mum and playing with dad; then her mum’s Google search for fighting lymphoma; emails about remission then relapse; a calendar with the note “mom comes home!” moved later and later, until it’s deleted. It’s a bit like a less cute version of the opening of Up . Within just a few minutes Chaganty has fully established Margot’s dynamic with her father and the loss both feel without Margot’s mother. Then he upends everything with Margot’s disappearance and her dad’s realisation that she had a whole life that he knew nothing about.

The film can be shown entirely on a computer because that’s where David spends most of his life.

Primarily, Searching is a thriller, and a very effective one. It keeps the clues and twists coming thick and fast as David both helps and hinders the detective ( Debra Messing ) leading the hunt for Margot. Despite the static nature of the computer screen, Chaganty gives it energy with handheld FaceTime chats as David runs through dark woods, or urgently cut news footage on a YouTube clip, or the camera’s eye sweeping around the screen picking up details. It’s always in motion. Great credit to Cho for commanding the screen when he spends most of his time sitting down and looking just slightly to the right of the camera. Very occasionally, Chaganty pushes the conceit too far, putting in “breaking news” footage that has way too much detail to be believable, because it’s the only way to get in certain information he needs to continue the story. It doesn’t derail it, though. The approach gives it some licence to be pulpy. The heightened presentation allows for heightened storytelling.

There’s some neat character exploration going on too. The film can be shown entirely on a computer because that’s where David spends most of his life. His human interactions are almost entirely via webcam. He’ll open up tab after tab of news stories he never reads. Even when he’s asleep, his computer is awake and ready. Subtly, Chaganty conveys a man who isn’t coping with his wife’s death, who both needs constant distraction and interaction, but can’t bring himself to be physically around people. He’s a man who can never go offline. Searching will make you wonder whether you should ever share anything online again.

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Entertainment /

The emotional thriller Searching proves good computer-screen movies aren’t a fluke

The producer of unfriended returns with a movie that proves there’s life left in this formula.

By Bryan Bishop

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Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review was originally posted after the film’s premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where it played under the title Search . It has been updated for the film’s wide theatrical release.

In 2015, the movie Unfriended landed in theaters , telling a conventional supernatural revenge story with an unconventional conceit: the entire film took place on the screen of one character’s laptop. That approach really shouldn’t have worked, but Unfriended was nevertheless a creepy, unsettling, low-budget success. When I spoke with producer Timur Bekmambetov at the time, he envisioned “screen movies” as an entire genre.

The filmmaker is taking his next big swing at the format with Searching, starring Star Trek ’s John Cho and Will & Grace ’s Debra Messing. It’s the story of a father who frantically tries to find his daughter when she goes missing — only this time, the film doesn’t just take place on a single laptop. It takes place on the screens of multiple computers, with an iPhone thrown into the mix for good measure. Once again, this is an idea that shouldn’t work. But Searching is a taut, surprisingly emotional ride. It doesn’t entirely stick the landing, but it’s proof the screen-movie concept isn’t just a one-off fluke.

What’s the genre?

Bekmambetov might have described it as “a screen movie” a couple of years ago, but now, Searching can just be considered a straight-up thriller.

What’s it about?

David Kim (Cho) is recently widowed, and he’s been having a hard time connecting with his teenage daughter Margot (Michelle La). One morning, David wakes up to find he’s missed several late-night FaceTime calls from Margot. As the day unfolds, he discovers she’s not at school, and never even came home the night before. Detective Rosemary Vick (Messing) is assigned to the case, and with her help, David begins digging through his daughter’s computer, her search history, and the live-streaming services he never knew she used. They initially suspect she might have simply run away, but as the evidence piles up, it seems likely that something sinister has happened to Margot.

What’s it really about?

Director Aneesh Chaganty, who co-wrote the script with producer Sev Ohanian, has a couple of themes on his mind with Searching . Writ large, it’s a movie about the way we deal with grief. David shut down emotionally in response to his wife's death, compartmentalizing his memories to the point of forgetting her birthday, and hiding any videos that might spark painful memories from his computer’s search results. While he thinks Margot has been doing okay, as he investigates, he slowly realizes she has been struggling more than he ever realized.

Searching also illustrates how we sometimes use online outlets and social networks to express feelings that would perhaps be better discussed in real life. Margot is comfortable talking about her mom to anonymous strangers on a video chat, but doesn’t want to bring up the issue with her own father, which pushes them further and further apart.

Is it good?

Searching is shockingly effective, not just in creating a sense of constant, palpable tension, but also in the way it pulls off authentic, effective emotional beats. The first five minutes of the film tell the entire backstory of the Kim family, opening with the mom’s computer (running Windows XP) as the family starts documenting Margot’s young life. Through video clips, glimpses of emails, and calendar schedules, we learn that in the ensuing years, Margot’s mother got cancer, fought it into remission, suffered a relapse, and finally succumbed just as Margot was about to start high school. It’s legitimately affecting. (Think the opening prologue of Pixar’s Up , only told through a computer screen.) By the time Searching catches up with the present, and the iMac the family uses at home, the movie has set up an emotional foundation that propels the rest of the film.

the fact that we’re watching an ersatz computer screen falls away completely

As a filmmaker, Chaganty knows a few things about merging technology with filmmaking. He shot an early Google Glass commercial called “Seeds,” and was responsible for some of the snarky ads for Google Photos . But here, he moves beyond those early experiments, and what was accomplished in previous computer screen projects like Unfriended or the Modern Family episode “Connection Lost.” Searching ’s rhythm and pacing stand out, from the way the camera punches in and moves around computer screens to the way it creatively adds new angles to the mix, while still adhering to its basic conceit. More often than not, the fact that we’re watching an ersatz computer screen falls away completely, leaving only the drama of David’s search. It feels impressively cinematic, which is no small feat, given the stylistic limitations. Cho also delivers a strong performance, capturing the denial, grief, and anger David experiences as the situation with his daughter becomes increasingly more dire.

The film does have its flaws. Messing’s performance seems out of sync with the rest of the actors at times, as if she’s playing scenes from a much more melodramatic TV show. (The script does give her character some of the clunkiest lines, so there’s only so much she can do.) And while Searching has several moments where it feels like things are wrapping up in a truly unexpected, yet emotionally satisfying way, the film unfortunately doesn’t know when to call it quits. It finally comes to a conclusion with an extended coda that really tests the audience’s suspension of disbelief, and while the movie ultimately delivers a final moment that some audiences will definitely be craving, the way it gets there is easily the weakest part of the film.

What should it be rated?

Searching through Facebook, creating Google Docs, and making FaceTime calls is pretty family-friendly. Let’s call this a PG, given the general subject matter.

How can I actually watch it?

After the world premiere screening at Sundance, Sony picked up the movie for a reported $5 million, and brought it to theaters for a wide release. It’s out on August 24th.

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More from this stream Sundance 2018: Reviews and news from the premier independent-film festival

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Searching gives the psychological thriller a smart digital twist: EW review

Searching begins with the unmistakable metallic skronk of a dial-up modem: the first hint that what we’re about to see will unfold almost completely in the digital world. That’s a great hook for a movie, if not the easiest one to actually sustain. But first-time filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty (a former Google employee, appropriately) is a resourceful man, and a very clever one; he nearly aces his high-wire conceit to the end.

We meet David ( Star Trek ’s John Cho) almost entirely through his desktop: a happily married California dad whose impending widowhood is rendered through YouTube videos, Gmail, and iCal alerts within the first 15 minutes. His wife’s death brings a cone of silence between him and his teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La); one night she says she’s staying late at study group, but the next day, she’s still not home. So with the help of a local police detective (Debra Messing), David becomes his own internet PI.

It’s a lot to carry a film where your costars are effectively zeros and ones, but Cho‘s sympathetic presence fills the screen(s); the way his eyebrows knit together like concerned caterpillars or pause for an unexpected laugh line feels like a call to Hollywood casting agents to give him more to do, soon. And if Chaganty can’t help overgilding his final twist, Searching ’s smart, nimble execution still thrills. B+

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Searching (2018) was incredible

I'm so late to the party on this, but Laura crone did a video that mentioned it and flat out said it was the best movie of 2018, so here we go

Can we talk about this movie? Here are my thoughts (spoilers)

Full disclosure, cancer is something I grew up with family members having. This movie is about grief and I've been there and I'm still there at times. So, I'm a bit biased.

Opening sequence for sure made me cry, very Up reminiscent.

You definitely pick up where everyone is at very quickly. Dad is trying to not dwell too much on his grief. Margot is lying about her life. Brother knows something is up but is lying about it.

In the first half of the movie, I definitely had a ton of ideas of where she could be, what she could be lying about. The streaming app definitely could've gone down a very very dark trail. Same with the uncle, good lord those texts!

I totally thought the uncle was still gonna turn out to be the big bad. The cameras where still at his place! I was expecting him to see the file "PROOF" when uploading for the funeral home, open it, and see something sketchy on the cameras. For sure thought I had that totally figured out

I picked up on the detective recognizing that he was at the lake when he didn't say it, but I dismissed it as maybe we didn't see all of what he said, maybe he texted the coordinates, or something similar. I'm glad the detective being, essentially, horrendous at her job was actually a plot point that was explained. You need to distract the dad so have him be super involved in the investigation. That photo for fish-n-chips is clearly a fake photo and so probably a catfish, but cops looked into it so either its fine or they were able to fool the cops

I kept thinking like damn these cops suck even for movie cops. Why is the dad paying to get people's phone numbers? Why is the dad piecing this all together? But having an actual reason was great

I didn't realize that the "has a crush on M" note was a kid with the same last name as the detective. Will probably need to rewatch it to get every Easter egg.

I think this movie made me hate reporters even more? Especially during the car search. Like just leave this poor family alone, stop live broadcasting their grief. Actually, as I'm typing this now I'm making that connection. My family's grief was also very public and very much a spectacle that neighbors could gawk at. Give their thoughts and prayers. I can't imagine having it be on the news. Another moment of this incredible film that resonated very strongly with me.

I thought the formatting was an interesting way of doing things. It's a cool way to let the story unfold in a very controlled timeline. I loved the recognition that the dad is simply trying to move past the grief, he doesn't want to dwell, doesn't want to bring it up to his daughter. They're happy and everything is good. Only for the reality to fall back onto him. Everyone needs different things in grief. I cried again when he saw her being pulled up the ravine.

Overall 9/10

Thank you u/sevohanian for a great movie, probably gonna cry a bit more jfc

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Movie Review Archives

Movie Review: Searching (2018)

Vincent Gaine
Movie Reviews
--> August 28, 2018

Lives online, lives offline. Activities that only happen because web cameras connect us to an anonymous multitude. What happens online may stay online, or overlap with the “real world.” What happens when a person is one thing on the Internet and another in the outside world? The questions around such alternative lives are pressing concerns in our current digital age, and make for prime dramatic material. In the case of Searching , director Aneesh Chaganty presents these lives and indeed their investigation through the digital devices that record lives. Throughout the film, the frame is filled with the display of computers, while all persons displayed are captured within web cameras, the footage of which is double mediated when the viewer sees them. The film’s conceit sets the stage for a journey into digital identities, footprints and indeed lives.

The conceit of Searching is not unique, having been used previously in “ Unfriended ,” “ Friend Request ” and “ Unfriended: Dark Web .” Unlike these horror films that point to something malevolent or even supernatural on the World Wide Web, Searching takes the digital capture sub-genre (other labels are available) in a different direction.

The narrative of the film is a missing person thriller, as father David Kim (John Cho, “ Columbus ”) searches for his daughter Margot (Michelle La). Following Margot’s disappearance, the only traces that remain are digital. The film frame presents FaceTime, text and chats, video websites, traffic and surveillance cameras and the screens of several computers where the windows of various applications compete for space. This competition emphasizes the crowding of digital information, just how much there is and how dizzying it can be, as well as the level of exposure involved in going online. The early part of the film documents Margot’s life as captured and contained in computers. This charting of the technological development is interesting and somewhat nostalgic, and provides creative product placement for Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and other names that have become as familiar as Mercedes, Coca-Cola and McDonalds. Margot’s life, from birth, through school, piano lessons, friendships and more is steadily charted and recorded through different devices. This history of a life, touched with major developments, including tragedy and triumph, is moving and affecting, as it shows the benefits of regular documentation in maintaining memories both sweet and bitter. Digital capture often receives a negative press, but Searching suggests that there is genuine experience and affection within digital capture.

This aspect of the film is the most interesting, and later scenes in which David reviews his daughter’s life on and offline are moving and even verge on the heartbreaking. The film’s style allows for a probing meditation on different identities, the facilities granted by the Internet and the dangers involved. Indeed, the film is almost essayistic in its limited presentation, as while the screens are multiple they are never omnipresent and no application provides the full story. What David and, by extension, the viewer sees, is inherently incomplete, and these limitations prompt questions about what lies beyond the frame, where the film’s world goes and what we are missing.

This investigation into identity and our relationship with technology is somewhat undermined by the film’s thriller narrative. On its own, the thriller narrative works: David’s increasing desperation as he learns more about Margot’s life and how this may have contributed to her disappearance is affecting. The relationships between David and his brother Peter (Joseph Lee, “Miracle That We Met” TV series) as well as Detective Vick (Debra Messing, “ Like Sunday, Like Rain ”) are convincing. However, the format does start to jar as the film progresses.

Every revelation is either found on Margot’s computer, or revealed in a conversation via video chat, text or e-mail, or on the phone when the web cam just happened to be left on. These developments smack of convenient artifice which jars with the mundanity the film struggles to present through its limited window(s). This problem is exacerbated as important information is recorded on devices that are always close to hand, ready to use and have reception. While narrative conveniences are nothing new, the insistence on only presenting what appears on the diegetic screens detracts from the everyday presentation of the characters. Some of this omnipresent IT is explained by the film being set in Silicon Valley and all of David’s work being contained in his laptop, but Chaganty incorporates multiple forms of communication that cumulatively become too convenient. This again feels like events are geared towards the necessity of capturing EVERYTHING on a single computer, and the effect is more than a little grating.

On the positive side, the family tensions and responsibilities are engaging and palpable, especially that between David and Peter as it provides an emotional arc across the film. Neither character is perfect and revelations about both of them lead to suspicion and tense confrontations. Furthermore, in a year that also features the box office success “Crazy Rich Asians,” the Asian-American family at the center of Searching feels progressive and inclusive (although mental health gets a less encouraging depiction). There are hints about online dangers and opportunities, all of which give the film a sense of heart and coming from the right place. Ultimately the story is compelling and the telling innovative, but the problem is that these two elements are not persuasively linked. As a result, the film is intriguing and at times compelling, but it ultimately feels rather gimmicky.

Tagged: daughter , father , internet , investigation , search

Dr. Vincent M. Gaine is a film and television researcher. His first book, Existentialism and Social Engagement in the Films of Michael Mann was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2011. His work on film and media has been published in Cinema Journal and The Journal of Technology , Theology and Religion , as well as edited collections including The 21st Century Superhero and The Directory of World Cinema .

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John Cho movie Searching stares at screens in search of secrets

Review: Looking for a smart, suspenseful movie dealing with the internet in a clever, funny way? Your search is over.

A child grows up in front of our eyes in smartphone photos, video chats and calendar reminders for the first day of school. This is how the new movie Searching begins, revealing a life through the digital ephemera of the information age.

This opening introduces us to both the characters and the conceit of the film: It plays out entirely through the lens of laptop and phone screens. Everything we see, we see through a screen. We watch the cursor roam across a Mac desktop. We see the characters stare back at us as they chat in FaceTime. And plot twists are revealed by visits to Google , Instagram and Reddit.

Searching was co-written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty , who quit his job making adverts for Google to make the film. Originally entitled Search, it was rapturously received at the Sundance Film Festival , voted by audiences as the winner of the festival's Next category of innovative filmmaking. And in a quiet year for Sundance acquisitions, it was snapped up by Sony immediately. In theatres from 24 August, the film arrives just behind Crazy Rich Asians and Netflix's To All The Boys I've Loved Before , making this a good summer for diverse filmmakers.

Star Trek star John Cho plays the concerned parent who discovers his daughter is missing, and begins hunting for clues across her social media accounts. The more he pieces together about her life, the more he realises he doesn't know his child at all.

This isn't the first film to play out through the lens of a computer screen, following the effective one-screen horror movie Unfriended . But Searching mines the concept in all manner of ways, wringing layers of tension, humour and pathos from the various apps and software appearing onscreen. Think of it as Hitchcockian conceit -- complete with Hitchcock levels of suspense.

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If that sounds like a gimmick, the opening moments put any concern to rest. Searching opens with a sequence spelling out the life of a family that's up there with the first 15 minutes of Pixar's Up in terms of emotion. The kid at the centre of the story, Margot, grows up in photos and videos, and there won't be a dry eye in the house. Then she disappears, leaving only a lingering ghostly online presence offering tantalising hints that conjure a spiralling sense of mystery and tension.

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The film does stretch the on-screen concept a bit thin when characters venture away from laptops , forcing us to lean too heavily on unconvincing YouTube news reports for great chunks of exposition. But that's more than balanced by the way the ever-present blinking cursor of the search box and blank space of the message app almost become characters in their own right, patiently waiting for the characters to express emotions.

We get to read between the lines of messages typed and never sent, opening a gateway into characters' true feelings and contrasting them with the faces they present in public and online.

Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian do a great job mining the premise, not just showing the search unfolding through screens but also examining some of the issues of the internet age, such as cyberbullying, online grooming and social media witch hunts.

As well as being edge-of-the-seat tense and enormously funny, Searching offers an interesting subtext too. Set in San Jose, California, it's about a child literally missing in Silicon Valley, as well as also being metaphorically lost amid the social media products created there. It's a potent symbol of different generations connected and at the same time separated by the technology they use.

Searching is in theaters this weekend. It's worth the screen time.

For more about the film, check out our discussion with the star, director and co-writers John Cho, Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian .

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'searching' review: john cho anchors a gloriously good thriller.

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'Searching'

The Box Office:

Opening in nine theaters tonight before going wide next weekend, Screen Gems’ Searching is the second high-profile major studio release that just happens to be headlined by an Asian actor. While Crazy Rich Asians essentially had to have a mostly-Asian cast, Searching is an old-school thriller (with new-school technology) that just happens to star John Cho. As such, it is just as important to advancing the notion of inclusivity as the recent Jon M. Chu-directed hit. As such, it’s encouraging to see the folks being Crazy Rich Asians using their social media accounts to promote this one too.

So the big question, with the caveat that this is a pretty low-budget thriller, is whether all of the folks that got excited about that #starringJohnCho hashtag that went viral two years ago (which imagined Cho as the lead in the kinds of major studio flicks that almost always star white dudes) will actually show up for this multiplex-friendly flick that just happens to star one of the more well-known Asian-American actors. That it’s a great movie only helps the cause, although I again maintain that you can’t just show up for the masterpieces.

Screen Gems is hoping for a boffo per-theater average this weekend followed by a solid Labor Day opening weekend as summer ends. As always, it’s a question of whether folks who claim to want this sort of thing will show up and buy a ticket, or whether they were just performing for Facebook shares and Twitter retweets. All the “Yay, progress!” blog posts in the world won’t mean a damn thing if you don’t pay to see the movie in a theater. Here’s hoping that you do.

The Review:

Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching is a superb thriller. It uses its unique format (as a “desktop horror” flick) to tell a full-bodied movie that works both as a newfangled tech exercise and a joltingly moving character play. I don’t know at what point I’ll stop being impressed at how these sorts of films use the bells and whistles of the Internet to tell old stories in a new fashion, but this is easily the best of the bunch thus far.

The picture, penned by Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, opens with an extended montage of a life partially lived online. It introduces us to our core characters and, through YouTube videos, social media posts and a Google calendar, establishes at least a few of the core conflicts in a way as hauntingly beautiful as that (in)famous opening to Pixar’s Up . It certainly sets the movie up on the right foot, and if you’re not invested by the end of the prologue I’m not sure I want to know you.

Anyway, the core plot involves David Kim (John Cho) realizing that his teenage daughter (Michelle La) is missing and embarking on a digital quest to figure out where she might have gone. And, yes, the entire film is conducted via computer screens and smartphones, as well as periodically TV news clips shown on a computer screen. We’ve seen this kind of gimmick played out via the likes of (the surprisingly gripping) Unfriended , and it works even better here.

That film used its tech gimmick to create a sense of doom and a ticking clock via its supernatural menace. Searching uses its web-centric filmmaking to show how a world of constant communication and connectivity has allowed us to be less connected to each other and less aware of who our friends and family really are. That’s not a new concept, but its emphasis on the value of open communication (in this case, between a father and daughter crippled by grief) makes this feel like an early M. Night Shyamalan picture.

I have no desire to reveal the various (entirely fair) twists, turns and revelations, but our focal points quickly became John Cho’s terrified father and the cop assigned to the case, played with buttoned-down resolve by Debra Messing. There are plentiful moments of earned tension and more than a few grim laughs along the way. And, slight spoiler I suppose, but I appreciated that the film didn’t go down the expected path of this kind of “What happened to my daughter?” story.

And through it all is Cho, anchoring the film and appearing in almost every frame in an all-too-rare lead role. His fear and despair are more-than-relatable as a father trying to figure out who his daughter has become over the previous two years. I don’t want to make this whole review about the systematic injustice that sees the Harold and Kumar / Selfie star getting his first major studio leading role at the age of 46 and 19 years after American Pie , but he certainly makes the most of the opportunity.

Searching is a wonderful piece of major studio popcorn entertainment. Whether you want to argue that its against-the-grain casting and its specific format are beside the point or entirely the point, it’s a damn great thriller and one of the best studio releases of the year. Even with a few third-act nitpicks (nothing deal-breaking), it rises above and specifically utilizes its format limitations to craft a truly unique and achingly poignant drama that also comes filled with bruised-forearm thrills. And its emphasis on empathy (for good and for ill) and communication makes it an incredibly powerful melodrama.

If movies like Searching and A Quiet Place are what we’re going to get from the generation of young filmmakers who grew up in the shadow of M. Night Shyamalan’s early triumphs, filmmakers who realized that the infamous twists were less important than the “feels,” then I imagine we’re in for a lot of top-flight genre films and the overall legacy of the man who made The Sixth Sense , Unbreakable and Signs is set no matter what comes of his current Blumhouse comeback. I can’t wait…

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‘Searching’ turns a computer screen into compelling cinema

We're watching a new filmmaking technique evolve..

The idea of watching a movie told entirely through computer screens sounds like a gimmick. Unfriended gave us a taste of that. It was a horror movie told through Skype video chats in what producer Timur Bekmambetov calls Screenlife , his movement to tell more stories through screens. Unfriended was a hit, but it was also a first stab at a new style of storytelling. Searching , on the other hand, the new thriller starring John Cho and directed by Aneesh Chaganty, deftly shows how Screenlife films can be genuinely cinematic.

The movie follows David Kim (Cho), a single father who discovers that his daughter Margot is missing. He ends up embarking on a digital odyssey through her computer, phone and social media history. Searching has all the twists and turns you'd expect from a mystery thriller — complete with surprise discoveries about Margot's personal life and a slew of dramatic red herrings. But it's also refreshing, since it's told through the lens of the devices we use every day. The majority of the film takes place on David's Mac, and we see him in a window when he's video chatting.

Searching opens with the bright blue and green of the Windows XP login screen. We watch as Pamela, David's wife, creates a user account, sets up her email and collects family photos. These are all mundane tasks, but, together with a bombastic score, they tell the story of Pamela's life over time. It's hard not to think back to when we were all using Windows XP, 10 to 15 years ago, a time when broadband was starting to become ubiquitous. Just imagine the stories that our old computers could tell.

"I was a filmmaker at the Google Creative Lab, and basically I got to write and develop and direct commercials for them," Chaganty said in an interview with Engadget. "Basically our job was to look at Google as a whole, and you know, kind of frame a lot of the technology that was coming out... in a way that us normal people could understand, that was emotional and through some sort of narrative usually. A lot of the commercials that I made incorporated screens and technology, and my bosses there literally taught me how to emote on a computer screen."

He points to Persian Love and Dear Sophie , two early Google commercials that take place entirely through the search bar and Gmail. With a combination of a dramatic score and skillful editing, they both show us how you can tell an emotional story through screens. Chaganty noticed that those short commercials often made people cry by the end, and watching them felt like "realizing that you knew a language you never knew you knew."

At first, Chaganty had a hard time seeing how screen captures could be turned into a 90-minute feature film. But he and Sev Ohanian, the film's co-writer, managed to convince each other as they worked on Searching. "I knew that, despite the fact that you don't see someone's face, a blinking cursor can still make you feel," Chaganty said.

For John Cho, Searching wasn't a sure bet at first -- especially after watching Unfriended , a film that worked but "didn't feel particularly cinematic," he told Engadget. Mostly, he was worried about the difficulty of acting in front of a single static camera, instead of the multiple angles of a traditional film. Chaganty convinced him that it would still feel classical by relying on things like camera panning and zooming.

Whereas in Unfriended it sometimes felt like we were watching a recording of a computer screen, Searching cuts across multiple devices and a variety of perspectives. The camera is always on the move -- we see up-close iMessage chats and Facebook feeds, almost as if we're laser-focused on what David is looking at. The camerawork makes something dull like a Google Sheet seem compelling as he feverishly works through a list of potential suspects. Even wide shots of his computer desktop tell a story. You can feel the pressure building as the screen starts filling up with a confusing web of files and folders.

To ensure that the film felt genuinely cinematic, Chaganty and Ohanian focused on the story first. Searching follows the familiar beats of a thriller, even though it's presented in an entirely new way. They were also quick to move beyond some of the rules that the Screenlife project had in mind, like keeping all of the action on one computer in real time. Searching moves throughout several screens and spans several weeks, so it never feels like you're just watching one person's desktop stream (something we're getting used to with services like Twitch).

Cho and co-star Debra Messing's FaceTime chats were recorded with small GoPro cameras, instead of coming straight from their phones and computers. For the actors, that was unusual, since it was a single camera pointed at them straight on. ("I'm not sure that I ever want to do a project again where I don't look at a person in the face, to be honest with you," Cho said.) But Ohanian noticed that the wide GoPro frame also let them capture small emotional beats in the actor's faces, something you'd lose with more traditional camera angles.

When it came to putting the film together, Chaganty and his editors, Nicholas Johnson and Will Merrick, faced an almost insurmountable ordeal."I'm not even exaggerating when I say thousands and thousands -- there were thousands and thousands of questions and conundrums and obstacles that they had to kind of solve," Chaganty said. It took them a year and a half with two constantly crashing iMacs to complete the film.

"I remember early cuts that I would watch, where I think our editors were a bit hesitant to do a lot of traditional editing," he said. But eventually they learned to trust the viewers. "You can train the audience to follow the action as if it was a regular movie. So we learned to let go of those fears and treat it like a real movie."

Bekmambetov claims there are 14 more Screenlife projects in the works, according to the L.A. Times . He's not wasting any time breaking new filmmaking ground. But, as Chaganty and Ohanian show, simply recording a screen isn't enough to make something feel truly cinematic. You still need a solid screenplay, an eye for imagery and the ability to edit your footage into something people would actually want to watch. We live our lives on screens more than ever, but our digital selves aren't the full story.

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Searching Is a Technological Marvel: Here's How they Made It

From concept to screen, director aneesh chaganty explains how he wrote, shot, and edited the groundbreaking thriller..

TAGGED AS: thriller

In a year that includes the biggest superhero crossover event ever, an almost silent horror smash, and a stunt-happy Tom Cruise risking his life about a dozen times in almost as many countries, it’s still fair to call Searching one 2018’s most ambitious and audacious projects. The small-budget missing-girl thriller takes the Unfriended formula to new levels: a father, played by John Cho , tracks his missing daughter by trawling through her social media feeds, calling her friends (mostly through FaceTime) and tracking suspicious people’s details through the darkest corners of the web. Director Aneesh Chaganty ‘s camera never leaves the laptop or smart-phone screen, and so we watch Cho’s anguished face in one window as YouTube videos, Venmo accounts, and emails spring up in others, revealing new clues in the case, and big twists in the story.

Chaganty, whose 2014 viral short Seeds , shot entirely on Google Glass, has racked up millions of views, says the new movie took two years to complete, with the shoot itself taking just 13 days – the rest of the time was consumed by prep, editing, and animating. The work has paid off: The movie is a hit with critics (93% on the Tomatometer right now), who note that for all its technical achievements, it’s a story with plenty of heart and thrills. It had a strong first week at the box office, earning $360,000 in limited release before it opens wide this Friday. Ahead of its expansion, Chaganty spoke with Rotten Tomatoes and broke down exactly how he made one of 2018’s most impressive movies.

A UNIQUE ‘SCRIPTMENT’: “A traditional screenplay format wasn’t going to serve us well.”

“I read A Quiet Place ‘s script, and it’s crazy because that script is just like 60 pages, and it didn’t even have to be 60 pages. It was like pictures of the Monopoly board…that script is so short, it’s crazy. But ours was definitely the same way. We realized early on that a traditional screenplay format wasn’t going to serve us well. What we ended up doing was basically – like every other process of this movie – creating an entire new workflow for it. We created what we ended up calling a “scriptment,” which is obviously a script meets a treatment, and basically creating the rules of this film. For example, if someone would type text and backspace it, it would be literally crossed off on the page. We split the whole scriptment into chapters, so they’re easily digestible. Because a normal script can tell you what needs to happen, that a scene is set in a sports bar, but how do you do that when you’re setting a scene on, like, a search bar? It is just a totally different way of writing, so we had to create a new format as well.”

A Seven-Week Head Start on Shooting: “We Should Make this movie before we make this movie.”

“This was Sev Ohanian’s idea, who’s the co-writer and producer. We were like, ‘We should make this movie before we make this movie.’ The reason being there are two cameras in this film. There’s the camera inside the walls of the movie, and there’s the camera of the way we’re framing all of that. And we needed to know how those two play with one another.

“We hired the editors seven weeks before [shooting] and we brought them to a room. And they would screen capture the internet and take photos and do little recordings of text messages and stuff. We ended up coming out with an hour and 40-minute cut of the movie starring me playing every role of the movie – the dad, the brother, the mother, the father, all of Margot’s friends.

“We showed that to the crew, the night before we started shooting, for them to understand what we were making. Most importantly, on set we used it with John’s character, because his character is the one operating the computer in the movie, but the computer [screen footage] is done by the time of shooting. He needs to know though where every eye line [is], every single button he needs to press so that he can look at it the right way, where every single cursor goes, every window pop up. He needs to know exactly what’s happening on the screen.”

CAPTURING ONLINE VIDEO CHAT, IN REAL TIME, WITH GOPROS: “They were acting up against almost nothing.”

(Photo by )

“We couldn’t set up a video village to save time, and basically we had a GoPro set up on [John’s] computer. And then in another room, on the other side of the house, is Debra [Messing, who plays a detective in the film] with the same setup. And they’re both looking at these programs, but they can only see the other person and they’re both wearing earwigs so they could talk to one another and we need to get clean audio. So, they’re talking basically to a computer screen that looks nothing like the one that’s going to be in the final version of the movie, and interacting with one another. They were literally acting up against almost nothing – a massive acting challenge that they knock out of the park.”

SHOOTING THE EMOTIONAL SEVEN-MINUTE OPENING: “We pitched it as Up meets a Google commercial.”

“We used four different actresses to play Margot over the course of 15 years in the opening montage of the movie. And there’s changes in clothes, [we’re] changing everything, we’re changing literally the device she would use to capture everything, because we’re always trying to mimic the technology that it would actually be captured with as time goes on.

“John always cites that day as his favorite day of all 13 because it felt so natural. The opening montage, it really grounds the movie in something very, very emotional. Sev and myself pitched it as Up meets a Google commercial, and we basically went from there.”

HOW A WINDOWS BACKDROP CAN MAKE YOU CRY: “We wanted to turn small screen devices into a cinematic canvas.”

“That was a definite thing that we set out to do. We wanted to turn small-screen devices that we use all the time into a cinematic canvas. And the way we do that is basically by finding the emotionality underneath everything. Even something as plain and simple as the standard Windows XP backdrop of rolling hills carries emotional weight in this movie. Or seeing how crowded a desktop is, or seeing what photos are on a desktop in the movie – it means something. When we were writing, we were quickly realizing that in order for this movie to have some weight, every single button, every single aspect of the UI of the technology, had to mean something more than just what it was. That’s how we approached the entire movie.”

PLANNING FOR THE TECH’S OBSOLESCENCE: “EVEN BEFORE WE HAD FINISHED THE FILM, WE HAD MADE A PERIOD PIECE.”

“I don’t think any film in history has a quicker turnaround from being a modern movie to being a period piece of art. Even before we wrapped to edit it, even before we had finished the film, we had made a period piece, because inevitably Facebook had updated its UI or Google has changed something, or whatever. So, our solve for that was by setting the movie on a specific day. It takes place on May 11th, May 12th, and May 13th of 2017, and every single news item, every single front page, matches that. And every website matches how it was used, it looked, and worked on those specific days.”

FOCUSING ON AN ASIAN-AMERICAN, BAY AREA FAMILY: “There was an opportunity to give a younger version of ourselves someone to look up to.”

“We found out a couple days ago that we are the first mainstream contemporary thriller to ever, ever have an Asian-American lead, which is just crazy. It was important for me having grown up in San Jose to cast a family at the heart of it that looked like the families that I grew up with. I grew up loving movies, and all my favorite movies, none of them ever had characters that looked like me, or heroes that looked like me. And here was an opportunity for us to cast people, and give a younger version of ourselves, someone to hopefully look up to. Or just see as themselves. [The family] was Korean-American because we wrote the role for John Cho. But it was Asian-American with intent, because when’s the last time this has happened?”

Searching is in theaters everywhere August 31

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Movies won’t stop pursuing the next great one crazy night adolescent comedy anytime soon. You know, that “ Superbad ” formula obliquely indebted to much darker single-night films about hapless grown-ups, like “ After Hours .” And in a way, cinema aimed towards young eyeballs is all the richer for it. Without that perpetual effort, we would have never gotten the uproarious and refreshingly sex-positive “ Blockers ,” the genially fun “ Booksmart ,” the high-adrenaline “ Bodies Bodies Bodies ” or the best of them all, “ Emergency ,” a thrilling college comedy that also had something substantial to say on race, gender and class in America.

“Incoming,” from the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” duo Dave and John Chernin as co-writers and directors, is the next entry in this subgenre, and it’s a pretty good one, too! The jokes are funny (sometimes, laugh-out-loud funny), mostly because they’re unafraid to rattle a little—a quality that many recent comedies overeager to pander to the audience inauthentically can learn a thing or two from. In that, the kids in “Incoming” are messy, sometimes even ill-mannered, mean and clueless like we all have been in real life.

But most importantly, “Incoming” scores points for its casting instincts. In the lead as Benjamin “Benj” Nielsen is Mason Thames , a floppy-haired, kind-eyed actor with the disarming disposition of a ‘80s teen movie star, who wouldn’t feel out of place in something like “ Adventures in Babysitting .” (On that note, the film itself has healthy doses of nods to the more vintage teen fare, too.) Geeky and well-meaning, Benji has a crush on his misanthropic big sister Alyssa’s best friend Bailey ( Ali Gallo and Isabella Ferreira , respectively). Meanwhile, dumped by her ex-girlfriend for another girl, Alyssa tries to get over her heartbreak in unorthodox ways and obsesses over her nose-job makeover, assuming that supposedly better looks might lead to a better life.

Opportunity to overcome their insecurities presents itself when the quartet heads to Koosh’s party, only to be told that just one of them could stay as Koosh’s +1. Desperate to get with Bailey, Benj convinces the rest of the clan to be that guest, while Eddie and Connor embark on their own adventure across the city. Also in the mix is the kids’ fun-loving chemistry teacher Mr. Studebaker (a hysterical Bobby Cannavale ), whose irresponsible actions throughout the film go from lightly questionable to highly inappropriate fast.

But the kids are the main attraction in “Incoming,” and they bring it. On one pretty corner of their mansion, the genial but frequently miscalculating Koosh gives a consenting girl a spa treatment as a result of a series of lies that she gets to the bottom of. Benj manages to impress Bailey on another corner, only to mess it up quickly. And running away with the film’s best story line (as well as most rewarding resolution), Connor and Eddie end up caring for a blind-drunk Katrina in the most gentlemanly way imaginable across one crappy (literally) night.

Hilarity ensues, but so do the lessons. From Alyssa to Mr. Studebaker, everyone in “Incoming” gets what they deserve, good or bad, as the Chernins’ film is one that neither panders in an overtly preachy manner, nor lets its players off the hook easily. In this raunchy little escapade, actions have consequences.

Still, you do wish that they’d let Benj win a little something—perhaps forgiveness, or a possibility towards a pardon. Without that, you can’t help but feel that “Incoming” doesn’t quite arrive in its finale in the big way that it’s earned. But thankfully, friendships survive, along with the undying tradition of teen comedies. And perhaps that’s all that matters at the end of the day.

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

Mason Thames as Benj
Isabella Ferreira as Bailey
Ali Gallo as Alyssa
Loren Gray as Katrina
Raphael Alejandro as Connor
Bardia Seiri as Koosh
Dave Chernin
John Chernin

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The 10 Best Movies in Theaters Right Now

Megan fox's 2024 sci-fi movie reminds me of another rogue ai (it's not m3gan), 10 reasons megalopolis' reviews are so strongly divided.

September 2024 is packed with exciting movies from different genres, such as the return of a chaotic bio-exorcist, the return of Optimus Prime, a horror remake, Francis Ford Coppola’s latest project, and a lot more. 2024 has carried on the streak of big releases of 2023 with even more success, bringing a variety of highly-anticipated movies along with some fun surprises. The summer is almost over, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more big releases coming up the rest of the year, and September will officially kick off spooky season.

August saw the release of highly-anticipated movies like M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap , Eli Roth’s Borderlands adaptation, the drama movie It Ends With Us , Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus , Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice , and a new adaptation of The Crow . September will bring more exciting movies from different genres, of which some will be available to stream shortly after, and among these releases are the return of Beetlejuice, a new Transformers movie, a horror remake starring James McAvoy, and Francis Ford Coppola’s latest (and controversial) movie.

2024 continues to bring many exciting movies to theaters from all genres and for different tastes, ensuring there's always something for everyone.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice beetlejuice will be released on september 6, 2024, your rating.

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reunites the audience with Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara), who return to Winter River after the death of Lydia’s father.

Over three decades after the first movie, Beetlejuice is back in a sequel appropriately titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice . Directed by Tim Burton, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice reunites the audience with Lydia (Winona Ryder) and Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara), who return to Winter River after the death of Lydia’s father. Lydia is accompanied by her rebellious daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega), who, to Lydia’s horror, finds the model of the town in the attic at their old house, and so the portal to the Afterlife is opened again, releasing the legendary and chaotic Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton).

Also starring in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice are Monica Bellucci as Betelgeuse’s ex-wife, Willem Dafoe as a ghost detective, Justin Theroux as Lydia’s husband (but not Astrid’s father), Burn Gorman as a reverend, and Danny DeVito in a still undisclosed role.

Transformers One

Transformers one will be released on september 13, 2024.

Transformers One takes the audience to the planet Cybertron to tell the origin story of Orion Pax/Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16/Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry).

The Transformers franchise is still alive, and its latest entry is an animated movie. Directed by Josh Cooley, Transformers One takes the audience to the planet Cybertron to tell the origin story of Orion Pax/Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16/Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry), two Cybertronian workers. Orion Pax and D-16 were very close, but they ended up becoming archenemies as Optimus Prime and Megatron. Also part of Transformers One ’s voice cast are Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm.

Transformers One is the first animated feature film released theatrically since The Transformers: The Movie in 1986.

Speak No Evil

Speak no evil will be released on september 13, 2024, speak no evil (2024).

Speak No Evil is a psychological thriller directed by James Watkins. Speak No Evil follows Louise (Mackenzie Davis) and Ben Dalton (Scoot McNairy), who go on a dream holiday to Europe with their daughter, Agnes (Alix West Lefler). There they meet Paddy (James McAvoy), Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), and their son Ant (Dan Hough), with whom they quickly bond. Paddy and Ciara invite the Daltons to their idyllic country estate, but their vacation quickly suddenly turns into a nightmare when the Daltons see the true colors of their new “friends” .

Speak No Evil is a remake of the 2022 Danish movie of the same name by Christian Tafdrup.

The Killer’s Game

The killer’s game will be released on september 13, 2024, the killer's game.

The Killer’s Game is the story of Joe Flood (Dave Bautista), a hitman who, when he learns he has a terminal illness, decides to take control of his fate by taking a hit out on himself.

The Killer’s Game is an action comedy directed by J. J. Perry and based on the 1997 novel of the same name by Jay Bonansinga. The Killer’s Game is the story of Joe Flood (Dave Bautista), a hitman who, when he learns he has a terminal illness, decides to take control of his fate by taking a hit out on himself. However, the hitmen he hired also target his ex-girlfriend Maize (Sofia Boutella), so he must fend off a group of fellow assassins before it’s too late for both. Also starring in The Killer’s Game are Ben Kingsley, Terry Crews, Pom Klementieff, and Drew McIntyre.

Subservience

Subservience will be released on september 13, 2024.

Subservience (2024)

Nick buys a domestic android with artificial intelligence called Alice (Megan Fox) to help him care for the house and his daughter.

Subservience is a sci-fi thriller directed by S.K. Dale. It’s the story of Nick (Michele Morrone), a father struggling with keeping up with work, the house, his daughter, and his wife Maggie (Madeline Zima), who is in the hospital. Nick buys a domestic android with artificial intelligence called Alice (Megan Fox) to help him care for the house and his daughter. Not long after, Alice gains sentience and begins to take Maggie’s role as mother , carer, and Nick’s partner, but when Maggie returns home, Alice becomes jealous, violent, and potentially deadly.

Subservience Megan Fox as Alice with Disney's Smart House in the background

Megan Fox stars in the upcoming sci-fi horror movie Subservience, which reminds me of another disturbing rogue AI – but it's not M3GAN.

My Old Ass Will Be Released On September 13, 2024

Younger Elliot and older Elliot sit together over a campfire in My Old Ass

My Old Ass follows Elliott Labrant (Maisy Stella), who, on a mushroom trip on her 18th birthday, meets her wisecracking 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza).

My Old Ass is a comedy-drama written and directed by Megan Park. My Old Ass follows Elliott Labrant (Maisy Stella), who, on a mushroom trip on her 18th birthday, meets her wisecracking 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). Her older self begins to give Elliott advice and warnings about their life and what she should and shouldn’t do (like avoiding anyone named “Chad”), forcing young Elliott to rethink her relationships and what she knew about family, love, and friendship… but also giving her old self something to think about.

The Substance

The substance will be released on september 20, 2024.

The Substance is a body horror film written and directed by Coralie Fargeat. The Substance follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a fading celebrity known for an aerobics show who, on her 50th birthday, is fired by her boss. Struggling to cope with that, Elisabeth is offered a substance by a laboratory that promises to transform her into an enhanced version of herself by temporarily creating a younger, better version of herself (played by Margaret Qualley) – but what she isn’t counting on are the horrifying side effects.

Also starring in The Substance are Dennis Quaid, Hugo Diego Garcia, and Joseph Balderrama. The Substance premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a standing ovation (though how long it lasted varies depending on the source).

Never Let Go

Never let go will be released on september 20, 2024.

Never Let Go (2024)

It all takes a turn when one of the boys begins to doubt if the evil is real.

Never Let Go is a survival horror film directed by Alexandre Aja. Never Let Go follows a family consisting of a mother (Halle Berry) and her twin sons who are tormented by a malicious spirit, with their only protection being their home and their family bond. To stay safe, they need to be connected at all times, tethering themselves with ropes and promising to never let go. It all takes a turn when one of the boys begins to doubt if the evil is real, breaking the family’s sacred bond and sending them into a dangerous fight for survival.

Megalopolis

Megalopolis will be released on september 27, 2024, megalopolis (2024).

Megalopolis is a sci-fi drama written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Megalopolis takes the audience to a fictional and futuristic metropolis called New Rome, where an accident destroyed the city. Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is an idealist architect with the power to control time, and he plans to rebuild New Rome as a sustainable utopia. However, corrupt Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) is committed to a regressive status quo, and to further complicate Cesar’s plans, Franklyn’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), falls in love with Cesar as she searches for her life’s meaning.

Also starring in Megalopolis are Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Laurence Fishburne, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire, Jon Voight, and many more. Megalopolis is a passion project for Coppola, and it took him decades to finally make it. Megalopolis premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, and it polarized critics.

Francis Ford Coppola’s sci-fi epic Megalopolis has finally had its premiere after a lengthy development, and it has confounded critics at Cannes.

The Wild Robot

The wild robot will be released on september 27, 2024, the wild robot (2024).

The Wild Robot is the story of ROZZUM unit 7134 a.k.a. Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), who is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island.

The Wild Robot is an animated sci-fi movie based on the book series of the same name by Peter Brown. Directed by Chris Sanders, The Wild Robot is the story of ROZZUM unit 7134 a.k.a. Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o), who is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. Roz is forced to adapt to the harsh surroundings, and in the process, she bonds with the animals on the island and becomes the adoptive parent of an orphaned runt goose named Brightbill (Kit Connor). Also part of the voice cast of The Wild Robot are Pedro Pascal, Catherine O’Hara, Mark Hamill, and Bill Nighy.

Lee Will Be Released On September 27, 2024

Lee is a biographical drama directed by Ellen Kuras in her feature directorial debut. Based on the 1985 biography The Lives of Lee Miller , by Antony Penrose, Lee tells the story of Lee Miller (Kate Winslet), an American fashion model who became an acclaimed photographer and war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II. Also starring in Lee are Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, Andy Samberg, Josh O’Connor, Alexander Skarsgård, Noémie Merlant, and Arinzé Kene.

Movie review: Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne make 'Slingshot' a gripping surprise

Casey Affleck (L) and Laurence Fishburne star in "Slingshot." Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 28 (UPI) -- Slingshot , in theaters Friday, is the kind of small-scale but big-idea movie they used to make all the time. It's full of suspense and unpredictable twists until the credits roll.

John (Casey Affleck) is part of a three-man crew on a space mission to Saturn's moon, Titan. John, Nash (Tomer Capone) and Captain Franks (Laurence Fishburne) take turns hyper sleeping for months while the awake crew member monitors the ship. Advertisement

Things start to go wrong before the checkpoint of Jupiter, where the ship is supposed to slingshot around the gas giant to propel it the rest of the way to Titan. Nash tries to enlist John to defy Franks' orders and set a course back to Earth.

The movie takes place on the spaceship, except for flashbacks depicting how John was recruited and fell in love with Zoe (Emily Beecham), who he left behind. That's a good way to keep the film contained, but the ideas are so big it feels epic.

The script by R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker builds suspense around the characters. Each has clear motivations for decisions -- motivations that are at odds and must come into conflict. Advertisement

It is reminiscent of the great submarine movie, Crimson Tide , in which a captain and first officer kept usurping command over a difference of opinion on their orders. Only Crimson Tide had a large crew siding with each captain, and Slingshot was between three people.

Affleck and Capone convey the expertise of astronauts' qualifications, combined with the unease of adjusting to their bodies and minds' stasis. As the Captain, Fishburne maintains his legendary authority, not revealing whether he's feeling those effects, too.

Sadly, Slingshot is a rarity in the movie climate of 2024, especially at the end of a summer filled with sequels.

The cast itself used to be enough to make audiences want to see them in space dealing with these technical and metaphysical problems. The attraction is the pure creativity and execution of a compelling idea.

Slingshot fits in the genre with The Martian and Interstellar , matching those films' sci-fi and human themes, if not their budgets. Advertisement

Kudos to the studio Bleecker Street for still supporting theaters with a movie like Slingshot. Hopefully, audiences seize the opportunity to see an original film, well directed by Mikael Hafstrom and performed by actors giving their best.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

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The Smurfs Movie

An animated musical film revolving around the iconic creations of Peyo. An animated musical film revolving around the iconic creations of Peyo. An animated musical film revolving around the iconic creations of Peyo.

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‘Strange Darling’ Review: Assume Nothing

In this cheeky, cunningly assembled thriller, a serial killer gets a satisfying and surprising comeuppance.

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A woman in scarlet scrubs, with a wound on her face, crouches in hiding in the woods.

By Jeannette Catsoulis

A movie that’s best experienced stone cold, “Strange Darling” is so dependent on its surprises — one head-snapping twist, with several judiciously spaced lesser shocks — that to reveal any one of them would be critical malpractice.

A crawling onscreen text, read by Jason Patric, informs us that what we are about to see is the dramatization of a spree killer’s final, vicious acts. Thus primed, we’re thrown into the middle of a frantic car chase as a terrified young woman in scarlet scrubs races to escape a shotgun-wielding man in a pickup truck. She is known only as The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald), and she is bleeding from a head wound; he is The Demon (Kyle Gallner), his sleazy mustache and snorts of cocaine familiar bad-guy signifiers. We’ve got this, we think, settling in for some serial-killer comfort viewing. We could not be more wrong.

Playing out in six, ingeniously scrambled chapters, this headlong thriller transforms a simple cat-and-mouse premise — and maybe even a toxic love story — into an impertinent rebuke to genre clichés and our own preprogrammed assumptions. Flexing back and forth in time, the writer and director, JT Mollner, bets the house on a mechanism that repeatedly asks us to reassess what has gone before. Cunning as it is, structure is not the movie’s sole strength. Both Z Berg’s haunting, otherworldly pop songs and Giovanni Ribisi’s eloquent photography (it’s the actor’s first stint as a feature cinematographer) bathe the film’s violence in an unexpected dreaminess. In one pivotal scene, shot with shadowy intensity, flirtation and threat alternate so frequently that the flickering power dynamics are completely destabilizing.

Less complicated by far are Ed Begley, Jr. and Barbara Hershey as a pair of doomsday preppers who think the bleeding woman at their door has been attacked by a Sasquatch. They will soon learn that there are some problems even bear spray can’t solve.

Strange Darling Rated R for cutting, ketamine and lots of killing. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters.

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Searching movie review & film summary (2018)
‎Searching (2018) directed by Aneesh Chaganty • Reviews, film + cast
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Searching Movie Review |Jigsaw's Lair
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Searching movie review & film summary (2018)
But what sets their film apart from others of its ilk is its dramatic underpinning. "Searching"—a title that has double meaning—follows a panicked father's online moves as he tries to track down his missing teenage daughter. It aims for and earns genuine emotion rather than cheap thrills. The ever-versatile John Cho shows great range ...
Searching (2018)
Jul 8, 2024 Full Review Elisa Guimarães Collider Searching is an unnerving and touching movie that goes well beyond the gimmick of being told through a computer screen. Feb 1, 2024 ...
Review: In 'Searching,' a Clever Conceit and John Cho as Leading Man
Aug. 23, 2018. At its core, "Searching" is like any number of thrillers about tracking down a missing person: John Cho plays David Kim, a single father whose teenage daughter Margot (Michelle ...
Searching
Searching is an unnerving and touching movie that goes well beyond the gimmick of being told through a computer screen. Full Review | Feb 1, 2024 Manuel São Bento MSB Reviews
'Searching' Review
January 24, 2018 1:57pm. The first thing people will always say about Searching is, "Oh, yeah, the film that's completely set on a computer screen.". But if it were just that, it would be ...
Searching (film)
Searching is a 2018 American screenlife mystery thriller film directed by Aneesh Chaganty in his feature debut, written by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian and produced by Timur Bekmambetov.Set entirely on computer screens and smartphones, the film follows a father trying to find his missing 16-year-old daughter (Michelle La) with the help of a police detective (Debra Messing).
Searching Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 11 ): Kids say ( 26 ): Perhaps inspired by the success of 2014's Unfriended, this mystery ventures in fresh, new directions while being superbly constructed, emotionally satisfying, and culturally relevant. The debut feature of director Aneesh Chaganty, who also wrote the screenplay with producer Sev Ohanian, Searching ...
Searching Review
Searching Review Not just a gimmick movie. By ... More than most movies, Searching leans into the notion that every moviegoer is an amateur sleuth in their own right, parsing through every clue to ...
Searching (2018)
7/10. Rubbish plot, but aesthetically well crafted. Bertaut 9 September 2018. Searching is a film with two main organisational principles; there's the thriller plot, which ostensibly keeps everything moving, and to which everything else should, in theory, be in service.
Searching (2018)
Searching: Directed by Aneesh Chaganty. With John Cho, Sara Sohn, Alex Jayne Go, Megan Liu. After his teenage daughter goes missing, a desperate father tries to find clues on her laptop.
Searching Review
Searching Review. David (John Cho) has recently lost his wife to cancer, leaving him to parent his teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La), alone. He thinks they have a solid, honest relationship ...
The emotional thriller Searching proves good computer-screen movies
This review was originally posted after the film's premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where it played under the title Search. It has been updated for the film's wide theatrical release.
Searching review: A psychological thriller with a smart digital twist
Searching gives the psychological thriller a smart digital twist: EW review. Searching begins with the unmistakable metallic skronk of a dial-up modem: the first hint that what we're about to ...
Searching (2018) was incredible : r/movies
I think this movie made me hate reporters even more? Especially during the car search. Like just leave this poor family alone, stop live broadcasting their grief. Actually, as I'm typing this now I'm making that connection. My family's grief was also very public and very much a spectacle that neighbors could gawk at. Give their thoughts and ...
Searching Movie Review
Searching is a suspenseful drama, buoyed by its innovative filmmaking style and collection of strong performances by its leads. David Kim (John Cho) and his wife Pam (Sara Sohn) are two loving parents to their daughter Margot (Michelle La). Over the course of Margot's childhood, the family chronicles their adventures on their computer, with ...
Movie Review: Searching (2018)
Ultimately the story is compelling and the telling innovative, but the problem is that these two elements are not persuasively linked. As a result, the film is intriguing and at times compelling, but it ultimately feels rather gimmicky. Critical Movie Critic Rating: 3. Movie Review: Blood Fest (2018)
John Cho movie Searching stares at screens in search of secrets
Searching opens with a sequence spelling out the life of a family that's up there with the first 15 minutes of Pixar's Up in terms of emotion. The kid at the centre of the story, Margot, grows up ...
Searching
After David Kim (John Cho)'s 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a local investigation is opened and a detective is assigned to the case. But 37 hours later and without a single lead, David decides to search the one place no one has looked yet, where all secrets are kept today: his daughter's laptop. In a hyper-modern thriller told via the technology devices we use every day to communicate ...
'Searching' Review: John Cho Anchors A Gloriously Good Thriller
The Review: Aneesh Chaganty's Searching is a superb thriller.It uses its unique format (as a "desktop horror" flick) to tell a full-bodied movie that works both as a newfangled tech exercise ...
Searching Movie Review: An Intense and Relevant Thriller
The other is A Quiet Place which opened in April 2018 and garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews. Strong word-of-mouth catapulted the $17 million drama to a worldwide $332 million box office. If the movie gods are fair, Searching should equal A Quiet Place's box office success.
Strange Darling movie review & film summary (2024)
Speaking of indulgence: "Strange Darling" is shot in gorgeous, vibrant 35mm. But it can't just let its visual beauty stand on its own, instead opening with a real eye-roller of a title card that reads, "shot entirely on 35mm film." (It should have read "shot entirely on 35mm film by Giovanni Ribisi," given that the prolific character actor does some impressive work here as the ...
Searching Summary and Synopsis
Searching is a drama thriller that stars John Cho as David Kim whose 16-year-old daughter goes missing. Despite a local investigation being opened with an active detective assigned to the case, thirty-seven hours pass without a single lead. Desperate and frustrated, David decides to search the one place no one has looked yet, where all secrets are kept today: his daughter's laptop. Utilizing ...
'Searching' turns a computer screen into compelling cinema
Searching, on the other hand, the new thriller starring John Cho and directed by Aneesh Chaganty, deftly shows how Screenlife films can be genuinely cinematic. Engadget Login
Searching Is a Technological Marvel: Here's How they Made It
The work has paid off: The movie is a hit with critics (93% on the Tomatometer right now), who note that for all its technical achievements, it's a story with plenty of heart and thrills. It had a strong first week at the box office, earning $360,000 in limited release before it opens wide this Friday. Ahead of its expansion, Chaganty spoke ...
Incoming movie review & film summary (2024)
Movies won't stop pursuing the next great one crazy night adolescent comedy anytime soon.You know, that "Superbad" formula obliquely indebted to much darker single-night films about hapless grown-ups, like "After Hours."And in a way, cinema aimed towards young eyeballs is all the richer for it. Without that perpetual effort, we would have never gotten the uproarious and refreshingly ...
Every Movie Releasing In Theaters In September 2024
The Transformers franchise is still alive, and its latest entry is an animated movie. Directed by Josh Cooley, Transformers One takes the audience to the planet Cybertron to tell the origin story of Orion Pax/Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16/Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry), two Cybertronian workers.Orion Pax and D-16 were very close, but they ended up becoming archenemies as Optimus Prime ...
Movie review: Casey Affleck, Laurence Fishburne make 'Slingshot' a
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 28 (UPI) --Slingshot, in theaters Friday, is the kind of small-scale but big-idea movie they used to make all the time. It's full of suspense and unpredictable twists until the ...
'The Killer' Review: John Woo With a French Twist
When he started a run of contemporary action movies in the early 1980s, the Hong Kong director John Woo forged a personal mode influenced by the stylized violence of American directors like Sam ...
The Smurfs Movie (2025)
The Smurfs Movie: Directed by Chris Miller, Matt Landon. With Hannah Waddingham, Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, Kurt Russell. An animated musical film revolving around the iconic creations of Peyo.
'Strange Darling' Review: Assume Nothing
A movie that's best experienced stone cold, "Strange Darling" is so dependent on its surprises — one head-snapping twist, with several judiciously spaced lesser shocks — that to reveal ...