PRIMETIME***** - BFI London Film Festival 2026 - Day 5

Lance Oppenheim’s PRIMETIME is a lurid fever dream set in the early days of the internet and the dawn of reality TV. Ajon Singh’s slippery and skewering screenplay takes us inside the dark ambition of real-life TV presenter Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) and his fictionalised show producer Andie (Merritt Wever). Their hit TV show consisted of entrapping predators on camera and as the film opens they have just been given a coveted primetime slot going up against Damon Lindelof’s Lost. Suddenly Hansen has a shot at the prestige and acclaim that he craves but only if he can keep the gotcha moments coming. And if this means emotionally endangering the “teen”-looking actors he uses as bait or entrapping the predators in cahoots with law enforcement, so be it. 

All of this foreshadows the clickbait social media rage-bait algorithms that no longer just rule our TVs but also rule our politics. The very concept of “primetime” now seems quaint and anachronistic: an entire nation sitting down together to watch linear network TV. But the concept of intrusive, privacy-busting, legally-ambiguous bread and circuses is sadly all-encompassing now. The enshittification started with Chris Hansen and went via Mark Burnett and Andy Cohen to Donald Trump. 

PRIMETIME feels like a horror movie of our worst nightmares projected back in time to their origin point. The visual style, audio design and soundtrack all contribute to a feeling of nausea and corruption. And it’s anchored in co-lead performances of incredible power from Pattinson and Wever. But special mention has to go to SUPERMAN’s Skyler Gisondo as Decoy Dan - the vulnerable young actor sucked into Hansen’s world in desperation for his SAG card. I can see why this film has been hyped. It is so well considered in front of and behind the lens. I wouldn’t change a frame. And my goodness Robert Pattinson may well be the best cineaste of us all. His ability to ferret out interesting new directors and scripts is unparalleled. 

PRIMETIME is rated R and has a running time of 1hr 50m.  It played Venice and opened in the USA last month. It opens in the UK on October 30th.

CHRISTY**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 10

Writer-director David Michod (THE KING) returns to our screens with a crisply told and powerful biopic of the first female boxing star in America, Christy Martin.  The directorial style is unflashy but we feel every punch and blow of the boxing matches. But the point here isn’t so much the drama inside the ring as the peril outside of it.  Because in her early twenties, Christy confirms to the expectations of bigoted early 90s West Virginia and marries a man who coercively controls her. He is a man 25 years her senior, her boxing trainer, and a total sleazebag. He lures her into the relationship with false promises of meeting Don King, and the offer of cover. They both know she is gay, and that the world won’t accept her for being gay.  This makes Christy uniquely vulnerable to Jim Martin’s predation. 

Over the course of the film we see Christy train and win, usually with a knock-out punch. When she finally does get that meeting with King she starts earning big and can afford a flashy lifestyle.  The film captures the awful haircuts and shoulder pads brilliantly.  But the pressure from her husband is unrelenting, and while I won’t say more at the risk of spoiling the story if you do not know it, the final half hour of this film is harrowing.

This is a film centred on two superb performances. The first is by Ben Foster, who I have always admired, and last saw in the London Film Festival playing the psychopath Lance Armstrong in THE PROGRAM. If anything, he is even more chilling here. But the performance than really anchors the film is that of Sydney Sweeney. I was first truly impressed by her acting in REALITY, and she announces herself as an actor of real intelligence and sensitivity in this film.  She bulks up with 35 pounds of muscle and is utterly convincing in the ring. More importantly, she manages to capture both Christy’s vulnerability and bravado.  I truly hope the prejudice against Sweeney does not preclude her from awards contention as this is a monumental performance. In the supporting roles, I really liked Merritt Weaver (The Bombing of Pan Am 103) as Christy’s bigoted, insidious mother, and Katy O’Brian as Christy’s boxing rival turned love interest Lisa Holewyne.

CHRISTY has a running time of 135 minutes. It played Toronto and London and will be released in the USA on November 7th.