SEPTEMBER 25, 2026

No one seems to be having a better run this year than Robert Pattinson. (Okay, maybe Anne Hathaway and Zendaya?) After The Drama and The Odyssey comes Primetime, in which he plays Chris Hansen, and his performance is so expressive the trailers alone have inspired a barrage of memes. This weekend we’re also getting a slew of AHS actors back in their most memorable roles, Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman in a rom-com inspired by Reylo fanfic, and Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey facing the challenge of performing themselves.

Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos:Everett Collection (Philippe Bosse/Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Walt Disney Studios), A24

In theaters

As To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen, Pattinson is absolutely unnerving, giving one of his best performances of the year. But Pattinson is also surrounded by marvelous turns from Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, and Phoebe Bridgers as Lance Oppenheim’s drama dives into the series’ uneasy ascent to must-watch TV.

➽ Merritt Wever is great in this movie.

Streaming on Netflix

Return to Hillman College as A Different World tackles a different generation. Maleah Joi Moon stars as Deborah, the daughter of original series stars Kadeem Hardison and Jasmine Guy (Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert, respectively). Deborah attends her parents’ alma mater while reeling over being rejected by her dream school.

Streaming on Prime Video

The streamer’s dominance of the romance and rom-com space continues with an adaptation of the popular Ali Hazelwood novel starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman. Two scientists decide it would be advantageous for them to pretend to date, and wouldn’t you know it, the chemistry between them starts to feel real. —Kathryn VanArendonk

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Streaming on Apple TV

Woody Harrelson likes to think he and Matthew McConaughey are brothers, so now there’s an Apple TV show about that. The actors star as themselves in this fictional comedy where McConaughey’s mom (played here by Holland Taylor) reveals that Harrelson may indeed be related to McConaughey, and the two get into all kinds of trouble as they start living together in Austin, Texas.

➽ Our thoughts? Don’t overthink it.

Streaming on Hulu

How American Horror Story got to 13 seasons is beyond me. I don’t remember the last six, but as someone who lived their teen years at the height of Tumblr, I am deathly curious to see what AHS: 13 will produce. There are absolutely no details on the plot — just that it includes the all-stars of memorable AHS seasons past. But where the heck is Taissa Farmiga, the queen of Murder House? This GIF changed lives.

In theaters

“The ambition in Forgotten Island is overwhelming. It’s a story about friendship, growing up, and memory, deeply rooted in Philippine mythology, and as with the last several DreamWorks movies, it looks gorgeous.” —James Grebey, ranking every DreamWorks animated movie

… Or some other big city.

➽ Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother | Mahershala Ali and director Bassam Tariq were initially set to make Blade, but as that stalled, the two came together for this moving action drama. It’s now in limited theaters.  

➽ Unzipped | A supreme artifact of the ’90s, this documentary follows designer Isaac Mizrahi as he prepares for his fall 1994 show, meeting and overseeing fittings with supermodels Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, and Kate Moss along the way. Screening at the Film Forum. —Alison Willmore

Streaming on Paramount+

After the series’s 50th-anniversary season, we’re not exactly back to basics. Twenty-one players, two tribes — there’s still tricks up host Jeff Probst’s sleeve.

Streaming on HBO Max

This low-budget horror box-office hit has finally made it to streaming. Its world is a “dark outgrowth of the whole liminal-spaces aesthetic … dead malls, or public libraries at night, or hotel hallways or airport passageways caught at a moment when no one else is around,” as Alison Willmore noted in her (mixed) review. If you missed it in theaters, you can draw your own conclusions on streaming. —Eric Vilas-Boas

Live on CBS and MTV, streaming on Paramount+

The MTV Video Music Awards are on Sunday night. There’s a whole new crop of pop girlies to smooch, so it makes perfect sense that Madonna will be performing at the show for the first time in 23 years. Just kidding — it’s because she leads the pack this year for nominations. Confessions II earned Mads 11 nods, ahead of other stars such as Taylor Swift (nine), Sabrina Carpenter, and Ariana Grande (seven each). —Bethy Squires

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In theaters

As quirky as a Cartoon Saloon movie made into live-action, Louis Paxton's The Incomer focuses on isolated siblings (Gayle Rankin and Grant O'Rourke) living on a remote Scottish island whose lives are interrupted by a nebbish government employee (Domhnall Gleeson) informing them they must move to the mainland. Much of the film's dark humor is from the siblings' entrenched, neurotic rituals — dressing up like birds, chatting with the sea — but the film's ultimately hopeful message about starting again is anchored by Rankin and Gleeson's combative chemistry. The ending is a reward, although the siblings’ antics before then require some patience. —Roxana Hadadi

Vulture also makes things you can watch and listen to. We think you’ll enjoy them.

➽ It’s Anne Hathaway on NYQ!!

➽ Switched on Pop sit with Tove Lo to discuss her new album, ESTRUS.

This trailer starts with Cliff Booth at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema — like, let’s go self-promo.

Ms. Rachel is an angel and maybe the Mr. Rogers of today? Here are her takes, which are pretty great.

Olivia Rodrigo, pop supreme. Who knew adding a string section while singing “Stupid Song” in a lush green field would make this song even more gorgeous and devastating?

➽ Ryan Murphy … put the pen down. 

➽ What Mark Duplass watches with his kids. 

➽ Disney+ gets more expensive.