Natalie Portman-produced animated feature Arco from Neon, and Kino Lorber documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin, Oscar nominations in hand, open in limited release as awards season heats up just as much of America looks set to enter a deep freeze.
H Is For Hawk starring Claire Foy debuts on 477 screens. As Sundance greets the new season of indies, the festival’s 2025 U.S. Grand Jury Prize Winner for Dramatic Feature, Atropia, reopens in NYC after a December run at the IFC Center and adds 13 additional markets.
A24’s much-nominated Marty Supreme continues at circa 2,000 theaters including premium large format screens across top markets with several 70MM engagements. The distributor plans a special screening event Monday across AMC Dolby Cinema screens, the first time debuting in that format.
Neon contender Sentimental Value continues its run on about 1,000 screens including a nationwide event with taped Q&A with cast on Sunday, as does The Secret Agent, which plans to expand in the following weeks. The distributor’s Sirat opens in NY and L.A. February 6 and expands through March.
Hamnet from Focus Features is sticking at around 1,900 theaters and the distributor’s Song Sung Blue at about 1,100.
Meanwhile, Arctic temperatures and heavy snow forecast across the central and Eastern U.S. are expected to impact 150 million Americans this weekend with local authorities asking people to stay home. It’s not clear yet, but some theater closures are likely.
New in theaters: Arco by French director Ugo Bienvenu opens this weekend in New York (Angelika and AMC Lincoln Square) and L.A. (AMC Burbank and AMC Century City), expanding Jan. 30. Animation has been an increasingly wide open category with Flow sweeping last year. Arco is up against juggernauts Zootopia 2, KPop Demon Hunters, Elio and Little Amélie or the Character of Rain, another indie.
The magical adventure of a 10-year-old boy from a peaceful, distant future, who accidentally travels back to the year 2075 and discovers a world in peril, premiered at Cannes and went on to take the top prize at the 2025 Annecy International Animation Film Festival and Best European Animated Feature at the 38th European Film Awards. See Deadline review.
Mr. Nobody Against Putin by David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin opened theatrically at the IFC Center Wednesday (Jan. 21) and is also streaming on Kino Film Collection. It will continue to add select theaters, including in L.A. where it had a qualifying run last year, with a primary expansion set for February. The rollout is somewhat non-traditional as the distributor just announced the acquisition two weeks ago and moved quickly to date it in NYC.
The doc, which won a Special Jury Award at Sundance where it premiered last year, explores the remarkable story of Talankin, a beloved events coordinator and videographer at a primary school in the remote Russian town of Karabash. Pasha, as he is known, bravely stood up against the Russian government’s endeavor to indoctrinate students nationwide after the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Forced to promote state-sanctioned messages and horrified by the transformation of his school and community, Talankin become an international whistleblower, smuggling revealing footage of Putin’s regime in the rise of militarized children’s groups, repressive laws, fervent nationalism, and the recruitment of graduating students to fight in the war. With his life at risk, Pasha is forced to flee Russia. The film has collected accolades across the festival circuit. See Deadline’s interview with the directors.
Roadside Attractions opens Philippa Lowthorpe H Is For Hawk on 477 screens. Written by Emma Donoghue and Lowthorpe based on Helen Macdonald’s award winning 2014 memoir, it stars Claire Foy, Brendan Gleeson, Denise Gough, Sam Spruell, and Lindsay Duncan. After the sudden death of her father, Helen (Foy), loses herself in the memories of their time birding and exploring the natural world together and turns to the ancient art of falconry to navigate her profound loss. World premiered at Telluride, see Deadline review.
Hailey Gates’ Bush-era war satire Atropia from Vertical debuts in limited release in NYC (AMC Empire and Regal Union Square), L.A. (AMC Burbank and Regal Paseo Pasadena) and theaters in Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Boston, Seattle, Houston, Denver, Seattle, Portland and Springfield, MO. Winner of the Sundance 2025 U.S. Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature, see Deadline review. Adds Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox and several other Canadian markets starting Jan 30.
Set in 2006, Atropia unfolds at a U.S. military training ground in the California desert where actors role-play as villagers in countries that the government plans to invade. Alia Shawkat stars as Fayruz, an ambitious actress determined to get her big break in Hollywood from working in the simulation despite her conflicting feelings about the war in Iraq.
Shawkat has been doing a New York and national press in support of the film while in rehearsals for her upcoming Off Broadway play You Got Older. Gates is in Sundance a year later touting Atropia and her acting role in The Moment (the A24 mockumentary starring Charli XCX).
More to come