We Bury the Dead had its world premiere in November at the 2024 Adelaide Film Festival.
It had a theatrical release in North America on January 2, 2026, and
was released in Australia and New Zealand on February 5, 2026.
Plot
After the United States accidentally detonates an experimental weapon off the Eastern coast of Tasmania, the city of Hobart
is destroyed, and victims on the island not caught in the immediate
blast are rendered brain dead. Soon it is found that some of the brain
dead are regaining motor function, becoming undead, with some of them
becoming violent. American physiotherapist Ava Newman, whose husband
Mitch was on a business trip in Woodbridge,
volunteers as part of an Australian military effort to retrieve and
dispose of the bodies of the population. Ava is assigned to the northern
part of the island, far from Woodbridge, retrieving bodies and alerting
soldiers to kill any undead who wake up.
Ava is placed on a team with Clay, another volunteer, and after
finding a motorcycle in a garage, the two agree to abandon their unit
and drive across Tasmania to find Mitch. While resting at an abandoned
petrol station, the two are attacked by an undead, but saved by a lone
soldier named Riley. Riley locks Ava in a toilet and questions Clay. Ava
falls asleep and reminisces about Mitch, and after hours pass, Riley
wakes her up and informs her that Clay ran away.
Riley offers to take Ava to Woodbridge, but instead takes her to
his house for a meal. After the two discuss their spouses who were
victims of the weapon detonation, Riley requests that Ava wear his wife
Katie's clothes and dance with him. Ava obliges, and the two dance and
fantasize about being each other's partners, but Riley becomes violent
when he realizes Ava has not taken her wedding ring off as he requested.
Ava escapes and finds Katie's pregnant undead corpse in their bed,
surrounded by a shrine. Riley tells Ava that "He's alive, I felt him
kick". Ava escapes out the window and runs into the shed, where she
finds many chained undead, with notes from Riley researching their
behavior. Riley tells Ava he believes the reason only some come back to
life is that they are the ones with unfinished business. When Riley
indicates he has not forgiven her for failing to wear Katie's ring, Ava
kills him and uses his car to escape. As she does, she observes that
Katie has awoken.
Ava makes her way to Woodbridge, and stops to rest in a camper
van, removing the corpses of the family of four outside. Later that
night, Ava is awakened by the corpse of the father coming to life and
using a shovel to dig a grave for himself and the other three corpses.
The undead driver notices Ava, but does not attack her, and continues to
calmly dig the grave. Ava helps the driver bury the bodies in the
grave, and the driver allows Ava to kill him with the shovel before she
finishes filling the grave and leaves.
Through flashbacks, it is revealed that tensions arose in Ava and
Mitch's marriage due to a failure to conceive a child, leading Ava to
have an affair which Mitch discovered shortly before leaving for his
business trip. Ava eventually makes it to the resort where Mitch was
staying, but finds that Mitch did not awake from death and had cheated
on her with a coworker before he died. Clay finds Ava at the hotel, and
they bond. Clay tells Ava that his wife and daughter want nothing to do
with him and that he joined up to prove to them he is not selfish. After
spending the night, the two place Mitch's body in a motorboat that they set on fire as they send it out to sea.
As the two make their way back north, they encounter Katie, who
has given birth. Katie turns and walks away from Ava, Clay, and the
sound of the baby. Ava and Clay find her newborn in nearby stone ruins,
having been born alive and entirely healthy, lacking the corpse-like
features of the undead. Ava picks up the infant, crying tears of joy.
The score was composed by British electronic musician Clark. Director Hilditch had used Clark's score for Lisey's Story (2021) as temp music during editing, and upon learning that Clark was based in Australia, invited him to score the film.[13] Clark and Hilditch developed ideas remotely over several months before completing key parts of the score together in Perth over three days, composing to picture "the old school way".[14] Hilditch described the result as "a sonic wall of haunted voices, electronic sounds and ominous tones".[13] Violinist and vocalist Rakhi Singh contributed to several tracks.[14] The score was mixed at Trackdown Studios in Sydney and mastered at Abbey Road Studios.[14]Variety praised Clark's "echoing score, which practically functions like a voiceover track during silent moments".[15]
The soundtrack album was released on January 2, 2026, on Throttle Records.[16] The film also features songs by PJ Harvey, Can, Metric, and Kid Cudi featuring Ratatat.[17]
Release
We Bury the Dead had its global premier at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival in March.[18] It got a limited theatrical release in North America on January 2, 2026, after Vertical's acquisition of the North American distribution rights in May 2025,[19] and was released in Australia and New Zealand on February 5, 2026.[20]
Reception
Box office
The film grossed $3 million in its opening weekend where it played
on 1,117 screens; it was the biggest opening weekend gross in Vertical
Entertainment history.[21]
Critical response
Metacritic review breakdown (unweighted)
Positive
10 (63%)
Mixed
6 (38%)
Negative
0 (0%)
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes,
88% of 111 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus
reads: "Anchored by Daisy Ridley's magnetic performance and a grimly
inventive premise, We Bury the Dead keenly uses familiar zombie
tropes as a framework to deliver a beautifully shot, emotionally
resonant meditation on loss and grief."[22]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 61 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[23]
In her review for IndieWire, Katie Rife wrote of We Bury the Dead: "Overall, the craft of the movie is top-notch, with compelling performances, urgent pacing, and gorgeous cinematography."[24] Siddhant Adlakha for Variety
described the film as "at its most interesting and exciting when it
approaches the well-worn [zombie] subgenre with brand-new spins,
resulting in haunting scenes that open a cinematic window into the
darkest, most mysterious parts of the human condition. Unfortunately, it
keeps swerving back toward traditional horror territory at breakneck
speed, resulting in a lopsided structure."[15] Sheila O'Malley, writing for RogerEbert.com,
gave the film three out of four stars, praising the framing of zombies
both as fear-inducing monsters and as tragic "once-alive" human beings
who were loved by others.[25]
Meagan Navarro, Head Critic of Bloody Disgusting, a horror genre–focused multimedia company, rated We Bury the Dead
2.5/5 stars, praising the movie for "delivering a few bursts of genuine
scares" and "an awe-inducing sense of scale" and its star, Ridley, for
delivering "more than one standout scene that induces chills".
Criticizing the director for over-relying on well-worn zombie tropes,
she concluded that "Hilditch frequently opts to avoid taking any new
path forward in favor of sticking with the much travelled subgenre and
grief theme, leaving you frustrated by all the fresh ideas dangled but
not explored."[26]
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Jonathan Glazer and written by Glazer and Walter Campbell, based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber. It stars Scarlett Johansson as a female extraterrestrial disguised as a human who preys on lone men in the evening hours in Scotland. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2013. It was released in the United Kingdom on 14 March 2014, and in other territories later in the year.
Glazer developed Under the Skin for over a decade. He and
Campbell pared it back from an elaborate, effects-heavy concept to a
sparse story focusing on an alien perspective of the human condition.
Most of the cast had no acting experience, and many scenes were filmed
with hidden cameras. The film was a box-office failure, grossing $7.2 million on a budget of $13.3 million.
Under the Skin was widely acclaimed by critics for Glazer’s direction, Johansson's performance, Landin’s cinematography, and Mica Levi's score. It received numerous accolades and awards,
was named the best film of the year by various critics and
publications, appeared on many best-of-the-decade lists, and was ranked
61st on the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century list. It has subsequently been regarded as one of the best films of the 2010s and the 21st century.[6][7]
Plot
In Glasgow,
a motorcyclist retrieves an inert young woman from the roadside and
places her in the back of a van, where a naked woman dons her clothes.
After buying clothes and make-up at a shopping centre, the woman drives
the van from town to town, picking up men. She lures a man into a
dilapidated house. As he undresses, following the woman into a void, he
is submerged in a liquid abyss.
At a beach, the woman attempts to pick up a swimmer, but is
interrupted by the cries of a drowning couple attempting to rescue their
dog, as it is pulled out to sea. The swimmer rescues the husband, but
the husband rushes back into the water to save his wife and both drown.
As the swimmer lies exhausted on the beach, the woman strikes his head
with a rock, drags him to the van, and drives away, ignoring the
couple's distraught baby. The motorcyclist retrieves the swimmer's
belongings, ignoring the baby crying on the beach.
The woman visits a nightclub and picks up another man. At the
house, he follows her into the void and is submerged in the liquid.
Suspended beneath the surface, he sees the swimmer floating naked beside
him, alive but bloated and immobile. When he reaches to touch him, the
swimmer's body collapses, leaving only his empty skin floating in the
liquid as a red mass empties through a trough.
The next day, the woman receives a rose from a street vendor,
purchased by another man in traffic. She listens to a radio report about
the missing family from the beach. The woman enters a dark room and is
examined by the motorcyclist. She seduces a lonely man with facial
tumours but lets him leave after examining herself in a mirror. The
motorcyclist intercepts the man and bundles him into a car, then sets
out in pursuit of the woman.
In the Scottish Highlands,
the woman abandons the van in the fog. She walks to a restaurant and
attempts to eat cake, but retches and spits it out. On a bus, she meets a
man who offers to help her. At his house, he prepares a meal for her
and they watch television. Alone in her room, she examines her body in a
mirror. They visit a ruined castle, where the man carries her over a
puddle and helps her down some steps. At his house, they kiss and begin
to have sex, but the woman stops and examines her genitals.
Wandering in a forest, the woman meets a commercial logger and shelters in a bothy.
She wakes up to find the logger molesting her. She runs into the
wilderness but he catches and attempts to rape her. He tears her skin,
revealing a featureless body. As the woman extricates herself from her
skin, the man douses her in fuel and burns her alive. The motorcyclist
looks out across a snowy field.
Writing for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
Duane Dudek speculated that Johansson's character assumes a human
identity to collect information about humans as an alien intelligence
might, inducing an identity crisis causing her to "spin out of control
like a broken machine". He wrote that the motorcyclist can be
interpreted as a companion, enabler, or pursuer, and that the "tar-dark
world" where the woman submerges her victims may be a nest, a web,
another planet or dimension, or a visual representation of how sex feels
to her or them.[8] In the Guardian, Leo Robson wrote that Under the Skin
deals with race and immigration. He interpreted Johansson's character
as a "kind of immigrant", and that the film's title "seems like part of
an anti-racial slogan, a reminder that despite our racial or ethnic
differences we share some basic components".[9]
Critics highlighted the exploration of empathy as a defining
human capacity, with Johansson's character coming to share in this over
the course of the film.[10][11][12] Noting that a turning point occurs during Johansson's character's encounter with the man with facial tumours (played by Adam Pearson),
the philosopher Colin Heber-Percy wrote: "The film suggests it is our
very weakness which we value, which makes us us. [...] [The alien]
recognises herself in the world, in the middle of things; she recognises
herself as subject among subjects. In short, she chooses (or cannot
fail to choose) to become human, to empathise, to be weak as flesh."[13]
The lecturer Maureen Foster, who highlights Johansson's character's
examination of herself in the mirror before releasing Pearson's
character, writes that the film presents empathy as "a definition for
what is human", with the alien discovering "something in herself that
was either lost or had never been there in the first place."[14]
Though Glazer said he wanted to make a film "more about a human experience than a gender experience",[15] several critics identified feminist and gender themes. The Economist wrote that "there is some aggressive sexuality in the film: women seem very vulnerable but then men's desires are punished".[15] In The Mary Sue, Kristy Puchko wrote that Under the Skin "creates a reverse of contemporary rape culture
where violence against women is so common that women are casually
warned to be ever alert for those who might harm them ... By and large
men don't worry about their safety in the same way when walking home
late at night. But in the world of Under the Skin, they absolutely should."[16]
Robson wrote that Johansson's character is "both a watcher and
predator of men. In the society she enters, and to which she brings
nothing besides a body, [she] is a sex object, in dress and demeanour a
kind of sex toy; she might have come to Earth to prove a point about
male expectations of women ... If Under the Skin communicates any
gender-politics message, it does so through the disparity in excitement
between the male characters' reaction to [Johansson] and that of the
camera."[9] The Atlantic journalist Noah Gittell noted how little hype Johansson's nude scenes attracted, despite her status as a Hollywood sex symbol,
and wrote: "The way the film frames it — with Johansson having removed
almost all of her personality from the character — it doesn't play as
even remotely sexual, and the scene, remarkably, barely attracted any
hype."[17]
The film is thought to be inspired by the Scottish folklore of Baobhan sith, female vampire-like creatures who prowl during the night preying on men.[18]
Director Jonathan Glazer decided to adapt Michel Faber's novel Under the Skin (2000) after finishing his debut film Sexy Beast (2000), but work did not begin until he had finished his second film, Birth
(2004). Glazer's producer James Wilson sent him a script that closely
adapted the novel; Glazer admired the script but had no interest in
filming it, saying: "I knew then that I absolutely didn't want to film
the book. But I still wanted to make the book a film."[19]
Glazer and co-writer Milo Addica, later replaced by Walter
Campbell, spent several years writing and rewriting the story. They
conceived an elaborate high-budget film, and produced a script about two
aliens disguised as husband-and-wife farmers. Brad Pitt was cast as the husband, but progress was slow.[19]
Glazer eventually decided to make a film that represented an alien
perspective of the human world and focused only on the female character.[19]
He and Campbell deleted every scene in their script that did not
involve her and deleted the elaborate special effects sequences, a
process Glazer likened to "a big, extravagant rock band turning into PJ Harvey".[19] The film also removes the character names.[20] Whereas the novel is explicit that the main character is an alien processing humans for meat, the film is more ambiguous.[21]
Glazer shot commercials while the film was in pre-production, which he used to "sketch" ideas and test equipment.[22]Under the Skin was jointly financed by Film4 Productions, the British Film Institute, Scottish Screen, Silver Reel, and FilmNation Entertainment. Glazer secured final backing after cutting the elaborate special effects scenes from the script.[22]
Casting
Gemma Arterton,[23]Eva Green, January Jones, Abbie Cornish and Olivia Wilde were considered for the lead.[24] In 2015, Arterton said that she had been Glazer's first choice but the film had needed a bigger star to get funding.[23] The role went to Scarlett Johansson, who remained committed to the project for four years before it was made.[22] Johansson was known for her roles in blockbusters such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe
films. Glazer said: "It made a great deal of sense to cast somebody
very well known out of context. I remember seeing her walking along the
street in a pink jumper on a long lens and she looks like an exotic
insect on the wrong continent."[24] Despite her fame, Johansson was rarely recognised, as members of the public did not believe it could be her.[24] For the role, she learnt to drive a van and mastered an English accent.[19]
Jeremy McWilliams, a championship road racer, was cast as the motorcyclist, as the film required a skillful motorcyclist who could ride through the Scottish Highlands at high speeds in bad weather. The logger was played by the owner of a location researched for the film.[25] For the man with disfigurement, Glazer did not want to use prosthetics; the production team contacted the charity Changing Faces, which supports people with facial disfigurements. The role went to Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis
and had worked in television production. Pearson's suggestions about
how Johansson's character could lure his character were used in the
script.[25]
As Glazer wanted the film to feel realistic,[19]
most characters were played by actors with no experience. Many scenes,
such as those set in the nightclub and shopping centre, and the scenes
in which Johansson's character picks up men in the van, were unscripted
sequences filmed with hidden cameras.[21][26] Afterwards, the production team informed the subjects that they had been filmed and asked permission to use the footage.[21]
Glazer said the men were "talked through what extremes they would have
to go to if they agreed to take part in the film once they understood
what we were doing".[26]
The crew built their own cameras to shoot some scenes.[22] Johansson drove the van with the crew inside, and towed a trailer containing a generator for their equipment.[21] To create the black room in which her character traps men, the crew built a set with a reflective floor, blackout
and custom lighting. The men were filmed walking into a pool whose
floor sank as they walked, submerging them. The scenes were finished
with computer graphics.[22]
Under the Skin's soundtrack was composed by Mica Levi[28][29] and produced by Peter Raeburn.[30] The soundtrack is minimalistic, mostly recorded using viola, accompanied by strings, percussion and other instruments.[30][31] The album was released on 28 March 2014 by Rough Trade Records,[32] and received positive response with several websites and publications called it as "one of the best musical scores".[33][34]
Under the Skin was a box-office failure.[45][46] With a production budget of $13.3 million, it grossed $2,614,251 in the US and Canada[4]
and $4,615,682 in other countries for a worldwide total of $7,229,933.
In the United States, it opened with $140,000 in four theatres; despite
earning the highest per-theatre average of all films playing that
weekend, above Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which also stars Johansson),[47] it failed to make the list of top-grossing films in the US speciality box office.[48] In the UK, Under the Skin opened with a gross of £239,000.[49] According to Guardian writer Phil Hoad, the Under the Skin
budget was in "the danger zone: not in the ultra-low bracket that can
make a sharply executed future vision ultra-profitable ... [nor] the
$30m-plus range where marketing begins to snag mass audiences".[50]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes,
83% of 259 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of
8.1/10. The website's consensus reads: "Its message may prove elusive
for some, but with absorbing imagery and a mesmerizing performance from
Scarlett Johansson, Under the Skin is a haunting viewing experience."[51]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[52]
Xan Brooks of The Guardian gave Under the Skin five out of five and called it "far and away the best picture" to play at the Venice Film Festival.[53]Peter Bradshaw, also of The Guardian, described the film as "visually stunning and deeply disturbing" and also awarded it five out of five.[54]Robbie Collin of The Telegraph wrote: "If my legs hadn't been so wobbly and my mouth so dry, I would have climbed up on my seat and cheered."[55]Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film four out of four, describing it as "hideously beautiful ... its life force is overwhelming."[56]Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four out of four, stating: "This is what we talk about when we talk about film as art."[57]Christy Lemire
also gave the film four out of four, calling it an "undeniably
haunting, singular experience" and naming it one of the best films of
2014.[58] Andrew Lowry of Total Film, Dave Calhoun of Time Out London, Kate Muir of The Times, and Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph all gave the film five out of five.[59][60][61][55]
However, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The film provides too little for even relatively adventurous specialised audiences to latch onto."[62] Kaleem Aftab of The Independent stated that "Glazer simply gave up on trying to find a cohesive story."[63] Henry Fitzherbert of The Daily Express awarded the film two out of five and wrote: "It didn't get under my skin, just on my nerves."[64]
Under the Skin was named the best film of 2014 by numerous critics and publications,[52] and was included in many best-of-the-decade lists.[65] In France, the prestigious Cahiers du Cinéma ranked Under the Skin third on its 2014 top ten chart (behind P'tit Quinquin and Goodbye to Language).[66] The same magazine ranked Under the Skin ninth on its 2010s chart.[67] In 2015, The Guardian named it one of the top 50 films of the decade so far.[68] It received multiple accolades, including the London Film Critics Circle Award for British Film of the Year[69] and the European Film Award for Best Soundtrack.[31] In 2016, it was ranked 61st on the BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, an international poll of 177 top critics.[70] In 2019, it was ranked the fourth-best film since 2000 by the critics of The Guardian.[71]IndieWire
listed it as one of "25 great films that bombed at the box office" and
the third-best science fiction film of the 21st century in 2023.[45][72] In 2019, Pitchfork named the score the second-best of all time.[73] In 2023, Under the Skin was named the second-best horror film of the 21st century by Slant Magazine[74] and the 58th-greatest film of all time by Time Out.[75] In January 2024, Rolling Stone ranked it number 6 on its inaugural list of "The 150 Best Sci-Fi Movies of All Time".[76] On The Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time 2022 list, Under the Skin was tied for 169th.[77] Filmmakers Denis Villeneuve and Sofia Coppola cited the film as among the best of the 21st century.[78][79][80] In June 2025, it ranked number 69 on The New York Times'
list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and was one of the
films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of the list, finishing at
number 153.[81][6] In July 2025, it ranked number 45 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century" and was ranked the "Best Horror Movie of the 21st Century" by The Hollywood Reporter.[7][82]
Reef Hawk is an actor who has been sober for five years. He has taken
a break from acting to build his new home, and he takes pride in his
progress in life. However, when he receives a call from his crisis
lawyer Ira Slitz, who reveals that someone is blackmailing him with a
video of questionable content, his life is turned upside-down. Reef then
sets out to make amends with those whom he has wronged in the past in
order to figure out who the blackmailer is.[2]
Cast
Keanu Reeves
as Reef Hawk, a damaged Hollywood star who must look into his past to
confront demons and make amends after he is extorted with a mysterious
video clip
Jonah Hill as Ira Slitz, Hawk's crisis lawyer who informs him of the extortion and works to solve it
It was announced in April 2023 that Apple TV+ had acquired the film, directed by and co-starring Jonah Hill,[5] with Keanu Reeves in negotiations to star alongside him.[6] Hill also co-wrote the screenplay with Ezra Woods.[7][2] In January 2024, Reeves was confirmed to star in the film, with principal photography scheduled to begin in March 2024 in Los Angeles, and expected to wrap in May.[2] Nick Houy served as an editor for the film.[8] In March, Cameron Diaz was said to be in advanced talks to join the film in an undisclosed starring role;[7] days later, Diaz was confirmed to have signed on, with Matt Bomer also joining in another undisclosed role.[9] The film marks the first time Reeves and Diaz have appeared in a film together since Feeling Minnesota in 1996.[10]
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