A working slate, not a promise of fourteen reviews. Each card is marked On our radar, Seen on screener, Seen in the room, or Published. Reconfirm screening details before you go.
On our radarFrampton
Opening night. Thu Sept 24, 6:00 PM (with Peter Frampton, sold out) and an added 6:15 PM screening with a Q&A from director Rob Arthur, Regal Green Hills. 104 min. Southeast premiere.
Rob Arthur traces Peter Frampton from The Herd and Humble Pie through the arena-sized success of Frampton Comes Alive!, the setbacks that followed, and the reinvention that returned him to the stage. Now living with inclusion body myositis, Frampton confronts a condition threatening his ability to play.
Coverage: Jordan Robinson, in the room.
Screening details and tickets →
PublishedInterview arrangedWhere the Hell Is Anna?
Fri Sept 25, 4:00 PM, Regal Green Hills. Written and directed by Taylor Dupuis, who also stars. World premiere.
A woman goes undercover at a women-only wellness retreat in the Tennessee woods to bring her missing best friend home. A thriller about trying to save someone who may not want to be saved.
Coverage: by screener. Our first impression posts after the review embargo lifts Friday evening.
Screening details and tickets →
Read our first impression →
Read our interview →
On our radarThe Wingfeather Saga, Season 4, episodes 1 and 2
Sat Sept 26, 11:00 AM, Hooky Entertainment, with Q&A. Dir. Ron Smith and Bill Breneisen, 70 min. Festival screening; the season premiered Sept 12.
Family animation with serial ambition, and the Nashville animation ecosystem behind it.
Coverage: Cordelia Witty by screener; Dylan O'Byrne in the room. Our piece follows the film team’s review embargo on Monday, October 19.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarThe Lorraine
Sat Sept 26, 2:30 PM, screening and conversation with Sam Pollard and Alvin Hall through 5:00 PM. National Museum of African American Music (confirmed by the festival). 84 min.
Sam Pollard on recovering the life of a place after one historic event swallowed every other story attached to it.
Coverage: Dylan O'Byrne in the room; feature by Jordan Robinson.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarSongs from the Circle
Sat Sept 26, 5:30 PM, Regal Green Hills, with Q&A. Dir. David Freid, 77 min. North American premiere.
One hundred years after its founding, the Grand Ole Opry crosses the Atlantic for the first time. A working musician's read: when is the performance the story, and when is the story behind it?
Coverage: Dylan O'Byrne, in the room.
Screening details and tickets →
PublishedInterview arrangedLittle Hollywood, Tennessee
Sat Sept 26, 2:30 PM, Regal Green Hills. Dir. Christian Whittemore, 105 min. Tennessee Features; world premiere. Online in the festival’s virtual window, Sept 28 to Oct 5.
Twenty-four high school artists from across Tennessee spend a summer at the Governor’s School for the Arts, filmed by a director who went through the program and now teaches in it.
Coverage: Cordelia Witty, by screener.
Screening details and tickets →
Read our first impression →
Read our interview →
PublishedMexican Delight
Sat Sept 26, 5:30 PM, Regal Green Hills (sold out); Tue Sept 29, 7:00 PM, Johnson Center at Belmont University. Written and directed by Andrés Pérez-Duarte, 10 min 35 sec, in English and Spanish. Tennessee Shorts; world premiere. Online in the festival’s virtual window, Sept 28 to Oct 5.
Luz, a devout Catholic woman unsettled by her own dreams, will do almost anything to stay awake, habanero peppers included. A dark comedy about what it costs to keep denying yourself something. Editorial coverage only; shorts are outside our scoring rubric.
Coverage: Jordan Robinson, by screener.
Screening details and tickets →
Read our first impression →
PublishedSafe for the Whole Family: How to Make a Christian Superstar
Sun Sept 27, 7:30 PM, Regal Green Hills (sold out). Dir. Jason Ikeler, 96 min. Music Documentary Features; world premiere. With Jennifer Knapp, Michael Passons, Nikki Leonti, Leigh Nash and Matt Thiessen.
How contemporary Christian music grew from a faith-based subgenre into a billion-dollar industry, told by artists who were part of it.
Coverage: by screener. Nothing we write about it posts before Monday, September 28.
Screening details and tickets →
Read our first impression →
On our radarThe Incomer
Sat Sept 26, 7:30 PM, Regal Green Hills. Dir. Louis Paxton, 97 min. Tennessee premiere.
Two siblings on a remote Scottish isle, and the council official who arrives to evacuate them. A story about who gets to decide a place is finished.
Coverage: by screener, where granted.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarAnimated Shorts
Sun Sept 27, 11:00 AM, Regal Green Hills. Eight films: 9 Million Colors, Apart, A Black Rail's Tale, Saba, sexability, The Sky Was Candy, Trading Cards, With Tapes and Toasts in the Car.
Compressed storytelling: image, rhythm, and what a few minutes can carry. Editorial coverage only; shorts are outside our scoring rubric.
Coverage: by screener or the virtual window, where available.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarA Talent For Murder
Sun Sept 27, 4:30 PM, Regal Green Hills. Dir. Anton Corbijn, 106 min. Helen Mirren as Patricia Highsmith, Alden Ehrenreich, Olivia Cooke.
A publisher's emissary is sent to Switzerland to persuade Highsmith to write one last Ripley. What a thriller about a thriller writer can say about authorship.
Coverage: by screener, where granted.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarTender Loving Care
Wed Sept 30, 3:00 PM, Belcourt Theatre. Dir. Mike Leigh, 107 min, UK. Tennessee premiere.
Leigh's method, actors building people before a script exists, applied to the contemporary world. The festival's last-day sleeper.
Coverage: by screener, where granted.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarThe House Band
Wed Sept 30, 12:00 PM, Belcourt Theatre. Dir. Sam Jones, 98 min. Added September 21.
Mumford & Sons put 18 musicians on a vintage train out of New Orleans to learn about 50 songs in a week and play them each night. The question we bring: what a band is when nobody in it has rehearsed.
Coverage: by screener, where granted.
Screening details and tickets →
On our radarBeing Heumann
Wed Sept 30, 6:00 PM, Belcourt Theatre. Dir. Siân Heder, 127 min. Closing night film, added September 21.
Ruth Madeley as Judy Heumann in 1977, when a coalition of disabled activists occupied a federal building and stayed until the regulations were signed. Heder made CODA; the question we bring is whether a true story about a movement can keep its accidental leaders as people rather than positions.
Coverage: by screener, where granted.
Screening details and tickets →
Film images courtesy of the Nashville Film Festival and the films' producers (Where the Hell Is Anna?, Little Hollywood, Tennessee, Safe for the Whole Family, The House Band and Being Heumann from the festival's ticketing listings, added September 21; Mexican Delight, added September 23); the Animated Shorts image is from With Tapes and Toasts in the Car (2025). Used for festival coverage.
