5 Indie Movies This Week: Is God Is, Driver’s Ed, My Dinner with Andre, & More

This week on Indie Film Weekly, Glen Reynolds highlights five indie films worth knowing about: three in theaters, one on demand, and one classic.

🎥 Indie Film Reviews:
Is God Is (2026)
Driver’s Ed (2026)
Obsession (2026)
Strange Darling (2024)
My Dinner with Andre (1981)

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of May 15, 2026. I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds. This week in theaters, we've got a revenge road story about twin sisters carrying burn scars and a mission their mother gives them. We've got a teen road trip comedy where a group of students steals the driver's ed car for a last-ditch reunion. And we've got a horror film that starts with a shy guy making a wish for love, then realizing he just built his own nightmare. On demand, I'm spotlining a twisty two-hander thriller that keeps changing shape the more you watch it. And for a classic, we're celebrating a movie that's literally just two men talking over dinner, and it still feels like a high-stakes event. If you want indie films to keep getting real screens, show up on opening weekend. That first run is when these movies either get oxygen or get squeezed out. This episode of Indie Film Weekly is brought to you by Circus Road Films, helping independent filmmakers find their audience since 2006. Learn more at CircusRodefilms.com. Let's dive in. Our first indie film in theaters this week is Is God Is. Directed by Alicia Harris, this thriller follows two sisters, Racine and Anaya, who lived with disfiguring burn scars from childhood. Their mother is bedridden, and she gives them a direct order. Find their abusive father, the man who caused the fire, and kill him. That is the setup. The rest of the film is the sisters trying to decide what that order actually means once it becomes real. Racine is the rough one, the sister who can turn pain into motion. Anaya is the quiet one, the sister who hears every consequence before it arrives. The movie pushes them out into the world with a purpose that sounds clean on paper, but gets messy fast because revenge is not a single act. It's a series of choices, and each one changes who you are. Cara Young and Mallory Johnson play the sisters, and the story gives them the room to be angry without being reduced to anger. Sterling K. Brown plays the father, credited as the monster, which tells you the film is not interested in softening the past. Vivica A. Fox plays the Mother Ruby, and the family dynamic feels like a curse that keeps getting handed down. If you like stories where justice and mercy are in a fight to the death, this one is built for you. Our second indie film in theaters this week is Driver's Ed. Directed by Bobby Farrelly, it's a teen road trip comedy with a premise that is both dumb and in high school terms completely logical. A senior is desperate to reunite with his college freshman girlfriend, so he and a group of friends take their school's driver's education car and hit the road. It's a terrible plan, which is exactly why it works as a movie. The stakes are not saving the world. The stakes are teenage urgency, the fear of being left behind, and the belief that one big gesture can fix what distance is breaking. Sam Navola plays the lead, and he has the right energy for a kid who is convinced he's making a romantic move while everyone else can see the chaos coming. You also get Kamal Nanjani and Molly Shannon in the mix, which gives the film some adult comic weight without turning it into an adult movie. The fun here is the driver's ed car itself, a rolling symbol of being almost grown, but not quite. The trip becomes a pressure cooker for friendships, crushes, jealousy, and the kind of bad decision making that feels heroic at 17. Expect misadventures, shifting alliances, and the slow realization that reunion is not the same thing as happily ever after, even if you arrive. Our last any film in theaters this week is Obsession. Directed by Curry Barker, it starts with Bear, a shy music store employee who has been in love with his best friend Nikki for years and cannot bring himself to risk the friendship by saying it out loud. So, he does the worst possible thing. He uses a mysterious wish object, often described as a one-wish willow, to make Nikki love him more than anyone else in the world. For a moment, it feels like he got what he wanted. Then the wish shows its teeth. Nicki's love becomes unrelenting, suffocating, and terrifying. The movie turns that romantic fantasy into a horror trap because Bear is no longer dealing with rejection. He's dealing with someone who will not let him breathe, leave, or have a thought that isn't about her. Michael Johnston plays Bear with a nervous decency that makes his choice feel human, even when you're yelling at the screen for him to stop. And Navaret plays Nikki, and the film gives her a transformation that is scary because it's personal. It's not a demon in the attic, it's your closest relationship becoming your predator. Barker comes out of the internet horror world, and you can feel that sharp sense of pacing and escalation. The setup is simple. The fallout is relentless. If you like horror that weaponizes desire itself, this is your weekend. So in theaters this week, that's Is God Is, Driver's Ed, and Obsession. Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is Strange Darling. Directed by JT Molner, it's a thriller that drops you into what looks like a messy one-night stand and then starts pulling the floor out from under you. The story follows a woman and a man who meet, connect, and quickly find themselves in a situation that turns violent. The movie is structured to keep you off balance. You think you know who's chasing who, then a new piece of information reframes the scene you just watched. It plays with point of view, timing, and assumption, so the tension is not only what happens next, but what did I miss? Willa Fitzgerald is the center of gravity because she has to carry fear, strategy, and aggression without the film announcing which mode you should trust. Kyle Garner plays the man opposite her, and the pairing works because both actors can read as vulnerable and dangerous depending on the moment. There's also a real craft pleasure here. The film is tense, but it's also clean in how it sets up space and movement. So you always understand the geography even when you don't understand the truth yet. If you like thrillers that reward paying attention, this one is a strong rental. You can rent it on Apple TV and Prime Video. Our indie film classic this week is My Dinner with Andre celebrating its 45th anniversary. Directed by Louis Mall, it's one of the boldest nothing happens movies ever made because what happens is a conversation that keeps getting deeper until it feels like the world outside the restaurant disappears. Wallaceon plays a version of himself, a theater guy who just wants dinner in a normal evening. He meets his old friend Andre Gregory, also playing a version of himself, and Andre arrives like a man who's been living in a different dimension. Over the course of the meal, Andre tells stories about the experiences that changed him: experimental theater, spiritual searching, extreme situations that sound half inspiring and half insane. Sean listens, pushes back, and gradually reveals his own worldview, practical, skeptical, and quietly afraid of wasting his life. The movie's tension comes from ideas colliding and from how friendship lets you say things you would never say to anyone else. It's funny, uncomfortable, and oddly suspenseful because you keep waiting for the moment one of them snaps or admits the thing underneath the story. The genius is that it never turns into a debate club. It stays human. Two people trying to decide what a meaningful life even is, and whether either of them is actually living one. You can watch on HTBO Max or the Criterion Channel or rent it on Apple TV or Amazon Video. And that wraps it for the May 15, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly. If you're enjoying the show, help it travel. Subscribe so you don't miss next week. Share it with a friend who loves being first to a good movie. Rate it because the apps actually count that. Then leave a quick review because that's how new listeners find us. Until next week, keep it bold, keep it sharp, and keep it indie.