5 Indie Movies This Week: Ask E. Jean, I Love Boosters, She's Gotta Have It, & 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:
Ask E. Jean (2026)
I Love Boosters (2026)
Tuner (2026)
Thelma (2024)
She's Gotta Have It (1986)

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of May 22nd, 2026. I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds. This week in theaters, we've got a documentary portrait of a writer who refuses to be reduced to a headline. We've got a surreal Bay Area heist comedy where fashion, theft, and revenge all share the same runway. And we've got a sound-driven crime thriller about a piano tuner whose ear for detail turns into something a lot more dangerous. If you can see one of these in a theater this weekend, please do. Indie movies don't get a long runway, and a room with actual people in it is still the best marketing they'll ever have. On demand, I've got a smart, funny revenge mission led by a 93-year-old who is done being polite. And for our classic, we're celebrating a 40th anniversary Brooklyn love story where commitment is optional and opinions are not. Want the written version of these picks each week? I also publish the indie film weekly newsletter. It's the same five films and a quick read. Sign up at newsletter.com. Let's dive in. Our first indie film in theaters this week is Ask Egene. Directed by Ivy Mirapole. This documentary profiles Eegene Carroll as more than a headline. It starts with the life she built in media long before any courtroom, including her decades as a journalist, author, and advice columnist. The film treats her voice as the engine, playful, stylish, and stubbornly clear-eyed. Then it moves into the years when she decides to go public about being assaulted, and what happens when she refuses to be shamed into silence. You see the practical grind of a legal fight, the strategy sessions, the pressure, the waiting, and the toll of having your name turned into a battlefield. Carol is on camera and she does not perform victimhood. She's analytical, sometimes absurdly funny, and often furious in a controlled way that lands harder than yelling. The film also spends time on how she was raised to brush things off, and how that social training collides with the need to tell the truth out loud. It's a portrait of a person who knows exactly who she is, even when the world tries to rewrite her as a story somebody else can control. Our second indie film in theaters this week is I Love Boosters. Directed by Boots Riley, it's a crime comedy set in a surreal version of the Bay Area, where a crew of shoplifters treats boosting like both survival and performance art. Corvette is the ringleader, a fashion designer with big taste and no patience for a system that keeps telling her to wait her turn. When a powerful fashion figure takes their designs and turns them into profit, the crew decides to hit back in the only language the industry seems to respect: stealing the clothes and reselling them cheaper as a kind of street level redistribution. Kiki Palmer plays Corvette with a fearless talk fast intensity that makes even the most ridiculous plan sound like strategy. The movie leans into heist mechanics, scouting, improvising, escaping, but it's also really about style as power and who gets to own an idea. Riley keeps slipping between funny and pointed with characters who can argue politics while running for their lives. It's the kind of movie that makes the audience laugh, then immediately wonder what they're laughing at. Our last indie film in theaters this week is Tuner, directed by Daniel Rower. This crime thriller starts with a gifted young musician named Nikki White, whose life has gone sideways and whose hearing is almost too sharp for normal living. He becomes an apprentice to an old school piano tuner, Harry Horowitz, learning the craft of precision listening and meticulous touch. Then Nikki discovers a second, stranger skill. The same sensitivity that lets him hear a piano's imperfections also helps him understand locks, tumblers, and the tiny sounds a safe makes when it's about to open. That talent pulls him into a criminal orbit that feels thrilling at first and then quickly turns dangerous. Leo Woodall plays Nicki as a guy who wants a clean purpose, who keeps choosing the fast lane when the stakes rise. Dustin Hoffman brings warmth and grit as Harry, a mentor figure whose own problems push Nikki towards risk. Rohr uses sound design as storytelling, so you feel how Nikki experiences the world, every click, scrape, and near miss. It's a smart, propulsive ride built around an odd, unbelievable superpower. So in theaters this week, that's Ask Eugene, I Love Boosters, and Tuner. Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is Thelma, directed by Josh Margolin. It stars June Squibb as Thelma Post, a 93-year-old in Los Angeles who gets fooled by a phony scammer pretending to be her grandson. She sends 10 grand, realizes what happened, and quickly learns the system is not built to help her get it back. So she decides to do it herself. The movie plays like an elderly mission impossible, but the stunts are age-appropriate, and the comedy comes from determination, not mockery. Thomas sneaks out from her worried family, tracks down the leads the old-fashioned way, and recruits an old friend. Their main vehicle is a mobility scooter, which turns every curb and sidewalk into an action beat. It's inspired by a real story from the director's own grandmother, and it never treats her as fragile. She's furious, focused, and weirdly inspiring. The real win is that the film makes dignity feel like the prize, not the punchline. You can watch Thelma on Hulu or rent it on Amazon Prime. Our indie film classic this week is She's Gotta Have It, celebrating its 40th anniversary. Directed by Spike Lee, it's set in Brooklyn and built around Nola Darling, a young artist who refuses to be treated like somebody's lesson. She's dating three men at the same time, Jamie, Greer, and Mars. And each one thinks the solution is to win, control, or fix her. Nola is not interested. The film is structured like a conversation with the audience, with characters talking straight to camera, confessing, posturing, and telling on themselves. Tracy Camilla Johns is terrific as Nola. She's magnetic, funny, and absolutely unwilling to apologize for having options. Spike Lee plays Mars Blackman, the loudest of the boyfriends, and he's basically a walking argument that refuses to leave the room. The movie is playful, but it's also sharp about the different rules men and women get handed, especially around desire and independence. If you've never seen it, it's a great reminder of how much you can do with style, voice, and a point of view. You can watch it on Netflix or stream it free with ads on Tubi. And that wraps it for the May 22nd, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly. If you want to support the show, keep it simple. Subscribe so you don't miss a week. Share the episode with one movie friend who trusts your taste. Rate it so the apps take it seriously. Then leave a quick review because that's how new listeners find us. Until next week, keep it adventurous, keep it human, and keep it indie.