5 Indie Movies This Week: Swallowtail & Dragonfly, Lockbox, Sherman's March & 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:
Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World (2026)
Swallowtail & Dragonfly (2026)
Lockbox (2026)
One of the Good Ones (2026)
Sherman's March (1986)

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Transcript

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Welcome back to Indie Film Weekly for the week of July 3rd, 2026. I'm your host, Glenn Reynolds. This week in theaters, we've got a documentary portrait of one of America's most beloved poets. We've got a true story historical drama about a gifted Chinese artist. And we've got a supernatural thriller about a woman trying to protect her traumatized cousin from something that really does not respect personal boundaries. Quick ask before we move on. If you can see one of these in a theater this weekend, indie films are not houseplants. You cannot just admire them from across the room and expect them to live. They need actual tickets. On demand, I've got a legal thriller about one stubborn lawyer trying to hold other lawyers accountable. And for our classic, we've got a strange, funny, wildly personal Southern road trip with a landmark documentary back in theaters. With the written version of these picks each week, I also published the Indie Film Weekly Newsletter. It's the same five films in a quick read. Sign up at newsletter circusroadfilms.com. Let's dive in. Our first film in theaters this week is Mary Oliver, Saved by the Beauty of the World. Directed by Sasha Waters, this documentary looks at Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose work somehow reached nature lovers, spiritual seekers, literary people, and plenty of people who would never call themselves poetry readers. The film is not just a greatest hits tour of famous lines. It looks at the life behind the poems, including Oliver's lonely childhood, her devotion to long walks, trees, dogs, and close observation, and the relationship with photographer Molly Malone Cook that helped shape her adult life. The appeal here is that Oliver made attention feel like a moral act. She could look at a bird, a pond, a flower, or a dog, and make it feel like the day was suddenly asking you a question. Waters uses interviews, photographs, archival material, and readings to build a portrait of someone who was openly queer, intensely private, and somehow deeply familiar to millions of readers. The film is gentle but not thin. It understands that beauty was not decoration for Oliver, it was survival equipment. If you've ever read one of her poems and immediately felt called out by a tree, this is your weekend. Our second indie film in theaters this week is Swallowtail and Dragonfly. Directed by Julia J. Pierpont III, this historical drama is based on the life of Joe Lee in Xia, a Chinese artist whose life travels through fame, war, motherhood, separation, and reinvention. The story begins in glamorous 1930s Shanghai, where Joe, also known as Xi Yi, is recognized for her gift as an artist. She and her husband, fellow artist Wang Ping Shu, move in a world of creativity, status, and ambition. Then history does what history does. It barges in without asking. War and revolution fracture the life they built, and Ji Yi has to survive with her children while the future keeps changing shape around her. The film's strength is the sweep. It's not just about romance, although the enduring love story matters. It's also about what happens to an artist when the world keeps trying to reduce her to survival. The title itself suggests delicacy and motion, but the story is tough. Beauty is not treated as luxury here. It becomes a way to endure, to remember, and to refuse disappearance. This is the kind of period drama that works best when it stays close to one woman's decisions, not history as a textbook. History as a series of impossible choices made at kitchen tables, train platforms, and studio desks. Our last indie film in theaters this week is Lockbox, directed by Daniel Stam, this supernatural thriller follows Ellen, who retreats to a rural town after her mother's death and takes in her severely traumatized cousin, Winthrop. That already sounds like a lot for one household. And then the neighbor starts behaving like the guy in every horror movie you wish everyone would listen to sooner. He warns Ellen that Winthrop is dangerous. Ellen, understandably, does not want to treat her cousin like a problem to be removed. Then strange phenomena begin escalating, and the question shifts from what happened to Winthrop to what is still coming for him? Carly Gugino plays Ellen, and she is great, a grounded fear, the kind where you can tell someone is trying to stay rational while the room is absolutely not cooperating. Lou Taylor Pucci plays Winthrop, and the setup gives him a tricky lane, vulnerable, frightening, and possibly more hunted than harmful. The film is based on the knife point horror podcast episode, The Lockbox, which is a nice pedigree for people who like their scares to start as stories whispered too close to your ear. Stam has horror experience, and the clean hook is strong. A woman protects family, even when the family may be the doorway. So in theaters this week, that's Mary Oliver, Saved by the Beauty of the World, Swallowtail and Dragonfly, and Lockbox. Our spotlight indie film on demand this week is one of the good ones. Directed by Julie O'Hora, this Buffalo set legal thriller follows Dean Alesi, an attorney in the lawyer disciplinary office, whose job is to investigate other lawyers. So, yes, he is basically the guy attorneys are least excited to see walk into the room. Dean believes in the oath. He believes lawyers should serve the public, not use the system as a private ATM with better shoes. That makes him a target in a world where politics, greed, favors, and personal damage are all keep leaking into the work. The central case pulls him into alleged corruption involving an assistant district attorney, and the deeper he digs, the more expensive integrity starts to look. Tom Paulino plays Dean as a man who is not charming his way through the problem. He is stubborn, wounded, and probably exhausting to have coffee with. But he's trying to do the right thing in a place where the right thing comes with enemies. The film has noir bones, legal world frustration, and a nice local flavor. If you like indie thrillers about institutions being messier than the paperwork suggests, this is worth the rental. You can rent it on Prime Video. Our indie film classic this week is Sherman's March, celebrating its 40th anniversary. Directed by Ross McKelwie, it starts as a documentary about the lingering effects of General William Tecumseh Sherman's Civil War March through the South. That is the official plan. Then McKelwie's girlfriend breaks up with him, and the film turns into something much stranger, funnier, and more personal. He keeps traveling through the South, but the historical project keeps getting interrupted by women he meets along the way, conversations that drift, romantic possibility, rejection, awkward hope, and the kind of self-examination that only happens when a filmmaker refuses to put the camera down. What makes the film so special is that it never feels like a gimmick. McKelwie is generally interested in history, but he's also stuck inside his own loneliness, and the movie lets those two searches overlap. It becomes a road movie, a breakup movie, a southern portrait, and a deadpan comedy about a man trying to make sense of women, war, nuclear anxiety, and himself, not necessarily in that order. The humor is dry and sneaky. The encounters are real and often wonderfully odd. It's back in theaters at a new 4K restoration, and it still feels like a reminder that documentaries can wander and still know exactly where they are going. And that wraps it for the July 3rd, 2026 edition of Indie Film Weekly. If you want to support the show, do the simple stuff. Subscribe so you don't miss next week, share it with one friend who likes being early, rate it because it helps the apps take the show seriously. Then leave a quick review. Even one sentence helps. Until next week, keep it observant, keep it wandering, and keep it indie.