January 2026 Movie Reviews: Sentimental Value, Dust Bunny, Hallow Road
In our first movie roundup of 2026, we’ll take a look at a trio of films from last year. These movies might all have two-word titles, but when comparing these three films to one another, the similarities basically stop there.
Sentimental Value (2025)
Mer Film, 133 minutes
Sentimental Value is a well-received drama directed by Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier. It’s clearly a quality movie, though I had a little trouble really connecting with any of the film’s characters. While it is definitely a good movie, I didn’t love it.
It’s interesting that I feel the way I do about not connecting to the characters because if there’s one clear strength of Sentimental Value it’s the performances of some of the cast. Lead Renate Reinsve plays Nora, a successful theater actress who clearly has some emotional baggage, and Stellan Skarsgard plays Nora’s estranged father, a director named Gustav. These two actors are fantastic in their roles.
There are few scenes with each of them where if you just take the scenes individually, they really knock it out of the park. However, both play these extreme sorts of people, and I simply didn’t feel a strong connection to either of them. Nora’s sister, Agnes, is a more relatable character, but she takes a backseat in terms of her screen time and how important her character feels.
Sentimental Value is a film with a lot of different ideas it wants to explore about topics like the power of art, family, and memory/time. It’s successful at being a springboard for conversations about such topics. The movie also attempts to be more realistic in its portrayal of life.
As a result, many conflicts aren’t resolved in the manner they would be in most films, a fact some moviegoers might find frustrating. Personally, I don’t mind this more realistic direction. Still, I didn’t connect with the movie on a deeper level, though I’d still acknowledge it’s a quality film.
Grade: 7/10
Dust Bunny (2025)
Lionsgate, 106 minutes
Dust Bunny is a mixed bag of a movie. It’s a film with a creative, fun concept that doesn’t really know exactly what sort of movie it’s trying to be.
The movie is part monster horror, part fantasy, and part action-thriller. The tone is often light, despite the high body count that the story racks up. The story in question revolves around an eight-year-old girl who believes a monster under her bed has eaten her foster parents. So, she hires the hit man down the hall to kill the monster for her. It’s more of a not-so-serious setup, but while the movie has comedic elements too, it’s still rated R and boasts a good bit of violence.
In a lot of ways, Dust Bunny feels like the first draft of a script that’s been put onto the screen. I wouldn’t go nearly so far as to say that the script is awful, but it’s definitely not great, and writer-director Bryan Fuller really needed to take a few more passes to nail down the plot to flow better, as well as his film’s monster lore.
If there’s one area the film truly shines, it’s the movie’s aesthetic. I really enjoyed everything visually, from the look of the apartments where much of the movie is set, to the scenes around the city. Everything has a whimsical/fantasy look about it that’s still grounded just enough in reality.
So, overall, Dust Bunny is collectively fine. I like Mads Mikkelsen as an actor, and he plays the hit man here, but he doesn’t have too much to work with. The child actor, Sophie Sloan is also totally fine in her role. It’s a potentially great setup for a movie, but the actual film is somewhat disappointing.
Grade: 5.5/10
Hallow Road (2025)
XYZ Films, 80 minutes
Hallow Road falls broadly into the horror-thriller genre, but if one were to better categorize the film, it would be described as stressful-upsetting. The movie isn’t so much scary in the horror film sense. It does, however, play out as a every-parent’s-worst-nightmare scenario.
After a few ominous brief scenes, the film begins with two parents receiving an extremely worrying phone call late at night. Their college-aged daughter, who we quickly surmise they had an argument with earlier in the evening, has been driving since leaving their house and has hit someone with her car. From there, the movie plays out in mostly real time while the parents rush to the car to drive to help their daughter.
I always respect minimalist movies such as Hallow Road that basically play out in a single setting (a car in this case) with few characters. In fact, 95% of this movie is the two parents in the car on the phone with their daughter. With a short runtime, and quality actors Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys playing the parents, Hallow Road is never boring and held my interest throughout.
Despite this, I don’t know who this movie is really for and who I’d recommend it to. Does anyone want to watch a slightly above-average, upsetting, stress-filled movie (that’s not really ever scary)? I suppose if your answer is yes to that question then Hallow Road is the movie for you. There are worse ways to spend just over an hour, but I wouldn’t describe this film as particularly enjoyable.
Grade: 6/10