I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with South by Southwest, the multimedia festival that just ended its 2025 run. On the one hand, it showcases various musicians, filmmakers, educators, and innovators who may not get exposure elsewhere. On the other hand, it’s now so damned expensive that only people with thousands of dollars to spare can experience the full scope of the event. (“Free” badges are available to volunteers who work a certain number of hours, but that’s a whole other can of worms.)
10 years ago, when you could still snag a film festival wristband for $90, I was lucky enough to binge several movies with my mom and my longtime friend Victoria. Rather than spend an entire post kvetching about SXSW’s badge system, I thought I’d take a look back at what I saw in 2015, how much of it stuck with me, and how much of it is still relevant in the popular consciousness.
At the time, I didn’t think to take notes, so I’m going off my memory—which fluctuates between extremely spotty and borderline eidetic, depending on what I’m trying to recall. (I remember things like random-ass trivia and all my kindergarten classmates’ first names in alphabetical order, but I sometimes have to dig cooking instructions out of the trash because I’ve already forgotten whether to preheat the oven to 400 or 425° F.) Anyway, these are the movies I saw at SXSW 2015, and my impressions of them after a tumultuous decade.
The Overnight
In an alternate universe, Parks and Recreation’s Ben Wyatt is married to Orange is the New Black’s Piper Chapman, and they contemplate the prospect of swinging with a grown-up Max Fischer from Rushmore and his French wife who looks very similar to Piper. This one is weird in that it appears to set up some dark turns, but never goes there. Still, it’s a good time, and while I don’t really hear much about it these days, it now shares a title with an unrelated (and apparently atrocious) 2022 horror movie.
Adult Beginners
I had to look up what this one was called, which is odd because it’s one of the few SXSW movies with cast members I actually recognized in 2015. Nick Kroll and Rose Byrne star as estranged siblings attempting to reconnect, while Byrne’s real-life partner Bobby Cannavale plays the father of her children. I don’t remember many specific plot points, though a scroll through the film’s IMDb page has reminded me of a few funny moments. It’s definitely worth checking out, and something I’d at least consider rewatching.
The Invitation
This was probably my favorite movie in the entire lineup, and it continues to garner praise from genre geeks. The atmosphere is foreboding from the start, yet occasional relaxing scenes lull the audience into a false sense of security before shit hits the fan. For maximum impact, I recommend going in blind.
Like The Overnight, The Invitation shares a title with an unrelated 2022 flick. So if you’re looking to watch a slow-burn mindfuck and not a middling PG-13 affair, make sure you’ve got the one starring Logan Marshall-Green and Emayatzy Corinealdi.
The Automatic Hate
The film’s synopsis mentions the protagonist’s “alluring young cousin,” which is already off-putting. Turns out that description is quite deliberate, as the cousin relationship becomes a bit too close. Although it’s not particularly graphic, the movie manages to be profoundly disturbing. I recommend this one to fans of transgressive cinema, but people with family-related trauma may want to skip it.
Ava’s Possessions
I found this cinematic double entendre fun and darkly comedic, even if I did grow frustrated with the protagonist’s boneheaded decisions. The exorcism elements freaked out my devout Mexican Catholic mom, though.
Nina Forever
While I periodically see references to this British film nowadays, they almost always focus on its parallels to Life After Beth. It’s a classic case of the dueling movies phenomenon, when two films with similar premises are (coincidentally?) made and released within about a year of each other. That said, I greatly enjoyed Nina Forever, as did Victoria. I thought it was a brilliant commentary on girls who date angsty boys in the hopes of “fixing” them, only to end up stuck with these guys’ baggage.
Hangman
This is a fairly straightforward horror flick that preys on the fear of having one’s privacy violated. Most of its runtime builds quietly on the creepiness of its premise, leading to at least one well-executed jump scare. Hangman will always have a special place in my heart because I got to talk to the director after the screening. (I used to be a lot shyer; I really had to muster some chutzpah to ask him a question!)
I’m not sure if the 2016 Erin Moriarty vehicle Within is another instance of a dueling movie or just a rip-off, but it bears more than a passing resemblance to Hangman—right down to the noose imagery.
Twinsters
This is a cute and heartwarming documentary about Korean-born identical twin sisters who were adopted out to different families on different continents, and subsequently found each other online. Fun fact: one of the twins is Samantha Futerman, known for her role as Satsu in Memoirs of a Geisha.
A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velásquez Story
For those who haven’t heard of her, Lizzie Velásquez is a motivational speaker and anti-bullying activist with an extremely rare medical condition that leaves her unable to gain weight. After a viral YouTube video of her garnered relentless harassment over her appearance, she set out to combat hate with love and positivity.
A Brave Heart is a real tearjerker, and remains as relevant as ever in an image-obsessed social media landscape. Needless to say, Lizzie is far more beautiful than any of the trolls trying to put her down.
Sneakerheadz
As someone who will wear the same shoes for years until they’re falling apart, I don’t particularly relate to this subculture, but I found this documentary a fairly easy (and short) watch.
Unexpected
Cobie Smulders plays Samantha, a teacher at an inner city school that’s on the brink of closure. Just when she’s getting ready to search for a new job, she finds out she’s pregnant—and so is her most promising student, Jasmine. As the two navigate each trimester together, they must prepare for the challenges of parenthood while facing the disappointing reality that a supposedly developed nation isn’t very accommodating to new mothers.
I don’t think this movie is as widely known as it should be. Sure, Unexpected is a bit formulaic—expected, if you will— but it’s sincere and socially relevant. It also does an excellent job of subverting the white savior trope; Jasmine and her boyfriend show great maturity in their plans for the future, while Samantha realizes her own life isn’t as stable as she’d prefer.
Night Owls
Unless there’s another movie I completely erased from my memory, this might be the most forgettable narrative film I saw that week. I couldn’t recall the title or any of its stars; I just remembered a gratuitous forced vomiting scene, and the female lead’s passing resemblance to Cecily Strong. Turns out she’s actually Rosa Salazar, who only sometimes looks like Strong if you squint. Night Owls may not have been my cup of tea, but if you enjoy character studies with small casts (and aren’t severely emetophobic), it might be worth a watch.
Wild Horses
Of all the SXSW films I got to see in 2015, this one has by far the biggest names attached to it: Robert Duvall, James Franco, and Josh Hartnett. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Western prestige drama vibes inspired Yellowstone, although the world of Wild Horses doesn’t have quite that level of contagious assholery. In what may be the movie’s only funny moment, Franco’s character’s sexual orientation inadvertently saves him from an Automatic Hate situation.
I Dream Too Much
As a young adult, I found the protagonist annoying. Even though she was a year my senior and already graduated from college, her behavior struck me as oddly childish—and I wasn’t exactly the picture of maturity back then. Now that I’m older and wiser, I’m curious if a second viewing would change my mind (though not curious enough for I Dream Too Much to jump the line ahead of the zillion other movies I’ve been meaning to watch or rewatch).
The Little Death
This Australian anthology (Australianthology?) follows various couples as they discover paraphilias that start to have adverse effects on their lives. Some moments elicit a few chuckles. But then there’s the last segment, in which a sign language interpreter struggles to relay a spicy phone call between a deaf man and a sex worker. This vignette alone makes the entire movie worth watching—I don’t think I’ve ever been part of an audience that laughed so uproariously for so long.
The Look of Silence
In director Joshua Oppenheimer’s follow-up to The Act of Killing, Indonesian genocide survivors bravely confront the men behind the atrocities that claimed more than a million lives. The Look of Silence stands well on its own for those who haven’t seen its predecessor, which I hadn’t. I’m glad I watched this documentary, although it meant ending the festival on a somber note. Even the credits are haunting; because of continued threats to their safety, many people involved in the production remain anonymous. At one point, every single name on the screen is redacted.
Bonus: The Breakfast Club 30th Anniversary Screening
This was the first time I’d ever seen a John Hughes movie, and I found it surprisingly relatable, despite the moments that aged poorly.
Even in 2015, before #MeToo, contemporaneous evaluations were critical of Bender’s sexual harassment of Claire. Putting aside that a character’s wrongdoing does not constitute a creator’s approval of their actions, Bender only “gets the girl” after he learns to respect Claire and see her as more than a prize to be won. Plus, as many viewers have pointed out, these characters are far more likely to go their separate ways than remain in a committed relationship.
Whatever problems it may have, The Breakfast Club hits hard on universal themes of loneliness and identity, and continues to pervade the rest of popular culture 40 years after its release. Only time will tell how many, if any, of the aforementioned 2015 SXSW films can match its staying power.
Ex Machina
We tried to get into this one on two separate days during the festival, only to be turned away after hours of standing in line. I eventually saw it after its wide release. I thought Ex Machina was good, but I don’t think I fully appreciated its implications at the time. In today’s AI-obsessed world, though, the movie seems frighteningly prescient.
Post-4/20 edit (because this wasn’t long enough already): Rolling Papers
As the title indicates, this is a documentary about marijuana—more specifically, its then-recent legalization for recreational use in Colorado. If Night Owls was the most forgettable narrative feature, Rolling Papers was the most forgettable film overall, to the point that I nearly wrote off its entire existence as a hazy memory of being inundated with secondhand pot smoke on 6th Street.
In my defense, it didn’t feel like a real movie screening. Unlike most of the lineup, which played at historic venues like the Paramount Theatre and the Ritz (the latter of which was an Alamo Drafthouse location at the time, but now serves as Joe Rogan’s comedy club), Rolling Papers was relegated to a projector in a convention center room. I’m pretty sure Victoria and I just wandered in after the first time we tried and failed to get into Ex Machina.
Obviously, this one didn’t leave much of an impression. Ironically, though, it did give us a chance to breathe some non-dank air.
Media Shower 