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A Guide to SXSW 2026, From Penis Enlargements to Pagan Mall Employees
The Sun Never Sets Filmmaker is heading to the 40th edition of SXSW, where myself and several talented contributors will be on the ground filing interviews and dispatches from various corners of Austin’s city limits. This year’s lineup is massive—with 119 feature films alone—and we happily assume the daunting role of covering buzzy world premieres and hidden gems alike.
Speaking of world premieres, there’s an expected emphasis on genre fare among this year’s crop. Irish low-budget maverick Damian McCarthy scales up with Hokum, a folk-tinged rental house horror that provokes chills through its trailer alone. This releases via Neon just two and a half weeks after its SXSW debut, but festivalgoers would be wise to get in on the ground floor here. The same could be said for Over Your Dead Body, The Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone’s first directorial effort since the beloved mockumentary Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016). This time he focuses on a couple (Jason Segel and Samara Weaving) whose relationship has curdled to the point where a remote cabin vacation harbors mutual plots to murder the other. Weaving also returns in Radio Silence’s Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, which picks up where her bloodied bride character left off in the gonzo first installment from 2019.
It’s worth mentioning that two films at the festival will grace the pages of Filmmaker’s forthcoming print issue. There’s I Love Boosters, Boots Riley’s follow-up to Sorry to Bother You (2018) and similarly SXSW-premiering episodic effort I’m a Virgo (2023). The synopsis on the festival’s website reads: “A crew of professional shoplifters take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven. It’s like community service.” As with Riley’s previous film, the means of production threaten to be seized here, and star Keke Palmer feels perfectly tuned into the rapper-turned-filmmaker’s absurdist funny bone. And a most appropriate companion to the festival’s longstanding concert showcase is Chandler Levack’s Montreal music scene–set Mile End Kicks, which screens at the festival post its TIFF world premiere last fall. A conversation between Levack and fellow Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, wherein they discuss a shared penchant for self-referential narratives, will also appear in our Spring 2026 edition.
But the aforementioned films simply scratch the surface. Below, find eight anticipated titles at the 2026 SXSW Film & TV festival, including the long-awaited return of an HBO series, a campy coven film EP’d by Diablo Cody and helmed by a longtime Filmmaker contributor, and a doc about an experimental penis-enlargement procedure.
Adam’s Apple
Visual artist and filmmaker Amy Jenkins and her son Adam reflect on his coming-of-age as a trans teen through this collaborative non-fiction project. As opposed to Jenkins imposing her cisgender perspective on her child’s transition, she concedes her camera to Adam in an effort to truly understand the nuances of his gender identiy—both as a mother and as an artist. Twenty years of archival footage is also woven into the narrative, offering a holistic portrait of the inevitability of change that all parents must reckon with.
Manhood
Could cosmetic penis enlargements be the next frontier for our looksmaxxing era? Dallas-based bio-hacker Bill Moore seems to think so. Documentarian Daniel Lambroso shadows Moore as he tests his newfangled procedure on an OnlyFans creator as well as a father of four, capturing emasculation anxieties and the volatile power of body dysmorphia in the process. EP’d by Penny Lane, a 25 New Faces alum and expert chronicler of niche communities, Manhood teases a similar brand of social scrutiny.
Their Town
This indie family affair is written by Mark Duplass, produced by brother Jay, and directed by wife Katie Aselton. It also stars daughter Ora in her feature film debut. Shot on location in Bangor, Maine, it follows high school classmates Abby (Ora Duplass) and Matt (Chosen Jacobs) as they wander around on a cool autumn night. They’re meant to be rehearsing lines for the school play, but conversation veers toward intimate topics ranging from romantic hang-ups to mental health struggles. Lo-fi and dialogue-heavy (some spoken in Spanish), Their Town is staunchly situated in the Duplass Bros’s signature style, yet is packaged for a new generation by way of Ora’s involvement. I’ll chat with the rising actor—alongside Crash Land director Dempsey Bryk and Basic producer Katherine McNicol—at a SXSW panel on March 13 titled Youth in Front and Behind the Cameras. If you’re in town, drop by.
DreamQuil
Named on our 25 New Faces of Film list in 2023, Alex Prager’s feature debut as a writer-director stars Elizabeth Banks and John C. Riley. Set in a distant yet familiar future where poor air quality has sequestered citizens to a digital realm, Carol (Banks) struggles with the close quarters she shares with her husband (Riley) and young son. A potential salve arrives with DreamQuil, a virtual wellness retreat that Carol hopes will aid in repairing her relationships. That same hope is shattered when she returns home only to find that “Carol Two” has assumed all domestic duties in her absence—and her family might much prefer this android caretaker.
Forbidden Fruits
Meredith Alloway’s byline has appeared in Filmmaker dozens of times over the years. Now, she’s bringing her directorial debut to SXSW. Executive produced by Diablo Cody, co-written by Alloway and Lily Houghton, and based on the latter’s stage play Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die, the film follows a coven of trendy young witches who all work at a Houston mall boutique called Free Eden. Appropriately, all of its employees are named after fruit: Apple (Lili Reinhart), Fig (Alexandra Shipp), Cherry (Victoria Pedretti), and new hire Pumpkin (The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Lola Tung). Bitchy teen comedies of yore—including Mean Girls, the Cody-scribed Jennifer’s Body and Jawbreaker—are all referenced and remixed, but the pagan pastiche the film conjures is all its own.
The Sun Never Sets
Mumblecore mainstay Joe Swanberg has collaborated with the likes of Mark Duplass and Greta Gerwig since the early aughts, with many such projects subsequently featured in Filmmaker. His first film in six years debuts at this year’s festival, where many of his other projects have screened to eager audiences. Shot on 35mm film in Alaska, it centers on Wendy (Dakota Fanning, also an EP), whose relationship with Jack (New Girl’s Jake Johnson) has suddenly been put on pause. Of course, this is when she unexpectedly runs into her ex Chuck (Cory Michael Smith), and their reunion results in a tense love triangle.
We Are the Shaggs
In 1969, a New Hampshire family man received a prophecy. It foretold that his three daughters—Betty, Dorothy, and Helen—were rock stars in waiting. He rushed to buy them cheap instruments and booked them studio time to record Philosophy of the World, their band The Shaggs’ only album to date. Discordant, erratic and lyrically half-baked, it was widely panned as the worst album ever made. But over the years, avant-garde enthusiasts have come to hail The Shaggs as unwitting sonic geniuses. Ken Kwapis’s documentary further elaborates on their origins and legacy, with surviving sisters Dorothy and Betty filling in the blanks nearly 60 years after the release of their opus.
The Comeback Season 3
Similarly appearing after an extended absence is longtime sitcom actress Valerie Cherish (Lisa Kudrow), the protagonist of this HBO showbiz mockumentary series. It’s been 20 years since the first season was unceremoniously cancelled, and 10 years since its one-off season revival. Suffice to say, each iteration of The Comeback surveys an entertainment landscape in flux. This time around, the writers’ room for Valerie’s latest show features the comedic talents of John Early, Abbi Jacobson…and AI.
