As one of the most beloved horror franchises of all time, most were sorry to see what sort of state The Exorcist had found itself in with the 2023 release of Believer, the sixth installment in the series. In desperate need of a reset, the smart choice was made to pivot to a horror veteran to take charge: Mike Flanagan. Described as a “radical new take” that pays homage to the franchise without relying too heavily on nostalgia, this next Exorcist installment is already proving it means business by assembling an impressive, star-studded cast.
It has already been announced that the likes of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Scarlett Johansson, Jacobi Jupe, Rahul Kohli, Hamish Linklater, Gil Bellows, Carl Lumbly, Carla Gugino, Diane Lane, and more will join the as-yet-untitled Exorcist movie, with principal photography officially beginning in New York back in March. Of all the names added to this line-up, it is Hollywood superstar Johansson’s that stands out, with this one of her first movies following a move behind the camera, as she made her directorial debut with Eleanor the Great, which also starred Ejiofor.
Another of her post-directorial debut projects, James Gray‘s latest feature, Paper Tiger, recently made its debut at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it joins an eye-catching line-up of Palme d’Or nominees. The movie, following two brothers who find themselves wrapped up in the mafia after chasing the American dream, stars Johannson alongside Adam Driver and Miles Teller, in a movie most critics had circled heading into the Cannes festival. Has Paper Tiger matched expectations now that it has finally premiered last weekend?
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
What Are Critics Saying About ‘Paper Tiger’?
According to critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Paper Tiger is living up to the hype, scoring a strong 85% at the time of writing. This is a particular triumph for Johansson, as it marks her highest-rated live-action feature performance of the decade on the site, and second-highest-rated when counting her voice performance in Transformers One. Collider’s Emma Kiely was impressed by the movie’s lead performances, but admitted the film “plays it too safe,” which was a sentiment shared by ScreenRant’s Patrice Witherspoon, who dubbed it “underwhelming.” Other critics were perhaps quicker to praise the film, with one writing that Gray “shows us how to spin corn into gold,” and another adding that he “directs Driver and Teller to two of the best performances of their individual careers.”
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Release Date
May 16, 2026
Runtime
116 minutes
Director
James Gray
Writers
James Gray
Producers
Anthony Katagas, Jeff Rice, Raffaella Leone, Rodrigo Teixeira, Andrea Bucko, Lee Broda, Riccardo Maddalosso, Gary Farkas
