The in-person portion of the 51st Seattle International Film Festival is past its halfway point and is barreling toward closing weekend. Featuring 245 films playing in theaters around town until May 25th (and several making online encores the week after), there’s still plenty of time to catch our city’s biggest film festival in the company of other cinemaniacs. Below, we share some film’s we’ve seen and are eager to recommend as well as a few that are still at the top of our watchlists.
Recognizing the importance of getting a good night’s sleep before facing the week ahead, the fifty-something film festival has moved its “closing night” blow-out to the festival’s penultimate night. Seattle audiences are in for a treat, with this year’s festival closing with an absolute Sundance standout: Eva Victor’s debut feature Sorry, Baby. With outstanding performances from Eva Victor (who also writes and directs), Naomi Ackie (breakout star of Mickey 17), Lucas Hedges, and an adorable kitten, the wry dramedy is an incisive exploration of the ways that trauma ripples through a life and the slow ways it heals (and sometimes doesn’t).
A24 will release the film later this year, but you don’t want to miss a chance to hear from Eva Victor in person. She’ll be doing a Q&A at SIFF[erama] Downtown on Saturday night. Following the film, head over to MOHAI for SIFF’s traditional closing night celebration with food, drinks, dancing, and raffles. Tickets for film + party are $88; party admission alone, $52, with discounts for SIFF Members.
SOME OF THE MOVIES WE’RE MOST EXCITED ABOUT
Chris
Suburban Fury (2025 | USA | 118 minutes | Robinson Devor)
Seattle-based documentarian Robinson Devor has another documentary in SIFF, and it’s quite good. Devor’s subject is Sara Jane Moore, an FBI informant turned would-be assassin of President Ford. It’s a compelling story told in Moore’s own words. It’s my favorite documentary I’ve seen this SIFF so far.
- WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 – SIFF Cinema Downtown – 6:00 PM
- FRIDAY, MAY 23 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:30 PM
- Director Robinson Devor, producer Jason Reid, executive producer/head archivist Bob Fink, and co-producer Matt Levinthal scheduled to attend.
Unclickable (2024 | Greece | 74 minutes | Babis Makridis)
This documentary plays like an episode of PBS’s “Frontline,” and I mean that as a compliment. It’s an absorbing look at the sleazy world of digital advertising and the shell game where small businesses pay for traffic to their websites, most of it is fraudulent, and Google and Meta are happy to keep cashing the checks while small business owners are left holding the bag. It’s a story as old as time, and a story told well here.
- THURSDAY, MAY 22 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 1:30 PM
- AVAILABLE TO STREAM: YES
Josh
Twinless (2025 | USA | 100 minutes | James Sweeney)
I already mentioned this in our opening roundtable, but as my absolute favorite from Sundance writer-director James Sweeney’s dark comedy Twinless gets my highest recommendation. The less you know about this Portland-set story of bereaved twins (Sweeney and a lights-out Dylan O’Brien) making their way in the world without their biological other half, the better.
- SATURDAY, MAY 24 — SIFF Cinema Uptown 12:30 PM
- SUNDAY, MAY 25, 2025 — SIFF Cinema Uptown — 7:15 PM
- Director James Sweeney scheduled to attend.
Good Boy (2025 | USA | 73 minutes | Ben Leonberg)
I’m not a scary movie aficionado by any means, but SIFF has served up some of my favorite crowd-pleasers in the genre going all the way back to Chuck and Dale vs. Evil. I have yet to dip my toes into WTF programming at this year’s festival, but I can’t let it pass without capping off my festival with Good Boy. A supernatural tale of a rural haunting as told through the eyes of a very good dog? Sounds exactly at the level of scary movies that I can handle. And yes, I did check DoesTheDogDie.com before making this speculative recommendation.
- SATURDAY, MAY 24 – AMC Pacific Place – 9:30 PM
- SUNDAY, MAY 25 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 7:30 PM
The Things You Kill (2025 | Canada,Belgium | 113 minutes | Alireza Khatami)
I guess I’m chasing weirdness and intensity in the final days of SIFF and Alireza Khatami’s story of a professor returning to Iran to care for his ailing mother’s fits the bill. Claiming a best director prize at Sundance, the film’s description promises psychological thrills, Lynchian influences, existential struggles, and paranoid desires for revenge.
- FRIDAY, MAY 23 — AMC Pacific Place – 9:00 PM
- SATURDAY, MAY 24 — AMC Pacific Place – 4:00 PM
Morgen
Luz (2024 | Hong Kong / China | 102 minutes | Flora Lau)
Before I knew that our very own editor extraordinaire, Josh Bis, had already discussed the film, I was entirely intrigued by the idea of VR as a way to reconnect with someone. It gives a sense of safety but also connection… or at least that’s what you’d hope. It has a lot of potential and I would love to see more thought-provoking science fiction of this kind. I guarantee AI-related stories are well on their way, so why not dive in now.
- THURSDAY, MAY 22 – AMC Pacific Place – 6:30 PM
Happyend (2024 | Japan | 113 minutes | Neo Sora)
This one has been on my list before SIFF kickoff and I’m excited to be seeing it this week. It seems to have quite a bit going on from racial strife to teen angst, socio-political discourse to teenaged pranks. With more and more of our own rights being limited without forethought or concern for those effected, this film feels especially apt. Perhaps not a film to escape from reality that some are looking for, but more a scathing indictment of when “helpful” rules go over the line… and what can be done to rally against them before it’s too late.
- THURSDAY, MAY 22 – AMC Pacific Place – 9:00 PM
- FRIDAY, MAY 23 – AMC Pacific Place – 3:45 PM
Tony
Paul Anka: His Way (2024 | USA | 99 minutes | John Maggio)
The architect of some of the greatest standards in the American Songbook (cue the song riffed on in the film’s title) as well as some of the most ridiculous (I’m looking at you, “Having My Baby” ) gets the documentary bio treatment. Anka’s career from teen idol to wildly successful songwriter for the ages is bound to be absorbing stuff.
- FRIDAY, MAY 23 – Shoreline Community College – 3:30 PM
- SUNDAY, MAY 25 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 1:00 PM
Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972 | USA | 82 minutes | Robert J. Kaplan)
Hot take: Had the world been more tolerant of LGBTQ folks back in the day, Andy Warhol scenester/trans actress Holly Woodlawn coulda been a star (she’s an especially memorable, funny, and affecting leading lady in Paul Morrissey’s Warhol-produced Trash). Seeing her in the spotlight in Robert J. Kaplan’s rare, reputedly one-of-a-kind comedy/musical should provide perfect midnight-movie fuel.
- SATURDAY, MAY 24 – SIFF Cinema Downtown – 11:59 PM
Color Book (2024 | USA | 98 minutes | David Fortune)
David Fortune’s drama about a single father (William Catlett) dealing with his disabled son (Jeremiah Daniels in a much-buzzed-about performance) has been quietly tearing it up on the festival circuit for the last year. That acclaim—and that beautiful Nikolaus Summerer cinematography—has my interest piqued. Both screenings are on standby, but it’ll also be streaming via SIFF from May 26 – June 1.
- SATURDAY, MAY 24 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 5:30 PM
- SUNDAY, MAY 25 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 2:30 PM
The 2025 Seattle International Film Festival runs from May 15-25 in person and May 26-June 1 online. Keep up with our reactions on social media (@thesunbreak) and follow our ongoing coverage via our SIFF 2025 posts