Comedy — silly, surreal and sci-fi — is all over the indiesphere from Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie to By Design, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die, Cold Storage and Mimics. The last two are horror comedy, crossing into a Friday the 13th, which also happens to be clashing with Valentine’s weekend. Acclaimed Cannes-premiering Nigerian drama My Father’s Shadow and a documentary on the rise of Korean rock band The Rose round out new specialty releases.
Neon opens Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie by Matt Johnson on 364 screens.Written by and starring Johnson and Jay McCarroll in a continuation of their comedy show Nirvanna The Band The Show and a follow to Johnson’s hit BlackBerry. When their plan to book a show at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008. Winner of the Audience Award, Midnighter, at SXSW and the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award at TIFF last year. Certified Fresh 97% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Music Box Films opens By Design, an absurdist spin on the body-swap comedy from Sundance 2025, at about 30 theaters including the Quad Cinema in NYC, the Alamo DTLA and the Music Box in Chicago. Juliette Lewis swaps bodies with a chair in this new surrealist vision from writer-director Amanda Kramer (Please Baby Please) narrated by Melanie Griffith and co-starring Mamoudou Athie (Kinds of Kindness), Samantha Mathis (American Psycho) and Robin Tunney (The Craft). See Deadline review.
Synopsis:Upon seeing a gorgeous chair in a showroom, Camille (Lewis) realizes that she truly envies the life of this perfect piece of furniture, and when she and the chair swap forms, learns that she’s better liked as an inanimate object than she was as a person by her mother (Betty Buckley) and her best friends. She winds up in the hands of Olivier (Athie), a minimalist bachelor who gradually becomes romantically fixated on his elegant new possession.
Briarcliff is out with Gore Verbinski’s action sci-fi comedy Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die on 1,610 screens. Stars Sam Rockwell, Haley Lu Richardson,Michael Peña,Zazie Beetz, AsimChandhry, Tom Taylor and Juno Temple. Written by Matthew Robinson. Synopsis:A dark night. A crowded diner. A man with a detonator bursts in proclaiming to be from the future to recruit a group of unqualified patrons to stop an impending AI apocalypse and save humanity. At 86% RT Certified Fresh with critics.
Evil-dummy horror comedy Mimics from Panoramic Pictures debuts at 150 theaters. Kristoffer Polaha’s directorial debut. Down-on-his-luck impressionist Sam Reinhold makes a pact with Fergus, a wicked, strings-attached puppet that holds the promise of propelling Sam to stardom but unleashes a nightmare that threatens the safety of those he holds dear. Polaha stars with Mōriah, Chris Parnell and Stephen Tobolowsky.
Comedy horror Cold Storage from Samuel Goldwyn Films opens on 1,041 screens. When a mutating, highly contagious fungus escapes a sealed facility, two young employees – joined by a grizzled bioterror operative played by Liam Neeson – must survive the wildest night shift ever to save humanity from extinction. Stars Joe Keery, Georgina Campbell and Sosie Bacon, with Vanessa Redgrave and Lesley Manville. Directed by Johnny Campbell, written by David Koepp, who also produced with Gavin Polone.
Not a comedy but lovely is the UK’s Oscar submission My Father’s Shadow from Mubi opens in New York (IFC Center), Los Angeles (Laemmle Royal) and Chicago (Gene Siskel Film Center). The feature debut Akinola Davies Jr. was the first Nigerian film selected to play in Cannes where it world premiered in Un Certain Regard, winningthe Camera d’Or Special Mention. It’s RT 98% Certified Fresh, see Deadline review. Expands to additional markets in the U.S. and Canada throughout February. A portrait of father-son bonds framed by the political landscape of 1993 Lagos, the film follows a man and his two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, quietly reckoning with their relationship while navigating a city on the precipice of democratic crisis. Co-written with Akinola Davies’ brother and collaborator Wale Davies, it stars Sopé Dìrísù (Slow Horses, Gangs of London) as Folarin, the estranged father of two sons played by real-life brothers Godwin Egbo and Remi Chibuike Marvellous Egbo.
Documentary The Rose: Come Back to Me from CJ 4DPLEX opens on 200+ screens. The film by Eugene Yi (Free Chol Soo Lee) follows the rise of Korean indie rock band The Rose. Choosing not to conform to the K-pop machine or heed their music label’s directives, they achieved a breakthrough with their first single,“SORRY,” which went viral and helped them cultivate a global audience. Experience the trials and tribulations of their journey, culminating in their performance on the Coachella stage in 2024 and earning the title of Billboard’s No. 1 international emerging group. With band members Kim “Sammy” Woosung, Park “Leo” Dojoon, Lee “Dylan” Hajoon, and Lee “Jeff” Taegyeom. Premiered at the Tribeca Festival 2025 and the Busan International Film Festival.
MORE: TheMetropolitanOpera’s abridged, English-language version of Massenet’s Cinderella returns to cinemas as part of the 2025-26Live in HDseason.On 600+ screens from Fathom Entertainment, it will screen on February 14 at 1 p.m. local time. And Mamoru Hosoda’s animated adventure Scarlet from Sony Pictures Classics expands to 530 standard run in Week 2 after opening with a 160 screen Imax-exclusive run. Markiplier’s phenomenon Iron Lung continues its run at 2,445 locations.