Lioness
2026 · 7m
Directed by Molly E. Smith
Barricaded in a motel room, a mother's determination and primal instincts kick in to protect her child's innocence.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
On the surface it's maternal protection thriller boilerplate, but the fact that Smith keeps us locked in that motel room—refusing the cathartic escape or confrontation—is genuinely unsettling in a way most people won't admit they needed.
Smith's restraint recalls a lineage of chamber-bound psychological work; the formal compression of space and time positions this squarely in conversation with Polley and Eggers' intimate interior studies.
The entire film pivots on one choice—keeping the camera's focus on the mother's face rather than the threat—and that singular commitment to subjective claustrophobia transforms a stock premise into something that actually breathes.