Good One (India Donaldson, 2024). Intimate, acutely observed, and devastating in its emotional truths. With her feature directorial debut, India Donaldson merits comparisons to Kelly Reichardt, which I mean as an enormous compliment. In Good One, a teenaged girl named Sam (Lily Collias) goes on a camping trip with her father, Chris (James Le Gros), and his longtime friend Matt (Danny McCarthy). The daughter and father have a warm relationship that’s pockmarked with the usual squabbles and minor humiliations that comes along with that sort of familial bond. Matt is a recently divorced hangdog who has a tendency to embarrass himself with the sort of dopey assertions that most men his age have managed to grow out of. While keeping the tone of the movie decisively on the smallest of scales, Donaldson demonstrates how one terrible decision can set an entire set of relationships skidding into permanent disrepair. Donaldson is patient in her storytelling and quietly elegant in her visuals, providing a tableau that is powerful in its tender, telling moments. The whole cast is strong, but Collias deserves special commendations for conveying the hurt of real betrayal with aching understatement.

Abigail (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, 2024). Part crime caper and part proudly bonkers horror film, Abigail operates with a headlong energy and freewheeling spirit that’s difficult to maintain for the course of an entire feature. Understandably, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett don’t quite pull it off, but they come remarkably close. A crime boos named Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) enlists a crew of mismatched thugs, each desperate or volatile in their own unique way, to kidnap the ballerina daughter of one of his rivals. The gang is given the seemingly simple task of guarding the waiflike captive overnight while holed up in a remote, crumbling mansion. The task proves more challenging than it initially seems, and soon there’s a body count and a whole lot of blood being spilled. The filmmakers embrace all the possibilities and dark comedy of their wild premise, and the cast members all hit the right mark between genuine and heightened reactions. Horror veterans Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens lean into their well-established modes of steely survivor and hammy weirdo, respectively, and young Alisha Weir handles the sharp turns of the title role with precocious inventiveness.

Ghostlight (Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, 2024). In the most basic and familiar description of its themes, Ghostlight is about the healing power of art. Thankfully, this modest drama is more complicated than that. It really suggests that the community that builds up around creating collaborative art can be the first component to opening up to other relationships and, if its needed, some deep healing. Dan Mueller (Keith Kupferer) is a construction worker who is clearly troubled by a past tragedy that is also weighing heavy on his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen) and sending his daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer, in a livewire performance), spiraling. On a whim, he gets involved in a ragtag community theater’s production of Romeo and Juliet, and the experience evolves to have an effect on his entire family and his own well-being. There is an old-school indie earnestness to the film that is enhanced by the understated authenticity of the acting. The central family is played by a real-life father, mother, and daughter, which surely helps, but the performances are impressive beyond the stunt element of that casting. The plotting has a few wobbles, but the emotional through line is straight and true.