‘Eddington’

By Mark Graham

It’s been five long years since the novel coronavirus first swept across our spacious skies and fruited plains, and if we’re being honest here, no one is exactly eager to revisit those dark nights of the American soul. No one, that is, except for Ari Aster, the exceptionally talented filmmaker who has made it his life’s mission to confront hard truths and repressed trauma in movies like Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid, and now, Eddington. The movie takes its name from a fictional town in New Mexico where a conservative-leaning town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) locks horns with a liberal-leaning town mayor (Pedro Pascal) in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown. It’s at once a scathing, hilarious, and altogether eerie look back at the period of time when the American way of life was (irreparably? permanently?) fractured, as well as a scarily prescient prognostication of what’s to become as we blindly enter the era of artificial intelligence. (See also: Decider’s 17 Best Movies Of 2025)

Photo: Everett Collection