There is a moment in Hope when you realize Na Hong-jin has no intention of giving you the movie you thought you were watching. That is either thrilling or infuriating, depending on how much patience you have for a director deliberately pulling the floor out from under his audience. The film begins like a grimy…
There are movies you casually put on your watchlist, and then there are movies like Hope (2026), where the question isn’t really whether you’re going to watch it. It’s when. Na Hong-jin’s latest film has been one of the more intriguing cinematic stories of 2026. The director behind The Chaser, The Yellow Sea, and The…
There are movie announcements that make you mildly curious, and then there are the ones that make you immediately start checking theater listings months in advance. Na Hong-jin’s Hope is firmly in the second category. The director behind The Chaser, The Yellow Sea, and The Wailing has spent roughly a decade away from feature filmmaking,…
There are movies you casually put on your watchlist, and then there are movies that make you start checking theater listings months ahead of time. Hope (2026) is firmly in the second category for me. Na Hong-jin returning with a giant-scale science fiction horror movie already sounds like a dangerous amount of fun. Add Hwang…
There are movies that you watch, enjoy, and forget a week later. Then there are movies like Hope, the 2026 sci-fi horror epic from South Korean director Na Hong-jin, which practically demand that you sit down afterward and argue about what you just saw. And honestly, I love that. Na Hong-jin has never been interested…
There are movies you watch, think about for a few hours, and then move on. Hope (2026) does not seem interested in being one of those movies. Na Hong-jin, the filmmaker behind The Chaser and The Wailing, has returned with something that feels almost deliberately designed to start arguments. Instead of another grim psychological thriller…