The South By Standout movies from SXSW

This year, the biggest films premiering out of South by Southwest (March 9-17) were studio titles that audiences needn’t wait long to see outside the fest. Blockers (April 6), A Quiet Place (April 6), and Ready Player One (March 29) all made their bow in Austin, the great taco OASIS. No film pitted against a Steven Spielberg love letter in the same time slot is in an enviable position, but as SXSW film head Janet Pierson told EW, film lovers should take chances—margarita in hand—when they crack open the schedule.

Thunder Road and Prospect, two full-length features spun off from short films that premiered at SXSW in previous years, made big impacts this year: Thunder Road fetched the award for best narrative feature; and Prospect, an inventive sci-fi with Pedro Pascal, Sophie Thatcher, and Jay Duplass, offers interplanetary travel that’s less like stunning VR and more like if the G train ran through Annihilation. Duplass also stars in Lynn Shelton’s meditative Outside In, while his brother Mark co-wrote the Suzi Yoonessi-directed Unlovable with Sarah Adina Smith and its lovable star, Charlene deGuzman.

Many other women directors and female-fronted films made for strong premieres, especially in the competitive categories. A Vigilante, helmed by Sarah Daggar-Nickson, sets Sadie (Olivia Wilde) on the hunt for her abusive ex-husband as she tracks down and punishes other domestic abusers for their sins. Another hero tale, Fast Color (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), had many attendees calling it a solo story for the X-Men’s Storm. Slow-burning SADIE is led by Sophia Mitri Schloss and Melanie Lynskey, who is great in pretty much everything she does. And in an impressive first feature for Olivia Newman with a production that wxas 60 percent female, First Match is about a girl who joins an all-boys wrestling team.

SXSW films that debuted at other fests but continued to make waves include Sorry to Bother You (see our Sundance recap); Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville’s doc on Mr. Rogers; Bo Burnham’s gutting Eighth Grade (photo above); and the actually gutting Hereditary, with Toni Colette and Alex Wolff in a perfect tangle of fear. Another standout midnighter was Ghost Stories, the play adaptation with Martin Freeman, overflowing with classic scares. And Blumhouse Productions rolled in with two disturbing sights, with Unfriended: Dark Web and Upgrade.

Too scared? Laugh it up and keep supporting women… by seeing Support the Girls.