A very underrated 2025 thriller movie is finally streaming at home

The film has earned mixed reviews, though we argue it's worth seeking out.

Currently streaming on the service NOW, the actress plays Ariel in the movie, a journalist at a high-profile music magazine.

Despite being eager to prove herself, she often finds herself relegated by her boss, Stan (Murray Bartlett, The White Lotus), to performing more menial tasks in the newsroom.

Out of the blue, her magazine gets an invite from Alfred Moretti (Oscar-nominee John Malkovich - Burn After Reading, In the Line of Fire), a '90s pop sensation who had withdrawn from the public eye, to come to his Utah compound for a days-long listening party for his new album.

Ariel tags along with Stan to be his notetaker, with the pair also joined by several other journalists, including TV presenter Clara (Juliette Lewis, Yellowjackets).

Upon arrival, the group discovers that Moretti's compound also includes dozens of other people (including rising stars Amber Midthunder and Tatanka Means) who all subscribe to a strange belief system known as 'Levelism'.

As the days pass, the reclusive singer and his apparent followers' behaviour grow stranger. While many of the journalists dismiss this as pop star theatrics, Ariel starts to suspect something more sinister is afoot.

Upon its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Opus seemed to disappoint critics for the most part. Perhaps it did not live up to the expectations reviewers had for it ahead of the screening, particularly with the level of talent involved.

We here at JOE would agree that the movie has its flaws. But we'd also say that there is enough to like about Opus to recommend it to fans of similar-in-style thrillers.

Written and directed by debut feature filmmaker and former journalist Mark Anthony Green, the first two-thirds of the movie are deliriously entertaining.

Edebiri continues to be an incredibly likeable, warm screen presence, somehow finding a way to imbue even the most perfunctory dialogue with charm and humour so that the audience can't help but root for her final girl.

Malkovich, meanwhile, is clearly having a ball as his David Bowie/Michael Jackson/Prince-inspired star, with the character's out-there performance theatrics striking the right balance between being believable but also hilariously heightened.

Plus, the actor gets several gem lines to deliver in his typically droll manner, such as the moment after Moretti plays his new track when he states: “Let the music decant a little."

It's also worth noting that Opus does feature original tunes by Nile Rodgers and The-Dream to stand in for Malkovich's character's songs, and they really are earworms, particularly Moretti's big electronic pop breakthrough hit 'Dina, Simone', which you can hear below.

Green directs the film with flair, as evident from Opus' striking opening credits sequence, its kinetic use of montages, the beautiful shots of the wide-open landscapes surrounding Moretti's compound and the hard-hitting set-pieces that erupt suddenly and had audiences gasping in my press screening earlier this year.

In that first two-thirds stretch, Green's screenplay is an enticing mix of several interesting ideas, with the movie appearing to explore journalistic integrity, the perils of fame, artistic creativity, the idea of cults and how all of these things could be connected.

That said, there is a nagging feeling once Opus reveals its hand in the final third that the ultimate explanation for everything that transpires is not quite the ingenious rug pull the filmmakers think it is, particularly given all the weirdness that came before (even if the thriller's final shot is pretty clever).

Plus, coming in the wake of similar social thrillers about outsiders who find themselves in picturesque yet ultimately sinister environments like Blink Twice, Don't Worry Darling, Get Out, and particularly The Menu, Green's movie can't help but feel slightly derivative.

And yet, even if the payoff isn't as mind-blowing as viewers may have hoped, the journey to get there is pleasingly creepy, funny and tremendously well-acted.

Opus is currently streaming in Ireland and the UK on the service NOW.

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