Two of the Best Movies to See in April Belong to Neon: ‘The Christophers’ and ‘Exit 8’

The Oscars are truly, truly over. No more predictions. No more recaps. No more reactions. Well, other than confused reactions about the Oscars’ just-announced upcoming new perch, not the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, but the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. (The last Academy Awards to take place in downtown L.A. were in 2021, and we’re all still trying to forget that COVID-era night at Union Station.)

Anyway, that all means that IndieWire’s Screen Talk podcast can finally, fully talk about something else — something more current! On this week’s episode, co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio jump onto a raft of new topics. There’s the box office for “Project Hail Mary,” doing cosmic-level gangbusters since its opening weekend starting March 20. Audiences want to see heartwarming fare featuring a great lead (Ryan Gosling) being competent and fixing things for the greater good of humanity. Who knew?

Then, there’s the more dire news of David Zaslav’s exit package, post-prepping Warner Bros. Discovery for a sale, for a company now being taken over by the Ellisons. Who controls the biggest plot of land in Hollywood now? It’s Wall Street and stockholders, evidently. We dive into that, too, as the former CEO walks away with a golden parachute worth up to the tune of $887 million.

In more hopeful notes, as Screen Talk will take next week off, we want to highlight two feature film releases this April, both from Neon: Steven Soderbergh’s 2025 TIFF premiere “The Christophers” (April 10) and Genki Kawamura’s 2025 Cannes debuter “Exit 8” (also April 10). One is by a veteran master craftsman who knows his way around an economically assembled tale, here with Ian McKellen as a late-in-life artist who hires Michaela Coel as his assistant. Or so he believes, but there’s more going on. Meanwhile, Kawamura’s twisty, Escher-esque thriller adapts a refreshingly original video game to find a man trapped in a Japanese metro station with no way out.

We also look toward what we think will be at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, from new films by Cristian Mungiu and Andrey Zvyagintsev to new Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Nicolas Winding Refn.

Listen to this week’s Screen Talk episode below or on your preferred podcast platform.