Yorgos Lanthimos’s movies love to flirt—often comically—with horror: the fear that behind the façade of society is a gaping maw of existential terror. In this dastardly short, a shrewdly cast Matt Dillon realizes that no role in life is irreplaceable. Suddenly, nothing is safe—not even ourselves.

Discontent with mid-century domesticity, a couple flee its demands, throwing their son prematurely into the mess of adult affairs. Wildlife may be his first film as director and screenwriter, yet Paul Dano comes close to the heights of Greek tragedy in this tale of the nuclear family in crisis.

Mexican director Yulene Olaizola’s remarkable docu-fiction hybrid homes in on a transformed landscape—Canada’s desolate, slowly emptying Fogo island—to explore themes of loneliness, community, and resilience in the face of devastation. A meditative reflection on the push and pull of the wilderness.