With sharp wit and cathartic intensity, Coralie Fargeat turns toxic beauty culture inside out in her mind-blowing latest feature. Powered by a career-best performance from Demi Moore, The Substance fearlessly bulldozes its way into the midnight-movie pantheon and the feminist canon.

A future Paris sparkles with unnervingly beautiful people in Coralie Fargeat’s transfixing sci-fi short. Testing out a speculative self-optimization technology ten years ahead of The Substance, the French director won numerous awards for this electrifying descent into an image-obsessed society.

Weaponizing tropes to neo-feminist ends, Coralie Fargeat fires on all cylinders in this killer film. Adrenalized by the same fascination with transformation that sparks across The Substance, the provocateur filmmaker empowers her heroine to go from Barbie to badass with dangerous, delirious style.