What to Watch This Weekend: Robert Pattinson Plays Chris Hansen, Brad Pitt Crashes in Alaska, and a Seven-Year-Old Marvel Movie Might Beat Them Both

This is the strangest good weekend of the fall. Four new movies open on Friday with reviews most studios would frame and hang in the lobby: a Venice competition title, a Brad Pitt survival drama, DreamWorks Animation's best-reviewed film ever, and a Canadian daredevil comedy. The movie most forecasters expect to finish first is none of them. It is Avengers: Endgame, back in theaters seven years after it opened.

Last weekend belonged to Zach Cregger. Resident Evil opened to $60.2 million, the biggest start in the franchise's 24-year history and the best of Cregger's career, ahead of Weapons at $43.5 million. Audiences gave it a B-plus CinemaScore, the highest grade the series has ever earned. We laid out the stakes in our preview of Cregger's reboot. Forecasts have its second weekend around $24 million. Here is everything else.

The one to see: Primetime

Lance Oppenheim made his name with documentaries (Some Kind of Heaven, Spermworld). Primetime is his first narrative feature, and he picked a subject that already felt like a scripted drama: To Catch a Predator, the Dateline sting series that turned Chris Hansen into a catchphrase. Robert Pattinson plays Hansen in 2006, at the height of the show's ratings, and the film follows a botched operation that sets off the events that brought it down. The script by Ajon Singh draws on Luke Dittrich's 2007 Esquire article "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die."

It premiered in competition at Venice to a standing ovation of nearly eight minutes and has held above 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes across roughly 90 reviews. The BBC's Nicholas Barber gave it five stars and called Pattinson's performance the best of his career. Hansen, for his part, called the portrayal "almost vampirish" and allowed that the voice impression was "pretty good." Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, and Phoebe Bridgers round out the cast.

A24 made it for about $15 million and is opening it wide. Tracking has climbed to a range of $15 million to $22 million, which would be a remarkable number for an R-rated media satire. It is not a comfortable sit. Critics keep describing it as a satire shot like an arthouse horror film. That is exactly why it is the pick.

Make your tier list right here

Five DreamWorks films, head-to-head. Tap the one you prefer and we will build your order, then label it S through D.

Which do you prefer?

How to Train Your Dragon2010

VS

Shrek2001

Tap your favorite

The tearjerker: Heart of the Beast

Brad Pitt and David Ayer last worked together on Fury in 2014. Heart of the Beast reunites them for something much simpler: a retired Special Forces veteran and his traumatized military dog, Odin, stranded in the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash. J.K. Simmons and Anna Lambe co-star, and the dog is played by a German Shepherd named Uber, who by most accounts steals the film. It runs 101 minutes and is rated PG-13.

The reviews are the surprise of the week. The film sits in the high 80s on Rotten Tomatoes with a Metacritic score of 69, making it Ayer's best-reviewed movie by a wide margin (the previous high was End of Watch at 85 percent). The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck called it "actually a love story, and one of the most moving to come along in a long time." The knocks are about melodrama and the ending. Bring tissues. Paramount spent a reported $82 million and is tracking for $14 million to $19 million, so it needs word of mouth.

The family pick: Forgotten Island

DreamWorks Animation's 50th feature is also the only movie opening this weekend with a perfect score: 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes across nearly 50 reviews, and a 78 on Metacritic. Joel Crawford (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) and Januel Mercado direct the story of Jo and Raissa (H.E.R. and Liza Soberano), two best friends about to go separate ways after high school who get trapped in Nakali, a world of Filipino folklore that slowly feeds on the memories of anyone inside it. Dave Franco, Jenny Slate, and Lea Salonga lead the supporting voices.

The Hollywood Reporter called the animation dazzling and traced its influences to anime, Studio Ghibli, and Into the Spider-Verse. The worry is commercial. Original animation has struggled to open, and the latest tracking has slipped to the mid-teens against an $80 million budget. It is rated PG and runs under two hours. If you have kids, this is an easy call, and a strong opening is how studios decide to make more movies like it. Once you have seen it, see where it lands on our DreamWorks movies ranked list.

The event: Avengers: Endgame Encore

Disney is putting Endgame back on screens as Avengers Endgame: Encore, remastered and carrying new footage Kevin Feige promised was shot to lead into Avengers: Doomsday, which opens December 18. It is also the launch of Infinity Vision, Disney's new certification for premium large-format screens, and IMAX and Infinity Vision showings add a sneak peek at Doomsday. Some of the new material has already leaked online, so if you care about spoilers, go early.

Forecasts range from $18 million to $27 million, which is why a movie that already made $2.79 billion worldwide is favored to win the weekend. It is three hours long. You know if you are going. Before you do, settle where it ranks on our Marvel movies ranked list.

The oddball: The Stunt Driver

Michael Dowse, who directed Goon, reunites with Jay Baruchel for a comedy about Ken Carter, the real Canadian daredevil who spent years trying to jump a rocket-powered car across the St. Lawrence River. It is rated R and runs 99 minutes. Reviews out of Toronto are split. RogerEbert.com said it "almost sticks the landing," and critics mostly agree Baruchel is terrific and the tone wobbles once the story turns. Worth it if you like your true stories strange and Canadian.

The couch picks: Backrooms and Unabomber

The biggest home release of the month lands Friday. Backrooms, Kane Parsons's feature expansion of his viral YouTube horror series, cost under $10 million, grossed $396.5 million worldwide, and became A24's highest-grossing film ever. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a failing furniture store owner who finds a portal to an endless yellow labyrinth in his basement, and Renate Reinsve plays the therapist who goes in after him. It starts streaming on HBO Max on September 25 and airs on HBO Saturday at 8 p.m. ET. If you skipped it in theaters, this is the weekend.

Netflix counters with Unabomber, a crime drama from Janus Metz starring Jacob Tremblay as the young Ted Kaczynski at Harvard, Russell Crowe as the psychologist Henry Murray, and Shailene Woodley as the FBI agent on the manhunt. Reviews were not out at press time, so treat it as a gamble. And if you have kids who already saw everything in theaters, Toy Story 5 hit Disney+ on Wednesday. We covered what to know about its streaming debut.

It is rare for four new wide releases to earn reviews this good on the same Friday. That is exactly the kind of weekend a movie tier list is built for. Log what you see on Shortlist, rank the new ones head to head against your all-time favorites, and find out whether Pattinson's Chris Hansen outranks his Batman.

Frequently asked