Friday Flicks: ‘Hostiles’, ‘Have a Nice Day’, ‘American Folk’

It’s Friday again, and the weekend slate once again leans into stories of uneasy journeys, stolen fortunes, and the strange comfort of shared song. The original piece opened amid the 2018 awards season and Sundance buying frenzy; The Shape of Water would ultimately claim Best Picture with four Oscars from its thirteen nominations, while Neon and AGBO paid ten million for Assassination Nation and Bleecker Street with 30West closed mid-seven figures on Colette. Those deals underscored a shifting market even then. The same films that drew crowds to multiplexes and arthouses have since found new audiences on streaming, and the focus concept Hostiles remains the clearest through-line for anyone looking back at that January weekend.

Hostiles (Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures)

Scott Cooper’s 1892 Western follows Captain Joseph J. Blocker, played by Christian Bale, as he escorts a dying Cheyenne chief, Wes Studi, and his family across hostile territory to their ancestral grounds. The journey forces two former battlefield rivals to rely on each other. Ben Foster appears in Hell or High Water mode, Timothée Chalamet and Jesse Plemons round out the ranks, and Q’orianka Kilcher brings quiet gravity from The New World. The film grossed roughly thirty-five point seven million worldwide against a thirty-nine million budget and collected four wins from thirteen total nominations. Bale’s flinty performance has drawn fresh notice in later reviews, and Hostiles left Netflix in November 2025 after several runs on the platform.

American Folk (Good Deed Entertainment)

David Heinz’s cross-country drama stars real-life musicians Joe Purdy and Amber Rubarth as strangers stranded in California after the 9/11 attacks. With flights grounded, they hitch and drive east, trading verses of classic folk tunes that gradually bridge their separate griefs. The songs they perform form the backbone of the soundtrack, and both the film and its recordings remain available through official channels and major platforms.

Have a Nice Day (Strand Releasing)

Liu Jian’s animated neo-noir follows a young courier who lifts a million yuan meant for his girlfriend’s surgery, setting off a frantic scramble among gangsters, a hitman, and an eccentric inventor. The director’s second feature after Piercing I, the project took three years to complete largely on his own, underscoring the growing presence of independent Chinese animation in U.S. distribution.

Please Stand By (Magnolia Pictures)

Ben Lewin, fresh from The Sessions, returns with a road comedy about an autistic woman, Dakota Fanning, who bolts from her caregiver to deliver a five-hundred-page Star Trek script to a Hollywood contest. Toni Collette from Little Miss Sunshine and Patton Oswalt lend support along the way. The film premiered at the Austin Film Festival in October 2017 before a simultaneous theatrical and VOD bow in January 2018 and later surfaced on Netflix.

Like Me (Kino Lorber)

Robert Mockler’s debut tracks a restless loner, Addison Timlin, who films her convenience-store robbery and watches the clip rack up followers while her real-world spiral accelerates through drugs and fast food. The neon-soaked satire landed in limited release the same January weekend as several of its peers.

Legacy and Retrospective Viewings

Hostiles has enjoyed periodic streaming revivals and Collider recently labeled it an underrated Western worth another look. Availability on various platforms as of 2026 keeps the film accessible to new viewers who missed its theatrical run, while its measured tone on frontier violence continues to resonate in an era of streaming Westerns that favor spectacle over moral friction.

Where to Watch These Films Today

Please Stand By has already cycled through Netflix, and American Folk’s official site still offers both the picture and its soundtrack for purchase or rental. Hostiles rotates through catalog services after its Netflix exit, giving audiences multiple entry points without needing to track physical media.

Post-Release Careers of Key Cast Members

Timothée Chalamet and Jesse Plemons appeared in the Hostiles ensemble before their profiles rose sharply; Collider noted Chalamet’s potential at the time, and both actors have since headlined major studio and indie projects that trace back to the same period of early promise.

Animation and International Indie Voices

Have a Nice Day stands as an early marker of Chinese animated features reaching wider U.S. audiences through Strand Releasing. Liu Jian’s hand-drawn approach and patient three-year production cycle offered a distinct counterpoint to the glossy output that dominated multiplex screens in early 2018.

Those January releases may have opened in a crowded awards corridor, yet their stories of reluctant alliances, stolen cash, and music as makeshift shelter still surface on home screens years later. Hostiles continues to anchor the conversation whenever the conversation turns to revisionist Westerns that linger after the final frame.