'The Amateur' and 3 More Must-See Films in Theaters This Weekend

Entertainment NewsWhat To WatchUpcoming ReleasesMovie PremiereNew MovieMoviesTheatrical ReleasesThrillerTrailersFilmActorsActionDocumentaries

Apr 10

Written By Jonathan P. Moustakas

Rami Malek in 'The Amateur.' **Courtesy of 20th Century Studios**

CIA Thrillers, First-Date Terrors, War-Zone Tension, and Lennon-Ono Legacy Hit the Big Screen

As spring movie season kicks into high gear, a new slate of gripping releases is set to dominate theaters this weekend. Whether you’re craving high-stakes espionage, psychological thrills, real-world military drama, or intimate archival storytelling, these four films are poised to satisfy. From Rami Malek’s unlikely spy in The Amateur to a John Lennon IMAX concert doc, here are the most buzzed-about titles worth your ticket.

The Amateur

In theaters Friday

Rami Malek stars as Charlie, a mild-mannered CIA codebreaker whose world is shattered after his wife is killed in a London terror attack. With no field training and little more than righteous anger, Charlie strongarms his agency into turning him into a full-fledged operative. His goal? A personal mission of revenge.

Director James Hawes blends methodical pacing with stylized action, guiding Malek’s transformation from desk jockey to vengeful agent. Laurence Fishburne lends gravitas as Charlie’s reluctant mentor, while the film’s globe-trotting set pieces—complete with glass-bottom pool assassinations and shady CIA backchannels—deliver pulpy, high-stakes thrills.

The Amateur may lack the polish of a Bourne or Bond installment, but it packs enough urgency and thematic weight to hold its own.

READ OUR REVIEW

Drop

In theaters Friday

A first date spirals into digital horror in this tech-noir thriller directed by Christopher Landon. Meghann Fahy plays Violet, a single mother trying to dip her toes back into the dating pool. Her night out with the charming Henry (Brandon Sklenar) takes a dark turn when she receives a series of cryptic AirDropped messages from someone in the same restaurant.

As the texts grow increasingly threatening—and eerily personal—Violet is pulled into a game of psychological warfare. Everyone in the restaurant is a suspect, including the man across the table. Smart, unnerving, and eerily plausible in our smartphone-addled age, Drop blends social commentary with white-knuckle suspense.

READ OUR REVIEW

Warfare

In theaters Friday

Blistering in its realism, Warfare drops viewers into the chaos of a 2006 mission in Ramadi, Iraq. Directed by Alex Garland (Civil War) and co-written with Navy SEAL veteran Ray Mendoza—who lived through the events—this intense, stripped-down war film reconstructs a mission-gone-wrong with nerve-shredding detail.

With no soaring speeches or easy sentimentality, Warfare immerses us in the moment-to-moment dread of a military operation unraveling under enemy fire. A cast led by Joseph Quinn and Will Poulter captures the tension, brotherhood, and disorientation of soldiers locked in a foreign urban battlefield.

POPULAR ON THE CINEMA GROUP

More procedural than patriotic, the film stands apart from traditional war movies. It doesn’t glorify. It stares.

READ OUR REVIEW

One to One: John & Yoko

In IMAX theaters Friday

Kevin Macdonald’s kaleidoscopic documentary chronicles the most politically charged period of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s shared life. Using archival footage, concert recordings, phone calls, and media ephemera, One to One centers on the couple’s activism, artistry, and their 1972 benefit concert for Willowbrook State School.

The film toggles between the mundane and the monumental: Ono ordering 1,000 flies for a performance art piece, Lennon decrying political apathy, and tender moments in their Village apartment. Concert footage anchors the project, offering fans the rare experience of Lennon in post-Beatles full performance mode.

Visually immersive and narratively loose, One to One is less biopic than sensory mosaic—unpolished, raw, and deeply human.