Dead of Winter (2025)

Camo Jacket and Purple Lady are the only names the villains get in Dead of Winter, and the script still finds room for more backstory than it needs. A lean survival thriller keeps stopping to explain itself. When it just moves, it’s tense. Emma Thompson plays Barb, who heads north through Minnesota after her husband Karl dies, to scatter his ashes at the lake where they first went out. A snowstorm, a wrong turn and one very shifty stranger later, she sees a young woman, Leah, with her hands bound, trying to get away, and Barb decides she’s the only help coming. She turns Karl’s old ice-fishing shack into a trap, and when her truck is useless, she sets it on fire as a signal. Thompson is flinty and terrific, never an action hero. It holds a 76% on Rotten Tomatoes and made $2.5 million worldwide. A 6.0 because Thompson is a blast in a thriller that overexplains. $436.66 says you toss an extra pair of mittens in the car before the first snow this year.

What works: Emma Thompson is a joy as a practical, stubborn widow, and her homemade traps and signals give the thriller real tension.

What doesn’t: The script keeps pausing to pile on backstory, which slows down a story that works best when it just keeps moving.

Who it’s for: Thriller fans who would rather watch a clever widow outthink the bad guys than another muscle-bound hero.