The Bride! (2026)

Maggie Gyllenhaal stitched a gangster picture, a dance number, a road movie and a ghost story onto one Frankenstein frame, and The Bride! never holds still long enough to become any of them. Mary Shelley narrates from the afterlife. A crime boss wants Ida silenced. Frank, Christian Bale carrying a century of loneliness, just wants a date. That’s a lot of movie for 126 minutes, and the stretch where the couple is on the run stalls like a car out of gas. Jessie Buckley keeps it alive anyway. Her Ida wakes up with no memory and a fiancé she never picked, and she’s wild, funny and furious in every scene. The best bit is Frank, a superfan of a dapper movie star, copying the guy’s dance moves at a fancy New York party until the whole room joins in. Penélope Cruz quietly steals it as the secretary doing the real detective work. A 4.6 because Buckley is electric and the stitches show everywhere. $48.68 says you google whether Mary Shelley ever planned a sequel before you find your car.

What works: Jessie Buckley is ferocious and funny as a woman reborn with no past, and Frank copying his movie idol’s dance moves at a swanky party is a genuinely strange delight.

What doesn’t: It crams a gangster plot, a ghost narrator, a road movie and a detective story into one film, and the on-the-run middle loses all its momentum.

Who it’s for: People who would rather watch a big, messy swing than a safe remake, and anyone who still thinks about the 1935 Bride of Frankenstein.