Blue Heron (2025)

Well crafted - highly moving tale of turbulent adolescence - Blue Heron review by AER

Blue Heron is one of the best indies I've seen at the cinema in 2026. What begins as a conventional coming-of-age tale (still a very touching, astute one) morphs into an investigation at the two-thirds mark. Such a change in the narrative is a really brave move but here it works smoothly and convinces. This is largely thanks to a compelling story where all the elements come together to form an utterly immersive and engrossing drama. A young boy (the eldest of four) becomes restless and yearns to pull away from his family, this embodies itself as misbehaviour or depressive immobility. It's all enhanced by its fantastic setting on Vancouver Island. A triumph for the Canadian and Hungarian film industries. 10/10.