Ari Aster has never been one to offer comfort with his films. From the family horror of Hereditary to the nightmare of Midsommar, the man specializes in making us squirm in our seats. With Eddington, his latest venture into psychological territory, Aster turns his gaze toward something even more terrifying than ancient cults or demonic possession: ourselves.
Starring Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, and Pedro Pascal, Eddington functions as a modern-day western where the frontier isn't geographic but rather, digital. It explores how we have become prisoners of our own making, trapped in feedback loops that echo endlessly on our screens and into our heads. Aster plunges us into the fever dream of 2020—a world gripped by COVID, cults of personality, mask mandates, social justice uprisings, online radicalization, and the performative churn of hashtag activism—laying bare the fractured psyche that continues to shape our present.
It’s a retrospective no one asked for—and that’s exactly the point. Aster, a known first-rate provocateur who’s been unsettling audiences since his debut feature, now turns his gaze to the COVID-19 pandemic: a chapter of recent history so raw and disorienting that people were already declaring it off-limits for cinema even as it was still unfolding.
It’s all here — warts and all — an open wound that Aster seems to take a certain pleasure in picking at. As thorny and chaotic as 2020 was — and as 2025 still is — this isn’t exactly a pleasant time at the movies. But it is a bracing, eye-opening one. And once it gets under your skin, it’s not so easy to shake.
Set in the blistering isolation of the American Southwest during the summer of 2020 in a country locked down by a global pandemic and lost in the fog of misinformation, the remote desert town of Eddington, New Mexico becomes a microcosm of national paranoia, division, and decay.
Phoenix is Joe Cross, Eddington’s deeply conflicted sheriff, whose grip on reality begins to slip as tensions escalate. When progressive mayor Ted Garcia (Pascal) unveils a controversial plan to build an artificial intelligence data center that promises to revitalize the local economy, it fractures the already fragile community and forces Joe to begin a run for mayor to overthrow Garcia. As conspiracy theories spread like wildfire, Joe unexpectedly finds himself at odds with is wife Louise (Stone), a reclusive artist grappling with her own past.
As the mayoral election heats up, so do suspicions, power plays, and unspoken traumas. What begins as a political rivalry, quickly spirals into a desperate struggle for control, sanity, and truth. In Eddington, Aster crafts a slow-burning descent into collective madness—where the frontier spirit meets the disinformation age.
Aster unfolds his story like a fever dream, following characters caught in the endless scroll of social media validation and algorithmic manipulation. Phoenix delivers a typically riveting performance as a man slowly unraveling under the weight of a world that seems to be collapsing around him – weren’t we all? Stone and Pascal provide equally compelling counterpoints, each representing different facets of our fractious relationship with technology and truth.
Eddington emerges from the wreckage of our collective digital exhaustion by capturing the absurdity of everything that exploded during that pivotal summer of 2020—and the five years that followed. Aster approaches his material with the understanding that sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying. The result is a dark comedy that finds humor in our most uncomfortable truths.
What makes Eddington particularly unsettling – and intriguing – is how it functions as a modern-day western. Instead of cowboys and cattle rustlers, we have influencers and algorithm architects. The vast, empty landscapes of traditional westerns are replaced by the infinite scroll of social media feeds. Everyone is both sheriff and outlaw in this digital frontier.
Aster's genius – and quite possibly what will alienate a lot of viewers – lies in his refusal to villainize any particular side of the cultural divide. After all, don’t we always want to blame the other side? Technology companies, social media users, politicians, and ordinary people trying to navigate this new world are all victims, yet none emerge as clear heroes or villains. Instead, they're all caught in the same web of feedback loops, each responding to signals that may or may not reflect what is actually going on. How’s that for realism!?
Make no mistake, Eddington won't be for everyone. Those seeking traditional narrative satisfaction or clear moral guidance will leave disappointed. But for viewers willing to sit with a bit of discomfort and examine their own digital habits, the film offers something more valuable: recognition.
MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 148 mins
Director: Ari Aster
Writer: Ari Aster
Cast: Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal
Genre: Western | Drama | Dark Comedy
Tagline: A film by Ari Aster
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor: A24
Official Site: https://a24films.com/films/eddington
Release Date: July 18, 2025
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
