If I Had Legs I'd Kick You · reception & legacy

How If I Had Legs I'd Kick You has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It premiered at Sundance 2025 as the festival's word-of-mouth endurance test, and within a year Rose Byrne had swept from Berlin's Silver Bear to a Golden Globe, an Indie Spirit and an Oscar nomination — critics were at 92% while audiences stayed far shakier, and it's already settling in as the defining 'anxiety cinema' entry of its year.

What's debated

The fight is whether its relentless, no-exit stress is a masterpiece of subjective filmmaking or just two hours of punishment — the 'Uncut Gems of motherhood' camp (Josh Safdie did produce it) versus the 'great film I never need to see again' camp.

Its footprint

Conan O'Brien playing a completely humorless therapist opposite Rose Byrne became the film's crossover talking point, and the title itself — an all-time great title — gets quoted constantly by people who haven't even seen it; the image of Byrne staring up into the hole in her ceiling is its instant visual shorthand.

Where it stands

An instant Letterboxd fixture in the 'movies that feel like a panic attack' canon, filed next to Uncut Gems as a watch-once-brag-forever badge of honour.

Named by the director

Influences Mary Bronstein has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• Eraserhead (1977) — Bronstein called it the 'brother movie' to her film — paternal anxiety to her maternal — and said the boldness of Lynch making the baby a weird puppet-creature directly inspired her own handmade, subjective approach.