Sightlines · reception
How Eddington was received
2025 · Ari Aster · Eddington on Sightlines
The arc
Booed and cheered in the same room at Cannes 2025, then a box-office disappointment that summer — a year on it's already the Aster film people keep relitigating, with defenders calling it the definitive '2020 movie' and detractors calling it his first real misfire.
What’s debated
The forever-fight: is its both-sides COVID culture-war satire fearless or smug — with liberals and conservatives each convinced the film is mocking them specifically.
Its footprint
It's become shorthand for 'the pandemic movie' — masks, doomscrolling, small-town conspiracy brain — with the Joaquin Phoenix vs. Pedro Pascal sheriff-versus-mayor standoff supplying endless meme fodder.
Where it stands
A lightning rod rather than a favorite: bottom of many Aster rankings, top of a few, and a prime early candidate for the 'it was right all along' reappraisal cycle.
Did you know? It was Ari Aster's first film to premiere in competition at Cannes — and he shot it in New Mexico, the state where he grew up.
Named by the director
- My Darling Clementine (1946) — Aster singled out this John Ford Western when discussing the classic Western mythology Eddington plays against.
- Fat City (1972) — He praised Huston's grounded small-town portrait as a model for how he wanted Eddington's town to feel.
- Nashville (1975) — Aster called Altman's ensemble one of the greatest films about America while discussing Eddington's panorama.
- The Last Picture Show (1971) — He screened it for his crew as a touchstone portrait of a small town.
- JFK (1991) — Aster cited Stone's film as a great movie about conspiracy thinking whose paranoia anticipates the present.
- John Ford — Aster named Ford among the classic Western directors whose Old West nostalgia Eddington is in dialogue with.