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It’s surprising how little information about writer/director Jordan Peele ’s “Nope” has leaked since it was first announced. There have been a few trailers that show what may or may not be the film’s primary threat, and the marketing team has done a very good job with posters of its main cast members looking up at the sky and uttering the film’s title. All that thirst for capitalistic box office gain comes with a price, namely that it builds hype and an audience expectation that may not be met once the finished product is unveiled. This invariably leads to whiny complaints on Twitter and a plethora of think pieces I have no desire to read, even if I didn’t like the movie.  

I’ve always had begrudging respect for a filmmaker who refuses to cater to a viewer’s pre-ordained expectations, even if said viewer is yours truly. It’s why I attend David Lynch movies despite never being a fan of the director’s work. So, I’ve been replaying a throwaway line of dialogue in my head as a potential explanation for how “Nope” is constructed and executed. In response to a pitch for his services, cinematographer Antlers Holst ( Michael Wincott ) tells Emerald Haywood ( Keke Palmer ) that he “makes one movie for them, and one for me.” This is a callback to John Cassavetes ’ philosophy/excuse for appearing in trash—the pay allowed him to finance the movies he wanted to create. 

After the massively entertaining, Oscar-winning calling card of “ Get Out ,” Jordan Peele moved toward a hybrid of audience pleaser and filmmaker’s jones with “ Us .” That film was less blatant and required more work on the audience’s part, which made it fascinating for some and frustrating for others. It was also powered by a career-best performance by Lupita Nyong’o, whose dual role was unshakably strange and multilayered. There is no equivalent performance in “Nope” to anchor viewers, and it’s about three times as messy, but I got the feeling that Holst is Peele’s stand-in, that is, the director is revealing to us through a character that he made this film to amuse and please himself. If that is true, then Holst’s final scene says a lot about his creator; it’s a moment of self-sacrifice in lieu of the perfect camera shot. 

Prior to the pitch for work scene, Holst and Emerald met on the set of a commercial he was shooting. She arrived late to assist her horse-wrangler brother Otis Jr. ( Daniel Kaluuya ) with the animal hired for the ad. That shoot goes awry, but not before Peele drops some breadcrumbs that will lead viewers through the forest he’s built for us to get lost inside. He also includes a nice cameo from nighttime soap opera legend Donna Mills . Speaking of cameos, the opening scene of “Nope” features Keith David as Otis Sr., head of Haywood Hollywood Horses, the family business. The Haywood’s ancestors were the first Black stuntpeople and animal wranglers in Hollywood, going back to the earliest days of movie making. That seems like an extraneous detail, but nothing is truly extra in a Jordan Peele movie.

The rest of the cast features Steven Yuen as Jupe, a barker who runs an alien-based carnival of sorts out in the same middle of nowhere the Haywoods have their ranch, and Angel ( Brandon Perea ), a techie specializing in surveillance equipment he sells out of a Best Buy clone called Fry’s. Jupe is the survivor of a horrific freak accident on a television show that had the first use of a certain type of animal. Angel is hired to install fancy cameras on the Haywood ranch so that Otis and Emerald can be the first to capture “the Oprah shot” of a specific event I won’t reveal. All this focus on being the first to do something! Again, no detail is completely extra in a Jordan Peele movie.

With “Nope,” Peele continues to explore and repeat certain elements of his prior works. Like “Us,” there’s a Bible quote that may be another breadcrumb to follow. This time it’s Nahum 3:6, which says “I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.” There’s also a focus on animals, with horses playing a major role here. Unlike the deer in “Get Out” and the rabbits in “Us,” symbols of creatures being preyed upon, Peele reverses the power dynamic by turning into prey the most dangerous predator of all. There’s also the unusual use of an inanimate object; in “Us” it was scissors, in “Nope” it’s a fake horse and those weird, swaying air-filled things every used car dealer seems to have.

“Nope” is not as good as “Get Out” or “Us,” but it’s definitely Peele’s creepiest movie. He’s always been more Rod Serling than Rob Zombie , and that’s most evident here. There’s humor to be had in the minority characters’ reactions to horror (yes, they say “nope” the way most people would say “oh HELL NAW!”), but the director really leans into Hitchcock’s tenet about suspense vs. surprise. The wait for something awful to happen is always worse than when it does. Additionally, Peele remains a master of misdirection, offering fleeting glimpses of something that’s amiss or keeping the most brutal violence just beyond our view. The sound mix on this is aces, and I’ll never tire of horror movies that center on Black protagonists who are more than just fodder for whatever’s killing everybody.

Peele also gets good performances out of Kaluuya and Palmer, who believably work the sibling angle with all its longstanding grudges, in-jokes and patterns based on who’s older. Wincott wields his wonderful voice as a force of nature. Yuen seems to be off-kilter and the movie’s weak link, but the more I thought about his plotline, the more his performance made sense. I think he’s the film’s biggest breadcrumb in terms of figuring it all out. As for the special effects, they’re interesting, to say the least.

Truth be told, “Nope” reaches a conventional end point that would probably be more satisfying to most audiences had the journey been more tuned to the usual ways these stories are told. After my IMAX screening, there was a smattering of audience applause but I heard lots of grumbling. Call me a sadist if you must, but this is my favorite type of audience reaction. One particularly angry guy behind me on the escalator said “I can’t wait for the critics reviews calling this ‘splendid’!” “Nope” isn’t splendid, but it is pretty damn good. I had a lot of fun trying to figure it out. It’s a puzzle with a few pieces missing; standing back from it, you can still see the picture. But does it give the viewer exactly what they want? See the title.

Available in theaters on July 22nd.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

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Nope (2022)

Rated R for language throughout and some violence/bloody images.

135 minutes

Daniel Kaluuya as OJ Haywood

Keke Palmer as Emerald 'Em' Haywood

Steven Yeun as Ricky 'Jupe' Park

Brandon Perea as Angel Torres

Michael Wincott as Craig

Barbie Ferreira as Nessie

Donna Mills as Bonnie Clayton

Terry Notary as Gordy

Jennifer Lafleur as Phyllis

Keith David as Otis Haywood Sr.

• Jordan Peele

Cinematographer

• Hoyte van Hoytema
• Nicholas Monsour
• Michael Abels

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Nope Reviews

The supporting players work together in ways that show Peele’s prowess, not only as a visual filmmaker, but as one who casts well and trusts his actors. Nope is a wild ride, and one I can’t wait to take again.

Full Review | Feb 27, 2024

Jordan Peele’s third film captures the terrible beauty of our endless fascination with events no matter how horrific.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2023

Nope, Peele’s third directorial outing, may debut in the horror genre, but there’s more to the brilliant film than audiences’ expectations.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 7, 2023

More stylish than substantial.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2023

I love all of Jordan's movies so far, but this one might be my favorite just because there's so much to unpack. Every time I think about it I find more things that I need to talk about and it's the gift that keeps giving.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 14, 2023

It's a very layered movie, lot of themes on Hollywood and how it uses people and kinda chews them up and spits them out - figuratively. He [Jordan Peele] is probably one of our best directors today.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 10, 2023

The failure of Nope is partly because of Peele's lack of restraint in terms of mangling together mismatched ideas.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 9, 2023

Although the vision is stronger than the pen this time around, the Spielberg-esque scope is all-embracing, and his craftiness in the individual horror/sci-fi set pieces is utterly remarkable.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 29, 2023

As with his previous films, Peele wears his inspirations on his sleeve. This time around he mines heavily from two Spielberg classics, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jaws.

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

Jordan Peele takes full advantage of Hoyte van Hoytema's phenomenal cinematography and Michael Abels' memorable score to create a spectacle worthy of the big screen, but it's the sound production that really elevates the movie to that level.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 25, 2023

An almost perfect spectacle that dives into our obsessions with spectacles in our real life. A unique blockbuster that will make you afraid of looking up.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

Jordan Peele has made a science fiction thriller that is one of the most visually striking films in recent memory.

Known for his powerful social commentary in US and Get Out, Jordan Peele reinvents the summer blockbuster through a neo-sci-fi western that looks at society’s obsession with spectacle.

Damn the white-washed history, and the capitalist traps of Hollywood’s fortune and fame. The beast has no more power here.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

It's a good movie, but perhaps it's time to take some of our bloated expectations off Peele as a filmmaker.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 16, 2023

The film ultimately spends what feels like an eternity in a climactic and rather confusing confrontation that feels elaborate but fails to ratchet up the tension.

Full Review | May 30, 2023

A sci-fi horror flick that raises some interesting questions about why aliens might come to Earth and what for.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 28, 2023

Director-writer Peele clearly knows the business of suspending disbelief. I say “yup” to ‘Nope.’

Full Review | Original Score: A | Apr 16, 2023

Beneath the interesting and strange tale of aliens and UAPs is Peele shining a bright light from the sky onto Hollywood and American pop culture’s exploitation of Black people and animals.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 7, 2023

There's so much considered detail and nuance that is weaved into these fantastical themes which is bolstered by a lot of the characters taking control of their own narrative.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 23, 2023

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‘nope’ review: jordan peele’s rapturous and suspenseful sci-fi ride.

A menacing force threatens a Southern California horse ranch in the director’s third film, starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun.

By Lovia Gyarkye

Lovia Gyarkye

Arts & Culture Critic

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Nope , Jordan Peele ’s latest offering, slinks and slithers from the clutches of snap judgment. It avoids the comfort of tidy conclusions too. This elusive third feature from the director of Get Out and Us peacocks its ambitions (and budget) while indulging in narrative tangents and detours. It is sprawling and vigorous. Depending on your appetite for the heady and sonorous, it will either feel frustratingly perplexing or strike you as a work of unquestionable genius.

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Jordan peele making a black cowboy series that pledges to rewrite wild west history, dev patel was a "reluctant director" for debut film 'monkey man' but now "would love to do it again".

Release date: Friday, July 22 (Universal) Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, Keith David Director-screenwriter: Jordan Peele

Even when parts of it don’t jell, Nope is a rapturous watch. This film, about a pair of sibling horse wranglers who encounter an uncanny force on their ranch, covers a wide range of themes: Hollywood’s obsession with and addiction to spectacle, the United States’ inurement to violence, the siren call of capitalism, the legacy of the Black cowboy and the myth of the American West. Aided by a strong cast, led impressively by Daniel Kaluuya , Keke Palmer , Steven Yeun and Brandon Perea, Peele plunges us into a cavernous, twisted reality.

Agua Dulce is a serene tract of Southern California, where large, billowy clouds appear to caress the tips of sandy, burnt-orange mountains. It’s also home to Otis Haywood Jr. (Kaluuya), or O.J. for short, and his father ( Keith David ). The two men spend their days caring for their stable of mares and stallions and running Haywood Hollywood Horses, the oldest Black-owned horse training service in the industry. After his father dies in a strange accident, O.J., a quiet wrangler, reunites with his estranged sister Emerald (Palmer), or Em, to inherit the business.

Em arrives to the shoot late, but her energy is infectious. She loves the spotlight and hungers for easy routes to fame. Most of the on-set crew are immediately taken by her boisterous energy, her toothy grin and talk-show-host delivery of fun facts: Did you know that the Haywoods are the direct descendants of the unnamed Black jockey in Eadweard Muybridge’s 1878 The Race Horse , the first film ever made? Now you do.

Behind Em stands a tortured O.J., gripping the reins of his horse. In a later scene, he admonishes Em for her style, for promoting her multihyphenate career (actor-singer-stuntperson). Em reminds him that running the ranch is her side gig, not her dream. The Haywood siblings’ relationship bears obvious scars of past wounds, but Peele shortchanges audiences when it comes to why. Their suspicious communication style establishes their inability to work as a team, but the characters themselves would have benefited from greater depth and dimension. Kaluuya and an equally impressive Palmer wring as much as they can from O.J. and Em, but they needed another scene or two to burrow into the precipitating events of their fractured relationship.

When O.J. and Em begin piecing together why strange things have been happening on their ranch, their instinct is to make money off it. In their attempts to “capture the impossible,” they meet Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), a recently heartbroken employee at a big-box electronics chain. (Watching the three work together, brainstorming and testing strategies, may bring to mind the teamwork of the characters played by Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee in the 1972 film Buck and the Preacher , which inverted Hollywood’s tradition of the Western by casting Black actors in the main roles.) A late, and unlikely, addition to this rag-tag crew is Antlers Host (Michael Wincott), a cantankerous and revered cinematographer. Although their individual motivations seem different, each of them is driven by a desire for money, fame or some combination of both.

Full credits

Distributor: Universal Pictures Production company: Monkeypaw Productions Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, Keith David Director-screenwriter: Jordan Peele Producers: Jordan Peele, Ian Cooper Executive producers: Robert Graf, Win Rosenfeld Director of photography: Hoyte van Hoytema Production designer: Ruth De Jong Costume designer: Alex Bovaird Editor: Nicholas Monsour Composer: Michael Abels Casting director: Carmen Cuba

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• User reviews

The residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery. The residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery. The residents of a lonely gulch in inland California bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery.

• Jordan Peele
• Daniel Kaluuya
• Keke Palmer
• Brandon Perea
• 2.3K User reviews
• 400 Critic reviews
• 77 Metascore
• 43 wins & 172 nominations

• Emerald Haywood

• Angel Torres

• Antlers Holst

• Ricky 'Jupe' Park

• Otis Haywood Sr.

• Ryder Muybridge

• Bonnie Clayton

• Fynn Bachman
• (as Osgood Perkins)

• Young Ricky 'Jupe' Park

• Mary Jo Elliott

• Phyllis Mayberry …

• Tom Bogan …

• Kolton Park
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia The very early clip of a jockey riding a horse, which Emerald claims features her and OJ's ancestor, is a real 1878 animated series of photographs, one of the first moving images ever, which has come to be called Sallie Gardner at a Gallop (1878) . Sallie Gardner is the name of the horse; the two jockeys were listed as being named "C. Marvin" and "G. Domm." Neither of their identities are known, though they very well could have been black as Emerald claims. In those days many jockeys were black, such as thirteen of the fifteen jockeys racing at the first Kentucky Derby in 1875.
• Goofs When rewinding the CCTV, the time rewinds to around 21:45, after a cut to OJ and a cut back to the CCTV, it plays at around 22:45.

Antlers Holst : This dream you're chasing, where you end up at the top of the mountain, all eyes on you... it's the dream you never wake up from.

• Crazy credits At the very end of the credits, a cartoony image/advertisement appears: "Come ride through Jupiter's Claim, as seen in Nope, at Universal Studios Hollywood, only on the World-Famous Studio Tour."
• Connections Featured in Super Bowl LVI (2022)
• Soundtracks La Vie c'est Chouette Music by François d'Aime Lyrics by Pierre Billon Performed by Jodie Foster Courtesy of Cinemag Bodard By arrangement with Editions Montparnasse

User reviews 2.3K

• Top_Dawg_Critic
• Aug 26, 2022
• How long is Nope? Powered by Alexa
• July 22, 2022 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official Instagram
• Firestone Ranch, Agua Dulce, California, USA (Haywood Ranch)
• Universal Pictures
• Monkeypaw Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $68,000,000 (estimated)
• $123,277,080
• $44,366,910
• Jul 24, 2022
• $171,235,592

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 10 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital
• IMAX 6-Track
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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Nope review: Space is the place in Jordan Peele's subversive sci-fi update

Don't look up: The fertile mind behind Get Out and Us explores unfriendly skies — and more earthbound threats — in his far-out latest.

In the arid, IP-fatigued movie landscape of 2022, Jordan Peele feels like some kind of unicorn: an auteur filmmaker whose mere presence above the title elicits a kind of collective thrill in both audiences and critics that no mad multiverse or reanimated dinosaurs can really match. And he's essentially done it with just two films over five years, cementing his signature style — spooky, high-concept, socially astute — with a speed and clarity of purpose that most directors take half a lifetime to nail down.

Nope (in theaters July 22) arrives accordingly with no small set of expectations, and not a little bit of mystery: The 35 million-plus people who have viewed at least one of two versions of the trailer online will come in with the idea that it is perhaps a play on an old-school UFO movie, or at least something vaguely extraterrestrial. And they know that it marks a reunion with his Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya , who is now, like Peele , an Oscar winner . (They've both still been under-served by the Academy, but that's a story for another time.)

It's also the first lead role of this caliber for Keke Palmer , a onetime Nickelodeon kid whose prickly, dynamic presence on the sidelines of films like 2019's Hustlers seemed to beg for a bigger closeup. Here, she gets to hold the restless center of nearly every scene she's in as Emerald Haywood, the showboating sister of Kaluuya's more cautious, introspective Otis Junior. Otis Senior (Keith David) is not long for this world, or at least this screen: He dies in the opening scene, felled by some mysterious space-junk detritus that drops from the sky one day on the family's ranch outside Los Angeles. ("What's a bad miracle, they got a word for that?" OJ asks ruefully at one point, looking like he already knows the answer.) The Haywoods hail from generations who, as Emerald brightly explains to a roomful of blank-eyed industry types, helped bring horse-training to Hollywood, earning an inaugural place for Black wranglers in movie lore.

That and five dollars won't buy them a bag of carrots, though, if they can't get their stallions to behave on a green screen. And even back at the ranch, the livestock still seem spooked. But aren't animals always the first to know when something's off? There's a man named Ricky "Jupe" Park ( Minari' s Steven Yeun) , busy running his own hustle at a retro Western-themed amusement park down the road, who may have ideas about the strange weather hanging over the valley. Jupe was once a child star himself, until something went terribly wrong with a chimpanzee on a sitcom set more than 20 years ago; now he works a sort of rhinestone-cowboy shtick with his wife and kids, though he's always eager to revisit the old glory days if somebody asks, or even if they don't.

Revealing much more about what follows seems like an unnecessary spoiler, though it also feels fair to say that Peele has never leaned this close to early Spielberg (or if you're feeling less charitable, mid-period M. Night Shyamalan). His screenplay — threaded through with flashbacks and unhurried character moments — is for a long time a tease, both elliptical and explicit when it comes to the central mystery, though it's clear he's absorbed a lifetime of Close Encounters lore, and much darker visitations too. The casting, as always, is on point: Palmer's Emerald is loose and funny and kinetically alive, the kind of final-girl hero most scary movies only feint at creating, and Kaluuya remains one of the most fascinatingly interior actors to watch on screen. His OJ doesn't speak much and often moves even less, but there's so much going on within him that the eye never wanders; his stillness is a centrifugal force.

The wide-lens cinematography, by Hoyte Van Hoytema ( Interstellar , Dunkirk ), is gorgeously expansive, and Michael Abel's score clatters and shivers. The prevailing mood is a looming, sun-drenched tension (as in Ari Aster's Midsommar , daylight doesn't signal safety here). For all of the film's escalating supernatural events, though, what's less clearly drawn, and will likely prove less satisfying to a plot-hungry public, are the whys and hows of its conclusion. Peele's scripts have always felt like meta-text; this one toggles between classic genre stuff and a deliberately fragmented play on certain all-American tropes — flying saucers, sitcoms, jump-scare terror — filtered through a fresh, keenly self-aware lens. As a sci-fi fable, Nope feels both more slippery and less viscerally satisfying than the relatively straightforward horror of Get Out or even 2019's Us , but it still sticks. The truth is out there, or up there, in that curiously immovable cloud that looms like a cotton-ball anvil above the Haywood ranch; it's Peele's prerogative to build his world below it, and leave the rest. Grade: B+

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‘Nope’ Review: Jordan Peele’s Wildly Entertaining Blockbuster Is the Best Kind of Hollywood Spectacle

David ehrlich.

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How do we live with some of the shit that we’ve been forced to watch on a daily basis? Why are we so eager to immortalize the worst images that our world is capable of producing, and what kind of awful power do we lend such tragedies by sanctifying them into spectacles that can play out over and over again?

While Jordan Peele has fast become one of the most relevant and profitable of modern American filmmakers, “ Nope ” is the first time that he’s been afforded a budget fit for a true blockbuster spectacle, and that’s exactly what he’s created with it. But if this smart, muscular, and massively entertaining flying saucer freak-out is such an old school delight that it starts with a shout-out to early cinema pioneer Eadweard Muybridge (before paying homage to more direct influences like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”), it’s also a thoroughly modern popcorn movie for and about viewers who’ve been inundated with — and addicted to — 21st century visions of real-life terror.

The only sci-fi movie that might scare and delight Guy Debord and Ed Wood to the same degree, “Nope” offers a giddy throwback to the days of little green men and hubcap U.F.O.s that hopes to revitalize those classic tropes for audiences who’ve seen too much bloodshed on their own screens to believe in Hollywood’s “bad miracles.” It’s a tractor beam of a movie pointed at people who’ve watched 9/11 happen so many times on network TV that it’s lost any literal meaning; who’ve scrolled past body cam snuff films in between Dril tweets; who’ve become accustomed to rubbernecking at American life from inside the wreckage.

Less acutely metaphorical than “Us” or “Get Out” and yet just as compelled by the sinister forces that hide in plain sight — along with the double-edged thrill of actually seeing them — “Nope” satisfies our morbid appetite for new horrors better than any multiplex offering in years, but only so that it can feed on our fatal inability to look away from them.

Having said that, “Nope” is also the least confrontational movie that Peele has made so far, its social criticism diffused to the brink of abstraction and joyfully couched in the kind of nervous laughter suggested by its title (which somehow gets funnier every time one of the characters says it aloud). Despite a few moments of deliberately conspiratorial handholding — including a winky scene in which someone announces that “we’re being surveilled by an alien species I call ‘The Viewer’” — it takes a minute to connect the dots between the various things that Peele is doing here.

There’s a good reason why “Nope” opens on the set of a 1998 sitcom minutes after the show’s lead actor, a chimpanzee named Gordy, has gone bananas and beaten several of his co-stars to death, but the rationale is never as explicit as the one undergirding the “Hands Across America” subplot from “Us.”

By the same token, it’s easy to figure out why grief-stricken animal wrangler OJ Haywood ( Daniel Kaluuya ) might want to sell the Agua Dulce ranch where his family has raised Hollywood picture horses since the movies were invented — in the present-day portion of the film’s prologue, a nickel rains down from the sky with such velocity that it kills OJ’s dad ( Keith David ), cutting a hole clean through his eyeball — but Peele doesn’t spell out why OJ might want to keep it. At this rate, it’s unclear if he even could keep it; OJ is too sad to do the job right, leaving his super-extroverted little sister Emerald ( Keke Palmer ) to keep Haywood Hollywood Horses from being put out to pasture.

The only thing that’s writ large from the get-go is the relationship between one era of spectacle and another, which Emerald articulates like a family motto in a rapid-fire monologue about the Black jockey who Muybridge photographed to create the very first assembly of motion pictures. Most people forgot his name in the shadow of that immortal shoot (and it would take Hollywood another 100 years to come back to the idea of putting a Black man on a horse), but Emerald and OJ remember it well: He was a Haywood too. Alas, even the most remarkable history isn’t enough to guarantee a future in show business, and that’s doubly true for animal wranglers in an age where studios would sooner animate whatever they might not be able to tame (it’s worth noting that Gordy, like many of the animals you see in the movies these days, is 100 percent CGI).

It’s only when OJ spots a silver disc shimmering through the sky above his ranch — an eerily magical stretch of air that Crayola might call “Day-for-Night Periwinkle” — that he finds his feet again. If no one wants to shoot real horses anymore, he’ll show the world something that it’s never seen before. Something wild. Something that no one else could ever hope to break. And so begins a UFO story that’s less interested in killing the alien than it is in capturing it on camera, even when the desire to see it might be strong enough to devour a city whole.

The process by which OJ and his more reluctant sister become amateur UFO hunters can be a clumsy one — the Haywoods team up with the tetchy, half-dumb Fry’s Electronics clerk (Brandon Perea) who sells them their surveillance camera, his character dragging weight until Peele finds the right use for him in the third act — but “Nope” does a quietly brilliant job of herding its disparate subplots in the right direction.

Instrumental to that success is the Haywood’s neighbor and business rival Ricky “Jupe” Park (the great Steven Yeun, all smarmy kindness and smothered trauma), a former actor who survived Gordy’s rage as a child only to profit from people’s morbid curiosity about it as an adult. Under his calm smile and cowboy veneer, we get the sense that Jupe is trying to assert some kind of control over the worst thing he was ever forced to watch; that he eagerly recounts the “SNL” sketch about the attack (for example) in the hopes that staring his demons in the face might blur his vision of it, soften its edges, and turn it into something he can live with.

Does that have anything to do with all of the horses Jupe’s been trying to buy lately? Time will tell, but wrangling nightmares into spectacles is dangerous business, especially when people can’t bring themselves to look away.

With great patience and tremendous craft, Peele steers these characters (and a handful of others) from one masterful set piece to the next, all of them flecked with popcorn-spilling jolts but more fundamentally driven by a profound sense of big-screen, body-rattling awe. On some level, “Nope” is Peele’s smallest film so far; almost the entire story takes place on the Haywood ranch and its surrounding areas. At the same time, however, it also feels like his largest. Sometimes literally: Hoyte van Hoytema’s 65mm compositions lend the carnage an intergalactic scale that makes even the film’s most familiar tropes feel bracingly new, and inspire a degree of holy terror that allows the grand finale to alternate between heart-in-your-throat horror and fistpump-worthy “Akira” references as cinematography assumes a hands-on roll in the action (Peele keeps the film’s self-reflexive streak to a low boil, but cranks it up to a delirious high in the dying minutes).

It doesn’t hurt that Peele’s latest boasts some of the most inspired alien design since H.R. Giger left his mark on the genre, or that Kaluuya’s eyes remain some of Hollywood’s most special effects, as “Nope” gets almost as much mileage from their weariness as “Get Out” squeezed from their clarity. It’s through them that “Nope” searches for a new way of seeing, returns the Haywoods to their rightful place in film history, and creates the rare Hollywood spectacle that doesn’t leave us looking for more.

Universal Pictures will release “Nope” in theaters on Friday, July 22.

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Review: Say yup to Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope,’ the rare thriller Hollywood can look up to

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Given all the surreally unnerving sights there are to see in Jordan Peele’s “Nope” — a debris-choked windstorm, a weirdly undulating tunnel, a circular is-that-what-I-think-it-is gliding in and out of the clouds — it seems fitting that one of the movie’s most arresting images should be of a pair of eyes. Those eyes, wide and terrified, belong to a Southern California horse rancher named O.J. Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), who peers up from the darkness of a stalled truck as something very big and very bad looms overhead. Until now, during much of the story’s slow, suggestive buildup, O.J.’s gaze has been downcast and hard to read, reflecting an indifference that verges on exhaustion. It takes a lot to shock those eyes wide open, but what he sees now gets his attention, to say nothing of ours.

You probably remember Kaluuya’s eyes staring into the sunken-place void of 2017’s “Get Out,” a triumph of socially conscious horror that proved his and Peele’s breakthrough. Their latest collaboration, though also solicitous of your shivers, has something rather different in mind. The labyrinthine fun houses and shadowy, subterranean depths of “Get Out” — and also of Peele’s messier, more ambitiously scaled 2019 freakout, “Us” — have given way to a vast kill zone of wide open spaces and bright desert sunshine, shot in magnificently dusty vistas by Hoyte Van Hoytema (known for his frame-filling Imax work on Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and “Dunkirk”).

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And so while evil still lurks within, as it often does in Peele’s movies, here it also swoops and soars overhead in a cheekily outlandish story that the writer-director seems to have cooked up during an epic binge of “War of the Worlds” (both versions), “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Thing From Another World” (and its better-known remake, “The Thing”), “Signs,” “Arrival” and especially “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Peele is nothing if not a pop-culture savant, and here he drops any number of classic Hollywood allusions — the spinning cyclone from “The Wizard of Oz,” the cropduster sequence from “North by Northwest” — as easily as he tosses out a reference to “Saturday Night Live” and, by extension, the larger sketch-comedy world where he began his career.

But Peele’s movie love, sincere and sometimes goofy as it is (watch for multiple nods to the Dwayne Johnson action vehicle “The Scorpion King”), also comes with a serrated edge. Perhaps his most pointed citation here is to “The Horse in Motion” (1878), Eadweard Muybridge’s two-second black-and-white clip of a man riding a horse. In “Nope,” that jockey — a rare Black man in a white-dominated profession — is conceived as a distant relation of O.J. and his upbeat younger sister, Em (a terrific Keke Palmer), who run a Hollywood horse-wrangling business that’s been in their family for generations. (“Since the moment pictures could move, we had skin in the game,” Em beams before a visibly bored camera crew.) Even as it plays fast and loose with the facts, then, “Nope” establishes itself as something of an ethically minded Hollywood history lesson, with a particular focus on the industry’s long, brutal record of animal accidents and abuses on set.

This connection is driven home by a few horrifying if discreetly framed flashbacks to an old ’90s family sitcom whose chimpanzee star, Gordy, would appear to have been at least partially inspired by a real-life simian celebrity named Travis. If that doesn’t ring a bell, resist the urge to Google; you’re better off hearing Gordy’s story in the words of a former co-star, Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun). Decades later, wearing a cowboy hat and a chillingly blank half-smile, Jupe now runs Jupiter’s Claim, a small Old West theme park in Agua Dulce. Not far away is the Haywoods’ lonely ranch, which has fallen on tough times since the mysterious death of O.J. and Em’s father (Keith David), and which Jupe wants to absorb into his cowboy-kitsch empire. All this is taking place barely 50 miles north of Los Angeles, in a stretch of desert that — with its bright-colored inflatable skydancers and pennant streamers — sometimes suggests a used-car lot and sometimes feels like a Hollywood dumping ground.

There’s a lot going on here, in other words, even before “Nope” turns our attention toward that giant disc flying ominously overhead, unleashes a hellish rain over the Haywoods’ ranch and cranks up the volume on its shrieking, juddering soundtrack. (There are moments when Michael Abels’ nerve-shredding score plays like a veritable symphony of human screams.) But if the story is a welter of subplots, tangents and ideas — to the point of being overly taken at times with its own conceptual daring — Peele’s visual craft shows an admirable finesse and discretion. He long ago absorbed the key lesson of “Jaws,” namely that what we don’t see is almost always scarier than what we do see, and that delayed gratification can amplify the power of suggestion. And so for a lengthy stretch he keeps his secret weapon a legitimate secret, with the unspoken assurance that everything (or at least a lot) will be revealed in due course.

In the meantime, you can savor the prickles of comic tension between O.J. and Em, and appreciate how Kaluuya’s and Palmer’s initially clashing rhythms — his slow and dour, hers fast and excitable — gradually come to complement each other as their characters join forces. You might also reflect on all the western iconography in Ruth De Jong’s meticulous production design, from the Haywoods’ dwindling stable of horses and the phony saloon exteriors of Jupiter’s Claim to the way that saucer in the sky, from certain angles, resembles the underside of a giant cowboy hat. “Nope” is a western in more than one sense, an idea borne out by Kaluuya’s taciturn heroism and the ragtag crew — including a friendly electronics-store employee, Angel (the likable Brandon Perea) — that soon comes together, mounting a brave stand against a nameless hunter that soon becomes the hunted.

As in “Us,” Peele shows a fondness for Old Testament scripture, opening here with a grim quote from the prophet Nahum: “I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, make you a spectacle.” That last word, “spectacle,” is crucial; it sets the stage for Peele’s inquiry into the business of exploiting Mother Nature’s creations — be they chimp or horse — for the purposes of mass entertainment. But it also suggests another kind of spectacle, the kind that transforms casual observers into camera-wielding obsessives, driving them to risk their lives and minds to prove that otherworldly phenomena exist. What binds this movie so closely to “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” has less to do with alien visitors, in the end, than with the fervent curiosity that they can inspire. Some version of that obsession grabs hold of O.J., Em, Jupe and Angel; it also consumes a local cinematographer, Antlers (Michael Wincott, channeling Robert Shaw), who fuels their determination to capture incontrovertible evidence of what they’re seeing.

In some ways, then, “Nope” is a movie about the challenge of getting the perfect shot, an aim that Peele shares on a practical and artistic level — there’s no shortage of well-framed, jaw-dropping images — even as he cautions against it in the abstract. The four-letter title, which the characters mutter under their breath at moments of heightened anxiety, also functions as a kind of warning. In a sense, Peele wants to use a Hollywood genre template to mount a critique of Hollywood barbarism, to lay bare the callousness of an industry that grinds dreams into dust and exacts a lot of unseen collateral damage. And because the audience plays its part in this vicious cycle, Peele means to complicate the very act of watching, to suggest that it can have its moral costs as well as its undeniable pleasures. That’s one reason he implies rather than embraces the violence of his story’s darkest moments, turning the unspeakable into the unshowable.

All of which may leave “Nope” feeling like something of a B-movie ouroboros, an unusually well-made and imaginative thriller that’s sometimes tripped up by its own high-mindedness — and also, perhaps, by a closing stretch that struggles to bring Peele’s grand intentions together. Still, there’s no denying the richness of his ideas or the skill with which he taps into his inner Steven Spielberg, an inspiration that can seem tiresome in the wrong hands, but which here feels uniquely pointed and purposeful. One of Peele’s more subversive touches is to effectively weaponize the convention known as “the Spielberg face,” a term that, as unpacked at length by the critic and essayist Kevin B. Lee , describes Spielberg’s signature images of characters gazing up, in beatific wonderment, at the spectacle in front of them. In “Nope,” Peele’s characters keep watching the skies even at their peril, unable to tear their eyes away. You’ll know the feeling.

Rating: R, for language throughout and some violence/bloody images Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes Playing: Starts July 22 in general release

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Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

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Nope First Reviews: Ambitious and Well Crafted, but Possibly Jordan Peele's Most Divisive Film Yet

Critics say the writer-directors sci-fi thriller is thought-provoking and confidently made, but its big ideas and cerebral plot may leave general audiences wanting more..

TAGGED AS: aliens , First Reviews , Horror , movies

Nope marks the third feature from writer and director Jordan Peele , and the first reviews of the movie prove that Get Out and Us were no flukes. This time, the filmmaker is focused on a frightening science fiction story involving a horse ranch, a former child actor, and something mysterious lurking above the clouds. Nope stars Daniel Kaluuya , Keke Palmer ,and Steven Yeun within a praised ensemble amidst some spectacular visuals. But whether its script is brilliant or confusing is debated from one review to the next.

Here’s what critics are saying about Nope :

Does Nope confirm Jordan Peele as one of the great directors of our time?

With Nope , Peele once again proves that he’s not just one of the most interesting filmmakers working in horror today, he’s one of the most interesting filmmakers working, period. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

He continues to be one of the best in the business. – Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com

This film really might be what it takes to etch him as, no, not the next Spielberg, but an event-level filmmaker that we’ve all been worried we were losing. – Cory Woodroof, 615 Film

How does it compare to Get Out and Us ?

While still full of profound and layered ideas, Nope is closer in execution to the horror-comedy mix of Get Out than Us . – Ben Kendrick, Screen Rant

Nope is arguably the most conventional horror film of his three directorial efforts. – Matt Rodriguez, Shakefire

Peele’s most assured, confident film yet… Nope may not be Jordan Peele’s best movie to date, but it is his most enjoyable. – Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

Compared to Get Out and Us , Nope is likely to prove more divisive… I fully expect it to be labeled his strongest and weakest flick in equal measure. – Joey Magidson, Awards Radar

Peele is capable of doing much better movies (as evidenced by Get Out and Us ), but Nope just looks like a cynical cash grab. – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

Is it as good as Us and Get Out ? Nope. – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

It’s Jordan Peele’s weakest film. – Robert Daniels, Polygon

(Photo by ©Universal Pictures)

What other movies does it recall?

You can just about taste the DNA of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and… other films that have been made in the shadow of Close Encounters , like M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival . – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

What binds this movie so closely to Close Encounters of the Third Kind  has less to do with alien visitors, in the end, than with the fervent curiosity that they can inspire. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

It captures the same thrills, tension, and strong characters of movies like Jaws , while also setting itself up to be as iconic as sci-fi movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Alien . – Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com

It’s closer to Peele’s Super 8 than Peele’s Signs . – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

This movie reminds me of Tremors … That’s a movie with swagger. And Nope has a similar swagger that Peele was smart to use. – Mike Ryan, Uproxx

The film it most resembled in spirit is a small one, Theo Anthony’s 2021 documentary All Light, Everywhere . – Cory Woodroof, 615 Film

But is it also totally original?

Nope is unlike anything you’ve seen before. – Eric Eisenberg, Cinema Blend

With stunning cinematic moments of pure dread, terror, and wonder, Peele has indeed delivered on his promise to bring audiences something unique. – Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

This frequently monotonous and unimaginative movie is an unfortunate case of hype over substance. – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

Is it scary?

The best horror movie of the year… building the tension to the point that it feels as if nowhere is safe. – Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com

Peele is able to create one thrilling, scary scene after another. – Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

As a horror movie, Nope fails miserably to be frightening. – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

How does the movie look?

Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema captures something so original visually that it is destined to become iconic. – Caitlin Chappell, CBR.com

Nope mostly delivers in terms of big-screen spectacle, visual oomph… and overdue iconography. – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

Peele’s latest boasts some of the most inspired alien design since H.R. Giger left his mark on the genre. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire

The movie’s visual effects are adequate but definitely not spectacular for a movie concept of this scope. – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

Does Nope have a compelling plot?

Nope doesn’t have a plot so much as a series of happenings that spill out in an impressionistic and arbitrary way. – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

For all of the film’s escalating supernatural events, though, what’s less clearly drawn, and will likely prove less satisfying to a plot-hungry public, are the whys and hows of its conclusion. – Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly

It’s obvious that writer/director/producer Jordan Peele got this movie made without anyone stepping in to question the very weak and lazy plot of Nope . – Carla Hay, Culture Mix

Nope is an idea more than a story. It’s a collection of individually captivating scenes, as opposed to an intriguing whole. – Robert Daniels, Polygon

Is it more cerebral than entertaining?

Nope feels like something of a B-movie ouroboros, an unusually well-made and imaginative thriller that’s sometimes tripped up by its own high-mindedness. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

Depending on your appetite for the heady and sonorous, it will either feel frustratingly perplexing or strike you as a work of unquestionable genius. – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

It will leave certain viewers more confused than exhilarated. – Ben Kendrick, Screen Rant

Peele’s strength is that he makes you lean in and talk about his film whether you like it or not. – Kathia Woods, Cup of Soul

But does it actually make any sense?

Nope establishes itself as something of an ethically minded Hollywood history lesson, with a particular focus on the industry’s long, brutal record of animal accidents and abuses on set. – Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

Nope gives audiences an unforgettable experience, but forces them to reckon with exactly what types of experiences they really want, and at what cost. – Cory Woodroof, 615 Film

While this might be his most bombastic film in terms of what he’s attempting to it, it’s also maybe his most understated in its messaging. – Ross Bonaime, Collider

Even when parts of it don’t gel, Nope is a rapturous watch. – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Logic often takes a back seat, and that has the unfortunate effect of lessening our involvement. – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

It’s a puzzle with a few pieces missing; standing back from it, you can still see the picture. But does it give the viewer exactly what they want? See the title. – Odie Henderson, RogerEbert.com

Does the movie have any other major issues?

Events may happen to OJ and Emerald, but outside of the plot’s story beats, we don’t really know anything about them on an individual level. – Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

The characters would have benefited from greater depth and dimension. – Lovia Gyarkye, Hollywood Reporter

Peele is far too impressed with its handsomeness to work on populating it with fully felt characters. – Robert Daniels, Polygon

The film’s drawn-out pacing issues… leads to redundant and repetitive events and a comparatively (even compared to Us ) claustrophobic narrative. – Scott Mendelson, Forbes

Nope opens everywhere on July 22, 2022.

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‘Nope’ Review: Jordan Peele’s UFO Drama Has a Mood of Exciting Unease but an Arbitrary Story

Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer play horse-ranch siblings who try to photograph a close encounter in a movie that, for all its skillfully ominous atmosphere, begins to fly in all directions.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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Jordan Peele ’s “ Nope ” is a tantalizingly creepy mixed bag of a sci-fi thriller. It’s a movie that taps into our fear and awe of UFOs, and for a while it holds us in a shivery spell. It picks the audience up and carries it along, feeding off spectral hints of the otherworldly. Yet watching the movie, you can just about taste the DNA of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Nope” mirrors the trajectory of other films that have been made in the shadow of “Close Encounters,” like M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival.” Here, as in those films, the anticipation works better than the payoff. 

Daniel Kaluuya , an actor so skillful he seems to overhaul his spirit with every role, plays the central character, Otis Haywood Jr., a sweet-souled but recessive and taciturn country fellow who goes by the nickname of OJ. Early on, he reunites with his feisty chatterbox sister, Emerald ( Keke Palmer ), on the California horse ranch the two have inherited from their father, Otis Sr. (Keith David), who in one of the film’s first scenes dies during a mysterious shower of inanimate debris. For several generations, the ranch has rented out horses to the entertainment industry, with the Haywoods serving as on-set wranglers and horse whisperers. But OJ is looking to sell the business and cash in.

Before he gets the chance, he walks out of the Haywoods’ beautiful farmhouse, stepping into the bright starlit night to chase a horse that has leapt the fence of its training arena. What he sees and hears in the distance is freaky in the extreme: a crowd, lit by floodlights, that seems to have assembled like some outer-space cult. Before long, the signs grow weirder: a cloud that doesn’t move (and hasn’t for weeks). Wind that funnels down into a small tornado. And, finally, a dark svelte object that glides through the air like nothing of this earth. The film’s title plays, amusingly, off that most casual of contempo buzz phrases ( nope! ), and how it perfectly expresses our incredulity in the face of the otherworldly. 

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Of all the fanciful phenomena that rational people claim not to believe in (ghosts, demons, monsters, the theory that Joe Biden stole the election), UFOs hold a special place. Simply put, there’s a lot of evidence for them. I don’t mean the kind of evidence cited by the folks who think that Ed and Lorraine Warren, of the “Conjuring” films, are paranormal documentarians. I’m talking about the mountains of filmed footage of UFOs, a lot of which is fake but not all of it. Of course, just because a flying object is unidentified doesn’t mean that it came from outer space. Yet the best UFO footage, which is available by the clipload on YouTube, exerts an uncanniness that can’t be explained away. You look at caught-on-the-fly images of gliding spacecraft, or lights dancing in the sky, and think, “Wow, what is that? What if ?” Those thoughts have only been encouraged by recent reports leaked by the U.S. government that acknowledge just how many flying objects there are that even military experts can’t identify, some zipping through the air with a technology no one recognizes.

“Nope” has a seductive mood of unease that makes the film feel, for a while, like something new: the first UFO thriller of the cellphone-ready, I-saw-it-online, how-can-you-not-believe-your-own-eyes? era. This is Peele’s third feature, after the landmark racial-paranoia nightmare “Get Out” and the ambitious but muddled doppelgänger fantasy “Us,” and for a while he draws on his skill at leading us down detours that become hypnotic lost highways. 

In a way, the whole setup is a bait-and-switch, as Peele lures us into the quirky lives of OJ and Emerald, taking note of the fact that their business, Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, has deep roots in racial pride. It seems that the Black jockey who appeared for a few seconds in one of history’s earliest film clips was the great-great-grandfather of Otis Sr. (That’s part of their spiel to potential clients.) Kaluuya, so sly, communicating mostly through his sharp gaze, and Palmer, whose fast-break aggro style acquires more heart as the movie goes on, make the Haywoods adult siblings we feel invested in, and the film introduces a couple of other key characters: Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), a former child star who now runs a Wild West theme park called Jupiter’s Claim (that’s where the space-cult show was), and Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), a techie salesman at Fry’s Electronics who helps the Haywoods set up a surveillance system to record the alien spaceship that appears to have settled in over their property.

It’s a flying saucer that resembles a giant undulating sand dollar, and if you had to use one word to describe it that word would be “hungry.” OJ and Emerald decide to photograph it; if they can land the perfect shot and sell it to the right media source (they have Oprah in mind), it could make them rich. But how do you catch a phantom spaceship on film? You call the jaded analog cinematographer Antlers Holst, played by the veteran croaky-voiced hipster actor Michael Wincott.

As they launch the plan, “Nope” itself starts flying off in different directions. It’s part of the film’s design — and, in a way, its racial consciousness — that OJ and Emerald are too mistrustful of mainstream white society to get any authorities involved. So we’re spared the sort of meddlesome-U.S.-government boilerplate plot that weighed down a movie like “Arrival.” Yet “Nope” doesn’t have a plot so much as a series of happenings that spill out in an impressionistic and arbitrary fashion. There are memorable touches along the way, like the monster image of a praying mantis on a surveillance camera or, as the electricity goes out, the way Peele slows down Corey Hart’s ’80s kitsch classic “Sunglasses at Night” to evoke the dread of a world stopping in its tracks. Yet for all these suspenseful felicities, logic often takes a back seat, which has the effect of lessening our involvement.

The spaceship, for instance, will suck you into its membrane hole if you look right at it…and sometimes if you don’t. The details of the Haywoods’ strategy to film the thing are never fully sketched in. When Emerald dots the property with inflatable tube men, it makes for a grabby image, but the point of these super-fake decoys is barely established. What’s more, the most disturbing scene in the movie — a flashback to Ricky’s ’90s cable sitcom, which turned into an impromptu horror set when the chimp who played the lovable Gordy went on a bloody rampage — turns out to have nothing to do with…anything. When the spaceship finally unfurls its freak flag, it looks like a pirate galleon made out of a giant ripped bedsheet, which is a little spooky and a little innocuous. “Nope,” like “Signs” and “Arrival,” will probably be a major hit, and it confirms the power of the Jordan Peele brand. But it also confirms that making movies with too much chaos and sprawl is threatening to become part of that brand.

Reviewed at AMC Empire, July 19, 2022. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 135 MIN.

• Production: A Universal Pictures release of a Monkeypaw Productions production. Producers: Jordan Peele, Ian Cooper. Executive producer: Robert Graf.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Jordan Peele. Camera: Hoyte Van Hoytema. Editor: Nicholas Monsour. Music: Michael Abels.
• With: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Keith David, Wrenn Schmidt. 

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Jordan Peele subverts expectations (again) with 'Nope'

Aisha Harris

Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Brandon Perea in Nope. Universal Studios hide caption

Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Brandon Perea in Nope.

When the first trailer for Nope dropped, viewers almost immediately swarmed social media trying to interpret the opaque montage of shots – shots which revealed virtually nothing about the plot of the movie. This is partially of Jordan Peele's own doing, because his first two feature films as a writer-director, Get Out and Us , set up high expectations for twisty, multilayered social commentary by way of popcorn thrills. Even more so it's a product of the current cultural landscape, where seemingly every big movie or TV series is laden with twists and Easter eggs and spoiler-y cameos, lending itself to fervent Reddit threads breaking down the creator's underlying meaning.

Movie Interviews

Jordan peele looked into the mirror and saw the evil inside 'us'.

Code Switch

The horror, the horror: "get out" and the place of race in scary movies.

Peele surely knows by now what audiences anticipate from him and other filmmakers like him, which is probably why – once again – he's managed to subvert our expectations. Nope isn't so much a plot-twisty experience to be meticulously deconstructed as it is a consistently surprising one. It's a journey that's less social commentary-forward than its predecessors, yet still stacked with plenty of meaning to tease out after you've left the theater.

First and foremost, he wants us to be in awe. And on that front, he doesn't disappoint.

The film opens by quoting a Bible verse from the book of Nahum: "I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle," followed by a quiet, eerie scene involving an animal that's best left unsaid for first-time viewers; the better to creep you out in the moment. Eventually, Nope drops us into the world of OJ and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer), a pair of siblings dealing with the loss of their father Otis, Sr. (Keith David) while trying to maintain the family business. Haywood Hollywood Horses is their company, a horse wrangling outfit that's worked with TV and film productions for years and is based in the small California desert valley town of Agua Dulce.

Mysterious events and sightings from above begin to occur on the family's ranch, and the hard-hustling Emerald sees an opportunity to make some extra cash by getting the perfect shot of a UFO to sell online. Soon, she and OJ have tricked their land out with camera gear with the help of Angel (Brandon Perea), a tech salesman and quirky supernatural enthusiast who has a plethora of time on his hands. (His actress girlfriend just broke up with him, much to his dismay.) But the UFO poses more of a threat than they initially realize, and soon the three find themselves on the offensive and enlist the help of an old-school filmmaker – the kind who still shoots on actual film – played by Michael Wincott.

Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

Not my job: jordan peele gets quizzed on the teletubbies.

True to Peele's sensibilities, Nope seems to be borrowing from a plethora of cinematic references: Spielberg (particularly Jaws and E.T. ), M. Night Shyamalan ( Signs ), and Alien , just to name a few. Kaluuya plays OJ almost like the strong, silent cowboy heroes of Old Hollywood westerns, a man of few words unless the occasion truly calls for it, and the kind of guy who keeps his feelings close to the vest. This contrasts nicely with Palmer's fast-talking, looser Emerald; she's the firecracker in this powder keg, injecting energy, wit, and comedic relief into a character whose ideas on how to keep the family's legacy alive run up against her brother's intentions.

As the movie trots along, the plot is always a couple steps ahead of where the mind may go, and – at least upon first viewing – not all of the threads necessarily hold together if you think about them for too long. (For instance, a storyline involving Steven Yeun as an amusement park owner and former child star is very effective in echoing the movie's themes, but could also have been more developed.) I also suspect that, like Us , this will stir up a lot of debate about what message Peele might be trying to impart to his audiences, though I'd argue there's less there there to debate over in this case. (On the other hand, maybe that in itself is something to ponder.)

This is not to say Nope is slight; with this movie, he's contributing a new entry to the rich history of Black westerns (the Sidney Poitier-directed Buck and the Preacher is visually referenced, for one) and tapping into themes about a cultural obsession with taming nature and profiting off of pageantry. It's also significant to note how Peele playfully speaks to Black audiences and their frequent responses to horror movies through the clever title and OJ and Emerald's actions – like Regina Hall's ever-skeptical Brenda in the Scary Movie franchise, these characters are wary and smart about situations that are obviously ominous. "Nope" isn't just a phrase, it's a way of survival.

But the aims strongly prioritize thrills and mood-setting. Aesthetically, this is his most ambitious feature yet, with intensely crafted action sequences, breathtaking visuals courtesy of cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and a superbly immersive sound design by Johnnie Burn. Peele seems to be having more fun with his audience than ever before as a feature filmmaker, and in turn, it makes for a fun watch.

In an era of sequels, prequels, reboots, and franchises-within-franchises, it's refreshing to see a filmmaker working in this mode, evoking familiarity while keeping viewers on their toes. Nope has only solidified my anticipation for anything and everything Peele does next.

• Jordan Peele
• Daniel Kaluuya
• Keke Palmer

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Brilliantly crafted sci-fi horror tale has gore, swearing.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Showcases teamwork, inclusiveness, and problem-sol

Characters tackle a world-shattering problem with

Excellent representation on-screen and behind the

An unstable chimp covered in blood bashes a child'

Many uses of "f--k" and "s--t," plus "motherf----r

A scene takes place at Fry's Electronics, and a Fr

Main character vapes. Brief pot smoking. Brief whi

Parents need to know that Nope is a sci-fi/comedy horror movie from writer-director Jordan Peele about humans and their fraught relationships with other species. It may not live up to Peele's previous films Get Out or Us in terms of cultural impact, but it's a diverse, well made,…

Positive Messages

Showcases teamwork, inclusiveness, and problem-solving in an attempt to defeat impossible odds. Two major themes -- which are thought-provoking, if not precisely "positive" -- involve humans' efforts to tame and control other species, coupled with our tendency to film everything.

Positive Role Models

Characters tackle a world-shattering problem with one eye on making a profit and the other on actually saving the world. Either way, they continue to fight and refuse to give up, demonstrating strong teamwork in the process.

Diverse Representations

Excellent representation on-screen and behind the scenes, including Black lead characters, a major Asian character, and a Black writer-director.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

An unstable chimp covered in blood bashes a child's face (off-screen); child's feet are seen as she lies unconscious. Kids in peril. Chimp shot with bullet from behind (blood spurt). Blood smears, spatters. Character's eye hit with projectile: blood spurts, gory wound. Lots of blood "raining" from sky above, running down windows of house. Person with mangled face. Motorcycle wreck. Scary noises. Scary stuff. Jump scares. Violent nature footage (animals killing one another) seen in film-editing bay.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Many uses of "f--k" and "s--t," plus "motherf----r," "a--hole," "bitch," "ass," "goddamn," "damn," "d--k," "pissed off," "shut up," "stupid."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A scene takes place at Fry's Electronics, and a Fry's van is used throughout. ICEE frozen treats sold at amusement park; logo seen several times. Sour Patch Kids mentioned.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Main character vapes. Brief pot smoking. Brief whiskey drinking. Characters drink from aluminum cans (possibly beer).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Nope is a sci-fi/comedy horror movie from writer-director Jordan Peele about humans and their fraught relationships with other species. It may not live up to Peele's previous films Get Out or Us in terms of cultural impact, but it's a diverse, well made, spectacularly entertaining movie that's highly recommended for mature horror fans. Be ready for some shocking violence: A blood-covered chimp goes on a rampage, pummeling a young girl off-screen and threatening a young boy. A character is killed after a projectile hits him in the eye in a pretty gory way. There's lots of blood overall: smears, spurts, and raining on a house, pouring down the windows. You can also expect disturbing noises, scary stuff, and jump scares. Language includes many uses of "f--k" and "s--t" and more. Characters vape, smoke pot, and drink. Alongside the horror elements are themes related to teamwork, inclusiveness, and problem-solving in the face of impossible odds. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 28 parent reviews

Great for teen plus

Nope ah, nope pass on this disaster of a movie. even a brilliant director can't win them all., what's the story.

In NOPE, OJ Haywood ( Daniel Kaluuya ) works with his father, Otis ( Keith David ), on a ranch, training horses for movies and TV. Otis is killed after a freak accident, and OJ finds himself struggling to run the business with his flighty younger sister, Emerald ( Keke Palmer ). A deal with former child actor Ricky Park ( Steven Yeun ), who now runs a Western-themed amusement park, helps for a bit. But when OJ sees what appears to be a UFO over their land, he and Emerald get the idea to film it -- and make a fortune. Angel (Brandon Perea), a tech-savvy Fry's Electronics employee who's also a UFO buff, helps the Haywoods set up surveillance cameras. But the next time the visitor comes back, its true nature is revealed.

Is It Any Good?

Jordan Peele 's sci-fi/comedy horror movie doesn't quite have the cultural impact of his earlier films, but it's an expertly constructed, hugely entertaining ride. Each intricate puzzle piece is perfectly fitted. Nope doesn't have as much to say about America and where we are right now as Get Out and Us did, but that's about where any complaints might stop. This film seems to be concerned with themes of humans attempting to tame and control other species, up to and including filming them for entertainment and profit. A subplot about a chimp that snapped and went on a bloody rampage on the set of a 1990s TV sitcom doesn't quite seem to belong to the overall plot about UFOs, but, upon reflection, it helps put everything in context. It connects everything.

Peele's skill as a filmmaker keeps improving. His camera placement, cutting, and shocking use of sound design and music combine to create a truly surprising experience. We're frequently kept off-balance as bits of mystery are doled out sparingly, then slyly answered, only to be replaced by new mysteries. Details that may seem insignificant can become important, or vice versa. Best of all, Peele lets his comedy side flow here. While his last two films had funny moments, the tension was too strong to really allow for laughter. Here, the balance allows for more big laughs, more often. Kaluuya and Palmer are responsible for many of these, as well as for all of the movie's heart. Kaluuya's stoic, monosyllabic character and Palmer's chatty, free-spirited one are opposites, but also part of a whole. They make us say "Yep" to Nope .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Nope 's violence . How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?

Is the movie scary? What's the appeal of scary movies ? Why do people sometimes like to be scared?

Do you consider any of the characters to be role models ? Why, or why not?

What does the subplot about the chimp's rampage have to do with the main plot about the mysterious visitor? What do you think the movie is trying to say?

How does the movie compare to Jordan Peele's films Get Out and Us ? How does Peele's body of work shine light on the ways that Black people have always been critical to cultural production in the United States in unacknowledged ways?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 22, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : August 26, 2022
• Cast : Daniel Kaluuya , Keke Palmer , Steven Yeun
• Director : Jordan Peele
• Inclusion Information : Black directors, Black actors, Female actors, Asian actors, Black writers
• Studio : Universal Studios
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Space and Aliens
• Character Strengths : Teamwork
• Run time : 135 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language throughout and some violence/bloody images.
• Last updated : February 15, 2024

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“Nope” Is One of the Great Movies About Moviemaking

By Richard Brody

The essence of the cinema is the symbol—the filming of action that stands for something else, that gets its identity from what’s offscreen. There’s plenty of action in Jordan Peele’s new film, “ Nope ,” and it’s imaginative and exciting if viewed purely as the genre mashup that it is—a science-fiction movie that’s also a modern-day Western. But even that premise bears an enormous, intrinsic symbolic power, one that was already apparent in a much slighter precursor, Jon Favreau’s 2011 film, “ Cowboys & Aliens .” Like “Nope,” Favreau’s film involves the arrival of creatures from outer space in the American West; there, it was already apparent that what the genres share is the unwelcome arrival of outsiders from afar (aliens are to Earth as white people are to this continent). Peele takes the concept many ingenious steps further.

“Nope” is a phantasmagorical story of Black people in the American West, the unwelcome among the unwelcome, and it’s set in the present-day West, namely, Hollywood and the Hollywood-proximate, the very heart of Wild West mythology. “Nope” is one of the great movies about moviemaking, about the moral and spiritual implications of cinematic representation itself—especially the representation of people at the center of American society who are treated as its outsiders. It is an exploitation film—which is to say, a film about exploitation and the cinematic history of exploitation as the medium’s very essence.

Peele’s film is set mainly on a horse farm in California, Haywood Hollywood Horses, that provides the animals as needed for movies and TV shows and commercials. Its owner, Otis Haywood, Sr. (Keith David), dies mysteriously after being hit by a bullet-like piece of space debris that showers the property. The farm is taken over by his two children, Otis, Jr., called O.J. (Daniel Kaluuya), and Emerald (Keke Palmer). Neither of the heirs, though, is entirely cut out to fill Otis’s shoes. O.J., who loves the horses and works devotedly with them, is something of an introvert; he isn’t the communicator—the on-set presence—that his father was. Emerald, who is very much a communicator, is an aspiring filmmaker and actor for whom the horses are just a job, and not a very pleasant one. To address the farm’s financial troubles, they sell horses to a nearby Western theme park. But, when the source of the space debris—a monstrous U.F.O. that sucks humans and horses into its maw and eats them—makes its appearance, O.J. and Emerald are forced to fight it. They’re also inspired, for the purpose of saving the farm financially, to film it, in the hope of selling the first authentic footage of a U.F.O.

I’m being especially chary of spoilers in discussing “Nope”; I greatly enjoyed the discovery of the plot’s daring and inventive twists and turns, along with the discerning and speculative ideas that they bring to light. By remarkable design, the movie is as full of action as it is light on character psychology. There’s no special reason why O.J. is taciturn or Emerald is ebullient, or why they’re able to marshal the inner resources for mortal combat with invaders from outer space. “Nope” offers the characters little backstory—at least, not of the usual sort. Rather, Peele pushes even further with a theme that he launched in “ Get Out ” and “ Us ”: the recognition of history—especially its hidden or suppressed aspects—as backstory. With “Nope,” Peele looks specifically to the history of the cinema and its intersection with the experience of Black Americans to create a backstory that virtually imbues every frame of the movie.

For the Haywoods, the crucial backstory goes to the birth of the cinema: the real-life “moving images,” created by Eadweard Muybridge in the eighteen-seventies and eighties, that are often considered the primordial movies. Muybridge was commissioned to study the movement of a galloping horse; the name of the Black jockey he photographed riding one of those horses went unrecorded. In “Nope,” Peele creates a fictitious identity for the rider—Alistair Haywood, the family’s forebear. Emerald tells the crew on a TV commercial, who are relying on one of their horses, that, when it comes to movies, the Haywoods have “skin in the game.” Acknowledging and extending cinema’s legacy while also redressing its omissions and misrepresentations of history is the premise of “Nope”: the responsibility, the guilt, the danger, the ethical compromise of the cinematic gaze.

The film-centric symbolism of “Nope” gives rise to the film’s distinctive, surprising sense of texture. “Get Out” and “Us” are films of a thick cinematic impasto, crowded with characters and tangled with action. “Nope,” made on a much higher budget, is a sort-of blockbuster—but an inside-out blockbuster. If the first two films are oil paintings, “Nope” is a watercolor of the kind that leaves patches of the underlying paper untinted. It’s set in wide-open Western spaces, and what fills their emptiness is power: political, historical, physical, psychological.

The movie is also filled with images—imagined ones, and also real ones, a visual overlay of myth and lore that fills the Western landscape with the history of the cinema. What embodies the invisible lines of power is the gaze, of the eye and of the camera alike. Peele has been, from the start of his career, one of the great directors of point-of-view shots, of the drama and the psychology of vision, and he pursues the same idea to radical extremes in “Nope.” Point-of-view shots are at the center of the drama; again, avoiding spoilers, the spark of the drama turns out to be, in effect, eye contact—the connection of the seer and the seen (including when they’re one and the same, in reflections). Alongside the intrusive intimacy of the naked eye, Peele makes explicit the inherently predatory aspect of the photographic image—the taking of life, so to speak—and the responsibility that image-making imposes on the maker.

There’s another bit of backstory that puts the filmmaker’s responsibility front and center. The movie begins with a scene in a TV studio, where an ostensibly trained chimpanzee performing with human actors on a sitcom runs amok. (This subplot reminds me of the horrific accident on the set of “ Twilight Zone: The Movie ,” in 1982.) A survivor of the chimp’s attack, which took place in 1996, is an Asian American child actor (Jacob Kim) who now, as an adult (played by Steven Yeun), is the owner of Jupiter’s Claim, the Western theme park to which O.J. has been selling horses. The jovial owner, called Jupe, has also had some contact with the U.F.O. and is also trying to profit from it, indifferent to the risks involved. Jupe’s space-horse show (something of a mysterious, invitation-only event) makes uncannily clear the predatory connection between viewers and, um, consumers.

Peele is seriously playful with the technology of movies in ways that recall Martin Scorsese’s “ Hugo .” The action of “Nope” pivots on the power and the nature of movie technology—the contrast of digital and optical images—and the creative rediscovery of bygone methods, as reflected in its very cast of characters, which includes a young electronic-surveillance nerd and U.F.O. buff (Brandon Perea) and a grizzled cinematographer (Michael Wincott). The TV commercial for which the Haywoods rent a horse is being shot in a studio, in front of a green screen (another empty visual space shot through with power), where a melancholy horse is standing still, stripped of its majestic energy, reduced to a mere digital emblem of itself, ridden by no one but manipulated by a desk jockey with no onscreen identity at all. Peele presents the C.G.I. on which “Nope” itself depends as a dubious temptation and a form of dangerous power.

Yet the crucial bit of backstory remains unexpressed: the question of why, of all the horse farms in California, the space creatures chose to target the one that’s Black-owned. The answer to the question is one that both demands expression and faces a silencing on a daily, institutional basis. The movie opens with a Biblical quote: a scourging prophecy, from the book of Nahum. In transferring the politics of “Nope” to the intergalactic level—a sardonic vision of the universality of racism—Peele also transfers them to an overarching, spiritual, metaphysical one. He offers a scathing, exuberant vision of redemption. ♦

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of the Western theme park Jupiter’s Claim. It also incorrectly described the space debris that killed Otis Haywood, Sr.

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Jordan Peele’s Nope, explained

Unpacking the spectacle at the heart of the movie’s mysteries.

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It’s gutsy to start a movie with a verse from Nahum, which is surely one of the Bible’s least-quoted books. But Jordan Peele likes a challenge.

So the text that opens Nope , the director’s follow-up to Us and Get Out , is Nahum 3:6: I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle. Buckle up!

Nope is a bloody, creepy UFO movie, unexpectedly gross in spots, with several different ideas knocking around in its head. Since the relatively straightforward Get Out , Peele’s work has moved away from simple explanation and toward discomfiting vibes, and that’s to its credit.

But that means audiences have to lean in and work harder, and have to be okay with mystery. That helps explain why some viewers may come away dissatisfied. TV and movies over the past several decades have coaxed us to expect explanations and puzzle boxes in our entertainment, and to be annoyed when creators refuse to reveal the trick at the end of the show. But Peele is happy to leave some things to our imaginations.

Which includes his gutsy epigraph. Nahum is one of the “minor” prophets of the Bible (which basically means the book he wrote is short), nestled in between Jonah — the guy who was swallowed up by a giant fish — and Zephaniah, who like Nahum mainly foretold destruction . The target of all three was Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which did indeed fall not long after the prophecies, taking the empire down with it. Just before this verse, Nahum describes Nineveh as a lion’s den, the “city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims,” a place with “galloping horses and jolting chariots,” full of bodies of the dead. Basically, Nineveh arrogantly chews people up and spits them out. So, Nahum says, God will do the same to Nineveh.

Nope is not set in Nineveh, exactly; it’s set in Hollywood. The action takes place in Agua Dulce, about a 40-mile drive north of Hollywood. There, siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) run Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, named for their great-great-great grandfather Alistair E. Haywood, who rode the horse in the first moving picture ever made . They train horses for movies. But following the untimely death of their father Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David), killed in a freak accident in which debris rained down from the sky, they’re running into hard times. Plus, the advent of CGI means the movies just don’t require real horses on set the way they used to.

Alistair Haywood’s character is Peele’s invention, though the film in which he rode a horse, made by Eadweard Muybridge in 1878, is real. Actually, there were multiple films; the one that Peele intertwines Nope with involves a horse named Annie G. ridden by an unidentified but definitely Black jockey. History remembers the horse but has lost track of the jockey’s identity , which is sort of Nope ’s point. In one scene, Emerald proudly announces on a movie set that “since the moment pictures could move, we got skin in the game.” But nobody remembers Haywood unless she reminds them.

In any case, the Haywood ranch is just up the road from Jupiter’s Claim, and OJ’s been selling horses to owner Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) to keep the ranch afloat. Jupiter’s Claim is a goofy cartoonish amusement park lightly modeled on a fun-loving town from some old Western — and those in turn, let’s remember, were very lightly modeled on the actual West. Jupe, a former child star, picked up his nickname from his role as “Jupiter” on Kid Sheriff , a movie he starred in following a rather sudden end to a short-lived sitcom, Gordy’s Home . He now sustains a living chasing that fame any way he can: selling access to memorabilia, attracting tourists to Jupiter’s Claim, starring in reality shows with his family, and some … weirder pursuits.

But that’s in keeping with Agua Dulce, because there’s been a lot of weird stuff going on in the six months since Otis died. Electricity randomly browns out and audio slows down at nighttime, and the laws of physics occasionally behave strangely. And there’s something in the sky.

Yes, this is a UFO movie, or a “UAP” movie, since — as local electronics wiz and alien aficionado Angel (Brandon Perea) tells Emerald — the government switched to calling them Unidentified Aerial Phenomena after they “declassified all that alien shit years ago.” Call them what you want: Flying saucers in movies are often metaphors for invasion by unknown forces, or for paranoia that the government is keeping secrets from its people.

Peele knows all this, but with Nope , he isn’t doing pure homage. Instead, he scatters breadcrumbs along the way to his main point. This is partly a film about how frequently Black film history has been pushed out of memory. In the ranch house, you can glimpse posters for the films Duel at Diablo and Buck and the Preacher , the first Westerns that Sidney Poitier starred in and directed, respectively, in 1966 and 1972. Buck and the Preacher , in particular, was groundbreaking for casting Black actors as main characters. Coupled with the Haywood connection — and the fact that it’s still hard, 50 years later, to get a movie made starring Black actors that isn’t about trauma in some way — Nope points to Hollywood’s history of shoving inconvenient histories aside.

But that’s not all that’s going on here. Nope is centrally about how our experiences of reality have been almost entirely colonized by screens and cameras and entertainment’s portrayals of what it calls reality, to the point that we can barely conceive of experiencing reality directly, with honesty and without any kind of manipulation. It’s as if it sprung from the mind of any number of theorists, like Guy Debord, the philosopher who in 1967 wrote a book called Society of the Spectacle . “In societies where modern conditions of production prevail,” Debord wrote, “all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.”

In his treatise, Debord goes on to posit that “the spectacle” — which he describes as sort of an all-consuming blanket of unreality that attracts our gaze and replaces our reality — more or less has colonized modern life. Our social life is not about living, but having.

And that’s all over Nope, from start to finish. Jupe’s offices are lined with posters commemorating TV and film history, from his earliest work all the way to an upcoming family reality show, all designed to keep eyes on him. He’s been courting the flying saucer, whatever it is, since its appearance six months ago, using Haywood’s horses to do so. And while he harbors a painfully traumatic memory of a chimp attack on the set of the short-lived Gordy’s Home , he can’t access it directly when explaining to Emerald and OJ; he recounts a Saturday Night Live sketch about it instead.

Jupe’s development of a “family show” at Jupiter’s Claim is just another harnessing of spectacle — in this case, the flying saucer — to get paying customers to his amusement park. He calls the unknowable creatures he believes are on board the saucer “The Viewers.” They are watching us , he thinks, unable to think of himself outside that paradigm. To be alive is to be watched, he believes. It’s when people stop watching you that you cease to exist.

Watching and being watched is everywhere in Nope . When OJ and Emerald first come to believe there’s a saucer in the sky, they head straight for the electronics store to get surveillance cameras, which Angel installs on their property. Angel, besotted with aliens because of TV (“Ancient Aliens, History Channel — watch that shit,” he tells them), rigs up a remote connection so he can watch at night from the electronics store. It’s like TV, till it’s real. The first night, as OJ dodges the saucer, a nearby coworker in the store, munching chips and hanging out, even breathlessly asks, “What happened to OJ?” As if he’s a character on a show, and not a real guy whose life is in danger.

OJ isn’t much for technology; unlike smartphone-toting Emerald, he still uses a flip phone, a clear sign that he doesn’t want to participate in this spectacle culture. When it comes for him, he knows not to look. He opts out. (Nope.)

But you can’t really opt out of a spectacle culture — it’s around you, and whether or not you want to participate, it tends to suck you in anyhow. When OJ and Emerald realize there’s some kind of a flying saucer in the sky, their first impulse is to film it, to own a representation of it. That’s not without reason, since they’ve grown up knowing that their family’s place in Hollywood history was essentially stolen from them by those more interested in the horse’s name than in Haywood’s. But their urge to get “the impossible shot” is greater than their urge to run away from the danger itself.

Yet it might help to explain why OJ is the first to realize that the saucer isn’t a saucer at all, at least not like the kind they’re used to seeing in the movies. It wasn’t crazy to assume the object in the sky was a ship carrying aliens. Many of the things we believe about the world around us and about our history come from representations of them on screens, not reality. (Debord again.) Our ideas of what war is like, what cities are like, what love is like, how the West was “won” — they all come through movies. They have since the pictures started moving, as Emerald puts it.

And as time has gone on, we’ve grown more hungry for bigger, better representations. The mirror ball that spooks the horse on set is a VFX ball , a key tool for digital video artists in making today’s spectacle-driven CGI blockbusters.

Which is why it matters what we see. But OJ gets it: the saucer is alive, and it isn’t trying to help them or study them or warn them. It just wants to eat them. It’s less saucer than spectacle to gawk at. And it has a screen-shaped rectangle at its heart which, as we see at the start of the movie, contains Muybridge’s film of Haywood riding the horse. But it’s insatiable. It wants blood. The spectacle consumes all.

There are other deliciously unexplained breadcrumbs scattered throughout Nope , which could be clues or references or just delightful red herrings. There’s a tiny reference to Poltergeist when the alien arrives. There’s also a tennis shoe that balances on its heel, for no apparent reason, during Gordy’s on-set rampage; it later shows up in Jupe’s back room of memorabilia. The name of the TMZ reporter who shows up on a motorcycle — with a mirrored helmet, no less — is listed in the film’s credits as “Ryder Muybridge,” which is obviously a reference to the man who shot the film starring Alistair Haywood and who has gone down in history with all the credit. (Emerald is desperate that he not steal their impossible shot.)

In the end, of course, there’s a great irony to Nope , and one of which Peele is undoubtedly aware; he ends the film, after all, with the “impossible shot” being captured as a still by an old-fashioned film camera. (Which is not a guarantee that they’ll be believed — you can fake a photo, right?) Nope is a big, very loud, very effects-driven spectacle. It’s a movie with a thousand references to the past. It’s also a riotously entertaining thrill ride that owes portions of its plot to some of Hollywood’s most successful summer blockbusters, Jaws and Independence Day . It’s part of the culture; it can’t stand outside of it.

But it functions at least a little bit as a warning, or maybe a prophecy, or a call for a reboot, or a reminder to care about what, or who, gets our attention. When midway through the film, the saucer rains guts and blood down on the ranch house, you have to think of Nahum’s words: “I will cast abominable filth upon you.”

A culture built on spectacle can only get more spectacular, coaxing us to always look at it, to never tear ourselves away, to gorge ourselves on it. The impossible trick is to just say nope.

Nope is playing in theaters beginning July 21.

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Nope review – Jordan Peele’s followup to Get Out and Us is a bit meh

The director’s latest collaboration with Daniel Kaluuya is an intriguingly strange tale with plenty of bold and riveting images, but the story is clotted with too much material

J ordan Peele’s strange, muddled, indigestible new UFO mystery looks like it had a good fairy and a dodgy fairy present at the birth. The good fairy is Steven Spielberg, to whose Close Encounters and Jaws the film pays an overt tribute. The dodgy fairy is M Night Shyamalan, of Signs and The Happening: the sometimes brilliant, sometimes exasperating high-concept showman whose influence is also present – but unacknowledged, un-homaged. It feels like an event movie billboard in the Shyamalan style, all about the prerelease conjecture and trailer buzz: what on earth can it be about?

The answer, at the end of two and a quarter hours is … a great deal. Tons. Peele’s script is crammed with about 210% more material than he can meaningfully cohere into a single script with any dramatic weight and point. Front-loading a movie with witty imagery and narrative premise without enough of a satisfyingly worked-through plot to come behind was what made his second film, Us , less than his sensationally scary and funny debut Get Out . This is another step back, and it’s a shame that there isn’t much that’s interesting for his star Daniel Kaluuya to do – although it does periodically use his famous charismatic stare.

The title would appear to refer to the single panicky word uttered by the hero in the face of supernatural incursions: his refusal to accept the evidence of his senses. Nopewatchers online have also wondered if it means “not of planet Earth”. Kaluuya plays OJ Haywood, an animal wrangler who with his sister Emerald (a high-voltage performance from Keke Palmer) runs a ranch in the Santa Clarita valley in California, supplying horses for movie and TV productions. These two, it seems, are the great-great-great-grandchildren of the unnamed black jockey who appeared in Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering chronophotograph moving-image of a horse : the great ancestor of all film stars, whose history has been erased – like so many people of colour in film history.

Their father, Otis Sr (Keith David), died six months before the action begins in an unearthly and unexplained event. There appears to be an intergalactic visitor in the heavens above the ranch, attracted and yet also repelled by certain distinct factors. OJ and Emerald engage the help of a surveillance-tech guy called Angel (Brandon Perea) to establish this entity’s existence, and also persuade a renowned cinematographer, Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) to take celluloid movie footage of whatever it is up there.

So far, so intriguing – and so cinephilic. But wait. There is a whole other Hollywood-showbiz-related weirdo thing in the valley, right near the ranch, and that too is pulsing out a disturbed karmic energy relating to the UFO. Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) is a former 90s child star whose brand became poisoned when a chimp ran amok on the set of his TV show in front of a live studio audience, killing all the actors but him. His career went south, and now he runs a cheesy wild-west theme park in the desert, with horses. What a startling, complex story Jupe’s is: dense in postmodern irony and poignancy. Perhaps the whole movie should have been about him and not OJ and Emerald. Or about OJ and Emerald and not him. But it’s about all of them.

There are plenty of bold and riveting images in Nope; bizarre dreamlike iterations. Kaluuya and Palmer have, singly, a cool self-possession and address to the camera, but no really compelling chemistry as siblings or anything else. There is something clotted and heavy about this film, with sadly not enough of the humour for which Peele justly became celebrated in his double-act days with Keegan-Michael Key. It’s not the positive response I wanted to have.

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• Breaking Down the Meaning of Jordan Peele’s <i>Nope</i>

Breaking Down the Meaning of Jordan Peele’s Nope

L eading up to its release on July 22, Jordan Peele kept his highly-anticipated third film, Nope , tightly under wraps. The trailer is little more than a spooky montage of dark forces and craning necks, and Peele was very cagey about what happens in the movie in the few interviews he’s given. His elusiveness sparked a whole host of wild fan theories and predictions: that the movie is about government drones, or time travelers, or the MMA fighter Angela Hill .

Well, two TIME reporters saw the film—and walked out of it with even more theories and questions than when we walked in. Nope, which is available to stream on Peacock as of Nov. 18 as well as to rent on other digital platforms, is a transfixing and hugely ambitious movie with a perplexing array of disparate characters and symbols: a murderous chimp, inflatable dancing men, a flying saucer. By the time the film has ended, the A-plot has resolved itself neatly. But in the two packed theaters where we screened the film, theatergoers remained silent and still as the credits rolled, suggesting some sort of confusion, or at least unease, with the whole thing.

As TIME’s film critic Stephanie Zacharek put it , “Peele, it seems, is one of those ‘It means what you think it means’ filmmakers, which delights some audiences but comes off as a copout for viewers who want to know what a filmmaker is thinking, because ostensibly those thoughts are more interesting than anything we could come up with on our own.”

So, just like the movie’s characters, we’ll try to interpret what we’ve seen before us while mixing in grandiose conspiracy theories to answer one big question: What, exactly, is Nope about? Spoilers, of course, abound.

Nope is simply a summer monster movie

Jordan Peele’s movies beg to be closely scrutinized: they’re full of historical and cultural Easter eggs, double meanings and sociopolitical commentary. His first two films, Get Out and Us , have provoked endless analysis from professors, psychologists, and historians, with Get Out even inspiring a whole class at UCLA. Peele isn’t shy about his conceptual ambition and his penchant for writing Big Themes into genre storytelling: “Humanity is the monster in my films,” he told Vanity Fair in 2017.

But in the last few months, Peele has signaled that Nope is different in that regard, that his intentions may be more visceral and surface-level. “I wrote it in a time when we were a little bit worried about the future of cinema,” Peele said. “So the first thing I knew is I wanted to create a spectacle… the great American UFO story .”

And after watching Nope , it’s easy to read it purely as a summer popcorn movie; a break from what critics might perceive as heavy-handed didacticism. The main plot of the film is simple, slotting neatly into a thriller/horror lineage of a group of good guys trying to kill a scary monster. (See: Jaws , Alien , The Thing .)

Late in the movie, Daniel Kaluuya’s OJ lays out the monster’s motivations very clearly: “It’s alive, it’s territorial, and it wants to eat us.” This mute, faceless monster doesn’t seem to be a stand-in for, say, Manifest Destiny or global warming: it’s simply a vehicle for making audiences shriek, riffing on a rich cinematic history of UFOs, and capturing gorgeous shots of the expansive SoCal desert sky.

Peele spares no expense in that last regard: he hired cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who shot Christopher Nolan epics like Dunkirk and Interstellar , to film this one using IMAX cameras. The director has made it very easy for audiences to get wrapped up in the film’s visual beauty and heart-racing motorcycle-driven set pieces; to mostly turn off their Hot Take brains and enjoy a furious battle for survival.

Nope—it’s actually a parable about the power of cinema

But for characters battling a giant sky monster that eats people, they spend an awful lot of time primarily worried about… filming it?

It seems like a quarter of all movies that make it into theaters these days are so-called “love letters to Hollywood” (see: La La Land , Mank , Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood, Licorice Pizza ). Nope repeatedly gestures toward that subgenre. The movie is very clearly attempting to place itself within several cinematic lineages: Western, horror, sci-fi, buddy-comedy. The very first shot takes place on a Hollywood television set (albeit during the rampage of a murderous chimp). Easter egg references to film history abound, whether in the form of OJ’s Scorpion King hoodie or his Buck and the Preacher poster.

But the characters aren’t just fans of movies: they’re obsessed with the act of filming and documenting life. For OJ, Emerald (Keke Palmer), and Angel (Brandon Perea), the UFO only truly exists if they’ve captured it on film. They spend the first half of the movie interacting with it mostly through screens, as if poring over their own Zapruder tape. They set up a wildly ambitious obstacle course—complete with those wacky inflatable men—not to physically capture the beast but to use the footage as their golden ticket to becoming Hollywood royalty.

The movie’s climax goes even further in centering the act of filmmaking. As the monster floats off into the sky, Emerald unleashes a giant inflatable balloon cowboy—a definitive symbol of Classic Hollywood if there ever was one—as an airbound weapon, then furiously snaps her camera as she repeatedly attempts to get one perfect shot.

It’s a curious and self-serving twist on the “final shoot-out” trope, with a film roll replacing bullets. In the battle between good and evil, the film seems to be saying, it’s the actual art of filmmaking, combined with the ingenuity of filmmakers harnessing the power of Hollywood heroes, that might be humanity’s last hope.

However, there’s another way of interpreting the movie not as a love letter, but as an outright condemnation of Hollywood instead. More on that later.

Nope —i t’s a critique of surveillance culture

We’re still not entirely sure what the gaping organ on the underbelly of our UFO-turned-predator is (a mouth? An eye? Both?), but it certainly does seem to be watching us. OJ pieces this together, too, when he interrupts a burger run to posit that maybe the creature—like a horse—spooks at direct eye contact. It wants to watch, never to be watched. And Jupe (Steven Yeun) gets close to the point when he announces to the crowd at his amusement park that “We are being surveilled by an alien species I call the Viewers.” (Maybe the one thing Jupe was right about, poor guy.)

“Surveillance” is a weighty term here, given its history and significance in relation to policing the Black community . If the alien is, in fact, always watching them from inside that cloud, then the Haywoods’ ranch starts to feel a bit like a panopticon—a central observation tower within a ring of prison cells. To the prisoners, it feels like someone is constantly watching them, and all sense of privacy is lost. In her book Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness , Simone Browne draws a comparison between the panopticon and slave ships: Both institutions police and dehumanize people, creating a system of power and control.

But when OJ whips out his cell phone—a tool often used to document police brutality —to record the kids pranking him in the barn, he’s turning the tables on the threat at hand. And when Angel helps the Haywoods install security cameras on their property, the watched become the watchers, reasserting their power. By capturing evidence of the creature, they’re ensuring that they will be believed—and that they can control the narrative. So when Emerald snaps that last, sweat-stained photo on the Winkin’ Well , maybe that’s a win, pushing back against surveillance culture.

Nope — it’s about Black historical documentation

Or maybe that Winkin’ Well photo has a different meaning entirely.

Toward the beginning of the movie, Emerald explains to a sound stage full of people that her great-great (great) grandfather was the jockey who was the subject of the first known assembly of photographs creating a motion picture. Those photos were assembled by Eadweard Muybridge, known by many as the “ forefather of cinema .” The name of the jockey, however, remains unknown. “We’ve got the first movie star of all time,” Peele told GQ . “And it’s a Black man we don’t know. We haven’t looked. In a lot of ways, the movie became a response to that first film.”

When OJ and Emerald embark on a quest to record the alien, then, maybe they’re seeking to document history, leaving their own indelible mark in the textbooks.

“Ain’t nobody gonna get what we gonna get,” Emerald tells her brother inside Fry’s Electronics. “What we gonna get?” OJ asks. “The money shot,” Emerald replies. “Undeniable proof of aliens on camera. The Oprah shot.” Securing the Oprah shot would cement the Haywoods’ place in history—which should have already been established, given the family lineage. The act of “archiving while Black,” as the academic Ashley Farmer has put it, can be inherently radical, as Black scholars, historians and activists historically have been shut out of the preservation of their own history.

The Haywood siblings make a false step in Nope , when they entrust the documentation of the creature to the eccentric filmmaker Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), who Emerald claims is the only person in the world who can get it on film, and who happens to be white.

As OJ ducks for cover inside a structure with walls made out of wooden slats, a horse gallops by in the background, evoking the praxinoscope feel of the Muybridge clip. Then we’re treated to the remake itself, the pièce de résistance: a gorgeous sequence of OJ galloping through the arid, stark landscape of Southern California, recreating and reclaiming his great-great-great-grandfather’s legacy.

“It’s about taking up that space,” Peele told GQ . “It’s about existing. It’s about acknowledging the people who were erased in the journey to get here.”

Then Antlers is gone, leaving Emerald as the last woman standing to capture this slice of history for both her family and the world at large. And with every last ounce of energy—and frankly impressive upper body strength—she succeeds, snapping the Oprah shot on the trusty ol’ Winkin’ Well.

Nope — Nope is about capitalism

You knew we’d end up here, didn’t you?

By now, it’s a cliche to yell “late stage capitalism!” about pieces of media that even reference economic structures or wage labor. But bear with us here: When you zoom out, it becomes evident that the throughline of each of Nope ’s subplots is the grave danger of wrangling the untameable into a for-profit spectacle.

First, it’s the Haywood family, whose entire legacy rests upon converting majestic stallions into show ponies to be ridden by washed-up actresses in commercials. Next, it’s the creators of Gordy’s Home , who chased viewership ratings so blindly, they ignored the Chekhov’s Ape about to detonate on his poor castmates.

The Gordy massacre clearly had a traumatic effect on poor Jupe, who witnessed his castmates getting mauled firsthand. But society taught him that the tragedy was something to be mined for commerce and comedy: We’re sure Chris Kattan killed in the SNL sketch that Jupe describes. And as a child actor, Jupe never knew anything else. It’s his Stockholm Syndrome, chained as he is to Hollywood ideals, that makes him attempt to turn the UFO into his new Gordy—because even in the worst case bloody scenario, maybe a good SNL skit and a few thousand bucks will come out of it.

Jupe’s attitude of embracing risk for the sake of success isn’t the exception, but the status quo. For the Haywood siblings, filming the UFO is the key to their family’s very survival. (It’s not like OJ could take bereavement leave after his father’s death.) In their near-suicidal quest to monetize the monster, they’re not all that different from the TMZ cameraman who begs for OJ to save his footage as he lays dying in the dirt.

This theme directly taps into that of two of Hollywood’s classic monster movies, King Kong and Jurassic Park : that the masses’ desire for believably terrifying and titillating spectacles can only end in disaster. And as long as tickets are sold, there are those like Jupe or the cinematographer Antlers who will happily create deathly shows. The line between obsessive craftsmanship and obsessive commerce-creation becomes nearly indistinguishable, as they each lead to the same violent ends.

Watching Antlers die, it’s hard not to think of Halyna Hutchins, the real-life cinematographer who was shot to death by accident last year on a New Mexico film shoot of an Alec Baldwin Western. On that shoot, crew workers had complained of safety lapses and unsafe working conditions due to a tight budget and strict productivity mandates. The incident brought to light a long history of fatal accidents on film sets, often stemming from producers cutting corners to save money. With this history in mind, the characters’ attitudes of film-above-life leaves a very sour taste, and calls into question every one of their actions.

Peele himself leaves a very strong hint toward this interpretation’s veracity in the film’s first frame, which shows a grim Bible quote from the prophet Nahum: “I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, make you a spectacle.” Nahum says this to justify the destruction of the city of Nineveh, which he argues is overrun by sin and vice, and must be cleansed. Peele’s UFO monster, then, can be read as making a moral judgment from on high of humanity’s obsession with money and spectacle—and raining down upon them filth and blood as punishment.

Nope. We’re overthinking it

But the question remains: Do we have to have our cake and eat it too? Do we need both a big, fun summer monster movie and a treatise on the follies of capitalism in Hollywood? Or can we just let Jordan Peele enjoy his cake: a well-deserved dessert after the daring, draining concepts of Get Out and Us ?

Both of Nope’s forerunners delved deep into dark places. The Sunken Place and the Tethered—though central to two timeless cinematic masterpieces—demanded a lot of both Peele and his viewers. The Haywood ranch, on the other hand, infuses this film with sheer thrills, edge-of-your-seat terror and the joy that can accompany it. “There’s also a way to watch this movie where you say, ‘Look, I’ve been working all day, all week,’” Peele told Uproxx . “’I want to shut off and see some wild stuff.’”

Peele, as he’s proven time and time again, is a master of cinematography and filmmaking. Maybe we should step back from all of the overanalysis (as fun as it may be) and just let him do what he does best: make one hell of a movie.

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Jordan Peele Producing ‘Nope’-Inspired Docuseries About Black Cowboys for Peacock

In the wake of his third movie Nope back in 2022, Jordan Peele is producing something of a spiritual follow-up to the sci-fi/horror movie with an upcoming docuseries for Peacock .

Deadline reports this afternoon that the docuseries project from Peacock and Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions aims to “dismantle the whitewashed mythology of the cowboy.”

The site details in today’s exclusive report, “The series is inspired by themes from his movie Nope , which starred Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as horse-wrangling siblings attempting to capture evidence of a UFO in Agua Dulce, California.”

Additionally, “The docuseries will rewrite a foundational piece of American history, unmasking the forces that erased the identity of the Black cowboy from frontier history and present.”

Keith McQuirter ( By Whatever Means Necessary: The Godfather of Harlem ) is the showrunner, director and executive producer of the docuseries, which doesn’t yet have a title.

“ Nope gave a nod to the deep history of Black cowboys in America, and this docuseries offers a full exploration of their lives and contributions to today’s cultural landscape,” said Pearlena Igbokwe, Chairman, Universal Studio Group. “Told through the singular lens of Jordan Peele, this series is every bit as entertaining as it is enriching.

“It’s been a thrill for UTAS to collaborate with Jordan, Monkeypaw, Keith and the team on what is a truly special project, and we’re excited to share it with fans.”

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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“Pretty Little Liars: Summer School” Review – A Hot Girl Summer Turned Final Girl Summer

When I previously wrote my review of Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin , I mentioned that I was optimistic for the series to be renewed for another season, but questioned how the showrunners would be able to introduce a fresh batch of conflicts for our Millwood liars to tackle. After all, “A” had been apprehended! The main characters seemed to have found closure, and the future seemed bright and unobstructed for each of them.

And then came the summer. Summer School, that is.

As expected in any iteration of Pretty Little Liars , a new A has emerged to torment our five final girls who are stuck in Millwood attending summer school; this time in the form of Bloody Rose–a crimson soaked, knife brandishing antagonist that I would argue is much scarier than our season 1 stalker, Archie Waters. As things heat up with Bloody Rose, the summer brings a slew of new tribulations for the liars to face, including a mysterious new church group, and Milwood residents with nefarious intentions. It’s fresh, it’s campy, and while I wasn’t as blown away by the first half of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School as I was Original Sin , it still feels like a satisfying and seamless continuation of everything the first season had set up.

Editor’s Note: This review covers the first five episodes of ‘Summer School.’

For anyone craving a summer slasher romp in the vein of Fear Street or a Scream film, Summer School will satisfy. The new season feels like a love letter to horror classics similar to how Original Sin was–from a pool setting that looks straight out of the iconic scene from The Strangers: Prey At Night , to a Chuck E. Cheese-esque parlor full of animatronics that look straight from the recent Five Nights At Freddy’s movie. It continues the trend from season 1 of pivoting Pretty Little Liars completely into horror territory and proves that it can stand tall in the genre.

As previously mentioned, the new main antagonist donning the A moniker is Bloody Rose–a mysterious pursuer who lurks in the shadows of Millwood. Her design feels much more inspired than her predecessor: perpetually soaked in blood, donning what appears to be a crown of thorns, typically one eye exposed through what look like bandages on her face, the sight of her sends a chill down my spine as she pursues the liars. While her antics appear to be similar to Archie’s in terms of tormenting the girls, her influence seems to stretch further than just the five main characters, acting as a sort of Boogeyman in Millwood as its residents discuss the lore of who she is on “Spooky Spaghetti,” the PLL’s in-universe Creepypasta.

While the girls come to grips with the fact that a new stalker has emerged, they’re also still reconciling with the hurdles that they just surmounted. Having already come face-to-face with A–and on the brink of death by extension–they’ve each become hardened and cautious, embracing their identities as final girls. Without sounding too much like the meme of Jamie Lee Curtis, Summer School is an exploration of the baggage that comes with being a survivor of trauma. It’s a much more present story– Original Sin would often jump to flashbacks to show the mistakes of each of the girls’ mothers, whereas in Summer School , the mothers are essentially absent. This is now the girls’ story, and theirs alone.

The girls are constantly watching their backs and questioning the intentions of everyone around them, but have also toughened up and learned to lean on each other. It’s a refreshing expansion of what Original Sin had built–while the 1st season was tasked with providing exposition and introducing us to each character, Summer School settles in quickly and gives the characters much more breathing room. One of my critiques of Original Sin was that it felt like we didn’t get enough time with Mouse ( Malia Pyles ), Noa ( Maia Reficco ), and Faran ( Zaria ). We were treated to a lot of focus on Imogen ( Bailee Madison ) and Tabby ( Chandler Kinney ), who acted as the main duo of the group in that season while the others were a bit more on the backburner. Summer School quickly rectifies this: each of the main cast are given more time in the spotlight and come across as more dynamic characters as a result.

On the flipside, the pacing doesn’t feel quite as tight as the previous season. In the scenes where Bloody Rose is wreaking havoc on her chosen liar, the tension is palpable and gripping. But at times, the tension is weighed down by scenes that heavily detract from the main plot. I couldn’t help but think at times during the five episodes that I’ve watched that Mouse was the only character trying to get to the bottom of who Bloody Rose is while the focus of every other character was spending multiple scenes cozying up with their romantic interest. Romance is obviously an important facet of a summer slasher vibe, but more often than not I found my attention span wandering as the romance subplots seemed to take precedence over the murderer that was stalking the characters. Original Sin was effective at maintaining focus while knowing when to pump the brakes, while Summer School feels a bit bogged down at times.

Despite this, the mystery surrounding Bloody Rose has sunk its hook in me. Without spoiling too much, she clearly has some sort of vendetta against the liars that’s causing her to torture the group in a way specific to each of them. The introduction of a handful of new characters has me constantly rearranging my suspect list–by episode 5, I found that my main suspect up until that point had fallen completely off my radar of who the one stalking the girls could be. The essence of Pretty Little Liars has always been the audience’s participation in identifying clues throughout the show that indicate who the culprit is, and Summer School succeeds in beckoning you to do so episode by episode.

I’m also eager to see how a couple of subplots, specifically one that hints at religious fanaticism and the occult, will end up tying into the larger picture as well. Kelly Beasley ( Mallory Bechtel ) is a standout character–the unofficial 6th member of the main group, she’s undergone an intense character transformation and seems to be harboring some of the most complex secrets of the cast that I’m excited to see revealed. The predatory movie theater manager, Wes ( Derek Klena ), has also returned with seemingly nefarious ulterior motives, and it’s satisfying to see Tabby disillusioned with his friendly persona and butt heads with him.

While I don’t think the first five episodes pack as much of a punch as Original Sin , Summer School straddles the volatile line of a worthy slasher sequel for the most part. The characters feel like real teenagers (albeit with some clunky Gen-Z slang sprinkled in here and there); they’re fallible, act rashly, and make mistakes, and are endearing as a result. It’s a testament to the cast’s ability to embody final girls that are easy to root for, and I’ll be intently staying tuned to see how the mystery of Bloody Rose unfolds.

The first 2 episodes of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School will debut on Thursday, May 9, streaming on Max, with a new episode premiering weekly until June 20.

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What to Know About ‘Unfrosted’ and the Real History of Pop-Tarts

In his directorial debut, Jerry Seinfeld tackles the history of the fruit-filled pastries … kind of. Here’s the real origin story, along with a bonus quiz.

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By Sarah Bahr

Sarah Bahr’s favorite Pop-Tart flavor is Frosted Wild Berry.

First, there was the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos biopic (complete with an Oscar-nominated song). Then came “ Tetris ”; “ Air ,” about Nike Air Jordan sneakers; “ BlackBerry ”; and “ Barbie .”

It is, in other words, a golden age for product-origin-story movies.

The latest is “Unfrosted: The Pop-Tarts Story,” a satirical history that Jerry Seinfeld has expanded from his stand-up act. The film, which he directed and stars in alongside Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant and Amy Schumer, arrives Friday on Netflix. Unlike its predecessors, it’s not really concerned with actual events. Here’s what to know about the true history of the Pop-Tart — and what the movie gets right and wrong.

But first, how did Kellogg’s and Post both end up with headquarters in Battle Creek, Mich.?

You would think ground zero in the Breakfast Wars of the 1960s might be somewhere most people could locate on a map. But Battle Creek, Mich., was home to the Battle Creek Sanitarium, known for its water and fresh air treatments, and managed by Will Keith Kellogg and his brother, John Harvey Kellogg. W.K. Kellogg developed a method of creating crunchy pieces of processed grain for his patients (read: Corn Flakes), and one of those patients, C.W. Post, would go on to start his own company in 1895 selling several foods that were veeeery similar to those at the sanitarium.

W.K. Kellogg noticed Post profiting from his recipes and established his own firm in 1906, the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company. Within three years, it was cranking out more than 100,000 boxes of Corn Flakes a day, and, thanks to the success of Kellogg, Post and many other cereal companies, Battle Creek became known as the Cereal City.

Who were the real Edsel Kellogg III and Marjorie Merriweather Post?

The bumbling chief executive of Kellogg’s, played by Gaffigan, is fictional (thank goodness). On the other hand, Marjorie Merriweather Post — the General Foods owner whom Schumer portrays as a turban-wearing caricature — was one of the first female chief executives and, for most of her life, considered the wealthiest woman in America. (Today she may be best known for building Mar-a-Lago, now Donald J. Trump’s base.)

Did Post really come up with a toaster-prepared breakfast pastry first?

Yes. In the 1960s, Post, then the biggest competitor to Kellogg’s, invented a process of partly dehydrating food and wrapping it in foil to keep it fresh; no refrigeration required. The process was initially used for dog food, but it also allowed fruit filling in, say, a toaster-prepared breakfast pastry to stay both moist and bacteria-free. (And yes, it was actually Post’s idea, not one ripped off from a Kellogg’s employee via a hidden vacuum cam.)

Was the Post product really called Country Squares?

Unfortunately, yes. The name was later changed to its current Toast’em Pop Ups , but is that really much better?

How did Country Squares and Pop-Tarts end up hitting shelves the same year?

Post jumped the gun and unveiled Country Squares to the press in February 1964, four months before they were ready to sell, allowing Kellogg’s time to frantically rustle up its own, much-better-named version.

Did Bob Cabana really create the Pop-Tart?

Nope, the “Unfrosted” flack (played by Seinfeld) is fictional. The man who helped create Pop-Tarts was a manager named William Post (yes, really), who died in February at 96.

What was an actual rejected name for the Pop-Tart?

The ones in the film — Fruit-Magoos, Heat ’Em Up and Eat ’Em Ups, Oblong Nibblers, Trat Pops — are made up. But the real rejected name — Fruit Scones — wasn’t much catchier. The final name, coined by a Kellogg’s executive, William LaMothe, was inspired by Pop Art, the contemporary cultural movement.

Were Pop-Tarts really an overnight hit?

Yes, but the first shipment to stores sold out in two weeks, not 60 seconds, as in “Unfrosted.” Kellogg’s apologized, in advertisements , but this only increased demand. (They were restocked before long.)

Were the first flavors really unfrosted?

Yes. The original flavors — all unfrosted — were Apple Currant Jelly, Strawberry, Blueberry and Brown Sugar-Cinnamon. The first frosted ones — Dutch Apple, Concord Grape, Raspberry and Brown Sugar-Cinnamon — didn’t hit the market until 1967. (William Post came up with the idea, disproving skeptics who believed the icing would melt in the toaster.) The next year, sprinkles were added to some of the frosted ones.

Did Kellogg’s really advertise Pop-Tarts without a mascot?

It did, though the decision didn’t set off a Hugh Grant-led mascot rebellion, as in “Unfrosted.” Kellogg’s rectified the omission in 1971, introducing Milton the Toaster . (The little guy didn’t make it out of the 1970s.)

Which of these flavors are real?

The past few decades have been a smorgasbord of Pop-Tart flavors, some very short-lived. Can you spot the four real flavors here?

Chocolate Peppermint

Froot Loops

Guava Mango

Harry Potter Special Edition: Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, Popcorn

Maple Bacon

Answer: Chocolate Peppermint, Froot Loops, Guava Mango and Maple Bacon Pop-Tarts have all been on shelves at some point. The Harry Potter Bertie Bott’s Popcorn and Twizzlers flavors remain the stuff of our fever dreams.

Sarah Bahr writes about culture and style for The Times. More about Sarah Bahr

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EXCLUSIVE : Jordan Peele ‘ s Monkeypaw Productions is getting back on the documentary horse and is using his movie Nope as inspiration.

The Get Out filmmaker is producing a documentary series that dismantles the whitewashed mythology of the cowboy for Peacock.

Produced through his Monkeypaw Productions label, Peele is producing the untitled series with Universal Television Alternative Studio as part of his overall deal with Universal Studio Group.

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The docuseries will rewrite a foundational piece of American history, unmasking the forces that erased the identity of the Black cowboy from frontier history and present.

Keith McQuirter, who directed MGM+’s By Whatever Means Necessary: The Godfather of Harlem , will serve as showrunner, director and exec producer.

Peele will exec produce alongside Monkeypaw’s President Win Rosenfeld, SVP, Development and Production Jamal Watson and SVP, Culture and Impact Keisha Senter as well as Liz Yale Marsh, who produced CNN’s Little Richard: I Am Everything  and has an overall deal with UTAS, and Sacha Jenkins, exec producer of Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men.

Peele previously produced four-part docuseries Lorena for Amazon, about the controversial case of John and Lorena Bobbitt.

It is the latest move into documentaries for UTAS, which produced LA Fire & Rescue from Dick Wolf and is behind upcoming NBC wildlife series The Americas.

“Nope gave a nod to the deep history of Black cowboys in America, and this docuseries offers a full exploration of their lives and contributions to today’s cultural landscape,” said Pearlena Igbokwe, Chairman, Universal Studio Group. “Told through the singular lens of Jordan Peele, this series is every bit as entertaining as it is enriching. It’s been a thrill for UTAS to collaborate with Jordan, Monkeypaw, Keith and the team on what is a truly special project, and we’re excited to share it with fans.”

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