What To Watch This Weekend: 'Resident Evil,' 'The Weight,' 'The Beast Of Mossy Bottom,' And 'Bad Apples'

HOLLYWOOD, CA — This weekend's lineup moves through survival, sacrifice, mischief and moral compromise, with each film asking what people are willing to carry, conceal or confront when pressure mounts.

“Resident Evil” drops audiences into a relentless outbreak thriller, where Austin Abrams' everyman courier must navigate escalating horrors with little more than instinct and determination.

“The Weight” shifts to Depression-era Oregon, with Ethan Hawke anchoring a rugged wilderness adventure about a father willing to risk everything for a chance to reunite with his daughter.

Then comes a lighter detour. “Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom” embraces Halloween-season fun, sending Aardman's beloved flock into a monster-movie romp filled with stop-motion ingenuity, visual gags and family-friendly chaos.

Rounding out the group, “Bad Apples” turns a provocative schoolroom premise into a dark satire, with Saoirse Ronan leading an increasingly uneasy examination of authority, complicity and the fragile illusion of order.

Ready to dive in? Scroll on for the full lineup, where the capsules below unpack the performances, themes and craft that make each of these titles worth adding to your weekend watchlist.

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What To Watch This Weekend

“Resident Evil”

Austin Abrams, Paul Walter Hauser, Kali Reis; directed by Zach Cregger

Zach Cregger approaches the long-running franchise less as a mythology-heavy adaptation than as a pure survival-horror experience.

Austin Abrams stars as Bryan, a medical courier whose routine delivery descends into chaos when he becomes trapped amid a viral outbreak. His everyman vulnerability gives the film much of its suspense.

Rather than centering a battle-hardened hero, Cregger builds the story around uncertainty, improvisation and escalating danger, capturing the tension that has long defined the games. Structured like a series of increasingly perilous missions, the film moves with relentless momentum while balancing grotesque creature horror, dark humor and inventive set pieces.

Abrams anchors the mayhem with a mix of panic, resilience and self-awareness that keeps the film grounded even as events spiral into nightmare territory. Cregger’s command of pacing and atmosphere proves equally effective, turning resource scarcity and vulnerability into the film’s greatest strengths.

While its lean approach leaves little room for deeper character exploration, “Resident Evil” succeeds as a tense, frequently funny survival thriller that understands the appeal of the franchise without becoming trapped by its lore.

“The Weight”

Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Julia Jones; directed by Padraic McKinley

“The Weight” approaches the Great Depression as both a survival story and a meditation on the burdens people carry for those they love.

Ethan Hawke plays Samuel Murphy, a widower and father imprisoned in a brutal Oregon labor camp who is offered a chance at early release if he helps smuggle stolen gold through unforgiving wilderness. What begins as a desperate bid to reunite with his daughter gradually expands into a tense examination of loyalty, sacrifice and moral endurance.

Padraic McKinley’s feature debut favors classical storytelling over revisionist flourish, drawing from prison dramas, wilderness adventures and Depression-era mythmaking. Hawke gives the film its emotional center, grounding Murphy’s resilience in quiet determination rather than heroics. Russell Crowe proves an imposing presence as the labor camp’s manipulative warden, while the journey itself unfolds with escalating tension as greed, mistrust and desperation close in on the group.

The film’s greatest strength lies in its atmosphere. Muddy trails, dense forests and economic hardship become inseparable from the story’s emotional stakes, lending the adventure authenticity.

More than its premise, it is Hawke’s performance and McKinley’s confident command of tension, character and place that make “The Weight” worth carrying to its conclusion.

“Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom”

Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Nina Sosanya; directed by Steve Cox and Matthew Walker

Directors Steve Cox and Matthew Walker steer Aardman's beloved flock into monster-movie territory, treating Halloween less as a source of fright than as an invitation to mischief.

When Shaun’s attempt to regrow a ruined pumpkin patch unleashes unexpected consequences across Mossy Bottom Farm, the film transforms into a playful homage to classic horror, borrowing from mad-scientist tales and creature features while remaining rooted in the franchise’s trademark warmth and whimsy.

As with the previous Shaun adventures, the dialogue-free storytelling proves one of the film’s greatest strengths. Visual gags, slapstick and meticulously crafted stop-motion animation carry the story with remarkable clarity, creating comedy that works for children while rewarding older viewers with nods to horror cinema and British pop culture. The Halloween backdrop gives the film a fresh seasonal identity without sacrificing the accessibility that has long defined the series.

While the middle stretch occasionally loses momentum and the story never quite reaches the heights of Shaun’s finest big-screen outings, the charm remains intact — a joyous family adventure, filled with handcrafted creativity, gentle humor and enough spooky-season fun to make it an October favorite for years to come.

“Bad Apples”

Saoirse Ronan, Eddie Waller, Nia Brown; directed by Jonatan Etzler

“Bad Apples” turns a provocative premise into a darkly comic examination of authority, conformity and the stories communities tell themselves to preserve a sense of order. Saoirse Ronan stars as Maria, a primary school teacher pushed to the brink by a violent and disruptive student whose sudden disappearance transforms both her classroom and her standing within the community.

What begins as a biting satire of modern education gradually evolves into a moral thriller, one interested less in individual guilt than in the ease with which institutions accommodate uncomfortable truths.

Ronan anchors the film with a performance that balances exasperation, vulnerability and growing moral compromise. Director Jonatan Etzler walks a precarious line between black comedy and psychological unease, finding humor in situations that become increasingly difficult to laugh at. The film’s greatest strength lies in its willingness to implicate nearly everyone, exposing how quickly collective silence can become a form of complicity.

Etzler may leave some of the film’s thornier questions unresolved, but “Bad Apples” remains a darkly funny and unsettling satire about the dangers of mistaking harmony for accountability.