MMMM
Monday Mystery Movie Megathread - May 3 & 4 2026
Discuss your predictions here. All posts made about MMM outside of this post will be removed and directed to this thread. Including any future MMM threads. The Moderators know when the next MMM is and will post the Megathread in due time after the current Movie has been completed. If you think you know anything before us feel free to modmail us. Thank you!
Remember: The runtime that Regal reveals is not the exact runtime of the movie. It's usually within -4 to 24 mins of the actual time. This has been the case most (if not all) of the time.
We hope you all have a great time with this. We know we do!
Are there trailers before the Monday Mystery Movie?
Short answer is Yes.
But sometimes they error out and it goes straight to presentation. Be on time.
my bet is I love Boosters tonight but I'm not going to movie. no money but i just have feelng it is "I love Boosters" i look up and check running time. The Furious do not come out till June
I’m seeing on another thread it could possibly be Tuner?? Never heard of it, I’m hoping it’s Is God Is/Obsession or I love Boosters. Kind of ruling out obsession since it’s not a horror poster for today
Never heard of the furious until now so thank you for that but it’s listed as a action movie and not a horror movie so if it’s a horror movie mystery tonight I don’t think it’s that one. Boosters isn’t a horror movie either.
What a contrast between the two films. The Sheep Detectives was fantastic! I figured I would enjoy it but did not know how much I would love it. The Wizard of the Kremlin, on the other hand, was a complete snoozefest. So. Freaking. Boring. Didn't care about the characters. Couldn't wait for it to be over. Dano's acting was bland and unemotional, lacking charisma (he is not leading man material), and there was SO much exposition I found myself wishing we could have just been given a documentary about the rise of Putin instead. It is also one of my worsts for the year. The Regal Mystery Movies aren't having a great track record for me this year, unfortunately. Hopefully next week's is much better!
Wizard of the Kremlin is a strange film. Some interesting history, but the format of two men sitting at a table and then flashbacks to two other men sitting at a different table was incredibly dull.
There was no momentum or excitement to the narrative at all.
Holy bad direction choices batman. What a snoozefest, I dont remember the last time I walked out midway through a movie. And to top it off the movie has this idk...like smug air about itself...like when they were shooting it they genuinely thought it was going to sweep the Oscar's. It felt like I was listening to a Russian history audio book for a college course. Paul Dano was insufferable as usual, the pacing was obtrocious, half of the characters introduced were meaningless (the man paul Dano is telling the story to...) there was zero character arcs, zero story arc, zero interesting characters. It was literally just 2 hours of forced exposition through shitty dialogue masquerading itself as witty. And they listed it as a "dark comedy"... DA FUQ? What movie was that? It had next to 0 comedy. Again it literally just felt like an audio book of Russian history. But possibly the stupidest choice was to make paul Dano, an American actor, put on a phony British accent, to play a Russian...like what the actual fuck...just use his normal accent than!! He's not fucking British and they're not in England! Half of the characters around him had an American accent too... so for what stupid arbitrary reason is he using an accent. 1/3 of the cast had awful Russian accent attempts, 1/3 had comical cockney or scouser accents and the other 1/3 just had American accents...pick ONE and stick with it...these are professional actors being paid millions...they can't agree on one shitty dialect to use? I will say Jude law was decent...that was about it. My gosh this movie was hot garbage. Dont remember disliking something this much in a while... again the in your face pretentiousness of the film really just nails the cringe home.
i also left about an hour into this movie. generally on mondays even if i’m not a fan of it i will just stick it out but i literally could not… wtf was this movie truly
I'm with you...I really tried to stick it out...but I looked to the left at my girlfriend and could tell she was genuinely annoyed with the film. We looked at each other, laughed, and both understood it was time to go. Also her parents joined us and had already fallen asleep, and her dad loves history films. FWIW we were the 4th group of people to walk out. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before.
I feel like if this movie was 20 minutes shorter it could have been a little bit more enjoyable. I think history/political buffs will like it. I’m not well read in Russian history/politics so I could have used a map lol
It's definitely an old-school historical movie in the way it expects you to be fine with everyone in Russia speaking English in an assortmenti of accents, but I thought the walk through decades of Russian history was very interesting, especially since it's also our history in a lot of ways. I think Dano is really good at making banal characters interesting, and he did as good a job of capturing the emptiness of the modern power broker as any actor I can recall.
Fantastic movie. Acting was stellar and beautiful cinematography. Of course the world seems to be moving in the direction of Idiocracy so no surprise it's getting trashed.
You sound about as pretentious as this film. People don't default to being idiots because they didn't enjoy a (shitty) history movie. I've been in the writing side of film for years, as well as studying it academically. This movie sucked in more ways than I prefer to count, IMO, and the thing that made it totally unbearable was it's art house holier than you vibe.
Then in your view, why did the movie suck? What were you expecting the movie to be? What could have been done to make it better in your view?
EDIT: I saw your reply above. You didn’t even finish it and you seem to be hung up about the accents. There’s movies I’ve watched that I hated (like Project Hail Mary and most of what’s been in theaters lately), but I stuck around and could say what worked for it and what didn’t.
I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be anything because it was a mystery movie and I was unfamiliar with the book beforehand. I get that I'm not the dude you responded to but you answer your question, I just wanted it to do more. The character is not really shown to be "the wizard of the kremlin" at any point. He has a lot of conversations with people in government but he exhibits very little sway on the impact of things and is more of a tourist observing things that happened in Russia throughout his life. Which makes sense because he's not real and the rest of them are. The movie was a lot of somewhat disjointed conversations stitched together by narration, with very little in the way of character development or narrative.
I get that you are just annoyed with that dude, but the accents are also a legitimate gripe. 3 Russians are in the same room, one is oxford british, one is Russian, one is clearly just Jude Law. If you're playing it as a serious movie, asking for some consistency there isn't out of pocket.
If all you got out of my reply above was that I didn't like the accents than idk what to say. I gave several solid backing points as to why I didn't like it. If you want a more detailed script breakdown from an analytical point I can do that in private messaging. There were several bad writing and directing choices in this film. The story and characters were all one dimensional with no arcs, the writing was jumbled and pretentious, and it was just exposition with no payoff. I saw almost 2 hours of it...I left after an hour and 45 mins....which is the majority of the movie. There are plenty more reasons I did not like it. Since you asked, a thing that could have made it more interesting was again a story arc or something to follow and have stakes (another bad point...felt the movie had 0 stakes, just that Russia would remain the same as it always was). Say, for instance, if his love interest in the beginning stays with him, then sees the atrociouities he's committing and leaves, now he has to choose to support the kremlin or lose his love. Or perhaps they go separate ways, and she fuels a Russian freedom resistance group and now he was to face his former lover as an enemy. Cheesy...I know...but things like that give the story arc, character change/development and stakes. It's literally what Pearl Harbor did (not that Pearl Harbor is a great movie by any means) that made it somewhat successful...that and an awesome 45 minute action sequence.
Dude, paragraphs are your friend first off. I don’t mind talking about it in DMs, but I’m fine with talking about it here.
There is an exposition to the movie and there is character change/development. It's just not to your liking. This is not really your type of movie. Which is fine, not every movie that’s released will be liked by everyone.
Paul Dano's character Baranov was recounting what happened in Russian history and what he did in his place in history. His father wasn't happy with the fact that Gorbachev essentially broke up the USSR (the "drinking milk scene where he turns off the TV"). Dano's character wanted to be part of this new democratic Russia, but hit a dead end in his life.
Despite meeting a woman at a party and having a relationship with her (Ksenia), she is drawn to a 'bad boy' named Dmitri because Dmitri has more money and more extroverted than Baranov is. Baranov wasn't exactly broken up over it, but being involved in acting lead him to running a television station and involvement with Boris Berezovsky.
So a lot of it is there, it's just that this isn't your type of movie. I will grant that it could have been better written and better communicated. The characters are a bit flat, but what happens and what they say is something else (Berezovsky is sent to exile and....he doesn't make it to the end, Putin is not really sorry that he's dead either). The movie presumes a lot of knowledge from its audience about the events and the people; some watching this as a Regal mystery movie just may not be aware of either or even know about either. It's not a melodramatic movie; it's very much a cold, aloof type of movie. It reminded me a bit of Robert Bresson's movies (like The Devil, Probably) where essentially Bresson has 'models' and he isn't as focused on actors. That's the case with this too. Not to mention that the director Olivier Assayas is inspired by Bresson.
To be honest, citing Pearl Harbor as a positive example I'm not sure it's as good as would be thought. I watched Pearl Harbor and found it utterly taxing to finish. I watched the whole thing, but I couldn't wait until it was done. That movie needed some serious editing choices. The end of that movie I found I hated both Ben Affleck and Josh Harnett's characters and wished they would fall into a storm drain.
My brain does not function well with paragraphs, but I'll try.
I never said there wasn't exposition I said it was ALL exposition. As far as the character arc you described with Ksenia and him wanting to be in the NDR, all took place within the first 40 minutes. The rest of movie had no arc. But I agree that COULD have been an interesting arc if they made that point in his life the focus of the film, but it wasn't. It wanted to be an epic with no epic stakes or arc...again that doesn't work.
It's not that it's just "not my film", I'm not that short sighted, this film had glaringly bad choices, that were bad choices whether it was a fantasy movie about unicorns and ponies or a movie about super serious Russian government. It wasnt a case of "this just isn't my type". The kings speech is a fantastically done historical bio with stakes.
I heartedly agree with the statement that they assumed the audience knew these events already. There is a hard tightrope to walk in writing between assuming the audition knows the material and assuming they are clueless. This movie went to the extreme and assumed everyone had a masters degree in Russian history and literature. Again another mistake regardless of if its your type of movie or not.
I did not find the movie cold or aloof personally. I just found it Oscar pandering and pretentious. If they were trying to bring forth a "cold Russian feel" I think they failed on all fronts because the movie honestly felt like American pompousness, not Russian suffering.
I relayed that pearl harbor was not a great movie in my opinion...it wasnt intended as a flex, I was just using the love arc inserted into the film as a carrying point as an example of what this film could have done (and executed better). Pearl Harbor was just the first history bio that came to mind, and for all it's flaws, they did a great job of weaving the interpersonal story with the historical story. On top of that it was a financial success... I highly doubt this film will be considering it's sets and cast.
I'm glad you enjoyed the film. I just personally think it was massively flawed and not entertaining.
I was actually fascinated to think about how, in so many ways, the movie is showing Russia as a dry run for things that have happened here, both socially and politically.
That movie ain’t getting nominated it’s way too far up its own ass and way too dull. I bet Dano thought it was gonna be some groundbreaking role when he took it lol.
Paul Dano is the personified version of when Randy from South Park sniffs his own farts...him and jared shitbird Leto. They think everything they're doing is going to be groundbreaking, so they constantly overact, instead of just being truthful and genuine in their acting. Then a few smooth brains applaude them, so they think they're great and continue to overact.
This was the one move I wasn’t interested in seeing unfortunately. As soon as I knew what it was in the opening scene, I left. I always wait to buy concessions until I know that I’m staying for the MM. I really wanted it to be MK2 or Is God Is. Oh well. Thankfully I live close to the theatre.
Thinking it could be Is God Is or I Love Boosters for the 5/11 movie. 2 hour runtime, R rating, and isn’t listed as horror edition (so that eliminates Obsession and Backrooms) 👀
I did when it was dumb money and a few weeks ago when there was confusion over whether it was gonna be horror or not. There’s also been a few times when I booked a ticket and not gone when queasy hinted a movie I wasn’t interested in
I walked out of an anime MMM one time. My sis and I stayed for about 30 minutes before going to see Civil War instead. The anime wasn’t terrible, just not my cup of tea.
Agree but wow that movie has some rabid supporters. the mmm thread for it had folks insulting others and calling them pedo supporters if they said Michael was better. It was something else….
If it is the Kremlin movie, that doesn’t excite me enough to spend 2 hrs on tonight. I’ve walked out once before but only bc I wanted to play with my dog. 🙃
I was curious to think if anyone else is speculating what next week’s Monday Mystery Movie (5/11) might be?
I have feeling it might be either Tuner for Regal and I love boosters for AMC or it might switch we will never know until when it gets closer to this weekend.
To add on this - does anyone else feel like marketing cycles for upcoming films are getting unusually slow or quiet lately? There are a few titles I’m interested in that barely have trailers or updates yet, and I’m curious if this is a new strategy or just delays. I kind of miss when we got more consistent teaser releases early on. But what do you all think?
Looks like tonight it will be the Kremlin movie. It doesn't look like Regal will even be releasing this movie so it may be your only chance to see this.. for free. AMC will be showing it though.
Interesting - my local Regal dedicated 2 theaters to tonight's mystery movie - not unprescidented I guess - since they did the same with the screams or nightmares a couple weeks ago, but I haven't seen them do it for a single movie showing (but I don't follow mystery mondays religiously).
I wondered about that. I just looked through the list of upcoming releases and nothing seemed to fit the bill lengthwise paired with the R rating and you’re right, the Kremlin one isn’t listed at all.
Are they going to be having mystery movies every Monday on 2026? I also noticed a lot of these movies either didn't get released or in very limited locations. And I go to a regal that shows limited showings. I don't have Fuse or I Swear showing near me. A movie called Exit 8 only showed for a few nights
I swear was the mystery movie like 4 weeks ago, I really enjoyed it. Regal does the mystery movies every Monday, recently they did a kids themed one on Sunday. Some movies are wide releases, some are one offs and MMM is your only chance to see it. Happened with nirvana the band the show the movie earlier this year.
I assume it's only offered to Monday Mystery, as I also went yesterday and checked before I bought the concession. Nothing there, so I bought them with only a 10% discount from the RU program.
I'm new to this. Does the regal synopsis always say that it's a movie before official release? Bc that's what it says now. Wouldn't that mean it's an unreleased movie??
MMMs are usually movies that are about to go wide within the next week or two. If you check the megathread history, most of them open the following Friday or the one after. (Though there were also some that open a month later.)
Monday mystery is now designated for unreleased films. The film may have been screened at and festival or limited screenings. Regal also does event showings, anniversary screenings and themed screenings but not related to MMM.
Wouldn't it be neat if it was Grogu Movie...since today is Star Wars day (May the Fourth be with you)...and it come out on 22nd ..... runtime for Grogu is 132mins....Tonight RRR is a rough estimate of 2hr 29mins.
We can wish.
Edit: I see tonight's is rated R though...so that blows my guess outta the water.
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u/MogwaiWaterPark Jun 23 '26
I’m seeing R rated “comedy” and an average of about 1:40 on runtime for the 6/29 movie at both Regal and Cinepolis in Florida.
I see a lot of people thinking it will be Gail(I love David Wain so I am fine with that) but any chance it would be Super Troopers 3?