Julian Singleton

Still courtesy of Comet Pictures. In Sender, Julia (Britt Lower) is on the first gasps of a fresh start, clawing back a life upended by addiction with desperate optimism. She cosigns on a new house with her anxious yet supportive sister, Tat (Anna Baryshnikov), pours over potential Masters programs, and grinds through local sobriety meetings, latching onto cynical Whitney (Rhea Seehorn) to be Julia’s reluctant sponsor.

Much like the fictional liminal location itself, the Backrooms mythos seemed to manifest out of nowhere—arising in 4chan posts in the 2010s before taking on a viral life of its own. It’s a simple setup: people randomly find themselves inside a drab, fluorescent-yellow empty office building with endless hallways.

Stills and cover courtesy of Criterion. “Cell. Prison cell. How did I get here?” In John Boorman’s Point Blank, direct questions like these don’t come with easy answers, even if the film’s editing may cut to a scene or snippet of dialogue that suggests one. Walker (Lee Marvin) is likewise someone who speaks bluntly but reveals nothing.