The Things You Kill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The Things You Kill
French theatrical release poster
TurkishÖldürdüğün Şeyler
Directed byAlireza Khatami
Written byAlireza Khatami
Produced by
  • Alireza Khatami
  • Elisa Sepulveda Ruddoff
  • Cyriac Auriol
  • Mariusz Włodarski
  • Michael Solomon
Starring
CinematographyBartosz Swiniarski
Edited by
  • Alireza Khatami
  • Selda Taskin
Production
companies
  • Fulgurance
  • Remora Films
  • Lava Films
  • Tell Tall Tale
  • Band With Pictures
  • Sineaktif
Distributed by
Release dates
  • 24 January 2025 (2025-01-24) (Sundance)
  • 25 April 2025 (2025-04-25) (Turkey)
  • 23 July 2025 (2025-07-23) (France)
Running time
113 minutes
Countries
  • Canada
  • Turkey
  • Poland
  • France
LanguageTurkish

The Things You Kill (Turkish: Öldürdüğün Şeyler) is a 2025 Turkish-language mystery film written and directed by Alireza Khatami. An international co-production between Canada, Turkey, Poland, and France, the film stars Ekin Koç as a university professor who solicits his gardener to seek vengeance after the suspicious death of his mother. Erkan Kolçak Köstendil, Hazar Ergüçlü, and Ercan Kesal provide supporting roles. Khatami, Elisa Sepulveda Ruddoff, Cyriac Auriol, Mariusz Włodarsk, and Michael Solomon co-produced the movie.

The film had its world premiere in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on 24 January. It was selected as Canada's submission for the Best International Feature Film award at the 98th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[1]

Synopsis

[edit | edit source]

Ali, a Turkish-born university professor teaching in the United States, is enraged by the suspicious circumstances of his ailing mother's death in Turkey. During his grieving process, Ali reveals his resentment for his estranged father and befriends a gardener named Reza whom he enlists to avenge his mother's death.

Cast

[edit | edit source]

Production

[edit | edit source]

Iranian filmmaker Alireza Khatami wrote, directed, and co-produced The Things You Kill; it was his third feature film following Oblivion Verses (2017) and Terrestrial Verses (2023, which he co-directed with Ali Asgari). Khatami cited the work of David Lynch as one of his primary inspirations for the movie, saying that he was "in awe" of the types of unorthodox stylistic choices made by Lynch that are uncommon in Eastern filmmaking.[2]

Khatami characterized the script as a work of autofiction, telling Variety that he "[doesn't] even know how to show this to [his] family because 70% of it is based on shared experiences". Khatami also stated that he hoped to undermine "what the audience expects from a 'brown filmmaker'", calling the first half of the film a Trojan horse.[2]

The film was co-produced by Khatami through the studio Tell Tall Tale, Elisa Sepulveda-Ruddoff from the French studio Fulgurance, Cyriac Auriol of Remora Films (France), Mariusz Włodarski of Lava Films (Poland), and Michael Solomon of Band With Pictures (Canada). Marta Gmosińska, Cenk Ünalerzen, and film star Ekin Koç also contributed to the production through the Turkish studio Sineaktif. The film received support from several institutions: Eurimages, the Polish Film Institute, Telefilm Canada, Arte Cofinova, World Cinema Fund, Torino Feature Lab, and the Île-de-France government.[3]

Release

[edit | edit source]

In May 2024, during post-production, Best Friend Forever acquired the international distribution rights to The Things You Kill, and Le Pacte acquired the rights for distribution in France.[3] The film premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 24 and will make its Sundance digital debut on January 30.[4]

It competed in the 'Progressive Cinema Competition - Visions for the World of Tomorrow' section of the 20th Rome Film Festival in October 2025.[5]

Reception

[edit | edit source]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 36 critics' reviews are positive. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Carlos Aguilar of Variety gave the film a positive review, calling it an "astutely written exercise in paying attention to how one is perceived and using that knowledge to rewrite one’s own narrative".[6] Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire gave the film an A− grade, writing that it is "like a bad, sweat-breaking dream that leaves you dazed and feverish — and a black-hearted gaze into the poison patriarchy oozes into men’s veins just as much as women".[7]

Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter was critical of the film, calling it "stale" and writing that "there’s something about The Things You Kill that ultimately leaves the viewer cold, even if all the strange and awful stuff Ali goes through leads him to finally open up and, perhaps, lighten up".[8]

The film was named the winner of the Best Canadian Film award at the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival.[9]

See also

[edit | edit source]

References

[edit | edit source]
  1. ^ "‘The Things You Kill’ selected as Canada’s submission to the Oscars". Toronto Star, August 26, 2025.
  2. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  5. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  6. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  7. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  8. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  9. ^ Andrew Tracy, "The Things You Kill, Blue Heron take trophies at VIFF awards". Playback, October 10, 2025.
[edit | edit source]
  • Lua error in Module:Official_website at line 94: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
  • The Things You Kill at IMDbLua error in Module:WikidataCheck at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
Retrieved from "http://70.231.62.181/index.php?title=The_Things_You_Kill&oldid=20494536"