Smile

After a troubling incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter begins to experience a wave of unexplained occurrences that threaten her grip on reality. The danger comes not from a monster outside but from something inside her that feeds on fear and distorts what she thinks she knows. As eerie symptoms accumulate and a menacing presence seems to reflect her own thoughts, Rose struggles to hold on to relationships while the world around her grows unfamiliar. What starts as quiet unease soon escalates into a paranoid spiral, forcing her to question memory itself and decide how far she will go to stay safe. The story follows her attempts to keep normal life in place while the threat mutates. The story keeps fear precise and immediate.

Directed by Parker Finn, Smile is built from an original screenplay. The film marks Finn's feature debut and expands on his short Laura Hasnt Slept, turning a compact idea into a full length horror story anchored by Sosie Bacon's performance.

Box office performance for Smile was strong, with a wide release that drew sizable audiences and helped establish it as a standout horror release of its year. Its robust run underscored demand for high concept thrillers and encouraged studios to back more audacious horror projects.

Smile sparked a wave of online chatter thanks to a striking poster and a campaign built around a creeping smile. The film's blend of trauma and supernatural dread fueled conversations across social media and in review circles, leaving a memorable visual imprint in horror discourse.

Critics praised Sosie Bacon's restrained performance and the film's tense mood. The discussion often centers on how trauma distorts perception, how fear travels through relationships, and how denial can drive people toward risky decisions. The movie invites a careful look at how dread affects memory.