A tense, cringe-inducing social thriller about obsession, status hunger, and the danger of mistaking access for intimacy. It plays like a sharp industry satire with a nasty psychological edge, and the music-world setting gives it extra bite.
62% ★★★☆☆ (65,151)
Lurker
Where to watch: Max
Movie · Drama · Thriller · R
2025 · 1h 40m · ★ 62% (65.2K)
Keep your friends close.
Director: Alex Russell
Starring: Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, Havana Rose Liu
Overview
When a twenty-something retail clerk encounters a rising pop star, he takes the opportunity to edge his way into the in-crowd. But as the line between friend and fan blurs beyond recognition, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.
Director
Alex Russell
Production
High Frequency Entertainment, MeMo Films, Twin Productions, Arts & Sciences, Adler Entertainment, Case Study Films
Cast
Théodore Pellerin, Archie Madekwe, Havana Rose Liu, Sunny Suljic, Daniel Zolghadri, Zack Fox, Cam Hicks, Chaize Macklin, Sean Wang, Brian Niles, Myra Turley, Jonas Gindin, Hannah Christine Shetler, Mikaela Poon, Willa Shaw, Rene Leech, Olawale Onayemi, Gene Hong, Sofia Hasmik, Greta Gould
Where to watch
MUBI, Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A tense, cringe-inducing social thriller about obsession, status hunger, and the danger of mistaking access for intimacy. It plays like a sharp industry satire with a nasty psychological edge, and the music-world setting gives it extra bite.
Best for
Viewers who like obsessive-relationship thrillers
Fans of social-climbing and celebrity-culture satire
People drawn to uncomfortable, high-cringe character studies
Audiences interested in the music industry and backstage power dynamics
Skip if
You want a straightforward thriller with lots of action
You dislike secondhand embarrassment and manipulative behavior on screen
You prefer warm, likable characters
You want a story that stays purely realistic and emotionally easy
Overview
Lurker is built on a simple but poisonous premise: what happens when admiration curdles into entitlement. The film uses the pop-star ecosystem as a pressure cooker, turning backstage access, creative ambition, and social media proximity into weapons. It’s less interested in mystery mechanics than in the slow, awful collapse of boundaries.
Worth noting
What makes it work is the discomfort. The movie understands how badly people can want to be chosen, and how easily that desire can become self-erasing. It has the sleek, anxious energy of a modern industry thriller, but the real suspense comes from watching a lonely hanger-on keep stepping further over the line while everyone around him misreads the danger.
Bottom line
The result is sharp, funny in a grim way, and often hard to watch for the right reasons. If you’re into films that dissect fame, validation, and parasocial obsession without softening the edges, this lands well above average. It’s the kind of movie that leaves you squirming and then thinking about the social ecosystem long after it ends.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Framesofnick (4★) · 3707 likes
This is how brockhampton was formed
itscharlibb · 3444 likes
wouldn’t be suprised if aidan threw someone off a ladder to get closer to me tbh! very real! (ps watched this with him and he squirmed… quite suspicious!)
Jeff (4.5★) · 3179 likes
RIP everyone take your pants off for gay James
jace (3.5★) · 2620 likes
i just want to finish the documentary :)
mikko (4★) · 2601 likes
mfs call themselves a visual artist but can’t visualize personal boundaries
1998 · Animation, Thriller · 1h 22m · R · ★ 92% (1.2M) · Where to watch: Max
A landmark psychological thriller about celebrity, identity collapse, and the terror of being watched.
Themes
obsession, parasocial relationships, celebrity culture, social climbing, identity and self-invention, boundary violation, music industry, power imbalance
Topics
psychological thriller, social satire, music industry, celebrity obsession, cringe drama, parasocial, power dynamics, modern LA, character study, darkly comic