I don’t know if you’ve heard, but YouTube has arrived. It took a while, but all of a sudden it seems like YouTube is front and center this year, thanks to a couple of directors sending their creative goods into cinemas, including Kane Parsons, who leapt from YouTube into Backrooms, as well as Markiplier, who self-distributed his Iron Lung film earlier this year. While these directors are not the first to make the leap from YouTube, last year Chris Stuckmann finally released Shelby Oaks, and the RackaRacka duo has already broken through with Talk to Me and Bring Her Back. So this is really solidifying the fact that the YouTube phenomenon is here to stay, as both Kane Parsons’ Backrooms and Curry Barker’s Obsession have turned out to be massive box office hits.

Specifically, Barker’s Obsession, which is what I’m reviewing here today, has become the highest grossing original film of the 2020s not based on a previous work. It has even surpassed Sinners, the big budget Ryan Coogler film that scored the most Oscar nominations last year. The real gag here is that Obsession cost under a million dollars to shoot and was picked up by Focus Features after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival. From there it slowly gained momentum as more people saw it and started building buzz. It’s rare that a film like Obsession performs this well. Not only did it open extremely well for a movie with no recognizable stars and a tiny budget, but it actually grew over its first couple of weeks. Nearly every wide release drops after opening weekend, but there was something special in the water with Curry Barker’s Obsession.

And that special sauce is Indy Navarrete. Man, what an actress. What a find. It’s hard to imagine anyone else being the frontrunner for this year’s breakthrough awards. Reports have already surfaced that she’s met with Michael Mann for Heat 2 and with the director of the upcoming X-Men reboot. Those would be enormous projects for someone who could very well end up a Best Actress nominee this year. I sincerely hope Focus Features campaigns her in Lead Actress because this is a dominating performance. It’s the one everyone will remember, and I think she’ll go down as one of horror’s great leading performances.

So what is this Obsession that everybody is so, well, obsessed with? The film centers around Bear, who works at a record store with his friends in a semi-toxic circle of complicated relationships. His best friend Ian keeps encouraging him to finally ask out Nikki, played by Indy Navarrete, while Hannah rounds out the group. When Bear finally gets the opportunity to tell Nikki how he feels, of course he can’t bring himself to do it. Nikki mentions that she has lost a meaningful piece of jewelry, and Bear’s attempt to replace it leads him to a novelty shop where he discovers something called the One Wish Willow. Supposedly, if you snap the little willow stick while making a wish, it grants your greatest desire. It seems like the kind of silly novelty anyone might buy without expecting it to work. Instead of giving it to Nikki, Bear keeps it for himself, and after yet another failed attempt to confess his feelings, he wishes that Nikki would love him more than anyone or anything else in the world.

This is where things get interesting because almost immediately after Bear makes the wish, Nikki comes back. At first she plays things in an unsuspecting, almost coy way, but it’s obvious to the audience that something has changed. I’ve seen a lot of discourse online about Bear, whether he’s the greatest villain of the year or just the most toxic guy imaginable. Honestly, I mostly thought he was naive and incredibly stupid. At least through this first stretch of the wish, I don’t think he actually believes it worked. Nikki explains away her increasingly strange behavior by claiming she’s dealing with a family crisis, even though Ian and Hannah later point out that Nikki has always said she doesn’t speak to her father and wants nothing to do with him. Either way, Bear lets himself ignore the warning signs because it’s convenient for him.

Somewhere along the way, though, Bear becomes fully complicit. Once he realizes the One Wish Willow really has changed Nikki, he keeps making excuses for himself instead of fixing the problem. He tries to manage the situation, convincing himself he can work around Nikki’s increasingly disturbing behavior. It’s only when everything reaches the point of no return that he’s finally forced to confront what he’s done. Curry Barker packs the film with wonderfully unsettling moments, although I do have one question that might simply be a small script glitch. Without spoiling anything, how exactly did Nikki know where the cat was?

That tiny question aside, Barker has written a surprisingly thoughtful story about autonomy, what it means to have it, what it means to lose it, and why it’s so important. One of the smartest choices in the screenplay is allowing us to see glimpses of the real Nikki buried underneath the wish. While Bear is getting exactly what he wanted, the real Nikki occasionally fights her way to the surface. There are moments where she hesitates, backs away, or seems to struggle against whatever the wish has turned her into. Sometimes it’s obvious that Bear is interacting with his fantasy version of Nikki. Other times the real Nikki briefly reappears. And then there are scenes where the two versions seem to blend together into one deeply unsettling performance.

That’s what makes Indy Navarrete’s work here so extraordinary. She’s essentially playing two people occupying the same body at the same time, and she absolutely nails it. It’s a remarkably layered performance that never feels like a gimmick. As far as 2026 goes, this is the finest performance by an actress I’ve seen in either a leading or supporting role. It’s compelling from beginning to end, and I genuinely hope the awards conversation embraces what she’s accomplished here.

The rest of the cast does solid work across the board. The actor playing Bear makes him just likable enough that you understand why people stick around him, while also slowly revealing the selfishness that transforms him into the toxic boyfriend so many viewers have latched onto. Ian has several strong scenes as the loyal friend who may be carrying a secret of his own, and Hannah serves as an effective voice of reason throughout the story.

The audio description is also worth mentioning because it’s genuinely excellent. This is a difficult film to describe, not just because of the horror elements, but because Navarrete’s performance relies so heavily on physicality and facial expression. The describer does a terrific job capturing all of those unsettling little choices that make Nikki feel so unpredictable. There is one major jump scare, and the audio description presents an interesting challenge. Because the scene leading into it is already loud and chaotic, the description has to begin just before the scare itself. That means blind and low vision audiences receive a split second of warning before everyone else. I know some people dislike that approach, but the alternative would be describing the event after it’s already happened, which simply wouldn’t work here. The scene really needs to be presented in two parts: the action itself and then the aftermath. It’s the right call, even if it slightly changes the timing of the surprise.

I also think Curry Barker shows tremendous promise as a director. His concept is clever, but what’s even more impressive is what he gets out of his cast. None of these actors feel like they’re making the leap from student films into professional filmmaking. Everyone feels completely natural, and the movie itself looks and feels like a polished Hollywood production despite being an independent film with a tiny budget. That’s incredibly exciting because it suggests Barker’s greatest strength may actually be working with actors.

Without question, Obsession is one of the best films of the year. It’s intense, thrilling, memorable, and compelling in all the right ways. Most importantly, it features a stunning breakthrough performance from Indy Navarrete, one of those rare performances that launches a career. It’s the performance equivalent of Helen of Troy. Instead of launching a thousand ships, it’ll launch a thousand scripts headed in Navarrete’s direction. There’s a reason everyone is obsessed with Obsession. It’s not just one of the year’s best horror films. It’s one of the year’s best films, period. I don’t expect that to change by year’s end. In fact, if I dropped Obsession into last year’s lineup, it still would have comfortably landed in my Top 10. So I’m pretty confident saying it’ll remain one of my favorite films of 2026. If you still haven’t seen Obsession, I honestly don’t know why. At the very least, see what all the fuss is about. And if nothing else, give Indy Navarrete the chance to completely win you over with one of the year’s most commanding, disturbing, and unforgettable performances.

Fresh: 8.9/10