In a world where online shopping is increasingly prevalent and companies like Amazon loom over everyone, Russell Goldman’s Sender is a poignant exploration of how even the most innocent things can become an addiction if they're sold hard enough. And now, after months of seeking distribution, the film is finally coming to theaters everywhere next year, courtesy of Dark Sky Films.
Written and directed by Goldman, Sender features a stacked cast, including Severance’s Britt Lower at the center, along with Anna Baryshnikov, Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis (who also produces), Ken Jeong, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Emmy winner Rhea Seehorn, and genre icon David Dastmalchian. The film’s synopsis is as follows:
After receiving a series of unnervingly personal packages she never ordered, a woman, newly sober and starting over, spirals into paranoia, convinced someone is watching her. As the online retailer denies responsibility, her search for the anonymous sender sends her down a dangerous rabbit hole, forcing her to confront her past and the fragile reality she’s trying to rebuild.
Based on Goldman’s 2022 short film Return to Sender, the full feature premiered at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, where it earned rave reviews. Sender is produced by Curtis alongside Molly Hallam and Jake Katofsky, with Goldman and Lower executive producing alongside Akshay Shah, Thomas Grabinski, Paris Jones, and Andre Ray.
In our review of the film, web editor BJ Colangelo said that Sender “[taps] into the same existential terror pulsing beneath Videodrome and Pulse, where technology is an invasive extension of desire and institutional control… It’s a character study backed against the erosion of private selfhood in an era where corporations monetize memory, shame, preference, and impulse with terrifying accuracy.” Clearly, we were one of the first publications to know what’s up.
“The dream of any filmmaker is finding a distributor that understands your film and wants to put it in front of as many eyeballs as possible,” said Goldman. “Sender isn’t the kind of film that fits neatly into a box, which makes it especially meaningful that the entire MPI and Dark Sky team has a real vision for its nationwide theatrical release. I’m grateful to JLC, Britt, Jake, Molly, Thomas, and the entire cast and crew, and proud our film will be at the home as some of the most exciting films of the decade. To use one of JLC’s favorite phrases, “Let’s f–king go.”
Sender arrives in theaters in the spring of 2027, but screens at the MUBI Theatre at Aero Theatre on Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 7:00 PM as a West Coast premiere. The event features an in-person Q&A with director Russell Goldman, producer/actor Jamie Lee Curtis, and actor David Dastmalchian. Stay tuned to FANGORIA for more updates.
