Under your parents’ roof, and under the weight of their expectations, it’s difficult to envision who you might become in the future. This struggle is at the heart of Andrew Haigh’s (All of Us Strangers) newest mystery film, A Long Winter.

Set against the breathtaking landscape of the Rocky Mountains, the film follows Mikey (Fred Hechinger – Gladiator 2, Thelma) over three long winter months, as the comfortable family life he’s grown used to begins to change. Mikey and his brother Tom (Kit Connor – Heartstopper) live in a rustic mountainside farmhouse with their parents, Lester (Ebon Moss-Bachrach – The Bear) and Louise (Caitríona Balfe). We meet them on the eve of Tom’s departure for the Army, where he will join the war in Korea. In their cosy mountain home, where they take turns bathing in the same water, farm the land for food, raise rabbits and chickens, and are held at mercy of shifting weather patterns, the family feel a million miles away from the modern advancements of the 1950s’.

On the surface, they’re a quaint, happy all-American nuclear family, but underneath their smiles, darkness looms. Once Tom leaves to begin his service, the reality of his mother’s secret drinking pulls Mikey out of tranquil family life and into a nightmare. After Lester cleans out her alcohol supply, a frantic Louise sneaks out of the house with the family’s pet dog. Within mere hours of her departure, a snowstorm hits: the family home is without power, all surrounding roads become impassable, and phone lines go down and stay down. Lester and Mikey scramble to find Louise, but find no trace, her existence wiped clean by the rapidly falling snow.

What follows are three long months in limbo. Father and son co-exist in their new womanless universe, unable to feel their grief until the winter ends, the snow melts and a body can be found. Lester is keen to get on with things, reminding his son that the farm won’t take care of itself, but Mikey can’t give up hope of his mother’s return. He walks miles through the snow each day, looking for signs of life, and then eventually, signs of death.

At first glance, the film is a softly paced mystery we wander through as we wait for a body to turn up. Yet, Haigh subtlety builds so much more into the dynamics of his central family. From an early interaction with his brother, we sense an otherness to Mikey. When questioned about his resistance to move out of their family home, Mikey remarks that there are two kinds of people in the world: people who want to go out and seek change and those like him who are content with the way things are.

We get the sense that he isn’t so much content with the way things are, but comforted by the safety and shelter a parent’s home provides for someone like him. Mikey comes into focus with the things he leaves unsaid: his longing looks at the handsome police officer searching for his missing mother, his resistance to do the woman’s work now his mother isn’t there to do it, his awkward interactions with the boy his father hires to help around the house.

Read more of our LFF 2026 coverage →

A Long Winter appears to be a cold, haunted mystery shadowed by the disappearance of a troubled mother. Yet, beyond its eerie exterior, lies something a little more universal. In his mother’s absence, Mikey begins to see the possibility of a life beyond the one he shares with her and his father on the farm. Mikey is literally snowed in by his own fear and resistance to see what lies out in the world for him, as someone for whom life might not come to as easily as it does for someone like his brother. However, as the snow melts, so do Mikey’s reservations. These sleight-of-hand, lived-in reflections make the film stand out as something truly beautiful. We see Haigh’s possibility and hope for a world that can so often be cruel, dark and cold.

The film owes a significant amount of its beauty to cinematographer André Turpin, who captures the chilly scenes of winter in such a way that you can feel the frost creeping into your bones. His imagery puts the film next to movies like Fargo and The Hateful Eight, where the cold and snow are as much part of the story as its cast of colourful characters. Moss-Bachrach gives a terrific performance of tortured masculinity, managing to be oddly contradictory as a father both deeply loving and icy cold. And Balfe’s distressing turn as a woman in pain makes her absence hit all the harder when her character wanders off the edge of the map.

It’s really interesting to finally see Hechinger lead a movie, after many supporting yet attention-stealing roles in films like Gladiator 2, Marty Supreme and Nickel Boys. He continually proves himself as an actor who can grab an audience’s attention. With A Long Winter, he shows that he can sustain their attention too. He’s a very intriguing screen presence, and it’s exciting to think about where he might go next.

Haigh once again delivers a moving, thoughtful film that will sit with you long after it ends. His willingness to mould his unique voice as a filmmaker around experimentation with genre and theme continues to be captivating as a viewer of his work. It seems like there is endless possibility attached to the film and everyone who worked on it.

★★★★

Played as part of the 2026 London Film Festival on the 17th of October / Fred Hechinger, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Caitríona Balfe, Kit Connor, Martin Freeman / Dir: Andrew Haigh / Mubi/ 15