Spiderhead

Spiderhead (2022) is a sci-fi thriller you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced for Netflix. The film adapts George Saunders' short story published in The New Yorker back in 2010.

A high-tech island prison called Spiderhead runs on consent, not cages. Pharmaceutical visionary Steve Abnesti — played by Chris Hemsworth — has inmates volunteer for drug trials that can trigger love, terror, or euphoria on command. Miles Teller plays Jeff, a prisoner who has taken dose after dose without complaint. Then he starts feeling something for fellow inmate Lizzie (Jurnee Smollett). Something that doesn't feel manufactured. The film turns on one question: how do you know an emotion is real when someone else controls the chemistry?

Kosinski shot this right after Top Gun: Maverick, bringing the same eye for pressure and performance to a very different genre. Stream Spiderhead (2022) online on iFILM.