Mahershala Ali’s Intense Neo-Western Thriller Is Officially One of 2026’s Best Movies | TIFF Review

Published Sep 14, 2026, 12:46 PM EDT

Tania Hussain is an Executive Editor at Collider responsible for creative, editorial, and managerial duties. In addition to leading content ideation and development, she works to generate innovative and compelling ideas for feature articles and reviews with her editorial team across Features, Lists, Reviews, and Interviews. She also serves as the primary editor overseeing Collider’s Signature Series profiles, spotlighting some of the most influential voices in film and television. Tania has helped cover and ideate content for major events for Collider, including the Toronto International Film Festival. She has also conducted more than 100 interviews since her start in the business more than 15 years ago. Some favorites include Joel McHale, Charlie Cox, Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Kate Winslet, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Richter, Jordan Schlansky, Jamie Dornan, Yeardley Smith, Rafe Spall, Esther Smith, and a reasonable toss-up between Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog. She has covered set visits, in-person junkets, and red carpets for several films and TV shows, including most recently, The Sheep Detectives, Masterchef, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

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There are plenty of neo-Westerns out there about men creating their own rules, but Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother got to me in ways I wasn’t expecting. With its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this past weekend, award-winning director Bassam Tariq’s film is brutal when it needs to be, funny when you least expect it, and deeply sad without ever sinking into full-blown misery. But more than anything, it’s a story that also feels alive and lived in. While it took me some time to process, as time went on, I found myself thinking less about the violence and more about everything sitting underneath this striking 112-minute feature.

Shifting between grief, faith, family, and the impossible weight of trying to protect the people you love, Tariq’s film works because none of those ideas ever feel separate. Sure, there are a few shades of One Battle After Another in the way Tariq folds family, humor, and social commentary into an action film without letting any one part take over. But all of that also flows naturally from its characters, particularly the immigrant Muslim community, without ever turning into an after-school special. Even the action sequences carry emotional weight, with every hit tied to something much more personal. By the time Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother reaches its final stretch, the film has become something far more tender than its premise initially suggests.

What Is ‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ About?

Image via Amazon MGM Studios

With a trailer that has amassed more than 14 million views since its drop on YouTube, it’s fair to say that Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is highly anticipated by audiences, and its premise makes it easy to see why. Latif (Mahershala Ali) is a devout Muslim man, a father of three, and a contract killer who follows a strict code: He never uses guns, and he only takes jobs against people he believes the world is better off without. But after the sudden death of his wife, Khadija (Shakirah DeMesier), Latif wants out of that life to focus entirely on his three children, including teenage daughter Fatiha (Adia), son Qadir (Jahleel Kamara), and an infant daughter who cannot tolerate formula.

With the remaining supply of Khadija’s breast milk quickly running out, Latif’s search for more leads him to Fugazi (Tiffany Boone), a sex worker who once worked for nepo brat Haddy (Abubakr Ali), the nephew of Latif’s longtime employer, Mike Mahmoudi (Laith Nakli). But though Latif tries to step away from his past, walking away is harder than it seems; Mike still expects him to work and defend his family, while tensions with conservative Pastor Hwan Yoon (John Cho) and his heavily armed church begin to spiral. While Latif moves across Houston to keep his family together, several parts of his life start crashing into one another and come to a head in one of the film's most intense battle scenes.

‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ Has One of the Best Ensembles of 2026

Throughout the film, Mahershala Ali once again proves why he is one of the best actors working today. Though Latif is a man who keeps almost everything close to his chest, even when his life is falling apart, Ali never overplays that grief. He lets it show up in how the patriarch carries himself, whether through his expressions, interactions with his children, or even the physicality he brings to the film’s action.

But while Ali delivers another career-best performance, it’s the young actress Adia, who plays Latif’s teenage daughter, who has one of 2026’s best feature debuts. She is easily one of the film’s standouts and holds her own in every scene, especially playing opposite Ali. Fathia is grieving, too, but she isn’t reduced to the tired trope of a teenager angry over parental loss. There are varying and striking shades of depth to her character, with Adia playing to humor, frustration, fear, and a maturity that comes from having to suddenly understand more about her father than she expected. Not to mention, Ali and Adia’s respective father-daughter bond is one of the film’s strongest relationships, all because of the pairing’s push-and-pull chemistry.

Cho delivers one of the film's more surprising performances as Hwan Yoon, an American war hero turned conservative militia leader with a hard stillness that makes him genuinely scary. You can tell how much fun he’s having here because he never turns his character into some wild-eyed extremist to sell the threat. Through the smallest shifts in expression and the way he delivers every line, there’s always a sense that Hwan is holding something back, and that makes him a real villain.

Esposito, on the other hand, works from the opposite direction as the mosque’s imam, Abdul Malik. He plays him with an easy warmth and patience, softening that usual intensity without losing the authority he naturally brings. But there is a quiet steadiness to Abdul Malik whenever he is with Latif, and Esposito makes it clear that he is listening just as much as he is speaking. It’s one of the film’s more restrained performances, but one that gives Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother some of its most grounded moments.

‘Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother’ Finds Something Deeper in Faith

Image via Amazon MGM Studios

As someone who knows the Islamic meaning behind the film’s title, this is one that hit me especially hard. Its title comes from the well-known hadith in which a man asks the Prophet Muhammad who is most deserving of the best treatment. He answers “your mother,” three times. But what happens when your mother is no longer there? Tariq takes something many Muslims know well and builds his story around such a painful question. And while the rest of the hadith notes that the father comes fourth, there is something especially moving about watching Latif navigate such a space in that absence.

Never once does Tariq suggest Latif can replace Khadija, nor should he. Instead, the writer-director looks at what being a father actually asks of him beyond being a provider or protector. It also makes Latif’s ideas about faith harder to ignore. He has built a moral code around violence and convinced himself there is a line between killing and murder. Even visually, Latif is often dressed in all black and carrying a sword rather than a gun, proving he can look less like a modern hitman and more like a righteous warrior if he believes himself to be one.

But never once does Tariq seem inclined to give audiences an easy answer about whether Latif is a good man. The script continuously returns to the difference between justice and mercy because, as his actions highlight, Latif understands the former more since he decides who gets punished. It’s also what keeps the film from making its religious conflict some gross, exhausted American stereotype pitting Muslim against Christian. Hwan has his own certainty about what God wants, and the similarities between these two men can sometimes be more revealing than their differences.

The same thoughtfulness comes through in how Tariq shoots the film. Much like his previous feature, Mogul Mowgli ,Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is beautiful to look at, without ever feeling overly designed. Between direction and production, there is an intimacy to the quieter family moments that sits in sharp contrast to the scale and chaos of its action. The director also knows when to pull back and simply let an image speak for itself, which becomes especially important as the film gets closer to its end.

That is best seen in one of the film’s most powerful shots, which quietly connects Latif and Fatiha through prayer. Though they are apart, their bodies mirror one another, creating a visual connection between father and daughter that needs no dialogue to explain what they mean to each other alongside their faith. That visual alone holds the love they have for each other with helplessness in what is one of the film’s best moments. And for a movie filled with people convinced they can control what happens next, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother saves one of its strongest moments for the realization that sometimes, all you can do to help someone you love is pray.

Cast

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  Kwan

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  Latif

Pros & Cons

• Mahershala Ali gives a deeply controlled performance that makes Latif's grief feel physical.
• Adia is a standout, giving the film's father-daughter relationship real warmth and tension.
• Bassam Tariq balances action, faith, humor, and grief without letting any one element take over.
• The action is brutal and intense, but every hit carries emotional weight.

• Latif and Mike's history could have used more time to make their bond feel fully earned.