New Release Thursday, May 8, 2026

Over 92 new titles landed on Relay this week. Here are 6 worth clearing your Thursday night for.

Cyborgs

September 2014. Ukrainian volunteers were holding Donetsk Airport. Russian fighters called them cyborgs, a taunt aimed at their refusal to break. The name stuck, spread nationally, and became a symbol of resistance. Director Akhtem Seitablaiev made this film while the conflict was still going. The soldiers and their families encouraged him. Cyborgs won six Ukrainian National Film Awards and holds a 7.5 on IMDb from over 8,000 votes. That rating doesn't come easily for a war film most of its audience watches in subtitles.

Drama

JessZilla

Jesselyn Silva was a three-time national boxing champion at 15. Then came the cancer diagnosis. Director Emily Sheskin spent eight years following her, close enough to capture both the wins and the medical reality. JessZilla won Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Documentary at the Fargo Film Festival and earned a 9.1 on IMDb. It starts as a sports documentary. It stops being just that pretty quickly.

Documentary

Rosie

Roddy Doyle wrote the screenplay. He won the Booker Prize, and this isn't one of his Dublin comedies. Rosie is about a mother of four who loses her housing and spends 48 hours calling hotels from her car while her partner works overnight shifts. Sarah Greene plays her. Paddy Breathnach directed. It premiered at TIFF and won at France's Poverty Without Clichés film festival. The title is the only gentle thing about it.

Drama

Martin Scorsese, My Life in Music

Scorsese has used music as a structural element for half a century. Not background, not score. Something that functions almost like character. This documentary is him walking through that relationship film by film, spanning decades of collaborations and explaining why Gimme Shelter lands exactly where it does in Goodfellas. Forty-five minutes. You don't need to have seen every film to follow it, but you'll want to afterward.

Documentary

Elvis: The Beginning

July 1954. Elvis Presley walked into Sun Studio with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. His first paid gig was a drugstore grand opening. This documentary covers 1954 to 1955, before Ed Sullivan and before the screaming crowds. Rare recordings, firsthand accounts from his original bandmates, and a tight focus on the window when rock and roll was still being invented. The early Elvis is different from the famous one. Both are worth knowing.

Documentary

The Burying Party

Wilfred Owen went back to the Somme when he didn't have to. He'd survived, recovered, become close with Siegfried Sassoon, and had enough published to have a legacy. He returned anyway, driven by a need to document what the war actually was. The Burying Party tells that story on a £30,000 budget, runs 60 minutes, and focuses on the bond between Owen and Sassoon with directness most bigger productions avoid. Owen died one week before the Armistice. The film earns that ending.

Drama

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Streaming now on Relay.