It’s the holiday week and there’s not much going on, so I thought why not do a silly Monday newsletter. Back at my old job, I used to come up with movie pitches based on the news and I always had fun doing it. So I’m bringing the feature back! And thus, here are eight movie pitches based on this year in news. 

South of Boston

The case was sensational: an off-duty cop dead in the snow, a girlfriend accused of his murder, a media frenzy. It was the biggest story of cub reporter Ariella Grief’s career. She got close to the defendant, State Street Bank executive Donna Brooks, and became her champion. When Donna was acquitted, it was cause for celebration for the fervid “Free Donna” contingent and for Ariella, who leveraged her reporting to score a lucrative podcast deal and a plumb columnist job at a paper in New York. Years later, Donna is a free woman living in relative seclusion in coastal Maine. But when Ariella—who has risen in the ranks to become the head of a television network’s news division—comes to interview Donna for a book, she says something in a cabernet stupor one night that chills Donna to the bone, a slip of the tongue that suggests Ariella might have known way more about the crime than anyone could have thought. Or maybe Donna just misheard, or is still paranoid after enduring so much persecution for so long. A taut thriller about the search for truth, director Justine Triet’s South of Boston stars Jamie Pressly in the career-redefining role of Donna and an electric, go-for-broke Kate Mara as Ariella. 

Right Bank

A stunning jewel heist opens this propulsive cat-and-mouse game from Fair Play director Chloe Domont. But the theft—of millions of dollars of precious artifacts from France’s most closely guarded museum—is only the beginning of the story. When MI5 agent Sophie Rivers (Jodie Comer) is sent to Paris to assist with the investigation, she has a pretty clear idea of who’s done it: a notorious gang of international thieves led by the preening, pretty-boy crime don known as Union Jack (Comer’s 28 Years Later co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson). Unbeknownst to anyone else, Jack also happens to be Sophie’s brother. As sibling pursues sibling across Paris, Jack leaves Sophie clues that suggest he knows the identities of the real culprits, pointing to a vast conspiracy that goes all the way to the top, implicating steely museum chief Sandrine Beaufoy (Mélanie Laurent) and the president of France himself, Gabriel Visage (Guillaume Canet). Before long, Sophie realizes that she’s also being followed by mysterious operators and the ticking-clock chase is on. Featuring several dazzling single-take action sequences and a propulsive soundtrack by Daft Punk, Right Bank is Run Lola Run meets The Parallax View, set against the backdrop of the world’s most beautiful city.