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This review of “The Guilty” was first published on Sept. 10, 2021 after the film’s premiere at the Toronto Film Festival

Jake Gyllenhaal has given his share of searing performances in films that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, “End of Watch,” “Enemy,” Nightcrawlers,” “Demolition” and “Stronger” among them. But none of them were as completely the Jake Gyllenhaal Show as “The Guilty,” director Antoine Fuqua’s revved-up but tightly-wound adaptation of the 2018 Danish film by Gustav Möller, which premiered at TIFF on Friday.

Sure, there’s a sterling supporting cast that’s seen more than heard, but this Netflix film is a thriller that takes place entirely in two rooms, and most of the time Gyllenhaal is the only person on the screen. If it’s taut and urgent and suspenseful, which it is, it’s because all of that is on the actor’s face and in his voice.

Demons of the mind come alive in a cavernous Los Angeles hotel in “The Night,” a scary and stylish psychological horror thriller by Iranian American director Kourosh Ahari. Featuring excellent performances by Shahab Hosseini and Niousha Jafarian (“Here and Now”) as a married couple with a baby daughter and a frayed relationship, this predominantly Farsi-language production sneaks up on viewers and delivers a knockout final act.

The first U.S. production approved for commercial exhibition in Iran since 1979, “The Night” has been acquired by IFC Midnight, which aims to release it in North American cinemas in January 2021. Comparisons with Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” are inevitable for just about any film about people stuck in a haunted old hotel building. Ahari and co-writer Milad Jarmooz take this in stride, nodding here and there to Kubrick’s classic while stamping this visit to a hostile hostelry with its own distinct personality.