Is this a new era of conservative filmmaking?

I was recently treated to a free screening of a new documentary called "Thank You for Sharing" (2026). This funny and engaging film is a much-needed investigation into the dubious intentions of the mental health industry.

It's also the first foray into feature-length filmmaking by upstart conservative press Passage Publishing. And Passage chose a novel way to get people to watch it.

You can see the lack of money on the screen. But you can also feel a sense of rebellion and scrappiness. A kind of upstart energy.

I hadn’t heard of "Thank You" until it popped up on my X feed. It would be available for one week, for free.

If the strategy sounds familiar, it may be because another low-budget, right-leaning film recently stumbled onto something similar — with spectacular results.

'Citizen Vigilante'

Last June, "Citizen Vigilante" was already making waves online, particularly in right-wing circles, when Elon Musk stepped in and dramatically expanded its audience.

The film had received a conventional release through independent distributor Quiver, including a very limited theatrical run in the United States. But the movie had little prospect of reaching much of the rest of the world. Germany had even refused to give it a rating, effectively "banning" it.

Then Musk contacted director Uwe Boll's team and, with their permission, made the entire movie available free on X for 48 hours.

The stunt worked. "Citizen Vigilante" climbed into the top 10 on video-on-demand platforms including Apple and Amazon, and Quiver subsequently acquired worldwide distribution rights, excluding a handful of territories.

"Citizen Vigilante" stars canceled Hollywood actor Armie Hammer as an American real estate heir living in Croatia who reinvents himself as a vigilante, hunting down rapists, bullies, and other criminals, many of them migrants.

From the start, the film generated huge amounts of controversy, its apparent anti-immigration politics constituting an almost unimaginable affront to the leftist entertainment industry.

Unfortunately, "Citizen Vigilante" is a terrible movie. The plot makes no sense, and the filmmaking is on par with Boll's famously schlocky, gore-filled B-grade films.

But its release remained a major cultural event. Mainstream media felt obligated to comment on the film and denounce its politics. This, in turn, forced Western progressives to defend their widely unpopular open-border policies.

The rise of the right-wing film

I’ve seen a bunch of right-wing films over the last year. They tend to fall into a couple of different categories.

There are the Christian-influenced films, like "Sound of Freedom" (2023) or "Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist" (2023).

In these films, a high level of sincerity is immediately evident. There’s a minimum of snark. People profess their love of God or Jesus unabashedly.

It takes a while to get used to genuine people of faith as characters in a movie. Hollywood generally mocks or criticizes such people. But once the surprise wears off, it’s quite refreshing.

Matt Walsh in a wig

Then there are the satirical films. Matt Walsh has made several of these. His best two are "What Is a Woman?" (2022) and "Am I a Racist?" (2024). Both were made on limited budgets.

But they both work. In "Am I a Racist?" Walsh dresses up in ridiculous getups, impersonating leftoid weirdos of various types.

It’s quite funny and effective. Though making fun of people like Robin DiAngelo isn’t that hard. But that’s the point.

American movie

Then there are patriotic movies, like "Young Washington" (2026) and "Reagan" (2024), in which Dennis Quaid plays the 40th president. .

"Reagan" wasn’t a perfect film, but it was fun to review Ronald Reagan’s long and extraordinary life. I teared up at the end, remembering the grace and humility — even in his final days — of one of our greatest presidents.

Dinesh D’Souza’s docu-drama "Death of a Nation" (2018) was well intentioned and strongly pro-American, but suffered from a lack of funding.

D’Souza has made a whole series of these low-budget patriotic films. He began making them way back before the first Trump administration. So kudos to him for blazing a trail.

MAGA by mistake

Then there is "The Apprentice" (2024), which depicted President Trump’s youth and rise as a businessman. This was not intended as a right-wing film, but I suspect more Trump supporters saw it than detractors.

I found the film interesting, even as it shamelessly attempted to smear Trump in the most mean-spirited ways. Ultimately, it made Trump seem shrewd and sympathetic, despite the bad intentions of the filmmakers.

Rumors of war

A similar film was "Civil War" (2024), by mainstream director Alex Garland. The story seemed inspired by the heated election-fraud discourse after the 2020 election. People thought we might actually have a civil war!

Right-wing viewers appreciated the realism of the film. Garland created a “low-intensity” war scenario, where some people are actively fighting and other people are going about their lives.

In the end, Garland sold out to the left, revealing a blubbering, cowardly Trump-clone dictator to be the cause of the conflict.

Still, the movie was intelligently done and possibly prophetic and thus was a hit with young conservatives.

RELATED: 'Civil War' gives journos their dumb Trump dictator fantasy

A24

Grit > $

Most of the right-wing movies listed above were clearly made without Hollywood-level financing. You can see the lack of money on the screen.

But you can also feel a sense of rebellion and scrappiness. A kind of upstart energy. These are the underdog films of their time.

When I watched the opening scenes of "Sound of Freedom" — a great film by any measure — and I saw the lack of slickness, the lack of pampered movie stars, the lack of smarmy leftism, I got excited.

This is what I want from movies: passion, effort, resourcefulness, and most of all filmmakers who believe in what they are doing.