The Anchor (2022)

The Anchor is the kind of psychological thriller that grabs you by the collar with a single phone call and never quite lets your pulse settle, using the slick, high-pressure world of broadcast news as a stage for something far more intimate and unsettling. Jeong Ji-yeon directs with a sure hand, keeping the mystery taut and the dread creeping in at the edges, while Chun Woo-hee gives a fiercely committed performance that makes ambition feel like both armor and a trap. The film’s pleasures come from how confidently it balances a propulsive whodunit energy with a darker, more emotional undercurrent about control, image, and the stories we’re forced to live inside. It’s not for the squeamish or anyone sensitive to themes of self-harm and psychological distress, but if you want a smart, engrossing Korean thriller that’s as tense as it is well-acted, this one earns your attention.

The Anchor wants to be a slick, anxiety-soaked newsroom thriller that slides into psychological horror, using a single chilling phone call to unravel a star anchor’s mind and family life. It has a strong central performance and a suitably grim atmosphere, but the mystery often feels a step ahead of you in the wrong way—because it’s fairly predictable—and the pacing can drag just when the tension should be tightening. When it reaches for bigger twists and heavier themes, the finale can come off messy, like it’s adding new ideas instead of cleanly paying off the ones it already set up. If you’re sensitive to depictions of self-harm, suicide, and intense psychological distress, or you want a tightly plotted whodunit with a crisp ending, this may test your patience more than your nerves.