Pretty Lethal 2026 Movie: Ballerinas Using Point Shoes as Weapons

Pretty Lethal is campy, gory, unhinged, and I need everyone to watch it immediately

I have been waiting for a movie like this my entire life, and I didn’t even know it.

Ballet, horror, camp, Maddie Ziegler, Uma Thurman, and a cast of girls who use their dance training to absolutely obliterate a building full of mobsters. Pretty Lethal is not a serious film. It has no interest in being one. And that’s exactly why it works.

TMJ Rating: 🍿🍿🍿/5

What You Need to Know

The setup is simple. A group of ballerinas headed to a competition in Budapest gets stranded after their bus breaks down. They take shelter in what turns out to be the most dangerous bar in Europe, witness something they absolutely should not have, and spend the rest of the film fighting their way out using the only skills they have.

That means choreographed murder sequences, razor blades held between toes, point shoes used as blunt weapons, and one of the funniest torture scenes I’ve ever watched. Because it turns out ballerinas spend so much time destroying their feet that the standard mob intimidation tactics don’t land the way anyone expected.

Why the Pretty Lethal 2026 Movie Completely Delivered

The fight choreography is the whole point, and it fully earns its premise. These girls are using their actual training, the flexibility, the footwork, the strength that nobody associates with ballet because everyone thinks ballerinas are delicate.

There’s a sequence involving a door hinge and an arm that I had to rewind twice. There’s another involving a bobby pin straight to the eye that made me genuinely cheer.

Maddie Ziegler is exactly as good as you’d want her to be. She carries the physical demands of the role completely, and her character has a hardness to her that’s genuinely entertaining to watch. The septum piercing, the attitude, the way she fights. She’s having the time of her life, and it shows.

Uma Thurman as the villain is perfect casting. The backstory behind her character, involving a lost leg, a debt, and a ruined career, gives the whole thing an unexpected layer of actual emotion without ever getting in the way of the chaos. The final confrontation between her and the girls is everything.

The film also commits to its campiness in a way that a lesser version of this movie wouldn’t. When the girls find blade attachments for their point shoes and start using them in unison, it’s so absurd and so well executed that I genuinely laughed and then immediately rewound it.

Check out how Ready Or Not 2 Is Exactly What You’d Expect

Where It Could Have Gone Further

The gore holds back slightly when it could have gone harder. A few kills feel like they stop just before they get truly satisfying.

The CGI in certain moments in the Pretty Lethal 2026 Movie shows its budget, and the body-double work is occasionally noticeable. None of it ruins anything, but it does remind you this isn’t a massive production.

The actual mob characters are fairly generic. Seen-it-before villains in a situation we’ve seen before. The movie knows this and leans into it, but a bit more creativity with who’s hunting them would have elevated the whole thing.

My Final Verdict: Should You Watch It?

Fun, fast, bloody when it counts, and genuinely inventive with its action. Pretty Lethal knows exactly what it is and delivers on every promise the premise makes. This goes straight onto my list.

Watch it immediately and then call your friends about it. Because I did.

Are you watching this the second it hits your streaming service or do I need to personally send you a link? Tell me in the comments.