--- title: "LifeHack" year: 2026 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/lifehack" fi1m_id: "lifehack" imdb_id: "tt32135632" tmdb_id: 1285669 wikidata_id: "Q134643289" fi1m_score: 67 critics_score: 76 critics_reviews: 8 published: "2026-09-21" updated: "2026-09-21T01:20:42.303524+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # LifeHack (2026) Directed by Ronan Corrigan · 1h 37m · MPA R · Thriller, Crime ## Identity LifeHack - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/lifehack - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** lifehack - **IMDb ID:** tt32135632 - **TMDB ID:** 1285669 - **Wikidata ID:** Q134643289 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32135632/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1285669, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q134643289 **Fi1m score: 67** · Critics 76 from 8 reviews *In a sentence:* Four kids rob the internet from their bedrooms, and after an hour we wanted to go outside > Ronan Corrigan’s first feature is a heist told entirely on screens, and for an hour it is quick, funny and cleverer than its gimmick. Then the windows pile up, the pace stops being a pleasure and we found ourselves watching a progress bar. Good, not more. ## Synopsis Kyle Peters (Georgie Farmer) is a teenager who lives on his laptop, and so does the film: every scene is a screen, a chat window, a video call or a browser tab. He and three friends, Alex (Yasmin Finney), Sid Daniels (Roman Hayeck-Green) and Petey Le (James Scholz), grew up watching people make fortunes online by breaking rules, and decide to try it themselves. The plan is a cryptocurrency heist, worked out in group chats and late-night calls, one password and one hesitant click at a time. Kyle’s mum and dad (Penelope Granycome, Matteo Arnaldi) hover at the edge of his webcam. The four are quick, funny and very sure of themselves, and something between Kyle and Alex is being typed and deleted. ## Review Ronan Corrigan’s first feature is a heist film in which nobody leaves their bedroom. Kyle Peters (Georgie Farmer) and three friends, Alex (Yasmin Finney), Sid Daniels (Roman Hayeck-Green) and Petey Le (James Scholz), set out to steal a great deal of cryptocurrency, and the whole thing plays out on their screens: chat windows, video calls, browser tabs, a cursor that hovers before it clicks. This is the screenlife format, which Timur Bekmambetov, one of the producers here, has been pushing since *Unfriended* and *Searching*. *LifeHack* is one of the better examples of it. It is also 97 minutes long and has about 70 minutes of ideas. The good part is that the hacking looks like work. Corrigan and his co-writer Hope Elliott Kemp treat a break-in as a series of small, dull, dangerous steps, and they get real tension out of a password field and a message that has been read but not answered. The chat windows are full of the jokes these four would actually send each other, and the film knows the difference between a meme that is funny and a meme that is only recognisable. We laughed a good deal in the first half hour, and once at something we felt we probably should not have. The cast are the reason it holds. Farmer plays Kyle as the one who talks fastest and is least sure, and he is good at letting panic show on a face that is trying to look bored. Finney gives Alex a stillness the format rarely allows; she is often the only face on the screen doing nothing, and that is where the eye goes. The thing between them, conducted almost entirely in typing and deleting, is the film’s best-judged strand, and it is a relief every time it returns. Hayeck-Green and Scholz have less to do and make it count. Charlie Creed-Miles and Jessica Reynolds, as Don and Lindsey Heard, are the adults from outside the bedroom, and we will leave their part in it to the film. In a screenlife film the edit is the film, and four editors are credited: Sasha Kletsov, Anthony Le, Anton Kudrov and Corrigan himself. For an hour their work is very fine. They know which window to enlarge and when, and they know how long to let a message sit unread before someone types. Ciaron Craig’s job is to make webcams and phone cameras look like webcams and phone cameras, and he does it, which is harder than it sounds. Angela Mulhern’s production design lives inside the desktops, in wallpapers and cluttered downloads folders, and it tells you who these people are faster than dialogue could. The score, by two blinks, i love you, is bright and restless and behaves like another open tab. Then the trouble starts, and it is physical before it is anything else. Somewhere past the hour we noticed our eyes hurt. The windows had multiplied, the notifications were arriving on top of each other, the pace had not let up since the opening, and the film had begun to mistake more for faster. We were still following the plot. We had stopped enjoying following it, and the plot becomes a set of switchbacks that the screens are now too busy to sell. There is also a version of this film that has something to say about children who have never had an hour offline, and this one glances at it and moves on. Heist films live on the moment the plan meets the world. Here the world is another screen, so the stakes never quite stop feeling like a game with a high score, and the tagline, “They’re coming for your coin”, tells you the register the film is happiest in. As a debut it is confident and it is disciplined for longer than most. The reviews so far have been kinder than we are, and most of the kindness comes from people who like the format more than we do, which is fair. Watch it on a laptop, in one sitting, with your phone in another room. It is the one thriller we can think of where the second screen is the film, and it deserves your whole attention for exactly as long as it can hold it. *Fi1m score 67, published 21 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Every one of the eight reviews is favourable, and the praise lands in the same place: this is a screenlife heist thriller that handles its format with more care than most. Critics single out the realistic hacking, the interface-driven plotting and a young cast whose chemistry comes through even though they are only ever seen in browser windows and phone screens. Several call it one of the better films the format has produced, and the fast pace is generally counted a virtue. The reservations are about that same pace. The trade reviews from the festival premiere are the warmest, with Deadline calling it the best screenlife film yet; the later notices settle around a more temperate line, with The Hollywood Reporter reporting screen fatigue and The Guardian finding it turns mechanical once the early excitement fades. Slant adds that the film avoids the harder questions about digital dependency it raises. Nobody dislikes it; the disagreement is only over how much the gimmick costs. ## Straight answers **Is LifeHack worth watching?** *LifeHack* is worth watching if you are curious about the screenlife format and can forgive a thriller that runs out of ideas before it runs out of minutes; we scored it 67. The first hour is quick, funny and well acted, especially by Georgie Farmer and Yasmin Finney, and then the windows pile up and the pace stops being a pleasure. Good, not more. **How long is LifeHack, and what is it rated?** *LifeHack* runs 1h 37m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a thriller and crime film. **Where can I watch LifeHack in the US?** *LifeHack* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $5.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is LifeHack, and is it suitable for children?** *LifeHack* has no UK certificate yet and carries an R in the United States, which suggests strong language rather than anything graphic. The film is a cryptocurrency heist played out on screens, so the tension comes from password fields and unanswered messages, not from violence or scares. It is not for young children, but older teenagers who live on their laptops are its natural audience. ### Reviews we read (8) - **Variety**, Siddhant Adlakha (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a pulse-pounding screenlife heist that pushes the format with realistic hacking and visual detail, deeming it an absolute treat for fans despite some moral complexity in the characters' motives. [Read](https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/lifehack-review-screenlife-unfriended-1236335495/) - **IndieWire**, Christian Zilko (B): The review finds it one of the more joyful screenlife attempts, delivering an authentic and energetic portrait of Gen Z teens thriving in their online world during a crypto heist. It embraces the format's dopamine rush without feeling overly gimmicky. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/lifehack-review-1235102201/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Clint Worthington (70/100, inferred): The critic views it as one of the more tolerable recent screenlife thrillers, praising its inventive heist sequences and character chemistry shown through screens while noting the relentless pace and format limitations can overwhelm. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lifehack-screen-life-horror-movie-review-2026) - **Slant Magazine**, Eli Friedberg (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's tight plotting, interface-driven storytelling, and realistic take on cybercrime as a Gen Z heist thriller and nostalgic study of pre-2020s internet culture. It notes the film flinches from deeper implications of digital dependency and big tech. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/lifehack-review-ronan-corrigan/) - **The Guardian** (70/100, inferred): The critic describes it as an efficiently executed update of an old-school heist thriller in a digital, meme-filled format, praising the strong meme game and the tender romance subplot, but noting it becomes mechanical after initial excitement. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/14/lifehack-review-old-school-heist-updated-for-the-meme-age) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Frank Scheck (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a superior example of the screenlife format in heist mode, with a fast pace and engaging young cast that keeps viewers glued despite the gimmick. It ultimately causes screen fatigue and overstays its welcome. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/lifehack-review-screenlife-timur-timur-bekmambetov-1236593799/) - **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it the best Screenlife movie yet, a dazzling and suspenseful cryptocurrency heist that rivals top heist films through its technical wizardry and strong Gen Z cast. [Read](https://deadline.com/2025/03/lifehack-review-sxsw-ronan-corrigan-1236316726/) - **Collider**, Matthew Donato (8/10): The film is a captivating and exhilarating screenlife heist thriller that marks an impressive feature debut. It is praised for its meticulous authenticity in depicting hacker culture and digital techniques within a tense, well-crafted story. [Read](https://collider.com/lifehack-movie-review/) ## Details - **Director:** Ronan Corrigan - **Director:** Ronan Corrigan - **Writer:** Ronan Corrigan, Hope Elliott Kemp - **Cinematography:** Ciaron Craig - **Editor:** Sasha Kletsov, Ronan Corrigan, Anton Kudrov, Anthony Le - **Music:** two blinks, i love you - **Production design:** Angela Mulhern - **Producer:** Joann Kushner, Timur Bekmambetov, Sasha Kletsov - **Cast:** Georgie Farmer as Kyle Peters; Yasmin Finney as Alex; Roman Hayeck-Green as Sid Daniels; James Scholz as Petey Le; Jessica Reynolds as Lindsey Heard; Charlie Creed-Miles as Don Heard; Cael King as Sanjay; Jill Winternitz as Rachel Walker - **Runtime:** 1h 37m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 15 May 2026 - **Genres:** Thriller, Crime - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxxUGasZUNo ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: rent $5.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-21.* Also available in: BE, CA, NL, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Searching* (2018): Bekmambetov-produced screenlife done as a missing-person story, with a father who cannot stop clicking - *Host* (2020): A British séance over a video call, under an hour, and it knows when to stop - *Sneakers* (1992): The friendliest hacker heist ever made, with a cast who enjoy each other’s company - *Hackers* (1995): Teenagers, keyboards and rollerblades; the nineties’ idea of the internet, worn proudly - *Rififi* (1955): Thirty near-silent minutes of a break-in, which is what every heist film is chasing --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/lifehack