Turbulence

Zach and Emmy's marriage is in difficulty. To repair it they plan a trip: a hot air balloon flight over the Dolomites in Italy. One more person boards at takeoff; the tour company announces it at the last moment. The balloon rises. At five thousand metres why the third passenger is there becomes clear and the situation changes at once. There is nowhere to go inside the basket, rock below, and control of the descent is with one person. From then on the narrative takes place in a single space. Claudio Fäh directs; Andy Mayson wrote and produced. Jeremy Irvine, Hera Hilmar, Kelsey Grammer and Olga Kurylenko are in the cast. It opened in the Middle East on 27 November 2025 and in the United States on 12 December 2025, distributed by Lionsgate. The backgrounds are real; the crew flew a helicopter over the Dolomites and the balloon's route was charted in advance and filmed. The balloon scenes combine practical effects with computer imagery and the director explained the choice on grounds of realism. The tension it builds is spatial; the basket is narrow and the characters have no options. Altitude works inside the narrative; oxygen, cold and the physics of descent are used. Its limit is the script; the characters' pasts are thin, the dialogue explanatory and the tension bound to a shape. Who it is for: viewers who like thrillers in confined spaces and survival films. Who it is not for: the characters are shallow, the plot predictable, and the last section strained.