By Robert Scucci
| Published 17 seconds ago
Every once in a while, Netflix surprises me with an independent film like 2025’s Bunny and makes me wonder why there aren’t more films like this in its catalog. A low-budget feature that thrives on chaotic characterization rather than flashy production values, Bunny is what you get if you take the dialogue from Clerks (1994) and the escalating mishaps from The Big Lebowski (1998), add a dead body to the equation, and rely on the most reliably insane people you know to get rid of it.
There’s not a single second in Bunny that isn’t chaotic, but every character is so effortlessly unhinged you can’t help but root for them. There isn’t much to the story on paper, yet Bunny earns its keep through facial expressions, those “dude, no” moments, and the kind of friendship that can only exist in a run-down apartment building that’s somehow always crawling with police officers at the worst possible time.
The Business, And The Body
Bunny (Mo Stark), our titular hero, is the most nonchalant hustler you’ll ever see committed to film, and his laid-back, carefree attitude makes him a modern-day version of The Dude. He illegally sublets his apartment as an Airbnb to make a quick buck and does everything he can to accommodate his guests. His most recent guest, Happy Chana (Genevieve Hudson-Price), is an Orthodox Jew about to meet her future husband who can’t use electricity on Shabbat, for example.
Occupying one of the neighboring units is Linda (Linda Rong Mei Chen), who’s presumably living in the US illegally, prompting officers Nadov (Liz Caribel Sierra), Cellistino (Ajay Naidu), and Belle (Michael Abbott Jr.) to linger nearby. It doesn’t help that Bunny regularly engages in criminal activity, seems more agitated than usual on this particular day, and the cops are clearly biding their time until they can catch him doing something illegal and slap a set of cuffs on him.
We’re also introduced to a slew of colorful characters, including Bobbie (Liza Colby) and her estranged father, Loren (Tony Drazan), who unexpectedly shows up, wracked with anxiety and promptly given a cocktail of drugs by Dino (Ben Jacobson), Bunny’s best friend.
As each character enters the frame, like Ciel (Kia Warren), who just wants to watch TV and smoke some pot, much to Happy Chana’s chagrin, everybody keeps commenting on the other awful smell cutting through the building. When a dead body is found in one of the units, Bunny and the rest of the gang scramble to figure out how to get rid of it fast while drawing as little attention to themselves as possible. The problem is that the cops are always waiting outside. Fortunately, they’re easily distracted by food recommendations from Bunny, Dino, and the rest of the crew, which buys them time on more than one occasion.
Everybody Is Reliably Sketchy
You know how every friend group has that one person who either knows a guy, has a hookup, or floors everybody with a story about the insane hijinks they got into the night before? Every single character in Bunny is that person. Everybody is reliably sketchy. They aren’t bad people, but you never once question why they’re living the way they are or how they process this situation in their own offbeat ways.
Most importantly, the building in Bunny is a judgment-free zone. Everybody knows everybody else is kind of a screwup or at least someone who made a few severely misguided decisions in the past, forcing them to live under the radar and on their own terms. When the body is discovered, everyone becomes a team player and quickly cobbles together a plan with more holes than they realize, yet they still try their damndest to get it off the property undetected no matter how many obstacles stack up against them.
If you grew up on dialogue-heavy indie films where one thing goes wrong after another, Bunny should be your next watch the next time you fire up Netflix. It’s one of the most chaotic movies I’ve ever seen in at least a decade. It’s rare for me to say this, but it’s also one of those movies so specific in its characterization, conflict setup and resolution, and overall vibe that I’ll probably revisit it once or twice a year for the foreseeable future.
Bunny is currently streaming on Netflix, and it’s the best movie from last year that you probably haven’t seen. This is a modern cult classic in the making if I’ve ever seen one. We just need time to prove it.
