“Yes” Review: Nadav Lapid’s Orgiastic Satire Will Make You Laugh, Then Gag

Let me start with a confession. I walked into Nadav Lapid’s Yes expecting a political drama. I walked out feeling like I needed a shower.

This film is not polite. It does not hold your hand. Instead, it grabs you by the collar, throws you into a Tel Aviv fetish party, and dares you to look away.

Yes premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and hits US theaters on March 27, 2026, distributed by Kino Lorber . It already won a spot on the European Film Awards Feature Film Selection 2026 .

But here is the real question: Is it worth your time? Let me break it down.

The Premise: What If You Just… Gave Up?

The setup sounds simple. Too simple, actually.

Meet Y. (Ariel Bronz), a struggling jazz musician. Meet Yasmin (Efrat Dor), his dancer wife. They have a newborn son named Noah, born at midnight on October 8, 2023 . They live in Tel Aviv. And they are broke.

So they make a pact. A terrifying pact.

They decide to say “yes” to everything. No more resistance. No more moral objections. Just submission .

Here is the logic. Y. puts it bluntly: “Give up, my son, as early as possible. Submission is happiness” .

Sounds insane, right? But Lapid makes you understand the seduction of it. When you stop fighting, the money flows. The doors open. The powerful people smile at you.

The Party Scene That Defines the Film

I need to describe one sequence. You will either love it or hate it.

Early in the film, Y. and Yasmin attend a house party for Israeli military elites. What happens next defies easy description.

Y. performs a frenzied routine. He dies. Then he comes back to life. Then he launches into a dance battle against generals while La Bouche’s “Be My Lover” blasts through the speakers .

Yes, you read that correctly. A dance battle. With generals. To 90s eurodance.

The Hollywood Reporter describes this as “demented bacchanalia” . I would call it the most uncomfortable party scene since Eyes Wide Shut.

But here is the genius move. Lapid doesn’t let you just laugh. The scene cuts between the party and the reality outside. Bombs hit Gaza. Smoke rises. And our heroes keep dancing .

The Real Lyrics That Will Haunt You

You might think the film’s central conflict is fiction. It is not.

The Russian billionaire character (Aleksei Serebryakov) hires Y. to compose music for a new national anthem. The lyrics? They come from a real video released by an Israeli organization called The Civil Front .

Let me quote them directly. The children in the real video sing:

“In another year, there will be nothing there. We will eliminate them all” .

The Israeli public broadcaster Kan originally posted this video in November 2023. They quickly deleted it after public outcry . But Lapid resurrects it. He ends his film with the actual footage.

You cannot look away. You should not look away.

Lapid’s Career: A Director Who Never Stops Screaming

To understand Yes, you need to understand Nadav Lapid.

He won the Golden Bear in Berlin for Synonyms (2019) , a film about an Israeli soldier who flees to Paris to escape his nationality . He won the Cannes Jury Prize for Ahed’s Knee (2021) , about a filmmaker facing censorship .

Lapid left Israel years ago. He lives in Paris now. He admits he feels “disgust” with his birth country .

But here is what makes him interesting. He does not just hate from a distance. He engages. He films without permits on the Gaza border. He pushes every button he can find .

As he told The Hollywood Reporter: “I felt I had become a director of ‘no’ movies. My protagonists were always shouting ‘No!’ But there comes a moment when you want to say ‘Yes'” .

The Controversy: Nobody Wanted to Release This Film

Here is a fact that tells you everything. Yes almost never reached theaters.

Lapid says “dozens” of Israeli technicians refused to work on the film . His usual Israeli distributor passed on it. He had to distribute it independently in his home country .

International distributors were scared too. One major European distributor asked to meet Lapid “somewhere discreet, so people wouldn’t see us together. Like I was a forbidden lover” .

Israel’s culture minister, Miki Zohar, condemned the film for supposedly disgracing IDF soldiers . Meanwhile, some pro-Palestinian activists criticized Lapid for taking money from the Israel Film Fund .

Lapid sums it up perfectly: “The Jews call you an antisemite. And the antisemites call you a Jew” .

The Border Scene: Where Satire Meets Reality

The film shifts tone dramatically in its second half. The party ends. Y. travels to the Gaza border.

He climbs a hill overlooking Gaza. He sees the rubble. He sees the smoke. He hears the bombs .

Then his ex-girlfriend Leah (Naama Preis, Lapid’s real-life wife) delivers a monologue. She recites graphic details of the October 7 Hamas attacks .

Here is the kicker. She performs this monologue while standing on the actual Gaza border. Real Israeli bombs hit their targets in the background .

You cannot separate fiction from reality. That is the point.

Lapid wrote the script before October 7. He only made small changes afterward . As he told AFP: “The first version already described a society on the edge of a moral abyss. Then such an extreme event takes place and liberates everything” .

What Critics Are Saying

The reviews are strong. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich (a Jewish critic who has been harshly critical of Israel) gave the film rave praise. He called it “‘The Zone of Interest’ without the need for a garden wall” .

The New York Times notes the film “tries to capture this most terrible and dark party, the party of a nation that was consciously giving away any single moral constraint” .

But not everyone agrees. A Jerusalem Post critic pointed out a blind spot: “You would never guess from this movie that hundreds of thousands come out every Saturday night to call for the release of the hostages” .

Fair criticism. Lapid does not show the protesters. He does not show nuance. He shows a nightmare.

The Soldier Story: A Moment of Humanity

I want to end with a story Lapid told The Hollywood Reporter. It gives me chills.

While filming near the Gaza border without permits, the army showed up. A young officer started asking questions. He was curious about cameras. About framing. About how movies work .

Instead of shutting them down, he stalled his superiors. He gave the crew hours of extra time.

When Lapid asked for one last shot, the officer said no. Lapid replied: “Right now, war feels like the only thing that matters. One day, it might be film” .

The officer gave him 10 more minutes.

Lapid reflects: “From time to time, I think—if this guy becomes a filmmaker, what kind of story will he tell? And at the same time… he might be one of the first filmmakers who took part in a genocide” .

That tension. That ambiguity. That is the movie.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Yes is not an easy watch. It is long. It is chaotic. It will make you angry regardless of your politics.

But it is also essential viewing. Lapid captures something real about how normal people slide into complicity. You do not wake up one day and decide to support atrocities. You just say yes. Again. And again. Until you cannot remember how to say no.

Watch it if you liked: The Zone of Interest, Salo (but with more dancing), or any film that refuses to let you sleep comfortably.

Skip it if: You want clear heroes, tidy endings, or movies that won’t make you question your own moral compromises.