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This is your biannual reminder that the independent offerings of Daisy Ridley deserve your attention. While she patiently awaits Disney and Lucasfilm’s next move with regard to Star Wars, Ridley has been releasing a couple well-received indies per year, save for Disney’s highly acclaimed sports biopic, Young Woman and the Sea (2024). On Jan. 2, Ridley kicks off the new year with another well-regarded film in We Bury the Dead. 

Zak Hilditch’s contemplative zombie thriller, which premiered at 2025’s South by Southwest, chronicles Ava Newman (Ridley) as she journeys from America to Tasmania in hopes of finding her husband alive. The U.S. military botched a nearby weapons test that obliterated the population of Tasmania, creating either a pile of dead bodies or zombies that gradually become more aggressive. Ava’s husband, Mitch, had the misfortune of being on a work retreat there at the same time.

Ava’s marriage was already on the rocks. Her and her husband’s struggle to conceive a child slowly chipped away at their union, so she is simply looking for closure in whatever form it takes. Ridley ultimately channeled people in her life who were going through similar fertility challenges as her character.

“I knew a couple people that were going through IVF at the time. It can take a toll emotionally and physically on women, but also on their relationships while they’re going through it. So that actually felt really [palpable] at the time [of We Bury the Dead],” Ridley tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I understood that feeling of wanting something so much, and how difficult that can be, in a way that I never had before.”

In May of 2025, Ridley wrapped her first romantic comedy opposite none other than Solo: A Star Wars Story star Alden Ehrenreich. She nearly worked with the embryonic Han Solo toward the beginning of their Star Wars careers a decade ago, so the Phillipines-set The Last Resort is a long time coming for the Lucasfilm stablemates. 

“I signed onto [The Last Resort] before I knew Alden was doing it. Alden and I were supposed to do a movie together ten years ago. It ended up not happening, but we became buddies, so I was really thrilled when he came on,” Ridley says.

Ridley and Ehrenreich’s promotion of The Last Resort will undoubtedly lead to some awkward questions, but Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman, has them both beat. In August, he wrapped his own romcom called , which is based on Ali Hazelwood’s novel of the same name. The twist is that the book was born out of fan fiction that centered on his wife’s character, Rey, and Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren. Bateman’s character is even named Adam after Driver.