Slanted

Chinese-American high schooler Joan Huang struggles to connect with her white peers, which has left her feeling ashamed of her appearance. Having dreamed of becoming prom queen since she was a child, she sees an opportunity when the most popular girl Olivia Hammond reveals she will not be running for prom queen. Hoping to get Olivia's endorsement, Joan first dyes her hair blonde and gets Olivia a discounted mani-pedi at a Chinese nail salon, but Olivia mocks her efforts. Meanwhile, Joan fields messages from the creators of an ethnicity-changing social media filter, Ethnos, who offer her a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity. She eventually reaches out and learns Ethnos is a clinic that specializes in ethnic modification surgery; its creator, Dr. Willie Summer, was an Indian-American doctor who grew tired of being passed over for opportunities as a person of color, and has co-created a groundbreaking plastic surgery that can turn their clients white, which he used on himself and all of his employees who had expressed similar issues. Desperate for camaraderie, Joan tricks her mother, who cannot read English, into signing a consent form and undergoes the procedure.

Now visibly presenting as a white teenage girl, Joan immediately sees a change in how she is treated in public and by her peers. Her parents are horrified and try to get the surgery reversed, but Dr. Summer insists the procedure is permanent and Joan will benefit in the long run. Joan returns to school under the new identity "Jo Hunt", and quickly befriends Olivia. Jo hosts a party at the house of one of her father Roger's cleaning clients while they are away. While there, Olivia offers to give Jo her endorsement for prom queen if she proves she can be trusted. Her former best friend as "Joan", Brindha, figures out Jo's identity and comforts her over her struggles and decision to undergo the surgery, but shortly after Olivia publicly pressures Jo to kick out Brindha and her other friends of color from the party. Jo reluctantly tells them to leave, gaining Olivia's endorsement. Jo's decision shatters her friendship with Brindha, who questions if Jo considering her old face "ugly" extends to her other friends of color like Brindha herself. Additionally, she finds herself becoming increasingly emotionally disconnected from her parents.

Meanwhile, Jo begins to notice deformations forming in her face, which she at first simply peels off, only to discover her original skin tone underneath. The Ethnos clinic claims this is normal and can be treated with tape and a rejuvenation cream. At the prom, Jo's face start to deform again and she runs to the bathroom to try to fix it. Olivia approaches her and stuns Jo by stating that her old face will fight back at first, and fixes Jo's face for her. Jo is elected prom queen, but while onstage her face deteriorates, to the horror and disgust of her classmates, and she collapses. She wakes up in Olivia's home, where she learns she and her father were Cuban-American, and they have not spoken with her mother in years because she refused to undergo the surgery.

Realizing the vapid lives the Hammonds live and the cultural history and family connection she has lost by becoming white, Joan returns home and reconciles with her parents. They sympathize with her feeling ostracized for looking different, but her father states her goal should be forming her own American identity rather than becoming like everyone else. When Joan and her mother return to the clinic to try to get the surgery reversed, they find it overcrowded with people of color lining up for the surgery. Dr. Summer insists the procedure is permanent and Joan's original identity had to be lost. At home, Joan violently claws at the deformations with her fingers, tearing off chunks of skin to remove the white face. Discovering her original Asian eyes underneath, she tearfully appreciates them for the first time.

• Shirley Chen as Joan Huang
  • Mckenna Grace as Jo Hunt
• Fang Du as Roger Huang
• Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Brindha
• Amelie Zilber as Olivia Hammond

In May 2024, Fox Entertainment green-lit production of Slanted through its subsidiary production company Tideline Entertainment; Mountain Top Pictures also signed on to produce the film. Shirley Chen was cast as the lead role and Mckenna Grace, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and Amelie Zilber were cast for significant supporting roles.^[3]

Principal photography took place from June 24 to July 22, 2024, in Atlanta.^[4]

Slanted premiered at the 2025 South by Southwest Film & TV Festival on March 8, 2025 as part of the Narrative Feature Category.^[5][6] In September, Bleecker Street and Fox Entertainment Studios acquired distribution rights, aiming for a 2026 theatrical release.^[7] In October 2025, Bleecker Street announced the launch of a division named Crosswalk, focusing on event cinema releases and partnership distribution, with Slanted named among its first releases.^[8] It is scheduled to be released in the United States on March 13, 2026.^[9]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of 42 critics' reviews are positive.^[10]