Director: Christos Nikou
A strange machine claims it can measure love down to the fingernail, and Anna can't stop wondering whether her own relationship would pass the test.
What is Fingernails about?
Anna and Ryan share a life together, backed by the results of a clinical procedure that supposedly proves couples are meant to be. Taking a job at an institute that administers the test, Anna starts training alongside Amir, a colleague whose presence unsettles the certainty she thought she'd already reached. Christos Nikou builds a near-future world where romance has been quantified, then quietly asks whether a number can ever replace doubt, curiosity, or the slow work of actually choosing someone.
Cast & crew
Jessie Buckley anchors the film as Anna, playing uncertainty without turning it into melodrama, while Riz Ahmed brings a dry, watchful energy to Amir that keeps their scenes from tipping into cliche. Jeremy Allen White plays Ryan with an easy warmth that makes Anna's hesitation land harder, and Luke Wilson and Annie Murphy round out the institute's staff with smaller, comic touches.
Context & significance
Director Christos Nikou, known for his acclaimed Greek-language debut feature, brings the same deadpan approach to a Los Angeles setting for his first English-language film. Fingernails premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in 2023 before streaming widely, and critics generally responded to its central premise more warmly than its pacing. The film sits alongside a wave of recent releases imagining how technology might try, and fail, to solve something as unpredictable as attraction.
Where & how to watch
Fingernails is available to watch on K-Time with a free account login, in English with a Persian dub and Persian subtitles for viewers who prefer to follow along in Farsi. The K-Time interface itself is fully in Farsi, built for the Iranian diaspora, so browsing and picking a film feels familiar even before playback starts.