Smile is a 2022 American psychological supernatural horror film written and directed by Parker Finn, in his feature directorial debut.

A follow-up to Parker's short film Laura Hasn't Slept (2020), it stars Sosie Bacon as a therapist who witnesses the bizarre suicide of a patient, then becomes overwhelmed with increasingly disturbing and daunting visions that lead her to believe she is experiencing something supernatural.

It also features Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Kal Penn, and Rob Morgan, as well as Caitlin Stasey reprising her role from Laura Hasn't Slept.

At a psychiatric ward in Newark, New Jersey, therapist Rose Cotter meets graduate student Laura Weaver,[a] who explains that she recently witnessed her professor kill himself.

Rose panics and runs back inside, where the Entity reveals its true form: a skinless, semi-humanoid monstrosity with multiple sets of malformed jaws nesting within an enormous, smiling mouth.

In June 2020, Parker Finn was signed on by Paramount Pictures to write and direct a feature-length adaptation of his own short film Laura Hasn't Slept, which saw a desperate young woman seeking the help of her therapist to rid herself of a recurring nightmare.

[6] The following month, Jessie T. Usher, Kyle Gallner, Rob Morgan, Kal Penn, Judy Reyes, Gillian Zinser, and Caitlin Stasey joined the cast.

[9] Some filming locations included the Murphy Varnish Lofts, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark and Lewis Morris Park in Morristown.

[12][13] For practical effects, Finn recruited Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. of Amalgamated Dynamics, who he described as a major influence in wanting to be a horror filmmaker for their work in films such as Aliens.

Brad Miska of Bloody Disgusting described the footage as "pretty generic", but said it stood out due to its similarities to Ringu and its remake The Ring.

[22] Shania Russell at /Film compared the film to The Ring, It Follows and Truth or Dare and wrote, "It's all very familiar and probably not too hard to imagine how the movie will progress, but the scares will make or break the experience, and based on the trailer, Smile is more than promising.

[3][4] Deadline Hollywood calculated the film's net profit as $101 million, accounting for production budgets, marketing, talent participations, and other costs; box office grosses and home media revenues placed it tenth on their list of 2022's "Most Valuable Blockbusters".

[24] In the United States and Canada, Smile was released alongside Bros, and was projected to gross $16–20 million from 3,645 theaters in its opening weekend.

The site's critical consensus reads: "Deeply creepy visuals and a standout Sosie Bacon further elevate Smile's unsettling exploration of trauma, adding up to the rare feature that satisfyingly expands on a short.

She wrote: "Smile navigates unhealed trauma through a supernatural lens and mischievous juxtaposition, despite feeling like a shadow of other stories", and added that it "delivers a captivating and claustrophobic mental hellscape that will cause one to both grimace and grin.

"[33] Tasha Robinson of Polygon wrote: "Smile is often a gimmicky, even corny horror movie, packed with so many jump-scares that the sheer pile-on borders on laughable...

"[34] Katie Rife of RogerEbert.com gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars, writing: "In padding out the concept from an 11-minute short into a nearly two-hour movie, Smile leans too heavily not only on formulaic mystery plotting, but also on horror themes and imagery lifted from popular hits like The Ring and It Follows.

"[35] Kevin Maher of The Times wrote: "There are some nice jump scares and Bacon is charismatic but it's achingly derivative and dull", and gave the film 2 out of 5 stars.

[36] Jeffrey M. Anderson of Common Sense Media also gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, writing: "The image of a creepy, sinister smile is so primal and so chilling that it might have inspired something truly penetrating, but, sadly, this horror movie is content to fall back on noisy jump scares.

[41][45] Following the release of Smile, during interviews between November and December 2022, writer and director Parker Finn stated that he had intentionally left portions of the first movie ambiguous, with various plotlines unresolved, while expressing interest in exploring those details in a potential sequel film.

"[19][43][46] In April 2023, Paramount Pictures officially announced at CinemaCon 2023 that a sequel had been green-lit and was in pre-production, with Parker Finn once again serving as writer and director.