The revered South by Southwest film and culture festival, also known by the acronym SXSW, appears to have its breakout hit of this year's edition (at least, thus far) — Dev Patel, the actor best known for his role as the contestant in Slumdog Millionaire, just received a massive standing ovation for his directorial debut, the action/thriller Monkey Man.

This was the world premiere of Monkey Man, and effusive praise is pouring in across social media by those lucky enough to attend the screening. Variety posted a clip of the more-than-45-second standing ovation Patel received as he got understandably emotional soaking it in.

Numerous outlets in attendance of the screening quickly took to social media after the screening to share their excited first impressions. The Hollywood Handle called it “a massive cinematic achievement,” hailing the “excellent cinematography, exceptional storytelling, jaw dropping action sequences and a phenomenal direction by Dev Patel.”

Film journalist Scott Menzel said, “Monkey Man is Dev Patel’s loving tribute to all things action. It’s like John Wick but on Steroids.”

“An insanely violent revenge film,” Menzel continued. “Dev Patel directs the hell out of this thing and there are some seriously insane sequences that make you go how did they do that?”

Film critic Leo Brady said “Every bit of this movie is earned. A powerful revenge story that goes through the gamut of action with powerful force. Dev Patel with a directing debut that rips.”

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Patel, who also stars in the film, as well as wrote and produced it, explained before the screening “I put everything into this, I shot this film in the biggest slum in India, Covid hit, and the film went down. Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong.”

However, Patel continued, “then Jordan came along in the end, he picked up from the ground, he brushed the dust off and put it on the mantelpiece.”

Patel was referring to Jordan Peele, the highly-lauded horror movie auteur, who came on board to executive produce the film via his Monkeypaw Productions company. Peele bought Monkey Man from Netflix so that Universal could show the film in theaters.

Peele explained his rationale in his introduction of the film at SXSW: “This is a film that simply demands to be seen in a [cinema] with a huge rockstar audience.”

He continued, “This is a movie is the exact type of movie we love at Monkeypaw Productions, it's a movie that proves films can be all things — you can have a movie that tells an amazing story, that has meaning, that has depth, and you can still kick a bunch of a—s along the way.”

Seems like that bet has paid off handsomely for Peele, as Dev Patel is being hailed as the next big thing after the jaw-dropping reactions to his directorial debut Monkey Man at its SXSW premiere. Now Patel has audiences eagerly awaiting the film's theatrical release, which will take place next month on April 5.