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Updated, September 5: This year’s Venice Film Festival awards bow tomorrow, Saturday, which means by now the talent set to be honored by Alexander Payne’s jury have been invited back to the Lido. The ceremony takes place at the Sala Grande, and will hand out prizes including the Golden Lion for best film, the Silver Lions for the Grand Jury Prize and Best Director, as well as awards for actors and screenplay.

Assessing who’s likely to win from a jury of acting and filmmaking peers is almost impossible: Payne is joined by jurors Cristian Mungiu, Mohammad Rasoulof, Fernanda Torres, Maura Delpero, Zhao Tao, and Stéphane Brizé. Nor are reviews predictive: Last year, Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” earned a divided reception but won the Golden Lion under Isabelle Huppert’s panel.

As I wrote earlier below, Park Chan-wook’s job-market revenge satire “No Other Choice...

Finally, Venice Film Festival attendees can rest their hands. That’s after days of clapping and hollering at premieres, resulting in standing ovations that lasted into the double digits.

But lengthy rounds of applause don’t necessarily translate to gold statues. After warm receptions in Italy, which films on the 2025 lineup will find their way into the awards race? Venice has more and more been able to position itself as a major launchpad for the Oscars — and this year’s slate offered such hopefuls as Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone’s latest collaboration “Bugonia” (six-minute ovation), Bennie Safdie’s wrestling drama “The Smashing Machine,” starring Dwayne Johnson (15-minute ovation) and director Mona Fastvold’s musical epic “The Testament of Ann Lee” with Amanda Seyfried as a singing and dancing Shaker (15-minute ovation).

Movies weren’t the only subject of chatter on the Lido. Politics often took center stage, with a...

The fall festival firehose has opened. We’re now inundated with new movie premieres, with Telluride wrapped and Venice heading into its final weekend.

On this episode of IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast, IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson and Executive Editor Ryan Lattanzio break down the highs and lows of the fall festival circuit so far, from the standouts to the surprising misfires. Anne was in Telluride, which overlapped with Venice in programming a suite of Netflix titles, including Guillermo del Toro’s lushly mounted “Frankenstein” (we’re somewhat split on that one; Anne’s a perennial del Toro head) and Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly.”

Starring George Clooney as an aging Hollywood star staring down a potential PR crisis after a scuffle with a former acting class peer, it’s Baumbach’s most sentimental movie yet, though Clooney and Adam Sandler as his manager are likely to score Oscar nominations.

Good afternoon International Insiders. We end another week as Venice wraps and with plenty else going on. Max Goldbart here penning the newsletter. Sign up here if you haven’t already, and do read on.

Venice Curtain Call

Saja Kilani, Clara Khoury, Motaz Malhees and Amer Hlehel attend the “The Voice Of Hind Rajab” red carpet during Venice Massimo Rosi/Getty

Hind Rajab finds a voice: This year’s Venice Film Festival ends on Saturday. Comparative with previous years, it has felt a little quieter. There haven’t really been any slam-dunk breakouts from the Lido like festivals past – there’s been a bit too much ‘mid’, as the kids might say. A seriously headline title, however, has been Kaouther Ben Hania’s latest, The Voice of Hind Rajab. At its premiere on Wednesday, the film received a festival record 23-minute and 50-second ovation, during which members of the audience...

Vue Lumière has unveiled the official trailer for ‘Brides,’ the highly anticipated feature film debut from Nadia Fall, Artistic Director of The Young Vic theatre. The film stars Ebada Hassan and Safiyya Ingar, with a screenplay by Suhayla El-Bushra.

Following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, ‘Brides’ recently had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, receiving early acclaim for its striking portrayal of female friendship and teenage recklessness.

‘Brides’ follows two teenage girls as they seek freedom, friendship, and a sense of belonging, embarking on a dangerous journey from the UK to Syria. A gripping road movie about the intensity of female bonds and the mistakes of youth,...

Long considered the preeminent film festival to launch a title into awards season, Venice experienced a modest wobble last year – at least in comparison to Cannes.

Venice titles earned two of the 10 best picture Oscar nominations versus three from Cannes.In addition to The Brutalist and I’m Still Here, several other films ended last year’s Venice Film Festival as seeming contenders – notably Queer, Babygirl and Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door – but then failed to score any actual nominations at either Oscar or the Bafta Film Awards.

Venice competitor Joker: Folie A Deux was positioned as an awards contender going into the festival,...

Ciao! The 82nd annual Venice Film Festival is underway and the stars have hit the canals, with this year’s world premieres including Yorgos Lanthimos kidnap thriller “Bugonia,” Noah Baumbach’s showbiz dramedy “Jay Kelly,” Guillermo del Toro’s lavish adaptation “Frankenstein,” Luca Guadagnino’s college campus thriller “After the Hunt” and Benny Safdie’s UFC biopic “The Smashing Machine.”

New films from Mona Fastvold, Kathryn Bigelow, Paolo Sorrentino, Jim Jarmusch, Park Chan-wook, Gus Van Sant, Lucrezia Martel, László Nemes and Kaouther Ben Hania are also in the lineup. This year’s jury is headed by Alexander Payne, the director of films like “The Holdovers,” “Election” and “Sideways.”

Venice often serves as the launch of awards season, coming ahead of an onslaught of other fall festivals including Telluride, Toronto and New York that distributors use to lay the foundation for campaigning in the coming months.

See all of Variety’s...

Exclusive: Joe Pantoliano and Jared Harris are set to join David Harbour in the cast of Violent Night 2 for Universal Pictures and 87North. Kristen Bell and Daniela Melchior are also on board. Tommy Wirkola will direct from a screenplay by Pat Casey and Josh Miller (who are also exec producing).

Universal Pictures will release Violent Night 2 on Wednesday, December 4, 2026. While exact plot details are under wraps, Harbour’s ass-kicking Santa Clause is back. And he’s not happy. It is unknown who Harris and Pantoliano will be playing.

The 2022 bare-knuckle holiday sensation Violent Night followed an embittered Santa, armed with lethal combat skills, who takes out a team of ruthless mercenaries to rescue a girl and her family. Now, it’s time for not-so-jolly Saint Nick to suit up again

Violent Night 2 is produced by 87North founders Kelly McCormick and David Leitch through their first-look deal with Universal Pictures.

It’s been said that several filmmakers at Venice are showing up with their “state of the world” movies. Whether that’s Luca Guadagnino with his take on cancel culture, Yorgos Lanthimos satirizing alt-right-style radicalization, or Kathryn Bigelow depicting our mutually-assured madness in nightmarish fashion, many of our most famed directors seem to be looking at a world in flux and asking: “How did we get here?”

Hosoda, a former Studio Ghibli animator who went freelance and has since become one of Japan’s most successful auteurs, is no different. His last film, 2021’s “Belle”, was a sci-fi adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast.” For his latest act, Hosoda hasn’t traveled too far from that baroque fantasy setting, which was already more idealized than the relative normality of his mainstream breakthrough hit (and Oscar nominee) “Mirai.” “Scarlet” is a loose but clearly intended rendering of Hamlet, with all of its castles and knights,...

Jonah Hauer-King broke out starring as Eric in the 2023 live-action remake of the Disney Renaissance classic The Little Mermaid,alongside fellow rising star Halle Bailey as Ariel. Since then, Hauer-King has gained further ground in the industry with his guest appearance in a few episodes of Doctor Who and his leading role in 2025's I Know What You Did Last Summer.

The former Disney star is also set to appear in the strong Rotten Tomatoes movie A House of Dynamite, directed by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow, a possible awards season contender this year. But following this, Hauer-King is stepping into a complex lead role in a new genre-driven movie, starring alongside The Buccaneers' Kristine Froseth.

Netflix has launched a new teaser trailer for Kathryn Bigelow’s latest thriller, ‘A House of Dynamite’ — and the Oscar-winning director looks set to deliver another pulse-pounding ride.

Front and centre is Idris Elba, joined by a powerhouse cast including Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, and Jason Clarke.

The film kicks off when a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, sparking a frantic race to uncover who pulled the trigger — and whether retaliation could ignite something far more catastrophic. With government halls, military bunkers, and war rooms in play, Bigelow is setting the stage for a nerve-shredding political showdown.

While zombies and slashers may have ruled the 80s in terms of subgenre, vampire fiction was certainly no slouch. While my personal favorite of the decade, Fright Night, appeared on screens in 1985, there was a build up from there that even led to the early 90s with what some might say is the pinnacle of success in the multiple Oscar nominations that Bram Stoker’s Dracula received. It also made a killing at the box office which wasn’t always the case in horror generally or vampire movies specifically. 1987 has two vampire outings that share a similar outline, a group of vampires takes in a young man into their group,...

Growing up in Jordan, the international film industry never felt far away to Zain Duraie.

There was a shared history, she says, tied to the country’s role as a location for iconic global productions— such as David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), with the unforgettable meeting of Peter O’Toole’s Lawrence and Omar Sharif’s Sherif Ali at Al Jafr Desert Well, or how the ancient ruins of Petra stole the show in the final scenes of Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

In recent years, the rise of Arab cinema and the central role Jordan has played — as both a visually striking backdrop and a regional filmmaking hub — has only deepened that connection. For Duraie, it meant opportunity. She got her start working on shorts produced by acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir, who regularly shoots in Jordan. Now, Duraie’s own debut feature, Sink — a...

Since winning Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for "The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow has established herself as a fearless chronicler of hot button topics. This gets her in trouble sometimes. While she earned her a good deal of critical accolades for the film (including a Best Picture nod), her 2012 docudrama-thriller about the post-9/11 hunt for Osama bin Laden, "Zero Dark Thirty," was taken to task by some reviewers and politicians for appearing to suggest that the United States' enhanced interrogation techniques (aka "torture") proved useful in finding the whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leader. Five years later, she drew fire again for taking an emotionally distant approach to the Detroit Uprising of 1967 in "Detroit.

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice

Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite is not, at its core, about nuclear war. It is about the frightening ease with which the world could stumble into one. Eight years after Detroit, Bigelow returns with a film that feels less like a departure than the logical consequence of her career: taut, unsentimental, and anchored in a realism so sharp that it leaves the audience unnerved long after the credits roll.

The premise is brutally simple. One morning, somewhere in the Pacific, a missile is launched and slips undetected past U.S. defense systems. Nothing is confirmed—its origin, its payload, its intent—but the...

In A House Of Dynamite, the day starts like any other — but then everything changes. When a single unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible, and how to respond.

That’s the nerve-wracking premise of A House Of Dynamite, a new thriller directed by Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim (Zero Day). Boasting an impressive ensemble cast including Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, the film is a minute-by-minute account of what the highest levels of government would do in the face of a nuclear attack on America.

Fresh off the movie’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival,...

As teased in the final moments of 28 Years Later, The Bone Temple follows Jack O'Connell's droogy band of misfits in rage infused, quasi medieval post-virus Britain. The trailer arrives with a spoken word piece from Arthur C. Clarke overlaid on top of some images from the Danny Boyle's film released earlier this year, and new images from the continuation directed by Nia DeCosta. This makes the 'important historical speech' officially the new trend in cutting trailers. More Ralph Fiennes is a good thing. As is Alex Garland writing this chapter, and a promised Cillian Murphy cameo as well. I like this particular alt-Britain universe -- the more entries the merrier.

Chloé Zhao has done it again.

Five years after Nomadland rode the festival wave into the awards conversation, Zhao is back in the race with the Focus Features release Hamnet. Thanks to a rapturous reception at Telluride (and a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score and a 95 on Metacritic), her "beautiful," "gorgeous," and "devastating" adaptation (so say the critics) of Maggie O'Farrell's bestselling novel is now an Oscar-frontrunner across several categories. With all of the necessary caveats, of course — it's still just September, the Oscars are six months away, and several major contenders have yet to be screened — it's undeniable that Hamnet has a pretty firm toehold.

Best PictureContenderOdds 1.Sinners91.8% 2.Wicked:...

Day 8 of the Venice Film Festival showcased several premieres today, including two films vying for the Golden Lion in the main competition. Pietro Marcello’s Duse, and Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, which received what might be a film festival record, at 23 minutes and 50 seconds. Outside of the main competition, Julian Schnabel’s film In the Hand of Dante had its world premiere, starring Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Jason Momoa, and more.

The festival has been packed with high-profile films and stars since it began on Wednesday, August 27. George and Amal Clooney arrived early for the premiere of Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, a film starring George Clooney as a movie star, which also features Adam Sandler and Laura Dern. The film received a 10-minute standing ovation.

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone, who won the Golden Lion in 2023 for Poor Things,...

La película llegará a Netflix el próximo mes de octubre. © Netflix

Después de dinamitar la competición del Festival de Venecia, Netflix ha lanzado el primer tráiler de Una casa llena de dinamita (A House of Dynamite), el esperado thriller político dirigido por Kathryn Bigelow.

La trama arranca cuando Estados Unidos sufre el ataque de un solo misil y se desata una frenética carrera para descubrir quién está detrás y qué medidas deben tomarse.

Idris Elba (Jefes de Estado) y Rebecca Ferguson (Misión: Imposible – Sentencia mortal. Parte Uno) lideran el reparto junto a Gabriel Basso (El agente nocturno), Jared Harris (Fundación), Tracy Letts (Lady Bird), Anthony Ramos (Twisters), Moses Ingram...

A House of Dynamite. (Featured) Gabriel Basso as Jake Baerington in A House of Dynamite. Cr. Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.

From Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow comes A House Of Dynamite. Starring Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, the movie is a minute-by-minute account of what the highest levels of government would do in the face of a nuclear attack on America.

A House Of Dynamite had it’s world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, premiered in competition and received an almost 13-minute ovation. In their review, Time Out says the “nuclear thriller will take your stress levels to Defcon 1” while Indiewire writes its, “a movie that will ruin your day.

One of the most underrated Hollywood movies of the 21st century is Kathryn Bigelow's complex ode to big government, and the people who work within it, Zero Dark Thirty. The 2012 film had a Rube Goldberg-machine of bureaucratic moving parts to hunt down and kill Osama Bin Laden by the CIA, and treated the audience with respect, offered murky complexity towards the the methodologies and politics of USA foreign policy, and had the guts to hand off the main detective and political narrative to a team of military specialists, not present until well into the third act, when the story demanded it.  If there is a spiritual sequel to...

A House of Dynamite is already generating serious awards buzz after its explosive debut at the Venice Film Festival. On Wednesday, Netflix released the first teaser trailer for the geopolitical thriller, about what happens when a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, and a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.

Here’s a look at the Oscar races where A House of Dynamite should be competitive, along with the early Gold Derby odds.

Director

Kathryn Bigelow made history in 2010 as the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director with The Hurt Locker. That film also claimed Best Picture and five other Oscars,...

After debuting Tuesday at the Venice Film Festival to mostly positive reviews and a 13-minute ovation, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite gets its first teaser trailer ahead of its release next month by Netflix.

Narrated with a stark and chilling reading of Carl Sagan’s famous 1990 quote calling Earth a “pale blue dot” and “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” the teaser sets up Bigelow’s nuclear thriller quite effectively. We see quick cuts to faces and scenes as military leaders, government workers and a president react to what seems to be an incoming nuclear missile. A clock ticks to Defcon 1.

The film, Bigelow’s first feature since 2017’s Detroit, stars Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabe Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, with Greta Lee and Jason Clarke. The script is by Noah Oppenheim.

The official logline: When a single, unattributed...

We have our first teaser trailer for A House of Dynamite, Kathryn Bigelow‘s new Netflix movie.

Here’s the logline: When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.

The film just premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and Deadline reports that they received a 13-minute standing ovation. Additionally, the movie is getting raves from critics.

Head inside to watch the teaser…

The film features an all-star cast led by Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson. Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Greta Lee, Kaitlyn Dever, Kyle Allen, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King,...

Netflix has released a first look at director Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, which is scheduled to open in select UK theaters on October 3. The film will then open in select global theaters on October 10 before it begins streaming on Netflix on October 24.

In the thriller written by Noah Oppenheim, a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, and a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.

A House of Dynamite stars Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, and Jonah Hauer-King, with Greta Lee and Jason Clarke.

Malachi Beasley, Brian Tee, Brittany O’Grady, Gbenga Akinnagbe,...

From Italy to the world, Kathryn Bigelow is ready to share “A House of Dynamite.” The trailer for her upcoming Netflix movie dropped its first trailer on Wednesday after premiering at the Venice Film Festival.

The nuclear disaster thriller stars Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke and more in an ensemble cast. Thankfully, the teaser sets the tone without really giving anything away.

“I grew up in an era when hiding under your school desk was considered the go-to protocol for surviving an atomic bomb. It seems absurd now — and it was — but at the time,...

"In our obscurity, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere..." The clock is ticking... Netflix has finally unveiled the first teaser trailer for a movie called A House of Dynamite, the new intense Kathryn Bigelow-directed thriller following her military hits The Hurt Locker & Zero Dark Thirty. It just premiered yesterday at the 2025 Venice Film Festival and earned rave reviews (mine is here) about how extremely gripping and fascinating it is. A House of Dynamite is a modern day nuclear fears thriller. The triptych film is centered around White House staffers grappling with an impending nuclear missile strike on America. This gripping drama unfolds in real-time as...

Earth gets reduced to a dot in the new haunting trailer for A House of Dynamite from Netflix. The new film comes from Kathryn Bigelow and stars a huge cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, with Greta Lee, and Jason Clarke. Also starring Malachi Beasley, Brian Tee, Brittany O’Grady, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Willa Fitzgerald, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kyle Allen and Kaitlyn Dever.

The official logline for A House of Dynamite from Netflix reads, “When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.” Bigelow directs...

The first trailer for Kathryn Bigelow’s new thriller, A House of Dynamite, is out, giving audiences a glimpse at one of the year’s most intense films.

The movie, written by Noah Oppenheim, tells the story of how the U.S. government reacts when a nuclear missile is fired at Chicago by an unknown enemy.

Idris Elba leads the cast as the President of the United States. Rebecca Ferguson plays Captain Olivia Walker, who works as a key link between the White House and military leaders. The ensemble also includes Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, and more. Netflix confirmed...

Kathryn Bigelow is back behind the camera with her first movie since 2017’s Detroit, and this time she’s bringing nuclear tension to the screen.

Her new film, A House of Dynamite, just dropped a new trailer, and it looks like one of the biggest political thrillers of 2025.

The movie stars Idris Elba as the President of the United States, while Rebecca Ferguson plays Captain Olivia Walker, a military officer who becomes the main link between the White House and defense officials.

The story follows the chaos inside Washington as government leaders scramble to respond after an unidentified country launches a nuclear missile aimed at Chicago. Netflix confirmed the plot...

If human life were to essentially grind to a halt tomorrow, would it be due to a) the itchy trigger finger of a military hothead, b) the low accuracy rate of even the best interceptor missiles, or c) some other cocktail of worst-case scenarios? These are some of the options being assessed in A House of Dynamite, Katheryn Bigelow’s first movie in eight years and a story as combustible as its title suggests. Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, and Jason Clarke all feature, but the star of the show is a single, rogue nuclear missile. This unseen, unexpected harbinger of doom is headed for Chicago and set to...

Kathryn Bigelow hasn’t directed a feature film since 2017’s “Detroit,” an eight-year hiatus during which our increasingly unstable world began to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to her geopolitical thrillers. Fortunately, fans of her distinct brand of filmmaking will have another white knuckler to stress over when “A House of Dynamite” premieres this fall.

Bigelow’s new film, which has been branded as one of Netflix’s strongest Oscar contenders of the season, follows a President of the United States (Idris Elba) as he meets with advisors to determine the “best” course of action in the face of a deadly nuclear missile strike.

“A House of Dynamite” is written by Noah Oppenheim, who enjoyed a lengthy TV career as a producer for and eventual president of NBC News before co-creating “Zero Day” and writing films like “Jackie” and “The Maze Runner.” In addition to Elba, the film stars Rebecca Ferguson,...

Netflix has revealed the first trailer for its upcoming political thriller A House of Dynamite, which just had a strong debut at the Venice International Film Festival. A House of Dynamite is directed by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and stars Dune's Rebecca Ferguson and the McU's Idris Elba, among others.

With many critics from Venice calling the thriller revolving around nuclear warfare downright terrifying, A House of Dynamite takes place within the White House when the United States is threatened with an impending missile strike, with Ferguson and Elba playing White House staff attempting to manage the crisis.

Written by Noah Oppenheim, A House of Dynamite also stars Gabriel Basso,...

Netflix has released the trailer for “A House of Dynamite,” a new political thriller from the Oscar-winning director of “The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow.

The film follows Rebecca Ferguson as Olivia Walker, a Situation Room senior duty officer who must locate the source of a lone nuclear missile heading toward the United States and stop it before it levels Chicago.

Other cast members include Idris Elba, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee and Jason Clarke.

The film received an 11-minute standing ovation after its Tuesday night Venice Film Festival premiere. Elba brought Bigelow to her feet as the claps rolled on. They politely joined in the applause themselves while Ferguson blew kisses to the audience at the Sala Grande Theater.

At a Venice press conference earlier in the day, Bigelow told reporters she hopes “the film is an invitation to decide what...

Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson attempt to lead the nation as it stands on the brink of nuclear warfare in the teaser trailer for the Netflix feature A House of Dynamite.

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s political thriller is set for limited theatrical release in the U.K. on Oct. 3 and in the U.S. on Oct. 10 before its streaming launch Oct. 24. Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee and Jason Clarke round out the ensemble cast.

A House of Dynamite centers on a team of government officials attempting to navigate an impending nuclear attack on the city of Chicago. Elba plays the U.S. president, while Ferguson portrays military communications lead Captain Olivia Walker.

Bigelow directed the movie from a script by Noah Oppenheim. The pair produce the film alongside Greg Shapiro. Additional performers include Willa Fitzgerald, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Kaitlyn Dever and WNBA standout Angel Reese.

After being married for seven years, Mission: Impossible actress Rebecca Ferguson is finally flaunting her husband on the red carpet. On September 02, Ferguson and Rory St. Clair Gainer attended the premiere of her recently released film, A House of Dynamite, at the Venice Film Festival in Italy.

While Gainer has been supportive of his wife’s career, even accompanying her to grand events, this marked the first official red carpet appearance for the couple.

Gainer looked dapper in a black tuxedo paired with a bowtie, a ring, and a pair of black loafers. Ferguson, on the other hand, opted for a bolder look in a black textured floor-length dress that...

An iconic director with intensive and captivating stories to tell, Kathryn Bigelow made a name for herself in Hollywood as the director who doesn’t hold back from facts.

Having a ton of movies to her name, Bigelow is the recipient of two Academy Awards for her 2010 film, The Hurt Locker. Despite what the Rotten Tomatoes Score says, Bigelow’s movies are often different from the rest. Her art of mixing the genres (which also inspired Quentin Tarantino’s Hollywood career) with realistic themes of intense survival is often praised by critics and fans alike.

So, without further ado, here is every Kathryn Bigelow movie, ranked from worst to best...

An unidentified missile slices through the upper atmosphere on a direct path to the American Midwest. Impact is in eighteen minutes. This is the stark, brutally simple premise of Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite.

The film drops us directly into the crisis, a race against a clock where the stakes are not simply intercepting a weapon, but deciphering an impossible political equation without a key variable: who sent it?

Bigelow has crafted a relentlessly tense procedural for our specific moment in history. It is a chillingly plausible thriller about how our most carefully constructed systems of command and control react when faced with a scenario they were designed...

On a Nuclear Day You Can See Forever: Bigelow’s Living in a Powder-keg, Giving Off Sparks

With the doomsday clock adjusted to eighty-nine seconds to midnight at the dawn of 2025, something like Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film, A House of Dynamite, has a queasy aftertaste despite styled as a meaty popcorn flick. Resembling something like a mixture between her previous films Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), Bigelow proves to be in top form when it comes to tension building and pacing whilst utilizing real-world anxieties which, in a previous era, wouldn’t hit so close to home.…...

Kathryn Bigelow's return to the big screen was always bound to be explosive. And the early word out of the Venice Film Festival suggests A House of Dynamite — the Oscar-winning director's first feature film since 2017's Detroit — is worth the eight-year wait. The Netflix-released geopolitical thriller depicts the fallout that accompanies the launch of a rogue nuclear missile aimed at U.S. shores. Thankfully, this particular incident is fictional... but the consequences feel scarily real.

That's certainly how The Guardian's Peter Bradley felt in his five-star review of A House of Dynamite, which currently has an 87 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes and an 88 percent score on Metacritic.

Kathryn Bigelow’s highly anticipated political thriller A House of Dynamite had its US premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 2, 2025. The film, which blends geopolitical tension with nuclear brinkmanship, has quickly become one of the most talked-about titles of the festival circuit.

Plot and Creative Vision

According to The Guardian, the story centers on escalating global instability as world leaders grapple with a nuclear endgame scenario. Bigelow crafts a tense and fast-paced narrative that critics describe as both “chilling” and “urgently relevant.”

The New York Times highlights Bigelow’s signature directing style, noting her ability to merge realism with cinematic spectacle. The film avoids traditional melodrama, instead opting...

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is back with her first movie in eight years and it’s getting rave reviews at the 2025 Venice Film Festival.

The director was joined by lead stars Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson on the red carpet at the premiere and a photo call during the festival on Tuesday (September 2) in Venice, Italy.

Also in attendance were co-stars Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, and Greta Lee.

While not in attendance, the film’s star-studded cast also includes Kaitlyn Dever, Kyle Allen, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Jason Clarke, and more.

Here’s the film’s synopsis: “When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States,...

After a flashy premiere at the Venice Film Festival, reviews are pouring in for A House of Dynamite, Kathryn Bigelow's long-awaited return to directing. Rebecca Ferguson stars in the upcoming Netflix political thriller that follows the aftermath of a missile being launched at the United States. The verdict is in for the film, and while it may not be among Bigelow's best films, it appears A House of Dynamite lives up to its explosive premise.

As of this writing, A House of Dynamite has an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews. Most critics seem to agree that the film is by far one of the most tense thrillers of the year,...

Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite lit up the screen at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday night as the Netflix action pic had its world premiere inside Sala Grande.

The audience gave the nuclear disaster thriller an enthusiastic thumbs up with an extended 11-minute standing ovation. Amid chants of “bravo,” Bigelow clasped her hands and bowed her head with gratitude as cast members like Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson embraced their filmmaker. “Thank you,” Bigelow said as she soaked in the reception. “Wow.”

Bigelow’s Netflix film, penned by Noah Oppenheim (Zero Day, Jackie), tells the story of what happens when a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, leading to a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond. Elba, Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee and Jason Clarke star in the film...

Kathryn Bigelow‘s gripping political thriller “A House of Dynamite,” which stars Idris Elba as the President of the United States, triggered an 11-minute ovation at the Venice Film Festival, where it premiered in competition on Tuesday night.

As the end credits rolled, Elba helped Bigelow to her feet and they politely applauded along with the audience. Meanwhile, Elba’s co-star Rebecca Ferguson blew kisses around the room in the Sala Grande Theater.

In the orchestra, a small-but-mighty group of fans were shouting, “Rebecca, we love you! Only you!” Bigelow, too, had her share of admirers in the audience. As the ovation approached the 10-minute mark, the crowd started chanting “Bigelow! Bigelow!” The “House of Dynamite” cast and crew basked in the reception — until they didn’t. By the time the cheering and hollering began to settle down, Bigelow, Elba, Ferguson and company were already heading up the stairs for the exit.

Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow lit the fuse on A House of Dynamite on Tuesday evening at the Venice Film Festival, where the nuclear thriller premiered in competition and received an almost 13-minute ovation.

This is Bigelow’s first feature since 2017’s Detroit and rounds up a starry cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabe Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee and Jason Clarke.

The logline for the film reads: When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond. Noah Oppenheim penned the script.

Kathryn Bigelow, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris and Idris Elba during the nearly 13-minute ovation for #AHouseOfDynamite in Venice pic.twitter.com/MgasIxUCtu

— Deadline (@Deadline) September 2, 2025

In his review, Deadline’s Pete Hammond called A House of Dynamite “a wake-up call, a cold shower, a reckoning,...

After having gone nearly a decade without releasing a feature, the consensus on the ground at Venice: director Kathryn Bigelow’s latest film “A House of Dynamite” was well worth the wait.

After her last film, “Detroit,” failed to receive the same awards attention her previous two Oscar-winning films, “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty,” enjoyed the Best Director winner needed a break to find her next subject. At the “A House of Dynamite” festival press conference on Tuesday, she said, “I have to be passionate about a subject matter. For me, I don’t know if I’m really a director or not, but I’m absolutely committed to a subject and a story. And then I feel like I can do anything, but I have to really believe in whatever the material is.”

“A House of Dynamite,” a Netflix release, takes the audience through various perspectives on...

Rebecca Ferguson has long been one of Hollywood's most underrated talents, but since her breakout with The White Queen, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination, she has gained well-deserved attention in the last decade for projects including the Mission: Impossible movies and The Greatest Showman.

Now, Ferguson is a vital star in the fantasy-sci-fi space thanks to her leading role in the Emmy-nominated dystopian series Silo and her portrayal of Lady Jessica Atreides in Denis Villeneuve's Dune movies. Ferguson is confirmed for the upcoming Silo season 3 and likelyDune: Part Three.

But first, she will appear on-screen with the A-list MCU star Idris Elba in a new political thriller.

A House Of Dynamite is the latest dramatic thriller from the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, and more — and it’s coming to Netflix this fall.

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim (who tackled the White House earlier this year in the limited series Zero Day), A House Of Dynamite is a sharp and visceral new story. Read on for more newly declassified information about the film, including new photos of Rebecca Ferguson, Anthony Ramos, and Gabriel Basso in action.

When a single, unattributed missile is launched at the United States, a race begins to determine who is responsible and how to respond.