Netflix just dropped the first trailer for A House of Dynamite, and Kathryn Bigelow is making her comeback after an eight year hiatus. The Oscar-winning filmmaker is returning with a high-stakes political thriller that’s already stirring buzz. The film is set to hit Netflix on Oct. 24, but before that, it will have a limited theatrical run in select cities worldwide.
The project debuted earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 2. Critics walked away impressed, with the movie earning a 92% debut score on Rotten Tomatoes. Deadline even went as far as to call it “a wake-up call, a cold shower, a reckoning, and one hell of a motion picture achievement.”
Written by Noah Oppenheim, A House of Dynamite boasts a stacked cast led by Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson. The supporting lineup features Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee, Jason Clarke, and more.
The trailer teases an ominous scenario. An unidentified missile is launched at the United States, and chaos erupts as government leaders scramble to figure out who’s behind it and how to respond. Bigelow structures the film in three gripping parts, each told from a different perspective.
The first section unfolds inside the White House Situation Room, where staffers are forced to confront the possibility of an attack. The second part takes viewers inside STRATCOM, highlighting the generals and defense officials tasked with determining if the missile is real and how to respond to the attack. Finally, the third act zooms in on Elba as the U.S. President, who is rushed out of a basketball game and quickly brought up to speed as the crisis escalates around him. It’s a structure that promises not just suspense but also a layered look at how power and fear ripple through the highest levels of government.
In an interview with The Guardian, Bigelow explained that her goal was to “explore the madness of a world that lives under the constant shadow of annihilation, yet rarely speaks of it.”
Bigelow is accompanied by a strong team to help bring this one to life. She’s producing alongside Greg Shapiro and writer Noah Oppenheim, with Brian Bell and Sarah Bremner on board as executive producers. Jeremy Hindle, Sumaiya Kaveh, and Luca Borghese round things out as co-producers.
For fans eager to catch it on the big screen before its streaming debut, A House of Dynamite opens in select UK theaters on Oct. 3 and then gets a limited global release on Oct. 10. After that, it will be streaming on Netflix starting Oct. 24.
