Kinds of Kindness Official Trailer hits you like a fever dream

The trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos’ new film has arrived. The filmmaker has already followed up his Poor Things run with Kinds of Kindness, which reunites him with the Academy Award-winning star of his last film, Emma Stone, as well as her Poor Things co-star, Willem Dafoe. The new trailer from Searchlight Pictures displays the chaotic nature of the film, with all the clips feeling non-sequitur. And with Sweet Dreams providing the soundtrack for the trailer, it certainly hammers home the dream-like feeling of this abstract movie.

When director Yorgos Lanthimos and actress Emma Stone make a feature film together, Academy Award nominations follow. Their 2018 collaboration The Favourite was nominated in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design, Cinematography, and Editing categories, with supporting actresses Stone and Rachel Weisz also earning nominations and lead actress Olivia Colman taking home an Oscar for her performance. Their 2023 collaboration Poor Things racked up nominations in the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Cinematography, Editing, and Supporting Actor (Mark Ruffalo) categories – and won Oscar gold for Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Costume Design, and Stone’s performance in the lead role. We’ll have to wait and see if Kinds of Kindness earns any nominations, but the odds are in its favor.

The film is officially described as a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.

While walking the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Lanthimos described Kinds of Kindness as follows: “It’s three contemporary stories, and there’s a core of actors — seven total — who play one character in each story,” he said. “So, they’ll play three different characters.”

Joining Emma Stone in the cast are Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse), Jesse Plemons (Civil War), Hong Chau (The Menu), Margaret Qualley (Drive Away Dolls), Joe Alwyn (The Favourite), Mamoudou Athie (Jurassic World: Dominion), and Hunter Schafer (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Song Birds & Snakes).