New 'Hunger Games' casts major star in key role: See full 'Sunrise on the Reaping' cast
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'Hunger Games' unleashes prequel 'Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes'
Rachel Zegler stars as the tribute from District 12 and Tom Blyth plays her mentor in the prequel "The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes."
May the odds be ever in Elle Fanning's favor.
The "Maleficent" star, 27, is the latest to join the cast of "The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping," according to an announcement on the film's official social media channels.
Fanning is set to play a younger version of Effie Trinket, the character portrayed by Elizabeth Banks in the first four "Hunger Games" movies. Also confirmed for the cast on May 20 were Iona Bell as Lou Lou and Molly McCann as Louella McCoy.
"The Hunger Games" will be another major franchise added to Fanning's resume coming off her role in the upcoming "Predator: Badlands." The Emmy nominee starred opposite Timothée Chalamet in the Oscar-nominated Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown" last year.
Based on author Suzanne Collins' prequel book, "Sunrise on the Reaping" takes place 24 years before the events of the original "Hunger Games" and follows the fictional 50th Hunger Games, the annual event where representatives from each district in Panem are forced to fight to the death. The first "Hunger Games" book, and its 2012 film adaptation starring Jennifer Lawrence, focused on the 74th Hunger Games.
'Hunger Games' reveals new cast members for 'Sunrise on the Reaping': See who's joined
Joseph Zada will star in "Sunrise on the Reaping" as a young Haymitch Abernathy, a District 12 tribute previously played by Woody Harrelson. The film will also feature younger versions of several other characters from the original series, including Beetee Latier, previously played by Jeffrey Wright; Plutarch Heavensbee, previously played by Philip Seymour Hoffman; and President Coriolanus Snow, previously played by Donald Sutherland.
A younger version of Coriolanus Snow played by Tom Blyth was the protagonist of the most recent "Hunger Games" movie, 2023's "The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes," another prequel centered on the 10th Hunger Games. Rachel Zegler also starred.
After 17 years and five books, 'The Hunger Games' feel as urgent as ever
'The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping' cast list
With Fanning on board, here's how the cast of "Sunrise on the Reaping" is shaping up so far:
Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket
Iona Bell as Lou Lou
Molly McCann as Louella McCoy
Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy
Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus Snow
Whitney Peak as Lenore Dove Baird
Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner
Maya Hawke as Wiress
Lili Taylor as Mags Flanagan
Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier
Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow
Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee
'The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping' release date
"The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping" is set to hit theaters on Nov. 20, 2026.
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Los Angeles Times
14 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
The 21 movies we're most excited to see this fall
Hollywood put up decent numbers this summer and we'd be lying if we told you we didn't find much to like (even if it didn't always come in a cape). But just as inevitably as the warm months wane, ambitious actors will attempt to play rock icons. Accents will be summoned, some of them mastered. Epic musicals involving witches, wicked or otherwise, will find their conclusions. Oscar winners will play Nazis. Jared Leto will continue to do what only Jared Leto does. Pathos will be mined from the tale of a wrestler. These are the things we expect from a robust fall season and the upcoming one will not disappoint. Here's what our staff is most anticipating. In a near-future America ruled by a totalitarian regime (ah, the movies), several young men take part in a nationally televised endurance contest with one brutal rule: Stop walking and you die. Adapted from Stephen King's novel first published under his Richard Bachman alias in 1979, 'The Long Walk' is directed by 'Hunger Games' veteran Francis Lawrence, who knows his way around dystopian survival stories. The march heads toward an ending only one contestant can reach, with Cooper Hoffman ('Licorice Pizza') among the participants and Mark Hamill in villain mode as the implacable Major overseeing the ordeal. The contest unfolds in broad daylight as cameras and soldiers turn the asphalt into an arena. Adaptations of King books have been around for decades, but few promise the kind of slow, creeping dread this premise invites and the political overtones of militarized spectacle are hard to miss. Wear comfortable shoes and hydrate accordingly. — Josh Rottenberg The award for the most intriguing combo of Hollywood's fall season has to be Scarlett Johansson and June Squibb. Johansson had a hit this summer with 'Jurassic Park Rebirth' while the 95-year-old Squibb has repeatedly scored praise for her recent performances, including 2024's 'Thelma' in which she played a grandmother seeking revenge after being targeted in a scam. Both are winning accolades for 'Eleanor the Great,' which marks Johansson's debut behind the camera as director. Squibb stars as the lonely title character who falsely claims to be a Holocaust survivor, then privately frets as her lie snowballs into something unfixable. The film was an audience favorite at Cannes, ranking among The Times' 10 best films at the festival. — Greg Braxton Paul Thomas Anderson, who gave us the oil-soaked intensity of 'There Will Be Blood,' the sleazy excess of 'Boogie Nights' and the knotty elegance of 'Phantom Thread,' is not the obvious choice to direct a big-budget Imax action-thriller, which is exactly why 'One Battle After Another' feels like an event. Loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel 'Vineland,' the film transplants the book's tangle of political grudges to a modern-day context of former activists forced back together when their long-vanished enemy resurfaces. Leonardo DiCaprio plays a drug-and-booze-addled revolutionary trying to rescue his kidnapped daughter, with Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall and Alana Haim as his comrades, Benicio del Toro as his wild-card ally Sensei Sergio and Sean Penn as their white-nationalist antagonist, Col. Steven J. Lockjaw. Anderson last adapted Pynchon with the loopy, stoner-inflected 'Inherent Vice,' but here he's working on a grander scale. Shot on 35mm VistaVision, 'One Battle After Another' will be a rare chance to see Anderson bring his sly digressions, oddball humor and tonal whiplash to a canvas usually reserved for Bayhem. — Josh Rottenberg It's being described by early marketing as an exploration of bonds between fathers, sons and brothers through 'personal journeys and generational conflicts,' which honestly could describe 80% of all movies ever. Fortunately, though, plot is not the headline; casting is. 'Anemone' has apparently forced Daniel Day-Lewis out of the retirement he announced in 2017. And for a good reason: Day-Lewis co-wrote the film with his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, a New York-based painter who also directs. This will be the second time Day-Lewis the elder has come out of retirement — he left acting in the late '90s, only to return after Martin Scorsese convinced him to do 'Gangs of New York,' after which he won two more Oscars. (Not to put too much pressure on 'Anemone.') The film also stars Sean Bean, Samuel Bottomley, Safia Oakley-Green and Samantha Morton. — Mary McNamara What's the Rock cooking? Another crafty career pivot from face to heel: specifically, from being the face of too many franchises with too few critical hits, to teaming up with Benny Safdie, one of the beloved bad boys of indie cinema. 'The Smashing Machine' — Safdie's first film since 'Uncut Gems' (which he co-directed with his brother Josh) and Johnson's most intriguing release since 2013's underappreciated 'Pain & Gain' — stars the former wrestler as MMA fighter Mark Kerr, who won multiple gold medals in the '90s and early aughts while getting slammed by the painkiller addiction that enabled him to keep getting back in the ring. Kerr shared his story in a 2002 HBO documentary of the same name. It'll be interesting to see how (or if) the harsh truth of combat sports gets the manic Safdie treatment. Best-case scenario: No holds will be barred. — Amy Nicholson Italian director Luca Guadagnino ('Call Me by Your Name,' 'Challengers') likes erotic stories that flirt with disaster. He tweaks the audience's moral compass, and 'After the Hunt' sounds like a dangerous spin on his risque business. The #MeToo-adjacent thriller stars Julia Roberts as a college professor who freezes when her favorite student ('The Bear's' Ayo Edebiri) lodges an assault accusation against her favorite colleague (Andrew Garfield). Counter-accusations ensue, leaving Roberts' character unsure whom to believe and paranoid that this blame tsunami will cause her own ethically dubious past to surface. Guadagnino has hinted that he's interested in teasing out how different people (and generations) disagree on the definition of consent. The early buzz is that Roberts has seized onto the opportunity to deliver her richest performance in ages and it's worth noting that Guadagnino has yet to win his first Oscar. — Amy Nicholson Kathryn Bigelow, the Oscar-winning director behind 'The Hurt Locker' and 'Zero Dark Thirty,' is an expert at turning real-world crises into procedural pulse-pounders. In 'A House of Dynamite,' she trades the battlefield for the White House, tracking a team of officials scrambling to respond to an incoming-missile alert in near real time. The stacked cast includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, Greta Lee, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos and Jason Clarke. Shot with you-are-there immediacy by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and edited by Fincher veteran Kirk Baxter ('The Social Network'), it's Bigelow's first feature in eight years, since her period crime drama 'Detroit.' This time, it's situation rooms, red phones and competing chains of command. The fuse is bureaucratic and the stakes are global. — Josh Rottenberg The most terrifying movie of the year, unsurprisingly, is about a mother just trying to get through a day — or maybe it's her whole life? Rose Byrne stars as Linda, a Montauk therapist in an emotional tailspin: she's tending to a sick daughter with a mystery illness that prevents her from eating normally, there's a hole in her ceiling that's gushing water, her husband is MIA and she's desperate for counsel from her own aloof therapist (Conan O'Brien). Mary Bronstein's sophomore feature skillfully takes a darkly funny look at the harrowing isolation and chaos of motherhood, often zooming in on Byrne's face as she's pushed to the brink. It's also worth mentioning that rapper ASAP Rocky plays James, an unlikely partner-in-crime with a gnarly internet browser history whom Linda comes to know when her water disaster forces her to move into a motel. The A24 film, which counts Josh Safdie among its producers, earned raves out of this year's Sundance and critics are already heralding Byrne's performance as Oscar-worthy. — Yvonne Villarreal AI continues to evolve onscreen — for every Entity threatening the end of civilization in 'Dead Reckoning,' there's a M3GAN 2.0 ready to come to our aid with an eye roll. 'Tron: Ares' looks to split the difference: Mean-looking skyscraper-sized machines face off against Jared Leto. Never mind. You didn't watch these movies for the plots anyway. Besides the welcome return of a cameoing Jeff Bridges from the 1982 Atari-era landmark, the new movie brings on Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross doing a proper industrial-rock score under their old moniker Nine Inch Nails, a soundtrack they've called 'grittier' compared with their other stuff like 'Challengers.' That's reason enough to go, head-bobbing your way through lightcycle race sequences to the groove. A summer movie smuggled into the fall? Fine, we'll need a few of those, especially as the awards drumbeat gets deafening. — Joshua Rothkopf Do you remember comedies? Do you remember the experience of going to a movie theater and laughing with a room full of complete strangers? Do you remember Aziz Ansari? 'Parks and Recreation,' yes. But also the charming rom-com Netflix series 'Master of None,' the one that Ansari starred in and co-created, often writing and directing as well. It's been a minute. Ansari was set to make his feature film directorial debut in 2022, but production was halted and never resumed due to a complaint of inappropriate behavior lodged against Bill Murray. Now we finally have Ansari's first feature, a comedy about a guardian angel (Keanu Reeves) swapping the lives of a struggling gig worker (Ansari) and his wealthy boss (Seth Rogen). Think of it as 'Trading Places' with a dash of Wim Wenders. It could be sublime. It could be a train wreck. But it's an original story from a multi-hyphenate who was viewed, not that long ago, as a major talent. I'm interested. — Glenn Whipp At their boldest, movies can demand a reckoning, a reconsideration. Iran's Jafar Panahi swept into Cannes with this sad and furious political thriller, about the lingering aftermath of a torture master's abuses, taking the Palme d'Or in an almost cosmic reversal of fortunes for a filmmaker who has often suffered in prison or under house arrest, his art forbidden. 'It Was Just an Accident' has revealed more to me in thinking about it, especially about the precarity of everyday manners. Without ruining it, the closest comparison is to something like 'Death and the Maiden.' When the tables are turned, is revenge itself a moral dead end? Based on an especially tough-minded piece of writing, this is a film that will get you contemplating pettiness and righteousness both. There's no fall movie season without the Palme winner and last year's 'Anora' went all the way. — Joshua Rothkopf There is still something astonishing that Greek-born filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has become as commercially successful and awards-friendly as he has, given that his work tends to be abstract, allegorical and at times willfully off-putting. Nothing if not unpredictable, Lanthimos now offers up a remake of the 2003 South Korean film 'Save the Green Planet!' in which a pair of activists kidnap a pharmaceutical executive they believe to be a space alien, with Jesse Plemons as one of the plotters and Emma Stone as their target. Lanthimos' work often combines dark comedy and an unexpected romantic streak with a potent political charge and his latest film looks to tap into the volatile energy of conspiracy theories and radical anti-corporate sentiments. Stone, who won an Oscar for her performance in Lanthimos' 'Poor Things,' continues to use her Hollywood star power to champion challenging filmmakers. This is their fifth film together. — Mark Olsen The cynical take would be: This is a naked attempt at the same commercial success as music-themed dramas like 'A Complete Unknown' and 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' But Bruce Springsteen and the raw, stripped-down recordings of his 1982 'Nebraska' album seem earnestly in opposition to such artless gamesmanship. Adapted and directed by Scott Cooper, the film stars Jeremy Allen White (perfectly suited for a post-'The Bear' step into movie stardom), along with Jeremy Strong as Springsteen's faithful manager Jon Landau and additional supporting turns from Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Gaby Hoffmann, Odessa Young and Marc Maron. A soulful, searching '70s-style character study on the making of a now-classic '80s album with some of the most exciting performers of 2025 is both slightly counterintuitive and something that makes total sense. — Mark Olsen That title seems to have lost a comma since Cannes, but who cares? Director Lynne Ramsay has no patience for grammatical formalities and her latest burns with the punk ferocity of her finest film, 2002's 'Morvern Callar.' Ramsay has found a fellow traveler in Jennifer Lawrence, who, these days post-'Causeway,' is reinventing herself in a focused, fearless register. It's impossible to watch 'Die My Love' and not be hypnotized by its swampy psychodrama: the violent postpartum death throes of a marriage that has little reason to continue. Lawrence and her co-star, Robert Pattinson, play a city couple who move to Montana only half-believing in their own future together. Ramsay teases out something delicate and distracted in both of them. You'll hear about these sex scenes. There's more to the movie than that. — Joshua Rothkopf In November 1945, two dozen high-ranking officials of the Nazi Party were charged with crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At their center was Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler's second-in-command. Not surprisingly, Göring is a central character in the upcoming James Vanderbilt film 'Nuremberg.' Based on Jack El-Hai's 2013 book 'The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,' 'Nuremberg' focuses on the relationship between Göring, played by Russell Crowe, and Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), the psychiatrist tasked with determining if Göring and the other Nuremberg defendants were capable of standing trial. Though in hindsight Göring's conviction seems inevitable, many of the Allied leaders had initially preferred summary execution to prevent the Nazis from gaining any kind of sympathy. Bombastic, unrepentant, with a ribald sense of humor and a defense that leaned heavily into his desire to make Germany great again, Göring came out swinging. It is difficult to imagine an actor better suited to this role than Crowe, just as Malek seems a perfect fit for Kelley, who never recovered from his discovery that the Nazis 'were no different from a group of intelligent executives anywhere.' — Mary McNamara Director Dan Trachtenberg rejuvenated the 'Predator' franchise with his 2022 prequel 'Prey,' a period piece that pitted a ferocious young Comanche warrior (Amber Midthunder) against a new iteration of the iconic alien hunter while also weaving in conflict with terrestrial interlopers. I've been ready for Trachtenberg's next offering from this world ever since. While 'Prey' was set during Earth's past, 'Predator: Badlands' moves the action to a remote planet in the future. There are no human protagonists needed to outmaneuver a deadly alien foe this time around. 'Badlands' centers a young Predator outcast (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) who encounters an android (Elle Fanning) created by the 'Alien' franchise's Weyland-Yutani Corp. while on his quest to hunt the deadliest of beasts. The idea of a Predator and a synthetic's odd-couple team-up was intriguing even before the visual of an alien warrior carrying half an android on his back grabbed this 'Star Wars' fan's attention. — Tracy Brown As the follow-up to their breakthrough collaboration on 'The Worst Person in the World,' Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier and actor Renate Reinsve return with 'Sentimental Value,' which won the second-place Grand Prix award when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year. In a richly layered study of family, legacy and nothing less than the purpose of art, Reinsve plays an emotionally fragile actor whose filmmaker father (a galvanizing Stellan Skarsgård) has written a part for her. After she refuses to even consider it, feeling that the baggage between them is too fraught, he moves on to casting an American ingenue (Elle Fanning), who may not be up to the demands of the role. (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as Reinsve's sister is also something of the film's sneaky secret weapon.) Able to switch moods and tones with a stylish, skillful ease, Trier brings out the best in all the film's performers, mixing a knowing, bittersweet humor with deep insights. — Mark Olsen Did we dream it at Sundance? A classically proportioned drama about the building of the American West, mostly seen from the eyes of one logger, that approaches the quiet grandeur of a Terrence Malick movie? Nope, 'Train Dreams' is here and there's something about its poise and intimacy that makes it feel, finally, like Netflix has a big awards winner, provided viewers can get beyond Joel Edgerton's bushy beard. The performance is taciturn and nonverbal; he's got a mouthpiece in Will Patton's folksy narration, but what Edgerton is doing is worth leaning in for, complex and fascinating. Co-written by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar, the team behind 'Jockey' and 'Sing Sing,' and adapted from Denis Johnson's 2011 novella, this gorgeous movie could put you in mind of a less frenetic era and also, via its piney fog-shrouded exteriors, of the country that still exists beyond all our noise. — Joshua Rothkopf An aging movie star reflects back on his life and career, contemplating what it was all for as he heads to Europe to receive a lifetime achievement award. The new 'Jay Kelly' stars George Clooney but is also in some ways about George Clooney — or at least the kind of existential crisis that only someone like George Clooney could truly understand. The latest film directed by Noah Baumbach, who co-wrote the screenplay with Emily Mortimer, 'Jay Kelly' may also be full of the filmmaker's own inner ruminations following the dismissive response to 2022's 'White Noise,' his previous film, and the overwhelming success of 'Barbie,' which he co-wrote with Greta Gerwig. The stacked cast of 'Jay Kelly' includes Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Mortimer and Gerwig. Baumbach's signature serio-comic touch, in which the humor lacerates as much as the drama, should be in full effect here. — Mark Olsen Seven years ago, a movie fan tweeted at director Edgar Wright to ask if he'd ever helm a remake. 'The Running Man,' Wright replied — and now he's done just that. Prescience has always been part of this action-thriller's hold on the imagination. Stephen King dreamed up the idea of a deadly TV competition in 1982, years before 'Survivor' brought the thrill of watching real-life desperation into our living rooms, and set his dystopian story in the then-distant future of 2025. Today, King's grim satire doesn't seem quite as far-fetched, so Wright's challenge will be making sure his update still packs a wallop. Glen Powell has stepped into Arnold Schwarzenegger's running shoes as a gritty, hardscrabble contestant who flees for his life, with Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, Michael Cera and Katy O'Brian rounding out the cast. Here's hoping this long-awaited project makes it across the finish line with panache. — Amy Nicholson It feels like I've been holding space for Part 2 of Jon M. Chu's musical extravaganza for as long as film star Cynthia Erivo stretched out that final 'aaaaaaaaaaahhh' battle cry in the showstopping 'Defying Gravity' number. Adapted from the long-running Broadway musical, the bifurcated epic is mostly set before 'The Wizard of Oz' and explores the origins of green-skinned Elphaba (Erivo) before she became known as the Wicked Witch of the West and her complex dynamic with rival-turned-friend Glinda (Ariana Grande). The first movie, which introduced the young women as students at Shiz University who developed an unlikely friendship after being forced to bunk together, ended with Elphaba learning about the dark realities of oppression within Oz's Emerald City and launching onto a path of resistance, quite literally, by taking flight on her getaway broomstick and fleeing the city. This second half will explore the diverging roads the two friends take as they become the adversaries we originally came to know through Dorothy and Co.. It's hard to say which will be more entertaining, the promotional tour or the actual movie. — Yvonne Villarreal
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
First Look at Dakota Fanning & Sarah Snook in Twisty Thriller ‘All Her Fault'
Peacock is ready to bring a parent's worst nightmare to the screen with its upcoming adaptation of the twisty psychological thriller All Her Fault. The new streaming series adapts Andrea Mara's book of the same name about a mother whose son goes missing after a playdate. The first look at Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning has been revealed in the photo above, along with other key details about the series. Here's a look at everything we know about All Her Fault so far. When does All Her Fault premiere? The first four episodes of All Her Fault will premiere on Peacock on November 6, with two new episodes arriving on November 13 and again on November 20. Who stars in All Her Fault? The cast for the eight-episode series includes Sarah Snook, Jake Lacy, Dakota Fanning, Michael Peña, Sophia Lillis, Abby Elliott, Daniel Monks, Jay Ellis, Thomas Cocquerel, Duke McCloud, and Kartiah Vergara. The series is created, written, and executive produced by Megan Gallagher. Also executive producing are Nigel Merchant, Gareth Neame, and Joanna Stevens for Carnival films, along with Snook, Minkie Spiro, Christine Sacani, and Jennifer Gabler Rawlings. What is All Her Fault about? The logline for the series tells us, 'Marissa Irvine (Snook) arrives to collect her young son Milo from his first playdate, but the woman who answers the door isn't a mother she recognizes. She doesn't have Milo and has never heard of him. And so begins every parent's worst nightmare.' Plus, the description for the book tells us even more: 'As news of the disappearance filters through the quiet Dublin suburb and an unexpected suspect is named, whispers start to spread about the women most closely connected to the shocking event. Because only one of them may have taken Milo — but they could all be blamed . . .' All Her Fault, Series Premiere, November 6, Peacock Solve the daily Crossword
Tom's Guide
07-08-2025
- Tom's Guide
Netflix just got this sci-fi action movie with 'The Hunger Games' vibes — and it's already crashed the top 10
Remember the 2010s, when it seemed like almost every week, a new dystopian movie based on a young-adult (or YA) novel hit theatres? The competition to be the next 'Hunger Games' was intense, and while there were a few winners like 'The Maze Runner,' there were also an awful lot of losers. 'The 5th Wave' falls into the latter category. Released in 2016, it was a modest box office success, but didn't reach the heights the distributor, Sony, had hoped, as a sequel never followed (despite there being two more books in the series). To be honest, it's a movie I haven't thought about in almost a decade. So, I was a little surprised to see it making serious waves now that it's arrived on Netflix. The movie arrived on the world's most popular streaming service in its first wave of new content for August, and just a few days later and it's already climbing the platform's top 10 most-watched list. It currently ranks in the No. 8 spot, but I could rise even higher in the days ahead. But underneath the hooky premise, there's an extremely generic quality to 'The 5th Wave' that saw it struggle to stand out in an overcrowded genre. So, if you're considering adding this sci-fi movie to your Netflix watchlist, here are all the details you need to help make your decision. Based on the best-selling novel by Rick Yancey, 'The 5th Wave' takes place on an Earth that has been left devastated by an alien invasion carried out in four waves. The first attack disabled all electricity and communication devices, the next created devastating natural disasters, the third spread a deadly strain of bird flu, and the fourth saw humans mind-controlled to kill each other. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. With fear spreading of a fifth (and final) wave on the way, Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a teenager trying to survive in this new world, and most importantly, be reunited with her younger brother (Zackary Arthur), who is being housed on a military base. To find her brother, she's forced to ally with a mysterious young man, Evan Walker (Alex Roe). But in a world where hostile aliens hide in plain sight, Cassie may not be able to trust anybody she encounters, and the truth of the impending fifth wave might prove to be humanity's end. There's a lot on the surface that I like about 'The 5th Wave.' I think the core concept of an alien invasion hitting the planet in four, increasingly deadly, waves is a fantastic setup, and the paranoia that grips the movie's cast due to the mystery fifth wave adds a sense of mystery. The movie opens particularly strongly, after a quick introduction to Cassie, and the current state of the world (spoilers: things aren't looking good for humanity), the flick jumps to an extended flashback to the invasion being carried out and the first four waves. You'll have to forgive some truly awful CGI in parts, but otherwise, it's an excellent starting point. The problem is that after this compelling intro, the movie doesn't seem to have any further original ideas of its own. Instead, the following two acts play out like a greatest hits collection of YA genre beats. There are all the expected tropes, from our heroine slowly morphing from frightened survivor to capable action hero, and of course, there's a snappy romance as well. Naturally, there are two love interests for Cassie to consider, with Nick Robinson's Ben Thomas thrown into the mix alongside Alex Roe's Evan. I suppose you could give the third act some credit for attempting some big swings, but things get increasingly messy as the finale approaches. What starts as an enjoyable mystery (what is the fifth wave?) becomes more of an exercise in nonsensical storytelling. 'The 5th Wave' also feels frustratingly small-scale, considering it's about an alien force invading the planet. Most of the movie takes place in the woodlands of Ohio, and while I assume this was for budgetary reasons, it does mean that you never get the full scope of this dystopian future. We're constantly told that Earth has been devastated, but we don't see it. The movie also doesn't explore some of the deeper themes that helped to elevate 'The Hunger Games' above its YA trappings. 'The 5th Wave' doesn't have anything to say about society or humanity (which is a key component of dystopian fiction). It all leads to a movie-watching experience that is at best mildly entertaining, and at worst, generic. However, even calling it 'mildly entertaining' might be a little generous, because the critics were not so kind. The movie holds a terrible 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the site's 'Critics Consensus' criticizing the 'unimpressive effects' and 'plot points seemingly pieced together from previous dystopian YA sci-fi films,' a summary that I can't dispute. Viewers didn't care for it all that much either, while its audience score is a little higher at 38% it's still far from a ringing endorsement. Frankly, this isn't a movie I'll be recommending any Netflix subscribers add to their watchlist this month. Just go rewatch 'The Hunger Games' instead. If you are looking for some new Netflix additions worth your attention, here's my roundup of the best new to Netflix movies for August 2025. Or, if you're in a sci-fi mood, we have a guide covering the overlooked sci-fi movies currently on Netflix that you probably missed. Watch "The 5th Wave" on Netflix now Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
