Hot off the success of ‘Poor Things,’ Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos are teaming up once again with a unique anthology film.
Image by Jefferson Chacon
Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro; Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson; Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. These are some of the most acclaimed director-actor pairings to ever grace the silver screen. After the success of The Favourite and most recently with Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone are looking to join that coveted club. Kinds of Kindness will mark the two’s fourth project together (they also worked together on the 2022 short film Bleat), and because of their success rate, it has become one of the most anticipated flicks of 2024.
Coming off her second Academy Award win for her performance in Poor Things, many are looking forward to what Stone has up her sleeve next. From the film’s impressive ensemble cast and intriguing plot, here is everything we know about Kinds of Kindness.
Editor’s Note: This piece was updated on April 11, 2024.
Kinds of Kindness
DirectorYorgos LanthimosCastEmma Stone , Jesse Plemons , Willem Dafoe , Hunter Schafer , Hong Chau , Margaret Qualley , Joe Alwyn , Mamoudou AthieMain GenreAnthologyWritersYorgos Lanthimos , Efthymis FilippouStudio(s)Film4 , Element PicturesDistributor(s)Searchlight PicturesDoes ‘Kinds of Kindness’ Have a Release Date?
Image via Searchlight Pictures
In March 2024, just a few days after Poor Things snagged four Oscar wins, Searchlight Pictures announced that Kinds of Kindness would be released on June 21, 2024, in select theaters. In its opening weekend, the film will be released against Jeff Nichol‘s crime drama The Bikeriders, the Blake Lively-led romance It Ends with Us, and the June Squibb Sundance comedy Thelma. This will mark Lanthimos’ first movie to be released during the summer movie season since The Lobster in May 2016, as his last three movies were released in November and December
Kinds of Kindness will have its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in May 2024, where it will be competing for the coveted Palme d’Or, marking the third Lanthimos film to do so after The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The movie will be competing against other highly anticipated titles, including Francis Ford Coppola‘s Megalopolis, Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canda, and Ali Abbasi‘s The Apprentice.
Will ‘Kinds of Kindness’ Be in Theaters or on Streaming?
Image via Searchlight Pictures
Much like Lanthimos’ other films, Kinds of Kindness will initially receive an exclusive theatrical release before eventually heading to streaming. The film is being distributed by the Disney-owned Searchlight Pictures, who also distributed The Favourite and Poor Things, so the film will likely make its streaming debut on the merged Disney+ and Hulu app, which is due to launch in spring 2024. Poor Things was recently made available to stream on Hulu, so if you haven’t had the chance to check the Oscar-winning movie out, now is your chance.
Is There a Trailer for ‘Kinds of Kindness’?KINDS OF KINDNESS ｜Official Teaser ｜Searchlight Pictures
Searchlight Pictures released the first official trailer for Kinds of Kindness on March 27, 2024. Set to the Eurythmics‘ classic “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This),” the teaser runs at only 46 seconds and doesn’t reveal much of the plot. However, it does give us a good look at the movie’s overall tone and how it’ll shift between color and black-and-white photography.
Following the announcement of the movie’s world premiere at Cannes, Searchlight Pictures released a 30-second spot for Kinds of Kindness on social media.
What Will ‘Kinds of Kindness’ Be About?
Image via Searchlight Pictures
Unlike Lanthimos’ other movies, Kinds of Kindness will be an anthology film. In an interview with The Guardian, Lanthimos revealed some key details about the film:
“It’s a contemporary film, set in the US – three different stories, with four or five actors who play one part in each story, so they all play three different parts. It was almost like making three films, really.”
Kinds of Kindness will mark Lanthimos’ first contemporary film since The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which was released in 2017. Auteur directors tackling anthology films is not a rare occurrence in the industry; Wes Anderson did it with The French Dispatch in 2021, and Joel & Ethan Coen directed The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in 2018. Lanthimos’ distinct style feels like it will be perfectly suited to this kind of format.
The official synopsis for Kinds of Kindness reads:
KINDS OF KINDNESS is 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.
Who Stars in ‘Kinds of Kindness’?
As previously mentioned, Emma Stone will be starring in Kinds of Kindness, marking her fourth collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos. While nothing has been revealed about the characters she will be playing, it does seem like she will be one of the recurring cast members that Lanthimos mentioned while describing the film. Stone is most known for her Academy Award-winning performances as the aspiring actress Mia in Damien Chazelle‘s award-winning musical La La Land and the resurrected Victorian woman Bella Baxter in Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Stone also recently earned high praise for her role as the HGTV nepo-baby Whitney in Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie‘s bizarre Paramount+ limited series, The Curse. Stone also worked with Lanthimos on a secret new movie that was filmed in Greece in 2023 and is rumored to reunite with the filmmaker for Save the Green Planet, a remake of the 2003 Korean film.
Stone will not be the only Lanthimos veteran in the ensemble either. Academy Award nominee Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley, who appeared on-screen with Stone in Poor Things, have also joined the cast of the film. Joe Alwyn, who was a major scene stealer in The Favourite, will also be reuniting with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker.
The rest of the cast of Kinds of Kindness include Academy Award nominee Jesse Plemons (Killers of the Flower Moon), Academy Award nominee Hong Chau (The Whale), Mamoudou Athie (Elemental), and Hunter Schafer (Euphoria).
Who Is Making ‘Kinds of Kindness’?
Not only will Yorgos Lanthimos be directing and producing Kinds of Kindness, but he will also be co-writing the screenplay with Academy Award nominee Efthimis Filippou. This is not Filippou’s first collaboration with Lanthimos. He previously co-wrote the scripts for Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer with Lanthimos. Academy Award nominee Tony McNamara, who served as the screenwriter for Lanthimos’ last two films, will not be involved this time around. Producing the film alongside Lanthimos are Ed Guiney (Poor Things), Andrew Lowe (The Wonder), and Kasia Malipan (In Fabric).
After serving as the director of photography on The Favourite and Poor Things, Academy Award nominee Robbie Ryan is behind the film’s cinematography. Academy Award nominee Yorgos Mavropsaridis serves as the editor of Kinds of Kindness, having worked with Lanthimos on all of his previous movies. Academy Award-nominee Thomas Newman (Elemental) composed the score for Kinds of Kindness, which marks his first-ever collaboration with Lanthimos.
When and Where Did ‘Kinds of Kindness’ Film?
Image via Searchlight Pictures
Originally titled “AND,” Kinds of Kindness began filming in October 2022 in New Orleans. Principal photography was completed the following December. In the previously mentioned interview with The Guardian, Lanthimos revealed that he was still working on editing the movie in December 2023.
