First Clip from Martin McDonagh's 'Wild Horse Nine' Surfaces as Film Lands at Venice
The first clip from Martin McDonagh's "Wild Horse Nine" has arrived, courtesy of Deadline, giving audiences their first moving-image glimpse of a film that launched at the Venice Film Festival in late August 2026 (Deadline).
The film is set just before the 1973 Chilean coup, a historical moment when the military overthrew President Salvador Allende. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island by their bureau chief MJ, played by Steve Buscemi. Mariana di Girolamo and Ailín Salas co-star as a pair of rebellious students. Tom Waits, Parker Posey and Mark Ruffalo round out the cast (Deadline; Deadline).
McDonagh wrote the screenplay and produces alongside Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Anita Overland. The film is a UK, USA and Chile production with a running time of 118 minutes, according to the Biennale's official programme (La Biennale di Venezia).
Venice has given the film a competition slot — the Venezia 83 Competition at the 83rd Venice Film Festival. Screenings are set for 3 September at 11:15 for pass holders and 20:00 for the public, with an additional pass-holder screening on 4 September at 11:30 (La Biennale di Venezia). Toronto followed by adding the film to its 2026 lineup as well (Deadline). Searchlight has claimed a 6 November 2026 release date for theatres (Deadline).
This is McDonagh's first film since "The Banshees of Inisherin," which earned nine Oscar nominations in 2023, including for directing, writing and Best Picture. The new film also reunites him with Sam Rockwell, who won the Supporting Actor Oscar for their previous collaboration, "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" — a film that collected seven nominations and two wins in total, the other going to Frances McDormand as Best Actress (Deadline).
A trailer had already been released back in March, making this clip the second substantial look at the film for audiences ahead of the November release (Deadline).
McDonagh is also set to receive an honorary award at the Zurich Film Festival, adding another stop to what is shaping up to be a busy autumn on the festival circuit (Deadline).
For a film-maker whose last two outings collectively earned sixteen Oscar nominations, the jump to a period political thriller set on the world's most remote inhabited island is a notable gear shift. Malkovich and Rockwell as CIA men on Easter Island in the days before a coup is the kind of premise that resists easy categorisation — which is, by most measures, exactly where McDonagh tends to do his best work.
