Netflix has acquired worldwide rights to Jack of Spades, Joel Coen’s gothic mystery with Josh O’Connor, Lesley Manville, Patsy Ferran and Damian Lewis in the cast, and will release it in cinemas in autumn 2027 before it streams on the service, the company announced on 2 November. The price was not disclosed. UTA, which represents Joel and Ethan Coen, brokered the sale, according to Deadline, Variety and TheWrap.
Key facts
- Buyer: Netflix, worldwide rights; theatrical release in autumn 2027, then streaming
- Director: Joel Coen; screenplay by Eleanor Catton, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen and Conor McPherson
- Source: Frances Frederica Montrésor’s 1901 novel The Alien: A Story of Middle Age
- Producers: Robert Graf, Frances McDormand, Joel Coen, Steven Rales (Indian Paintbrush), Graham Broadbent and Pete Czernin (Blueprint Pictures)
- Seller’s agency: UTA; price and release date not disclosed
The deal puts a finished film by a four-time Oscar winner in Netflix’s 2027 slate and commits the streamer to another cinema run. It also brings Joel and Ethan Coen back together on a script: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which Netflix released in 2018, was the last film they made together.
Netflix describes the film as “a sinister gothic mystery filled with intrigue and betrayal set in the atmospheric Scottish Highlands”. Variety reports that it takes place in the 1880s. How closely it follows Montrésor’s novel has not been said.
A sale that started in the summer
Jack of Spades was not a package bought on a script. Variety, which first reported in August that the film was being offered to buyers, says it wrapped in Glasgow late last year and then screened for several prospective studios before the deal. No other bidders have been named.
Two independent banners are among the producers. Steven Rales of Indian Paintbrush won the Oscar for best live-action short as a producer of Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, which Netflix released in 2023. Blueprint Pictures, Graham Broadbent and Pete Czernin’s company, made In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin. Robert Graf produced The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Tragedy of Macbeth with Coen, and Frances McDormand produced and starred in Macbeth. Donald MacKinnon is executive producer.
Behind the camera, Coen works again with cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who shot Inside Llewyn Davis and The Tragedy of Macbeth, and composer Carter Burwell, who has scored the brothers’ films since Blood Simple in 1984.
Back at Netflix
This is Joel Coen’s second film with Netflix. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the brothers’ western anthology, received three Oscar nominations, for adapted screenplay, costume design and original song. Joel Coen’s first solo feature, The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), starring Denzel Washington and McDormand, went out through A24 in cinemas and Apple TV+. Ethan Coen has since directed Drive-Away Dolls (2024) and Honey Don’t! (2025) for Focus Features.
Josh O’Connor also returns to the streamer after Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man in 2025 and his run as Prince Charles in The Crown. Ferran, an Olivier winner, has appeared in Living and Darkest Hour; Lewis’s credits include Homeland and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Manville was nominated for an Oscar for Phantom Thread.
The acquisition comes weeks after Netflix’s leadership change, when Peter Rice replaced Bela Bajaria as chief content officer, as Variety reported at the time. Netflix has not said who in its film group led the deal. Among its other recent film commitments is Keanu Reeves’s Maelstrom.
What is not known
Netflix has given neither a release date nor the length of the cinema window before the film reaches the service. The streamer’s window for David Fincher’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth gives a recent benchmark: it gets a two-week IMAX-only run from 25 November and streams from 23 December, and Regal and Cinemark reportedly declined its IMAX run, leaving most of the US screens to AMC. No festival premiere for Jack of Spades has been announced, and the running time has not been confirmed.
Our reading
Variety expects the cinema release to make Jack of Spades an awards contender for Netflix in 2028, and The Hollywood Reporter says the company sees it as a major awards prospect. For cinemas, the open point is the window. With Cliff Booth, Netflix left four weeks between the start of the IMAX run and streaming. It has not yet set a release date or a window for Jack of Spades.
Sources
- Deadline, “Netflix Acquires Worldwide On Joel Coen’s ‘Jack Of Spades’ For Fall 2027 Theatrical Release”, 2 November 2026
- Variety, “Joel Coen’s ‘Jack of Spades,’ With Josh O’Connor and Patsy Ferran, Lands at Netflix for Fall 2027”, 2 November 2026
- Screen International, “Netflix acquires Joel Coen’s ‘Jack Of Spades’”, 2 November 2026
- TheWrap, “Joel Coen’s ‘Jack of Spades’ Goes to Netflix With an Accompanying Theatrical Release”, 2 November 2026
- The Hollywood Reporter, “Netflix Acquires Joel Coen’s ‘Jack of Spades’ for Next Oscar Season”, 2 November 2026
- IndieWire, “Netflix Will Give Joel Coen’s Gothic Mystery ‘Jack of Spades’ a Theatrical Release in 2027”, 2 November 2026