Colin Farrell Gambles on His Redemption in 'Ballad of a Small Player's Trailer

Awards season is the best time of year for movie buffs, as all of the studios put forth their best films over the autumn months in hopes of landing recognition at the Oscars, and all the smaller events that lead up to it. However, two studios have yet to claim the biggest prize of Best Picture. The most glaring example is Amazon, which has landed multiple nominations (and won Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor) for Manchester by the Sea, but failed to secure the top prize; it is also the only streaming service never to take home Best Drama at the Emmys. The other Netflix, which has landed wins for Best Director for Roma and The Power of the Dog, but also did not capture the final statue.

Netflix has been working on conquering the Awards circuit since 2015, landing its first success with Mudbound in 2018, and it is gearing up for 2025 with a slate that includes an obvious contender, Ballad of a Small Player, starring Academy favorite Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin). It's far from the only awards contender viewers will see from the streaming service; Netflix no longer puts all its eggs in one basket that way. However, it is one they clearly expect to do well, to the point that it will receive a full two-week run in theaters before moving to streaming, rather than the standard one.

Netflix still has an uphill battle; the film industry has been resistant to awarding it Best Picture, especially since Netflix treats the theatrical release as an irritating hoop it must jump through to qualify, rather than the place where films belong. But the one-two punch of the pandemic and the strike, not to mention the slow collapse of studios like Paramount and Warner Bros, had made the mid-2020s ripe for the picking, and Netflix is hoping this is the year it finally strikes gold.

Here's the film's logline:

Lord Doyle is laying low in Macau – spending his days and nights on the casino floors, drinking heavily and gambling what little money he has left. Struggling to keep up with his fast-rising debts, he is offered a lifeline by the mysterious Dao Ming, a casino employee with secrets of her own. However, in hot pursuit is Cynthia Blithe – a private investigator ready to confront Doyle with what he is running from. As Doyle tries to climb to salvation, the confines of reality start to close in.

Farrell stars as Lord Doyle, alongside British actors Tilda Swinton (Three Thousand Years of Longing) as Cynthia Blithe, Alex Jennings (The Crown), plus Hong Kong film stars Fala Chen (The Undoing) as Dao Ming, and Deanie Ip (A Simple Life).

The film hails from director Edward Berger (last year's Oscar contender Conclave) and was adapted by Rowan Joffé (The Informer) from Lawrence Osborne's 2014 novel The Ballad of a Small Player. Berger is executive producing for his Nine Hours banner alongside Mike Goodridge for Good Chaos and Matthew James Wilkinson for Stigma Films.

Ballad of a Small Player will have a limited release in the U.S. beginning Wednesday, October 15, and then in the UK & Ireland on Friday, October 17, 2025. The film will be available for streaming globally on Netflix starting Wednesday, October 29, 2025.