Luca Guadagnino may have served a career-best with this year’s Zendaya-starring, tennis love-triangle drama, Challengers—but his next film could have the power to surpass it. As film festival season kicks off, his next project, Queer, is set to be one of the buzziest films premiering this fall. The film stars Daniel Craig in his first post-007 dramatic film role, which is also being hailed as an Oscar-worthy, career-high performance. Here’s everything to know about Queer:
What is the plot of Queer?
Queer is based on William S. Burroughs’s semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, which was a follow-up of sorts to his seminal 1953 novel, Junkie. Written in the early 1950s, Queer wasn’t published until 1985, when it quickly became a classic of both the Beat and gay literature genres. Craig stars as Burroughs’s alter ego, William Lee, a World War II veteran living in late-1940s Mexico City, surviving on part-time jobs and his GI Bill benefits. William finds himself part of a bar scene filled with gay American expats and college students, and falls for younger man Eugene Allerton, who is based on Burroughs’s real-life love interest, fellow veteran Adelbert Lewis Marker.
Who is in the Queer cast?
In addition to Craig, Drew Starkey (Outer Banks) plays the young Allerton. Jason Schwartzman, Lesley Manville, Omar Apollo, and Henrique Zaga are also in the cast.
Aside from his role as mischievous detective Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out universe, this marks Craig’s first role since portraying James Bond in five films since 2006. While the 56-year-old British actor has never received an Oscar nod over his three-decade career, this role could clinch him one.
Is there a trailer for Queer?
The official trailer for Queer dropped on October 29. Set to a cover of Nirvana’s “All Apologies,” the clip shows a series of scenes where tension builds between Craig’s William and Starkey’s Eugene. “A wise old queen taught me that I had a duty to live,” Craig narrates. “You know, to conquer hate with knowledge and sincerity and love. The difficulty is to convince someone else he is really part of you.” As the tense clip continues, William pursues Eugene, and the two eventually end up intertwined in bed. Watch below:
A second trailer, released November 25, shows Craig’s William falling for Starkey’s Eugene, and wondering whether he’s queer. “You could always just ask,” Schwartzman’s says. “No, no, no, no, no, no,” William says. “Doors already open, can’t close it now,” Manville’s character adds wisely. Watch the new trailer for Queer below:
Who else worked on Queer?
Guadagnino tapped many of his frequent collaborators for Queer. In his W cover story earlier this year, the director told Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson that Queer is “the movie of my life. I’ve wanted to make it since I was 20. In the process, I wrote a script that I discarded, but the brilliant writer of Challengers, Justin Kuritzkes, has written the adaptation of Queer. It’s a real labor of love.”
Challengers cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and music composers (and Nine Inch Nails bandmates) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are also involved in the project.
When is the Queer release date?
Queer had its world and US premieres at the Venice Film Festival and the New York Film Festival, respectively. It will have a limited theatrical US release on November 27.
Queer was the third Guadagnino film to play at NYFF, following 2017’s Call Me by Your Name and 2022’s Bones and All. The Challengers director is also currently working on Separate Rooms, a story about an Italian writer mourning the loss of his boyfriend.
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