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Good Boy

"Some people only learn the hard way."

2026 1h 50m EN
👍
7.3
SOLID
★7.3TMDB · 335
ThrillerDramaMysteryHorror
Synopsis
Spoiler shield

Tommy, a volatile 19-year-old, revels in drugs, parties and violence. After getting separated from his friends on a drunken bender, he is abducted by a shadowy figure. He wakes to find himself imprisoned in the basement of a remote Yorkshire house, inhabited by a very strange family. But what unfolds is not what he could possibly expect.

“Some people only learn the hard way.”

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Cast

Credits

Behind the camera

Director
Jan Komasa
Writers
Bartek Bartosik, Naqqash Khalid
Languages
English
Countries
United Kingdom, Poland

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8
ERA

Did you know

Released this year — you're seeing it while it's still in the cultural conversation.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01
2 / 8
WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: United Kingdom, Poland.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02
3 / 8
DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Jan Komasa, shot by Michał Dymek. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03
4 / 8
DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Abel Korzeniowski. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04
5 / 8
DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Agnieszka Glińska shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05
6 / 8
CAST

Did you know

Anson Boon and Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06
7 / 8
FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Some people only learn the hard way.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#07
8 / 8
WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt34381258 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Jan Komasa directs. Michał Dymek behind the camera. Abel Korzeniowski scores. Agnieszka Glińska cuts. Produced in United Kingdom, Poland. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

  • 1Released this year — you're seeing it while it's still in the cultural conversation.
  • 2International production across 2 countries: United Kingdom, Poland.
  • 3Directed by Jan Komasa, shot by Michał Dymek. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
  • 4Original score by Abel Korzeniowski. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
  • 5Editor Agnieszka Glińska shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
  • 6Anson Boon and Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough carry the top of the cast.
  • 7Marketing tagline: "Some people only learn the hard way.".
  • 8IMDB entry: tt34381258 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
  • 9Classified under 10 themes, including "kidnapping", "yorkshire", "paranoid", "family life".
  • 10Released under 15 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography
Michał Dymek
Original score
Abel Korzeniowski
Editing
Agnieszka Glińska
Production design
Fletcher Jarvis
Costume design
Julian Day
Makeup / hair
Waldemar Pokromski
Sound
Radosław Ochnio
Stunt coordinator
Tomasz Krzemieniecki
Runtime
110 min · 1h 50m
Aspect ratio (typical)
1.37:1 (Academy)
Status
Released
Original language
EN
Certification (US)
R

Also by

Jan Komasa

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

  • CinemaSerf
    ★ 7/10

    “Tommy” (Anson Boon) is an odious cretin of a teenager who bullies, boozes and snorts his way through life until one night he finds himself all alone and somewhat the worse for wear. Next morning, we meet “Rina” (Monika Frajczyk) who has arrived at a remote country house where she is rather perfunctorily interviewed for a cleaning job by “Christopher” (Stephen Graham). On her subsequent tour of their home she is introduced to his borderline catatonic wife “Catherine” (Andrea Riseborough) and their son “Jonathan” (Kit Rakusen) before being taken downstairs to the basement and encountering a lad who is chained to the wall. Yep, that’s our “Tommy” - just as foul mouthed and threatening as before, only now he’s a bit more sober. Oddly enough, that doesn’t scare off “Rina” and so we know that she must have problems of her own as we now follow quite a menacingly bizarre process of what could be called rehabilitation for the angry young man, and possibly for others too. What I did enjoy here was the powerfully charismatic effort from a Boon who genuinely came across as obnoxious as we start out but who becomes someone altogether more shrewd as the dynamics in the house change in a series of quite unexpected ways. Just watch his eyes! Riseborough is also on solid form as her persona deceives effectively and with about half an hour left it’s fairly safe to say that I hadn’t really much of a clue what was going to happen to whom at the end. Stockholm syndrome maybe? Faux-Stockholm syndrome maybe? Watch and see, it’s worth it and I expect to see a lot more of Anson Boon.

  • The Fixate & Binge Podcast, w/ Joe Curdy
    ★ 8/10

    Polish director Jan Komasa is emerging as a serious talent worth watching. With HEEL, we are given something that initially recalls A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, but gradually feels closer to a folk-horror variation on THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE — a psychological tale of confinement, forced rehabilitation, and a very bad boy being coerced into becoming good. Before we get there, however, HEEL opens with what feels like 15 different production-company logos flashing across the screen — an unintentionally hilarious parade that starts to resemble a FAMILY GUY gag before the actual movie finally begins. But once the film gets going, it grabs ahold of you and rarely loosens its grip. Local Yorkshire droog Tommy (played by Anson Boon) is addicted to booze, drugs, sex and violence — wreaking havoc wherever he goes in a whirlwind of debauchery. Like a music video from The Prodigy, Tommy snorts, glugs, and rages aimlessly through life until one fateful evening when, in a drunken stupor, he is separated from his pals after collapsing unconscious in the street. When Tommy awakes, he discovers himself chained like a dog to a dingy mattress in the cellar of a Yorkshire farmhouse, tended to by Chris (Stephen Graham). We sense sinister motives behind the kidnapping — though it's hard to feel an ounce of sympathy for the loathsome Tommy — as Chris makes his intentions clear: Tommy will be "corrected" until he can be reformed and welcomed into their family as an older brother to their son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen), and a son to his wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough). Nursing a recent tragedy, Chris, Kathryn and son Jonathan — each broken in their own way — have constructed an unsettling domestic fantasy in which Tommy isn't merely their prisoner, but a replacement piece intended to fill a void that grief has left behind. Not one to buckle easily, Tommy puts up one hell of a fight, rebelling against his incarceration with abusive language and a torrent of threats that underscore the sheer improbability of this twisted Pygmalion experiment. The harder Chris attempts to hammer Tommy into the shape of a civilized human being, the more apparent it becomes that this bizarre rehabilitation may transform everyone involved. But Komasa's film (written by Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid) has several surprises in this psychological tale of family, trauma, acceptance and trust that begs the question: can empathy be taught to someone as wayward as Tommy? With incredible performances by Boon, the always brilliant Graham and Riseborough, HEEL is one of the biggest surprises of the year — a disturbing and unexpectedly moving examination of damaged people attempting to repair one another through deeply damaged means. What begins as a sinister tale of captivity and forced rehabilitation gradually becomes something far more compassionate, suggesting that even in the most unlikely of people, empathy may not simply be innate — it can be learned.

Production companies

Who made it

  • Recorded Picture Company

    Recorded Picture Company

    GB

  • Skopia Film

    Skopia Film

    PL

  • Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych

    Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych

    PL

  • VE

    Venatu Capital

    PL

  • CANAL+ Polska

    CANAL+ Polska

    PL

  • TVN Warner Bros. Discovery

    TVN Warner Bros. Discovery

    PL

Key crew

  • ProducerEwa Piaskowska
  • ProducerJerzy Skolimowski
  • CastingNina Gold
  • CastingMartin Ware
  • Costume DesignJulian Day
  • EditorAgnieszka Glińska
  • Production DesignFletcher Jarvis
  • Set DecorationToni Child
  • Makeup DesignerWaldemar Pokromski
  • Hair DesignerWaldemar Pokromski
  • Sound DesignerRadosław Ochnio
  • Executive ProducerCaroline Cooper Charles
  • Executive ProducerNaomi Despres
  • Executive ProducerMichèle Marshall
  • Executive ProducerŁukasz Poniński
  • Executive ProducerPeter Watson
  • Co-ProducerIvan Kelava
  • Co-ProducerMatthew Baker
  • Co-ProducerLeon Rybczyński
  • Co-ProducerMałgorzata Seck

  • Co-ProducerZbigniew Domagalski
  • ProducerJeremy Thomas
  • Script SupervisorBeata Krękiewicz
  • First Assistant DirectorMichał Piłat

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

  • kidnapping
  • yorkshire
  • paranoid
  • family life
  • toxic relationship
  • toxic family
  • dramatic
  • complicated
  • harsh
  • sympathetic

Release history · US

When it landed

  • Theatrical (limited)2026-03-06R
  • Digital2026-03-06R

Also known as

International titles

  • HeelUS
  • Good Boy - Wir wollen nur dein BestesDE
  • The Good BoyGB
  • HeelSE
  • The Good BoyAU
  • Good Boy - Terapia de ChoqueBR
  • Heel (The Good Boy)VA
  • 恶徒CN
  • 發條狗HK
  • Глазами псаRU
  • Un Buen ChicoMX
  • Un Buen ChicoCL
  • Un Buen ChicoES
  • İyi ÇocukTR
  • Hodný chlapecCZ

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