The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

"Everyone hungers for something."

2023 2h 37m EN

👍

7.0

SOLID

★7.0TMDB · 3,716

Science FictionAction

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

64 years before he becomes the tyrannical president of Panem, Coriolanus Snow sees a chance for a change in fortunes when he mentors Lucy Gray Baird, the female tribute from District 12.

“Everyone hungers for something.”

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Cast

Tom Blyth
Coriolanus Snow
Rachel Zegler
Lucy Gray Baird
Peter Dinklage
Dean Casca Highbottom
Jason Schwartzman
Lucky Flickerman
Hunter Schafer
Tigris
Josh Rivera
Sejanus Plinth
Viola Davis
Dr. Volumnia Gaul
Fionnula Flanagan
Grandma’am

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Francis Lawrence
Writers: Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt
Languages: English
Countries: Germany, United States of America

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

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 157 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

$100M budget — tentpole studio territory.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.4× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 3 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: Germany, United States of America.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "The Hunger Games – New Trilogy Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

403+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Francis Lawrence, shot by Jo Willems. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Francis Lawrence directs. Jo Willems behind the camera. James Newton Howard scores. Mark Yoshikawa cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in Germany, United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 157 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
2$100M budget — tentpole studio territory.
3Made its money back 3.4× over at the box office.
4Released 3 years ago.
5International production across 2 countries: Germany, United States of America.
6Part of the "The Hunger Games – New Trilogy Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
7403+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
8Directed by Francis Lawrence, shot by Jo Willems. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
9Original score by James Newton Howard. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
10Editor Mark Yoshikawa shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
11Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler and Peter Dinklage carry the top of the cast.
12Marketing tagline: "Everyone hungers for something.".
13IMDB entry: tt10545296 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
14Classified under 21 themes, including "daughter", "based on novel or book", "arena", "fight".
15Released under 14 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Jo Willems
Original score: James Newton Howard
Editing: Mark Yoshikawa
Production design: Uli Hanisch
Costume design: Trish Summerville
Makeup / hair: Hannah Marie Abts
VFX supervisor: Adrian De Wet
Sound: Michael Babcock
Stunt coordinator: Scott J. Ateah
Runtime: 157 min · 2h 37m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $100,000,000
Box office: $337,371,917
Return: 337% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)

Part of

The Hunger Games – New Trilogy Collection

This collection includes the new trilogy of films from The Hunger Games series. Serving as both a prequel and an extension of the classic four‑film saga, the series delves deeper into the history of Panem and the origin stories of its key figures. It currently includes The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, which follows the early life of President Snow, as well as The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, a prequel centered on a young Haymitch during the 50th Hunger Games. Together, these works further expand the vast world of The Hunger Games, revealing new truths about power, rebellion, and survival.

Also by

Francis Lawrence

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2023-11-23
★ 7/10
I couldn't help wondering if Francis Lawrence had just asked for that "Tom fella..." "You know..." The casting director didn't realise he meant that "Tom fella" from "Harry Potter" and got Tom Blyth instead. There's an uncanny resemblance with the blonde floppy hair and the rather linear facial expressions. Indeed, despite a promising (if frustrating) shower scene at the top of the film, Blyth ("Coryo") is really what drags this otherwise quite decent action adventure film down. Rachel Zegler, on the other hand, is full of enthusiasm as her "Lucy Gray" character is selected to fight for District 12 in the "Hunger Games". Meantime, "Dean Highbottom" (the infrequently used Peter Dinklage) has come up with a way to spike the dwindling television ratings. He has decided to allocate one of his top students to mentor each of the captives. Yep - "Coryo" is put with "Lucy Gray". A bit of sabotage changes the nature of the game and gradually our hero starts to wonder if he is on the right side - especially when he becomes a little too emotionally involved with his protégé and attracts the enmity of his own erstwhile mentor. Luckily, the whole scenario is being overseen by the hammily menacing "Volumnia Gaul" (Viola Davis) who is clearly having a ball with industrial scale make up and a barrel of genetically modified snakes. The last twenty minutes smacks a little too much of sequel building, but this film has plenty of action and intrigue, loads of back-stabbing and just a little moralising. Zegler delivers a few folky style ballads confidently and generally does a lively enough job keeping it quite a bit better than I was expecting. It needs a cinema, though - the grand scale effects and photography work best that way. On the television it will probably just come across as a bit derivative.
austinmgray2023-11-25
★ 8/10
one of the best installments to the Hunger Games series. it’s definitely the darkest and most political entry to the saga. act III could have been more fleshed out, but it doesn’t detract from the story the film is telling. act III was the most compelling segments in aspects of Coriolanus Snow’s villain origins. if you're a fan of political dramas or a character study or just a huge fan of the Hunger Games series, this is the film for you. excellent casting, excellent music, and deliciously evil performances.
Imon Reza2023-12-24
With its heartbreaking origin story that depicts the fall of President Snow, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the ideal masterpiece of a frightening origin story collection. The adaptation of the novel to the movie was done so well that it is really remarkable. A very high quality cinematography is present. Rachel Zegler is the personification of Lucy Gray, while Tom Blyth is a leading man. What an amazing experience it was! The whole auditorium was sitting on the edge of their seats, completely silent, and just appreciating the movie. Everything in the film was flawless, including the narrative, the acting, the music, and the allusions. In the first place, I feel it is necessary to offer my daughter, Rachel Zegler, some praise. Her performance as Lucy Gray gave the impression that she had actually torn her off the page. Rachel did a wonderful job of portraying Lucy Gray, who was the epitome of perfection, and I don't believe anybody else could have achieved the same level of success. Rachel's singing is even more incredible than her acting, by a significant margin. It is common knowledge that Rachel is an incredible vocalist, but the way she sings in this film leaves me feeling as if I had never heard her voice before. She is such a powerhouse of an actor, and I am so thrilled to watch her succeed in this production. The fact that she sang everything live on set is another reason why I am so proud of her. In my view, this is without a doubt her finest performance so far. Following that, I feel compelled to call attention to the outstanding performance that Tom Blyth gave as Snow. He did a fantastic job of taking what Donald Sutherland had done with the role and giving it his own spin while still making it his own interpretation of the character. On Snow, Tom was able to bring out both the charming and the insane aspects of her personality. I found his acting to be particularly noteworthy in the third act of the movie, particularly the moment in which he was seen in the woods with Lucy Gray. The manner in which Tom was able to incorporate everything of Snow's inner monologue that is shown to us in the novel into his facial expressions was absolutely stunning. He did an excellent job in this function. When it comes to this film, there are a lot of other things that I could simply enthuse about. Every single one of the other performers had outstanding performances, and they were all outstanding. On top of that, the music is really fantastic. It is impossible for me to adequately express why I feel the desire to have the music of this movie infused into my veins. The soundtrack was so powerful that it brought tears to my eyes even at the very beginning of the film, when there was nothing that was really occurring at that point!!!! In addition, I would like to draw attention to the outstanding costume design that was done for this film. This movie brought us back into the realm of Panem, and it seemed as if we had never left! There were so many things and individuals that worked together to make this happen. The movie was really stunning, thanks to the stunning performances, locations, costumes, and music that Olivia Rodrigo contributed, among other things. Since the first nostalgic film in the series, which was released in 2012 and starred Jennifer Lawrence as the legendary songbird mockingjay herself, Katniss Everdeen, this has quickly become my favorite installment in the series. All things considered, this is a smashing success for moviegoers and movie aficionados alike; you should not miss it when it is shown on the big screen.