Nightmare Alley UK release date, age rating and parents guide latest

The arrival of a trailer with a 2021 UK release date (details below) has come out of nowhere for the upcoming adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s book, Nightmare Alley. Get the low down on the head-rattler with the latest details on the age rating, our parents guide and when it’s going to come out, along with the story, cast and runtime.

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, the film centres on the life of carnival magician Stan Carlisle who wants to take things to the next level, adding psychic skills and manipulation to his kit bag. Taking his own show onto the road, he goes on to meet psychologist, Dr. Lilith Ritter, whose powers of manipulation surpass his and he soon becomes completely entranced.

It’s a freakish notion, but the dangerous doctor pushes the already dubious Stan to go even further to make their combined skills pay off. With such a dangerous individual calling the shots, the hustler finds himself in a precarious position with the cycle of control and manipulation running full circle.

Cast

Bradley Cooper (Thor: Love and Thunder) leads the cast as Stan, who in turn is led by Cate Blanchett (Thor: Ragnarok) as the formidable Lilith. They’re joined by Toni Collette (Knives Out) as the carnival’s mentalist Zeena, Rooney Mara as electric girl Molly and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man No Way Home) as the carnival barker Clem Hoately.

We’ll update things here with more details about the cast as they’re confirmed.

Nightmare Alley release date UK

The final, exact Nightmare Alley UK release date has been confirmed to be Friday the 21st January 2022, despite the fact that the trailer has it down to come out in December 2021. This is simply the difference between the US and Canada release on the 17th December 2021 and the UK release in January. Clearly cinemas were already too packed in terms of new films in December over here, so they pushed it out by a month.

There’s already Clifford the Big Red Dog, Spider-Man No Way Home, The King’s Man and The Matrix Resurrections out in December, so that didn’t leave much room for the Nightmare Alley release. Instead, it will now be up against Cyrano, out a week earlier on the 14th Jan, and Morbius as week later on the 28th Jan. The only film out on the same weekend, though, is Iraq War drama, A Journal for Jordan.

With the arrival on the big screen in December 2021, it should come out on DVD, Blu-ray and digital in the UK in April 2022, which puts in in a good place for Easter spending too. However, there’s no word as of yet in terms of when it will be streaming.

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You can also see more on the film in the run up to the release with the official Searchlight Pictures Twitter page at https://twitter.com/foxsearchlight.

Age rating and parents guide

The official UK age rating for Nightmare Alley will be confirmed by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) a couple of weeks ahead of the release date. There’s a lot to take from the trailer and there’s also the certificate for the first film to take into account. The 1947 adaptation was given a rating of PG, but we’ll be surprised if that’s the case for the 2021 film looking at the trailer.

With the nature of the film, it’s going to be a bit of a freakish affair from start to end. Parents guide notes include the potential for some violence and sex references, and the trailer includes what looks like a tense fire scene. There’s also going to be a few oddities in the mix, so if you see someone biting the head off a chicken, don’t be surprised.

We’ll update you with more details on the thriller as they get confirmed. You can also check out our movie news section to keep tabs on the latest upcoming films, or visit the Searchlight Pictures website at https://www.searchlightpictures.com/.

Runtime

As with the age rating, the runtime for Nightmare Alley hasn’t been confirmed as of yet, but the previous film was 1 hour 51 minutes, so the 2021 version will probably be around the 2 hour mark as well.