The American Dream has rarely survived contact with a James Gray movie. In “Paper Tiger,” it arrives disguised as a business opportunity, promising two brothers the financial security they’ve spent their lives chasing. Naturally, there’s a catch: the Russian mafiya.
NEON has released the first trailer for James Gray’s bruising new family crime drama, starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson. Set in late-1980s New York, the film turns an apparently lucrative scheme into another distinctly Gray examination of ambition, class, family loyalty, and the terrible things people can convince themselves are necessary to get ahead.
Teller stars as Irwin Pearl, a loving father trying to provide for his wife, Hester (Johansson), and their children. Driver plays his brother Gary, a former cop whose confidence in his ability to manage risk leads the siblings into a scheme that looks too good to be true. Before long, paranoid Russian gangsters are at the family’s doorstep, and whatever promise of upward mobility the brothers imagined begins collapsing under the weight of fear, bad decisions, and increasingly dangerous consequences.
Written, directed, and produced by Gray, “Paper Tiger” premiered in competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where The Playlist gave the film an A and called it “authentic, poignant, and quietly devastating.” Our review described the picture as a return to the filmmaker’s familiar territory of New York crime, brotherhood, class, and families placed under unbearable pressure.
The film also reunites Gray with some of the emotional terrain of “The Yards” and “We Own the Night,” although “Paper Tiger” operates at a quieter, more intimate frequency. Rather than playing primarily as a gangster thriller, Gray allows dread to seep slowly into the Pearl household, where Irwin’s desire to provide for his family becomes inseparable from the danger Gary has brought into their lives.
Driver, in particular, earned strong praise from The Playlist for his slippery, increasingly nervous performance as Gary, while Teller brings warmth and tenderness to Irwin. Johansson grounds the family dynamic as Hester, a woman gradually realizing how much danger has already entered their home.
Gray’s recurring fascination with the American Dream runs straight through the film. Here, the promise of reinvention and financial security gradually becomes entangled with compromise, corruption, and the belief that ordinary people can somehow control systems far more powerful than themselves. As our Cannes review put it, Gray again finds tragedy in characters who become architects of their own collapse without ever losing sympathy for them.
The supporting cast includes Gavin Goudey and Roman Engel. Gray produced alongside Rodrigo Teixeira, Anthony Katagas, Raffaella Leone, Andrea Leone, Marco Perego, Leonardo Maria del Vecchio, Gary Farkas, Carlo Salem, and Andrea Bucko. Cinematographer Joaquín Baca-Asay, who previously worked with Gray on “We Own the Night,” also reunites with the filmmaker.
“Paper Tiger” runs 114 minutes and opens exclusively in theaters on November 13 through NEON. Watch the trailer below.
