‘The Tragedy Of Macbeth’ Trailer: Denzel Washington & Frances McDormand Retell Shakespeare’s Darkest Moment For Joel Coen

One of the most anticipated films of the year was already seen earlier this year: “The Tragedy of Macbeth” by writer/director Joel Coen (going solo for the first time without Ethan Coen), made its world premiere at the New York Film Festival to much acclaim (read our review). Starring Denzel Washington, Frances McDormand, Corey Hawkins, Brendan Gleeson, and Harry Melling, the film is a stark, but fierce black and white adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play about murder, ambition, madness, wrathful cunning, greed and guilt; a cautionary tale about the lust for power.

‘The Tragedy Of Macbeth’: Denzel Washington & Frances McDormand Are Fearless In Joel Coen’s Bleak, But Thrilling Adaptation [NYFF Review]

“The Tragedy of Macbeth” arrives in theaters on December 25 and streaming on Apple TV+ on January 14. It’s obviously going to vie hard for Oscars, and AppleTV+ and A24, who co-jointly produced and are releasing the film have released a new teaser trailer to get the blood and anticipation flowing.

Here’s the synopsis from the New York Film Festival:

A work of stark chiaroscuro and incantatory rage, Joel Coen’s boldly inventive visualization of The Scottish Play is an anguished film that stares, mouth agape, at a sorrowful world undone by blind greed and thoughtless ambition. In meticulously world-weary performances, a strikingly inward Denzel Washington is the man who would be king and an effortlessly Machiavellian Frances McDormand is his Lady, a couple driven to political assassination—and deranged by guilt—after the cunning prognostications of a trio of “weird sisters” (a virtuoso physical inhabitation by Kathryn Hunter). Though it echoes the forbidding visual designs—and aspect ratios—of Laurence Olivier’s classic 1940s Shakespeare adaptations, as well as the bloody medieval madness of Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Coen’s tale of sound and fury is entirely his own—and undoubtedly one for our moment, a frightening depiction of amoral political power-grabbing that, like its hero, ruthlessly barrels ahead into the inferno. An Apple/A24 release.

“The Tragedy Of Macbeth” hits theaters on Christmas Day, likely a limited release, and then will be seen far and wide on AppleTV+ in January. Watch the new teaser trailer below.