Eddington trailer: Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone star in Ari Aster pandemic movie

The first trailer for Eddington, director Ari Aster’s new movie starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, and Austin Butler, is here. The movie, described as a western thriller and black comedy, is set during the pandemic with the trailer comprising of Phoenix’s character, a sheriff in the small New Mexico town of Eddington, scrolling social media on his phone.

It is through his feed that he encounters the various characters in the town he oversees. There is a cult leader type (Butler) preaching about how “pain is not a coincidence.” Stone, meanwhile, appears in an earnest video in which she says she is “speaking now to deny [her] husband’s announcement yesterday, which was false.”

Those wanting to forget everything that went down in 2020 might not be rushing to watch Eddington but fans of Aster (Midsommar, Heretic, Beau Is Afraid) will be accustomed to him pulling something great out of true darkness.

Flashes of humor are present in the trailer, too. “Of course, they keep looking at that lab in China. If you look at that lab in Wuhan,” a narrator’s voice says at the beginning of the clip. “When that was established, it was 1956, of course, that was the year Tom Hanks was born, the first celebrity with the virus.”

Another character, a Tik-Tokker played by German actress Amélie Hoeferle, crosses the timeline with a video reading “When you finish reading James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room” and captioned, “1 like = 1 ACAB.”

Eddington will have its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in May. It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Clifton Collins Jr. and Amélie Hoeferle.