Pop Stardom Turns Ritualistic in A24’s ‘Mother Mary’

A24’s Mother Mary, arriving Spring 2026, is shaping up to be less a music drama and more a harrowing and spiritual reckoning. Directed by David Lowery (The Green Knight, 2021), the film stars Anne Hathaway as an untouchable pop icon whose private life fractures into something darker, stranger, and far more dangerous than her public image could ever allow. 

Hathaway’s Mother Mary exists in two forms, and the trailer opens by introducing us to both. The first version is the version the world knows: luminous, ethereal, almost saintly beneath stage lights and beautiful makeup. But that illusion collapses quickly when the second version arrives, unannounced and soaked by a storm, to the remote home of fashion designer Sam Anselm, played by Michaela Coel. Here, Mary is pale, withdrawn, stripped of all her bravado — and she’s desperate in a way her fame cannot disguise.  

For its first minute, Mother Mary teases a somewhat familiar, if not predictable, narrative of a pop star seeking refuge and reconciliation for a relationship shattered by her own ego. But after that first minute, the music shifts. The tone darkens. The screen fills with declarations that serve as a synopsis and warning:

THIS IS NOT A GHOST STORY. 

THIS IS NOT A LOVE STORY. 

THIS IS A PRAYER. 

A SONG. 

A DRESS. 

A COMMUNION. 

A BETRAYAL. 

A SACRIFICE. 

A REBIRTH. 

From there, the trailer descends into something else entirely. Witch-like séances and flickering candles. Crowns of thorns fashioned from fabric and metal. Garments that billow and writhe like phantoms, fabric bleeding across bodies as though possessed. Naked figures crawl across the floor beneath strobing lights that render their movements animalistic. Hands are gashed and open wounds are pressed into. Characters stare directly into the camera, horrified and transformed. 

The trailer ends on a chilling exchange between Mary and Sam: 

“There may be only one of us left standing when this is over.”

“I know.”

If that weren’t enough, the cast surrounding Hathaway and Coel only deepens the film’s unnerving promise. Hunter Schafer, Sian Clifford, FKA Twigs, Kaia Gerber, Jessica Brown Findlay, Alba Baptista, Isaura Barbe-Brown, and Atheena Frizzell populate a world that feels half-fashion house, half-cult. 

Music appears central not just to the film’s aesthetic, but its foundation. Original songs are written by Jack Antonoff — whose recent work spans pop culture with artists like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Kendrick Lamar — alongside Charlie XCX, fresh off of the phenomenon that was Brat, alongside a contribution from FKA Twigs. The score comes from Daniel Hart, whose collaborations with Lowery (the two previously worked together on The Green Knight), has already proven his gift for turning sound into atmosphere, for making soundtracks that are as beautiful as they are haunting. Hart is also currently writing and composing the music for The Vampire Lestat, the upcoming rockstar-driven third season of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, making Mother Mary feel spiritually aligned with a growing wave of lush, operatic, emotionally violent genre storytelling. 

Whatever Mother Mary ultimately is — a ghost story, a love story, a prayer, a communion, a betrayal, a sacrifice, a rebirth — it’s clear this is not a story about fame alone. It’s a story about devotion, consumption, and what happens when a performance starts demanding everything…even your soul. 

Watch the trailer below. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries