Nightmare Alley is a 2021 neo-noir psychological thriller film co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, and based on the 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham. It is the second feature film adaptation of Gresham's novel, following the 1947 version. A co-production between Searchlight Pictures, TSG Entertainment, and Double Dare You Productions, the film stars Bradley Cooper as a charming and ambitious carnival worker with a mysterious past who takes big risks to boost his career. Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, and David Strathairn also star.
Del Toro announced the film in 2017, and produced alongside J. Miles Dale and Cooper. Frequent collaborator Dan Laustsen was the cinematographer, and Nathan Johnson replaced Alexandre Desplat as its composer. Principal photography began in January 2020 in Toronto, Ontario, but was shut down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Production resumed in September 2020 and concluded that December.
Nightmare Alley premiered at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on December 1, 2021, and was theatrically released in the United States on December 17, 2021, by Searchlight Pictures. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised Del Toro’s direction, the cinematography, score, production design, and performances of Cooper and Blanchett, but criticized the runtime. It flopped at the box office, grossing a total of $39.6million worldwide against a $60million production budget. It received four nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. A black-and-white version subtitled Vision in Darkness and Light was released in select cities starting on January 14, 2022.
Plot
In 1939, Stan Carlisle hides a corpse under the floorboards of a run-down house before setting the house ablaze. That evening he walks into a traveling carnival and watches a geek show in which a deranged man eats a live chicken. While leaving the show, he runs into the carnival's strongman Bruno and is offered a temporary job for the night. He is subsequently convinced by carnival owner Clem to take a permanent position and begins working with "Madame Zeena", the carnival's clairvoyant act, and her alcoholic husband Pete.
Stan becomes attracted to fellow performer Molly and asks her to leave the carnival with him, but she refuses. Madame Zeena and Pete teach Stan how to use the coded language and cold reading tricks they use in their act, while warning him against pretending to speak to the dead. Stan also learns that Clem hires troubled alcoholics to be his "geeks," then gives them opium-laced alcohol so that they stay. One night, Pete asks Stan for alcohol. The next morning, Pete is found dead.
Local law enforcement raid the carnival after being tipped off about the geek show. Stan saves the carnival with his cold reading skills, placating the local sheriff and manipulating him into showing leniency. Shortly thereafter, Molly agrees to leave the carnival with Stan.
Two years later, Stan has successfully reinvented himself with a psychic act for the wealthy elite of Buffalo, with Molly as his assistant. Their relationship has deteriorated as Stan demands perfection from Molly during their act. During a performance, they are interrupted by psychologist Dr. Lilith Ritter, who attempts to expose their tricks. Stan bests and humiliates Ritter with his cold reading skills, then cold reads the man also sitting at Ritter's table, Judge Kimball. After the show, the judge offers to pay Stan for a private consultation to help him and his wife communicate with their dead son. Despite Molly's objections, Stan agrees.
Stan meets with Ritter to request information on Kimball, offering money in exchange. Ritter instead requests Stan sit for a psychotherapy session, where she learns Stan may have killed Pete. That night, Madame Zeena, Bruno and the Major make an impromptu visit, when Madame Zeena claims to know from the cards that Stan is about to do a "spook show" and warns him not to.
Armed with Ritter's information, Stan performs a successful reading for Kimball and his wife. He offers to split the profits with Ritter but she refuses, agreeing to keep the money in her care to hide it from Molly. Stan informs Ritter that Kimball has offered to introduce him to Ezra Grindle, a very wealthy former patient of Ritter's. She feeds Stan information about Grindle's past, namely how he forced an abortion on a young woman named Dorrie. Stan and Ritter begin a romantic relationship, and he begins drinking.