Irish-British playwright and filmmaker Martin McDonagh's latest black comedy feature, Wild Horse Nine, has been selected for the main competition of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival (running 2 to 13 September), where it’s due to celebrate its world premiere and compete for the Golden Lion (read our news). The film marks McDonagh's return to the Lido four years on from The Banshees of Inisherin, which won Colin Farrell the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, as well as the Best Screenplay Award, before embarking on a nine-Oscar-nomination campaign.

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Set shortly before the 1973 Chilean coup which overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende, Wild Horse Nine follows veteran CIA operatives Chris and Lee, who are dispatched from Santiago to Easter Island by their bureau chief, MJ. As these longtime partners wrestle with their dark pasts and present conspiracies while surrounded by the Island’s iconic statues, Chris’s newfound bond with a pair of rebellious students risks jeopardising everyone’s trust in this remote island paradise.

Two-time Academy Award nominee John Malkovich leads the cast as veteran CIA officer Chris, opposite Academy Award winner Sam Rockwell (reuniting with McDonagh after his Oscar-winning turn in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) as his protégé, Lee. Emmy Award winner Steve Buscemi plays their bureau chief, MJ, while Parker Posey (recently seen in The White Lotus) portrays Lee's wife, Marge. McDonagh has also reunited with singer-songwriter Tom Waits (previously gracing Seven Psychopaths) who’s playing Chris's brother. The cast is rounded out by Chilean actress Mariana di Girolamo (Ema) and Argentine actress Ailín Salas as the two students whose encounter with Chris alters the course of the mission, alongside Paola Giannini and Samuel Wayt.

As usual, McDonagh has directed his film based on his own screenplay. His acclaimed body of work includes In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (which also world-premiered in Venice in 2017 before winning two Academy Awards for actors for Sam Rockwell and Frances McDormand and five BAFTAs, including Best Film) and The Banshees of Inisherin (which nabbed four BAFTAs). McDonagh, whose films have established him as one of contemporary cinema's most celebrated writer-directors, is himself a seven-time Academy Award nominee, and he won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film in 2006 for Six Shooter.

Principal photography took place in spring 2025 on the island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and across Santiago, Chile. The film saw McDonagh reuniting with several key collaborators behind the cameras, including BAFTA-nominated cinematographer Ben Davis, Oscar-winning editor Mikkel EG Nielsen and Oscar-nominated composer Carter Burwell, while Denis Schnegg served as production designer and Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh designed the costumes.

Wild Horse Nine was produced by Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Martin McDonagh and Anita Overland for Blueprint Pictures and Film4. Searchlight Pictures will distribute the film in cinemas in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States on 6 November, following its premiere in Venice.