Cillian Murphy is a Struggling Headteacher in ‘Steve’ Netflix Drama | Trailer

Cillian Murphy stars in the Netflix drama Steve as a worn-down educator trying to hold his world together.

Directed by Tim Mielants, the film stars Murphy as Steve, the headteacher of a last-chance reform school, with Jay Lycurgo co-leading as Shy, a troubled student struggling with internal demons.

Also in the film are Tracey Ullman, Simbi Ajikawo, and Emily Watson.

Steve made its world premiere in the Platform Prize section at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and is streaming on Netflix starting October 3, 2025.

Set in the mid-’90s, Steve is a reimagining of Max Porter’s Sunday Times bestseller Shy. The film follows a pivotal day in the life of headteacher Steve (Murphy) and his students at a last-chance reform school amid a world that has forsaken them. As Steve fights to protect the school’s integrity and prevent its impending closure, he grapples with his own mental health. In parallel to Steve’s struggles, we meet Shy (Jay Lycurgo), a troubled teen caught between his past and what lies ahead as he tries to reconcile his inner fragility with his impulse for self-destruction and violence.

In an interview with Netflix Tudum, director Tim Mielants explained how he approached adapting Porter’s nonlinear novel and why the story resonated with him personally: “Shy was written structurally in a very unconventional way. I said to Cillian and Alan, ‘I have to get my head around it because I don’t know how to do this.’ And then I locked myself up. But around that period, I was going through videos I had shot in the ’90s … because my father got Alzheimer’s … I wanted to get back to who he was … and I understood the value in seeing them talking to camera.”

Watch the official trailer for Steve, above and below.