Dead Man’s Wire, the latest film from Gus Van Sant, tells the chilling true story of 1970s hostage crisis in Indiana. Bill Skarsgård stars as Tony Kiritsis, the desperate man who wired a shotgun to his mortgage broker’s neck and held him for days on live TV.
Supporting him in the ensemble thriller are Dacre Montgomery, Cary Elwes, Myha’la Herrold, Colman Domingo, and Al Pacino.
Dead Man’s Wire premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. After an awards-qualifying engagement beginning December 12, 2025, the film will open in a limited theatrical release on January 9, 2026, before rolling out wider on January 16, 2026.
The morning of February 8, 1977, Anthony G. “Tony” Kiritsis, 44, entered the office of Richard O. Hall, president of the Meridian Mortgage Company, and took him hostage with a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun wired with a “dead man’s wire” from the trigger to Tony’s own neck. This is the true story of the stand-off that took the world by storm as Tony demanded $5 million, no charges or prosecution, and a personal apology from the Halls for cheating him out of what he was “owed.”
The Guardian review gave the film described as a “surreal true-crime thriller” 4 of 5 stars, writing, “The personae and performances of Pacino, Domingo and Myha’la complicate the psychopathic nastiness of the affair, and create something surreal and bizarre and often hilarious: a display of, not heartlessness, exactly, but a shrewd professional sense that pity and fear were emotions that could only benefit the kidnapper. It’s a gripping picture with excellent performances.”
Watch the official trailer for Dead Man’s Wire above.
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