Dead Man's Wire

Indianapolis, 1977. Tony Kiritsis takes mortgage broker Richard Hall hostage and wires a shotgun to his neck. The trigger runs to his own hand; if he lets go, the gun fires. What he demands first is not money but an apology. The standoff lasts for days, with a local radio DJ carrying the communication. Gus Van Sant directed, from a screenplay by Austin Kolodney that draws on research from the 2018 documentary Dead Man's Line. Bill Skarsgård plays Kiritsis, with Al Pacino, Dacre Montgomery, Colman Domingo and Cary Elwes in the cast. It was shot in Louisville, Kentucky in just 19 days in January 2025. Van Sant said the project had a weird barnstormer energy and described Skarsgård's character as speaking like Scorsese on a cocaine bender. It premiered at Venice in September 2025 and went wide in the US in January 2026. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 91 percent, with critics calling it brilliantly offbeat. It still disappointed at the box office. Who it is for: viewers who like true-story thrillers built around a single event and Van Sant when he steps outside conventional narrative. Who it is not for: anyone wanting to side with the hostage. The film keeps its attention almost entirely on the man holding the gun.