Primetime (2026)

Robert Pattinson gives one of the most fearlessly unpleasant performances of his career in Lance Oppenheim’s corrosive media satire, playing To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen at the height of the show’s mid-2000s notoriety. As Hansen pursues increasingly sensational confrontations in the name of making must-see television, Pattinson turns the journalist’s cool authority and self-assurance into something at once charismatic and deeply unsettling, commanding the screen without softening the character’s vanity or ambition. Oppenheim, making his narrative feature debut after the documentaries Some Kind of Heaven and Ren Faire, surrounds him with an ensemble including Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Phoebe Bridgers, Matthew Maher, and Bokeem Woodbine while examining the uneasy intersection of journalism, entertainment, punishment, and celebrity. Daniel Garber’s restless editing complements Pattinson’s performance, giving the film the nervous momentum of a media machine forever searching for its next escalation. Recalling the poisoned ambition of Nightcrawler, Primetime finds its most potent attraction in Pattinson himself, transforming a profoundly objectionable figure into a riveting screen presence.