Alpha: Everything we know about the upcoming French drama film

French filmmaker Julia Ducournau is making her big screen return with the upcoming drama film titled Alpha which is gearing up for an August 2025 release. Yesterday, Neon dropped the first teaser trailer for the movie and also acquired distribution rights in North America shortly after the Cannes Film Festival's early screening.

Alpha will feature Golden Globe-nominated actor Tahar Rahim alongside a well-known face from Chris Hemsworth's Extraction franchise, Golshifteh Farahani. The story revolves around a disturbed teenager and her mother's tumultuous journey through life. Jean des Forêts has worked as producer on the project alongside Amelie Jacquis on behalf of Petit Film.

When will Alpha be released?

Following a global premiere at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday, Alpha is all set to hit theatres across France 20 August 2025 and Diaphana Distribution is currently holding distribution rights. Per reports, the movie will also have a theatrical premiere in the United States this fall, to be precise, October 2025. However, no sources have confirmed an exact release date for Alpha in North America so far.

More about the upcoming French drama film Alpha

The titular role in Alpha will be played Mélissa Boros and Ambrine Trigo Ouaked will portray her five-year old avatar. Alpha has always been a troubled kid and as she grows up and goes to school, things get even worse.

She stays with her mom (the part has been played by Golshifteh Farahani), a single woman named Maman who practises as a doctor at a gloomy healthcare facility and also takes care of her drug-addicted brother (portrayed by Tahar Rahim), Amin.

With a trouble household and dozens of challenges on her back, the single mother's life is turned upside down when Alpha returns from school one day with her arm mysteriously inked (with a needle). Alpha is reportedly a period drama and viewers will be taken back to the 80s when the horrific HIV was taking a toll on millions of human beings through AIDS (turning them into lifeless creatures whose bodies eventually cease to fight back).

Standing in the foreground of such a situation, Alpha probably catches the same condition herself (maybe through the needle which she uses on herself in one of the opening sequences). The plot culminates from this point as she starts experiencing health problems but it yet remains to be seen whether it's because she used a needle that belonged to an AIDS affected person.

Alpha will somewhat explore themes of substance abuse on the backdrop of a deadly virus like HIV taking lives. It is also the story of a family precisely encompassing - a mother trying to protect her daughter, a teenage girl (who is already troubled) seeking her way around & a drug-dependent brother and uncle wanting to fit in.

Here's a look at the other cast members of Alpha: