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Netflix just dropped the first trailer for Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player, and it’s dark, electric, and uncomfortably thrilling. Colin Farrell plays Lord Doyle, a man addicted to the casino floors of Macau. Losing himself to the game and glowing with past regrets, he is drowning in debts. Night after night, he drifts through the neon haze of roulette wheels, gambling his life away.
Then Dao Ming, played by Fala Chen, steps into his chaotic orbit. She’s a casino employee, but she’s more than that—she’s a puzzle, maybe a lifeline, maybe another trap. She gives Doyle an offer he cannot refuse. And somewhere in the shadows is Tilda Swinton’s Cynthia Blithe, a private investigator who knows the secrets Doyle has tried to bury, and she’s not afraid to drag them into the light.
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Ballad of a Small Player will see a staggered release: October 15 in U.S. theaters, October 17 in the U.K. and Ireland, and October 29 on Netflix. Before streaming, the film will hit TIFF and other international festivals, including Zurich, where Farrell will be honored with the Golden Icon Award. Produced by Mike Goodridge and Matthew James Wilkinson, this thriller promises to explore human obsession, the fragility of luck, and the darkness that lurks behind the bright lights of fortune. In Berger’s hands, every bet carries a cost, and losing becomes more than chance, it becomes destiny.
More details about the plot of Ballad of a Small Player
It’s not yet clear how faithful the film will be to the novel version of Ballad of a Small Player, but if it manages to capture the thrill and intensity of the novel, then fans are in for a wild ride.
In the Ballad of a Small Player novel, we follow the story of Lord Doyle, an English lawyer on the run after stealing a fortune from an elderly client. He lands in Macau, where the casinos become his world—bright, loud, and full of risk. From the first pages, you’re hooked. How did he get his “inexhaustible fund”? Is he really a lord? By chapter two, the messy truth hits: he stole it, he’s no lord, and he’s just a man running from himself.
Osborne’s writing grips you from the first chapter and doesn’t let go. Macau’s glitzy, chaotic casinos feel alive under Osborne’s pen, but so does the quiet outside them—the strange beauty of the city, the dim hotel rooms, the solitude between bets. The story is more about obsession, addiction, and the ways people chase danger and desire, even when it’s destroying them. Lord Doyle’s world is bleak, compelling, and painfully human. Knowing Farrell and his power, he seems to fit right in as Doyle.
Ballad of a Small Player will be in U.S. theaters on October 15, 2025, in U.K. theaters on October 17, 2025, and will be streaming on Netflix from October 29, 2025.
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