Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine will be projected on 35mm film at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California, on 5 and 12 November, offering audiences one of the few public opportunities to see the CIA drama on celluloid. The recently reopened venue is putting on the two screenings with Searchlight Pictures, and tickets are already on sale through the Alex’s own cinema website.
Each night comes with something extra. Film-related merchandise will be available to buy at the 5 November screening, while the 12 November show will be followed by a question-and-answer session with members of the cast or crew, whose names have not yet been announced. The film goes on general release across the US on 6 November, sandwiched between the two dates.
The bookings are part of a second life for the Alex, which stopped operating as a first-run cinema in 1991 and spent most of the decades since hosting live performing arts. Earlier in 2026 the building received an acoustic overhaul and a new projection booth capable of handling both 35mm and 70mm prints. It relaunched as a movie house with a 70mm run of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, and TheWrap reports that it became the highest-grossing venue to play the film in that format.
Wild Horse Nine stars John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as two long-serving CIA agents whose assignment takes them to Easter Island in 1973, shortly before Augusto Pinochet’s military seized power in Chile. Their partnership comes under strain as they are forced to reckon with their past, and a new connection with two college students on the island makes the mission harder still. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for best actor, and it has been touring the festival circuit since.
Cinematographer Ben Davis, who previously worked with McDonagh on Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, shot on location on Easter Island and elsewhere using several formats. Because shooting on film was difficult on such a remote island, he used digital cameras configured to imitate Ektachrome, a stock that was widely used in the 1970s. Davis said the team deliberately narrowed the colour palette and paid close attention to how Ektachrome renders the colour red, which makes the upcoming 35mm prints a natural fit for the material. Searchlight is handling the film’s US release.
