Even as a longtime film buff, it can feel intimidating to talk with other film buffs about new movies. There’s always somebody who’s more well-informed than you about this genre, or that filmmaker, or what have you. While loving movies is not a competition, if the prospect of having those conversations stresses you out, I have prepared a handy dandy guide for one of the most anticipated movies of September:
The new A24 joint Primetime, which debuts on September 25.
What is Primetime About?
The premise of Primetime is simple enough. On A24’s official website, the entirety of their synopsis reads “In 2006, To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen sets out to make television history.”
Source Material: Primetime is based on the 2007 article "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die,” which was published in Esquire magazine and written by Luke Dittrich. Dittrich is a journalist and author who has also written for The New York Times Magazine. This is the first time his work has been adapted to the screen, though he was previously a consulting producer on the 2025 documentary Predators (which was also about To Catch a Predator) and appeared as a talking head in the 2012 journalism documentary Shadows of Liberty.
To Catch a Predator: The reality series To Catch a Predator has a reputation that extends surprisingly far, considering the fact that only 20 episodes were ever aired (as part of the news magazine series Dateline NBC, between 2004 and 2007). The hidden camera series focused on sting operations designed to catch child sexual predators, and it captured the imaginations of viewers nationwide, to such a degree that it was referenced or parodied in many comedies in the 2000s and 2010s, including 30 Rock, Glee, and The Simpsons. The show was cancelled a year after a 2006 incident where Bill Conradt, an assistant district attorney in Texas, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound as the show’s camera crew entered his house along with the local police. That incident is the focus of Dittrich’s Esquire piece and will likely provide the central conflict of the film.
‘To Catch a Predator’ (2004-2007)Credit: NBC
Chris Hansen: Hansen, who hosted To Catch a Predator, is a longtime television presenter and the winner of six News & Documentary Emmy Awards out of 16 nominations (all but one of which were for various segments on Dateline). When To Catch a Predator began, he had already been working on Dateline for years and with NBC in general on and off for many more, since 1981. After NBC elected not to renew his contract in 2013, he went on to produce and host other true crime series and co-found the streaming service TruBlu.
Who Made Primetime?
A24 (production company and distributor): A24 is one of the most prominent independent entertainment companies of the modern age. Although they’ve been operating since 2012, they rose to prominence in the mid-to-late 2010s off the back of films that they either produced, distributed, or both, including 2015’s The Witch, 2017’s Lady Bird, and 2018’s Hereditary (which was directed by Primetime producer Ari Aster).
So far, the company has produced two Best Picture winners (Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All At Once) and many more Best Picture nominees. A24 produced Primetime (alongside Icki Eneo Arlo, Range Media Partners, and Square Peg) in addition to distributing it.
Lance Oppenheim (director): While Primetime is Lance Oppenheim’s first directorial narrative feature, he has directed numerous documentaries that paved the way for his new movie, including 2020’s Some Kind of Heaven, 2024’s Spermworld, and the 2024 docuseries Ren Faire. He is known for having a distinct visual sense, with compositional approaches that push the boundaries of typical modern nonfiction. He flips that sensibility on its head in Primetime, which dramatizes a true story using a blend of realistic and expressionistic imagery (putting viewers into Chris Hansen’s headspace by injecting the movie with non-traditional, color-drenched aesthetics).
Ajon Singh (screenwriter): Singh is an unknown quantity in Hollywood thus far, as Primetime is his first produced screenplay. However, the economics student turned screenwriter was featured in Variety’s “Screenwriters to Watch” in 2025 and is also set to co-write the script for the upcoming Spider-Verse spinoff Spider-Punk, with star Daniel Kaluuya.
Robert Pattinson (lead actor): While Pattinson is probably best known for his roles as Edward Cullen in the Twilight movies and the titular superhero in The Batman, he has pointedly pushed the envelope as an actor continuously since the end of his tenure as Twilight’s vampiric hunk.
In addition to his blockbuster work, he has taken on offbeat roles to which he can apply his chameleonic skillset in movies including David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and The Odyssey, Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17, the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron, and plenty of previous A24 movies, like Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time, Claire Denis’ High Life, and Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama. He is also set to star opposite Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in the upcoming Dune: Part Three.
‘Primetime’ (2026)Credit: A24
Supporting Cast: The ensemble around Pattinson’s Chris Hansen includes three-time Emmy winner Merritt Wever (Nurse Jackie, Severance, The Gilded Age) as a producer, Skyler Gisondo (Santa Clarita Diet, The Righteous Gemstones, 2025’s Superman as Jimmy Olsen) as an actor who takes part in the stings on the show, Anna Faris (the Scary Movie franchise, Mom, the podcast Anna Faris is Unqualified) as Chris Hansen’s then-wife Mary Joan Hansen, Tony Revolori (The Grand Budapest Hotel, Spider-Man: Homecoming) as a child predator, four-time Grammy Award winning musician Phoebe Bridgers (I Saw the TV Glow), Bokeem Woodbine (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Ray, Halo), Jonathan Lipnicki (Jerry Maguire, Stuart Little, Like Mike), Creed Bratton (The Office as Creed), and former NBC Universal executive Jeff Zucker as himself.
Key Talking Points for Primetime
A24’s AI Initiative: In June 2026, it was announced that A24 is partnering with Google DeepMind for a controversial “research partnership” to develop AI-powered filmmaking tools. While this has nothing to do with Primetime, which was in the can long before the announcement was made, it is one of the first A24 releases since June, so the initiative could very well be part of the conversation.
True Crime & Sensationalism: To Catch a Predator was a progenitor of the modern wave of true crime media. While true crime has been part of pop culture for essentially as long as pop culture has existed (as it appeals to the same morbidly curious part of the human brain that makes us slow down to look at a crash on the side of the highway), true crime is everywhere in modern media, from Netflix documentaries to podcasts to prestige miniseries. To Catch a Predator’s role in packaging sensationalized crime stories for mass consumption was very likely on the minds of Singh and Oppenheim while they were crafting the movie.
Cinematic Realism & Surrealism: The themes of reality vs. sensationalism will most likely also be explored aesthetically as the movie blurs the lines between fiction and reality using Oppenheim’s aforementioned aesthetic approach.
Now, go forth armed with knowledge and have as many conversations about Primetime as you please! Let us know what you think of the movie in the comments below!
