Netflix Acquires Joel Coen’s ‘Jack of Spades,’ Planning Big Push for Next Oscar Season

Netflix has a full plate for this Oscar season — its contenders include La Bola Negra, 14th, Possible Love, Ray Gunn, Ink, Gentle Monster, The Mosquito Bowl, Avedon and In Waves — but that hasn’t stopped the streamer from making plans for next Oscar season, as well.

The streamer has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Joel Coen‘s next directorial outing, Jack of Spades, which is based on Frances Frederica Montrésor’s 1901 novel The Alien: A Story of Middle Age and is being described as “a sinister gothic mystery filled with intrigue and betrayal set in the atmospheric Scottish Highlands.” The film, which wrapped production earlier this year, will be released in theaters in fall 2027 ahead of its release on the platform. And the company sees it as a major awards prospect.

The film stars the 36-year-old Olivier Award winner Patsy Ferran, as well as Golden Globe winner Josh O’Connor, Golden Globe winner Damian Lewis and Oscar nominee Lesley Manville. Joel Coen wrote it with his brother Ethan (both won multiple Oscars for 2007’s No Country for Old Men), as well as Eleanor Catton and Conor McPherson; and produced it with his wife, Frances McDormand (who won an Oscar for producing 2020’s Nomadland, and also was a producer on her husband’s 2021 film The Tragedy of Macbeth), as well as Indian Paintbrush’s Steven Rales, Blueprint Pictures’ Graham Broadbent and Peter Czernin, and Robert Graf.

The film’s crew includes numerous frequent collaborators of Joel Coen, among them cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis, The Tragedy of Macbeth and 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs) and composer Carter Burwell (1984’s Blood Simple, 1987’s Raising Arizona, 1990’s Miller’s Crossing, 1991’s Barton Fink, 1994’s The Hudsucker Proxy, 1996’s Fargo, 1998’s The Big Lebowski, 2000’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2001’s The Man Who Wasn’t There, 2003’s Intolerable Cruelty, 2004’s The Ladykillers, No Country for Old Men, 2008’s Burn After Reading, 2009’s A Serious Man, 2010’s True Grit, 2016’s Hail, Caesar!, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and The Tragedy of Macbeth).

Jack of Spades marks a reunion between Netflix and Joel Coen following The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which landed three Oscar noms, including best adapted screenplay for the Coen brothers; and between Netflix and Josh O’Connor following The Crown (2019-2020) and 2025’s Wake Up Dead Man.

The Coen brothers are represented by UTA and attorney Pat Murphy. UTA represented the sale.