Netflix releases Sacrifice on 16 October, a satire from director Romain Gavras in which Chris Evans plays a movie star taken hostage by Anya Taylor-Joy’s radical warrior at a celebrity charity gala.
Netflix will release Sacrifice, a social satire directed by Romain Gavras, on 16 October 2026 in the United States and France, according to JoBlo. It is the French director’s English-language debut. Gavras wrote the film with Will Arbery, and the cast includes Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Vincent Cassel, Salma Hayek Pinault, Sam Richardson and John Malkovich, according to the report.
JoBlo’s synopsis says that during a star-studded charity gala brimming with celebrities, billionaires and empty speeches, a movie star in the midst of an existential crisis, played by Evans, is taken hostage by a radical warrior, played by Taylor-Joy, and her devoted followers. The names of other cast members listed in the report include the musician Jonatan Leandoer, known as Yung Lean, and the singer Charli XCX.
A longer plot description in search results, from a summary of Netflix’s own material, says that Taylor-Joy’s character is called Joan and that after the fiery death of their mother she and her siblings, driven by a mysterious volcanic prophecy, believe it is their duty to cleanse the Earth. Their radical group hijacks the gala and takes three hostages for a sacrificial ritual: the movie star Mike Tyler, played by Evans, the billionaire Ben Bracken, played by Cassel, and a performer named Katie, played by Ambika Mod.
The film has a history before its streaming release. JoBlo says that it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2024, and a Deadline headline from May 2026 reports that Netflix bought the US rights, so the film had been waiting for a release for some time. The Deadline article could not be read in full, and the price and the original distributor are not given in the sources used here.
Gavras has described the film’s inspirations in unusual terms. According to JoBlo, it draws on Greek mythology, French stories such as Joan of Arc and The Lord of the Rings, and he describes it as a journey of people who want to throw the ring of power into a volcano. That fits the plot summary, in which a prophecy about a volcano drives the characters.
Early critical comment is mixed in tone. One review quoted in search summaries says that Taylor-Joy’s performance as a devoted believer in a cause is the most convincing by far, and that there are stylish flourishes and creative set pieces, but that the story would have benefited from deeper intellectual and thematic material on the climate crisis. That is the view of a single reviewer, and the sources do not give an aggregate score.
The film has several cast members who are better known outside acting. The listing of Yung Lean and Charli XCX among the cast suggests the film uses musicians in supporting roles, but the sources do not say how large their parts are, so it is not possible to say how they figure in the film.
Netflix is releasing the film in the same week as several other new titles, including a documentary series about Mike Tyson and a horror prequel on Paramount+, which Delima News covers in separate articles on the week’s streaming premieres. The runtime of Sacrifice is not given in the sources reviewed.
The film will be available to Netflix subscribers in the United States and France from Friday, and reactions to it will show whether its mixture of satire, action and myth works for a mainstream audience.
Image: Anya Taylor-Joy at the Toronto International Film Festival, 2025 (file photo). Photo: Sara Komatsu / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
