Primetime trailer – A24 has released the first trailer for Primetime, starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen. The film traces the early origins of Hansen’s Dateline NBC series To Catch a Predator, with the teaser leaning into familiar on-camera questioning and a tone that reca
The trailer for A24’s Primetime doesn’t ease you in. It opens on Robert Pattinson speaking in a cadence that will feel familiar to anyone who’s seen Chris Hansen take a suspect apart on camera.
As the split-screen structure of the teaser plays out. it sketches what the movie is aiming for: the origins of Hansen’s To Catch a Predator. the true-crime program aired as part of Dateline NBC. That show famously focused on Hansen’s efforts to out suspected child predators. with the support of law enforcement and a team of decoys pretending to be minors online.
In the trailer. Pattinson’s Hansen character pushes toward a meeting in person with a child—an alleged attempt to meet someone after being caught on camera. The dialogue sounds like it’s meant to land with intent, not nostalgia. “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?. You see how this looks, right?” Hansen asks. “At the end of the day, a man must be held accountable for the decisions that he makes. Would you agree?”.
Pattinson later plays the TV-host moment, too. The host’s voice turns directly to the viewer’s complicity: “Do you watch television? Well, there’s something you should know. I’m Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC — and you’re able to be a part of television history.”
A24’s choice to stage the movie through that split-screen. and to keep the on-camera interrogation style so recognizable. makes the film’s central question hard to miss even before you know where it lands. The teaser doesn’t make the movie’s exact stance on Hansen and the program fully clear. but it does suggest a fascination with the beginnings—how a journalist’s approach could become a television format that viewers remember.
The story’s production trail also comes with its own baggage. Primetime was first reported on in 2024 as a film from Ren Faire’s Lance Oppenheim. at the time without confirming Hansen as the subject. The earlier logline described “a journalist who takes on an underworld of crime and changes television forever.” Now. with the trailer released. Hansen is explicitly in focus.
That focus inevitably puts Primetime in the same cultural orbit as Predators. a 2025 documentary from David Osit that examined the dubious ethics behind the production of To Catch a Predator. The teaser’s tone also echoes the kind of tension seen in Dan Gilroy’s 2014 thriller Nightcrawler. which starred Jake Gyllenhaal as a shady. ambulance-chasing L.A. stringer.
Beyond Pattinson, Primetime also stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo and Phoebe Bridgers. Oppenheim directs from a script by Ajon Singh. The film is produced by Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fred Berger, Pattinson, Brighton McCloskey, Lars Knudsen and Tyler Campellone.
Primetime will hit theaters this fall, though it has not yet received an official release date. For now. the trailer has done something specific: it brings Hansen’s questions back into the foreground—forcing the familiar language of accountability to sit alongside the bigger. unresolved discomfort of how entertainment and enforcement can blur.
Check out the Primetime teaser above.
Primetime A24 Robert Pattinson Chris Hansen To Catch a Predator Dateline NBC Lance Oppenheim Ajon Singh Merritt Wever Skyler Gisondo Phoebe Bridgers Nightcrawler Predators documentary