Academy Award-winning actor Angelina Jolie will star as renowned opera singer Maria Callas in Maria, a new film from director Pablo Larraín. 

Jolie earned an Academy Award for her performance in Girl, Interrupted, and has displayed her incredible range in films like Changeling, The Good Shepherd, Maleficent, and Those Who Wish Me Dead.  

Renowned Chilean filmmaker Larraín is known for such films as Jackie, Spencer, No, Neruda, and 2023’s El Conde, which garnered a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination for Edward Lachman’s chiaroscuro work.

Larraín says, “I’m excited to partner again with the Netflix team who care so passionately about movies. This film is my most personal work yet. It is a creative imagining and psychological portrait of Maria Callas who, after dedicating her life to performing for audiences around the world, decides finally to find her own voice, her own identity, and sing for herself. I’m deeply honored to tell this story and share it with audiences worldwide like Maria did with her life.”

Maria marks a new collaboration between Larraín and Lachman, who was also nominated for Academy Awards for his work on Carol and Far From Heaven. And it’s the second Larraín film written by Steven Knight following their work together on Spencer; Knight was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Screenplay for his work on Dirty Pretty Things, and is the creator of Peaky Blinders.

Academy Award nominee Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alba Rohrwacher, Pierfrancesco Favino, and Valeria Golino also star.

Find out more about Maria below, and stay tuned as the film hits the Venice Film Festival and beyond.

Pablo Larraín

What is Maria about?

As Larraín says, Maria is a “creative imagining and psychological portrait of Maria Callas,” one of the greatest opera singers of all time, during her final days in 1970s Paris. Callas, whose life spanned from the 1920s to the ’70s, was famous for her incredible voice — the film looks at a period in her life when she had lost her voice, and tries to regain it. After dedicating her life to audiences around the world, she “decides finally to find her own voice, her own identity, and sing for herself.”

It marks the third film in Larraín’s work exploring iconic women at inflection points in their lives, following 2016’s Jackie and 2021’s Spencer. 

Who is in the cast of Maria?

The cast of Maria includes:

• Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted; Changeling)
• Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Power of the Dog, Dolemite Is My Name)
• Alba Rohrwacher (Hungry Hearts, Happy As Lazzaro)
• Pierfrancesco Favino (Padrenostro, Adagio)
• Valeria Golino (For Your Love, The Beautiful Game)

Pablo Larraín

When will Maria premiere?

Maria will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 29. The film will hit Netflix in the US at a later date. Keep checking Tudum for updates.