Willem Dafoe’s Twisted Recent Mystery Movie Officially Releases This Week [Exclusive]

Willem Dafoe is one of our most prolific actors. The Spider-Man star has taken on large superhero franchises, worked with visionary directors like Robert Eggers in films like The Lighthouse, and been nominated for multiple Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for his work as Sergeant Elias in the 1986 film Platoon. Now, he’s working with director and writer Miguel Ángel Jiménez on his novel film, The Birthday Party, which is in theaters and on demand and digital on August 14. To celebrate the film’s release, Collider is thrilled to bring you an exclusive look at a scene between Dafoe and Vic Carmen Sonne.

The Birthday Party is described as follows: “The story is set in the late 1970s somewhere in the Mediterranean, where Marcos Timoleon, an Aristotle Onassis-like tycoon, is throwing a lavish, extravagant birthday party for Sofia, his daughter and sole heiress, on his exclusive private island. The party is a perfect excuse for various people in his life to approach him with their own agendas. But Marcos, who is used to ruthlessly controlling everything and everyone around him at whatever cost, is also secretly plotting a big decision on his daughter’s behalf. Sofia, however, has come to share some important news of her own. As guests start pouring in and night falls, the party grows rowdier and more decadent, while the inevitable clash between Marcos and Sofia reaches a heartbreaking climax.”

Written by Jiménez along with Giorgos Karnavas and Nicos Panagiotopoulos, the film is based on a novel of the same name by Panos Karnezis. Our exclusive sneak peek features Sofia (Conne) and her father Marcus (Dafoe) talking about Sofia’s pregnancy and what Marcus wants her to do with the baby. He loudly states that he will not die without his house in order, and the brief scene shows the tycoon controlling his family the best he can. The film also stars Joe Cole, Emma Suárez, and Carlos Cuevas.

Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz
Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive?
The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars

Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.

💊The Matrix

🔥Mad Max

🌧️Blade Runner

🏜️Dune

🚀Star Wars

TEST YOUR SURVIVAL →

01

You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do?
The first instinct is often the truest one.

APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it.
BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don’t keep you alive.
CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who’s pulling the strings.
DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it.
EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can’t fix a broken galaxy alone.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely?
What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.

AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don’t need resources — you can generate them.
BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it.
CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity.
DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on.
EShips and credits. The galaxy is large — you survive it by being able to move through it freely.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What kind of threat keeps you up at night?
Fear is useful data — if you’re sincere about what you’re actually afraid of.

AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant.
BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left.
CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you’re a problem, you’re already out of time.
DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn’t even know I was playing.
EThe Empire tightening its grip until there’s nowhere left to run.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How do you deal with authority you don’t trust?
Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.

ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it.
BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better.
CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy.
DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can’t beat a system you refuse to understand.
EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

Which environment could you actually endure long-term?
Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.

AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — crowded, artificial, but with access to everything that matters.
BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is sincere.
CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions.
DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand.
EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire’s attention rarely reaches.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart?
The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.

AA tight crew of believers who’ve seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose.
BOne or two people I’d trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks.
CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice.
DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last.
EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all?
Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.

AI won’t harm the innocent — even the ones who’d report me without hesitation.
BI do what I have to to protect the people I’ve chosen. Everything else is negotiable.
CThe line shifts depending on who’s asking and what’s at stake.
DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people’s future, even if it’d lend a hand now.
ESome lines, once crossed, can’t be uncrossed. I know which ones they are.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What would actually make survival worth it?
Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.

AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it.
BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving.
CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out.
DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations.
EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else’s boot.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

Your Fate Has Been Calculated
You’d Survive In…

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

The Resistance, Zion

The Matrix

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t lend a hand but notice the seams in things.

• You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
• You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
• You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
• The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.

The Wasteland

Mad Max

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are difficult to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

• You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
• You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
• You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
• In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.

Los Angeles, 2049

Blade Runner

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

• You read people accurately, keep your circle diminutive, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
• In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
• You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
• In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.

Arrakis

Dune

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

• Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
• You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
• Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
• In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars

The galaxy far, far away is enormous, thunderous, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

• You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
• You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
• You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
• In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Willem Dafoe Is a Master Chameleon

Dafoe has constantly reinvented himself as a performer. Whether it be in Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Poor Things or movies like Mary Harron‘s take on American Psycho, you never really know what kind of Dafoe performance you’re going to get. From the scene we have for The Birthday Party, this does seem like one of the more terrifying Dafoe performances because he’s a man who wants control of the women in his life, and what’s more frightening than that?

You can see The Birthday Party in theaters, on demand, and on digital on August 14. Stay tuned at Collider for more.

Release Date

June 5, 2026

Runtime

103 minutes

Director

Miguel Angel Jimenez