The Bride!

The Bride!, dark comedic romance horror film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley that was released on March 6, 2026. The film is a fresh take on the bride of Frankenstein character introduced in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and expanded in James Whale’s film Bride of Frankenstein (1935), a sequel to his 1931 adaptation of the book. The film is Gyllenhaal’s second as a director, after The Lost Daughter (2021).

Plot summary

The movie is set in Chicago in the 1930s, a time of economic deprivation and bold gangsterism and outlawry. Frankenstein’s monster (played by Bale), lonely and isolated and calling himself Frank, comes to the city to ask the scientist Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening) to help him create a companion. A young woman, Ida (played by Buckley), is murdered by small-time criminals, and Frank and Dr. Euphronius reanimate her corpse. She becomes the Bride but resists merely being Frank’s companion and asserts her independence. Later she is attacked and explodes into a vengeful rage. Frank comes to her aid, and the two fall in love and take to the road on a violent spree resembling that of Bonnie and Clyde. The pair is pursued by a detective, Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard), and his secretary, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), and also come across a glamorous actor, Ronnie Reed (Jake Gyllenhaal). Shelley also appears in the movie as a ghostly narrator and is played by Buckley.

Source material and other Frankenstein adaptations

Creating a companion for the monster was a subplot in Shelley’s novel; in that story the scientist Victor Frankenstein is approached by his monster, who wants him to create a female companion. Frankenstein initially acquiesces and attempts to create a female creature, but he destroys her in disgust before he is finished forming her. This incites the monster to kill Frankenstein’s wife, Elizabeth, shortly after she and the mad scientist have been married. This subplot is the focus of the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein. In it, Frankenstein’s monster (Boris Karloff), along with Frankenstein’s mentor, Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), coerces Dr. Frankenstein (in this telling, named Henry rather than Victor) into creating a female creature (Elsa Lanchester) to serve as a companion for the monster. She screams and hisses and rejects the monster, causing him to destroy them both. Like Buckley in The Bride!, Lanchester also portrayed Shelley in the film.

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Gyllenhaal watched Whale’s 1935 film and was disappointed that the bride appears only in the final scene and has no spoken lines. In creating her own version of the bride, she sought to liberate the character, giving her free rein to express herself and voice her rage at the cruelty of men and the world. In February 2026 Gyllenhaal told Entertainment Weekly, “It’s someone who has so much to say, has been so shut up. What happens if you try to keep your hand on a geyser? When it finally explodes, it’s going to explode with triple the energy, and that is what happens to her.”

Production and marketing

The film was originally set to debut on Netflix but was dropped by the streamer. (Netflix later released Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein adaptation, starring Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, in 2025.) In early 2024 there were reports that The Bride! had been picked up by Warner Brothers. Initially scheduled to be released in fall 2025, the film’s debut was pushed back to 2026 amid reports that it had not fared well with audiences in test screenings. A complex production with both song-and-dance numbers and large action sequences, The Bride! reportedly had a budget of about $80 million. By comparison, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (2025) was made for a reported $90 million.

The first trailer for the film was released in September 2025; it shows Bale as the monster with a plethora of scars and Buckley with a shock of white-blonde hair. The trailer hints at the Bride’s origin, with scenes of her fatal “accident” and revival, and shows flashes of Tommy guns, dance scenes, and violent crimes. A second trailer, released in January 2026, gives a glimpse of more elaborate dance numbers and hints that the Bride’s rebellion inspires other women to fight back and seek revenge.

Cast

• Jessie Buckley (The Bride)
• Christian Bale (Frankenstein’s monster)
• Jake Gyllenhaal (Ronnie Reed)
• Annette Bening (Dr. Euphronius)
• Penélope Cruz (Myrna Mallow)
• Peter Sarsgaard (Jake Wiles)

Production notes and credits

• Studio: First Love Films, In The Current Company, Warner Brothers
• Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Writer: Maggie Gyllenhaal
• Producers: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Osnat Handelsman-Keren, Talia Kleinhendler, Emma Tillinger Koskoff
• Music: Hildur Guðnadóttir
• Cinematographer: Lawrence Sher
• Editor: Dylan Tichenor
• Running time: 126 minutes