Four years after cameras stopped, Jessica Lange’s film comeback finally has a date
You can finally mark your diary for Jessica Lange’s first film in years — with a special Lincoln Center screening to boot.
Here we go: Jessica Lange fans, your wait for her much-delayed return to film is finally almost over, and this one's arrived after quite the journey. Her latest project, Long Day's Journey Into Night, is now officially set for a limited cinema release in the US after an absolutely circuitous road to screen.
Long Day's Journey Into Night will be released in US cinemas four years after filming finished.
The Endless Wait
This adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's classic is directed by Jonathan Kent and stars Lange opposite Ed Harris. Now, a date: the film will hit select American cinemas on 25 September 2026, with a one-off showing at Lincoln Center in New York on 14 September. Hard to believe—principal photography wrapped way back in November 2022. So, yes, you've waited nearly four years for the chance to see it outside a festival. There's also been a festival stopover: it got its genuine global premiere at the Dublin International Film Festival in February 2025.
Distribution on this one has traded more hands than a hot potato. First it sat with Amazon MGM, then Blue Fox got involved, and now it's landed with Quiver Distribution, who are the ones finally putting it in cinemas.
What's the Story?
In case you missed the original play—or just haven't read tragic American theatre in a while—this is a family drama set in 1912 Connecticut and all takes place over a single, emotionally fraught day. Lange leads as Mary Tyrone, a matriarch battling a pretty grim morphine addiction. Harris plays James Tyrone, her husband, an aging actor forever fretting about finances. Their sons round out the core cast: Ben Foster as Jamie, the older, who leans heavily into alcoholism, and Colin Morgan as Edmund, the younger, never exactly close to the rest. Daylight brings all the family's old wounds out to air. Not exactly a laugh riot, but Lange has chops for this kind of material.
If you're wondering about the creative pairing: Lange and Kent aren't strangers. He directed her in the 2016 Broadway run of the same play, and she walked away with a Tony for it. That history is partly why expectations are so high for this adaptation.
So, yes, after a stubbornly long road—festival sidetracks, distributor swaps, more than one streaming near-miss—Long Day's Journey Into Night is finally getting its proper US cinema bow, starting at Lincoln Center before a wider rollout late September 2026.