The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping: Everything We Know Before Young Haymitch's Games Begin in Theaters November 20

The second trailer for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens on a parade. Tributes ride horse-drawn carriages around a stadium, and over the pageantry comes a voice fans of the original films will place in a second. "Nobody ever wins the games, period," Woody Harrelson's Haymitch says. "There are survivors. There's no winners." Then a flare slams into the carriage carrying two kids from District 12, and one of them is Haymitch too, 24 years younger and played by Joseph Zada.

That's the pitch of the sixth Hunger Games film: before he was Katniss Everdeen's sardonic, half-drunk mentor, Haymitch Abernathy was a hopeful 16-year-old, and this is the story of the Games that took the hope away. Lionsgate opens it in theaters and IMAX on Friday, November 20, 2026. According to the studio's ticketing announcement, reported by BroadwayWorld, IMAX and premium-format early-access shows begin Wednesday, November 18, at 6 p.m., and tickets for both have been on sale since October 28. That means two weeks to decide how big a screen you want for it, and, as you'll see below, the size of the screen is part of the story.

The Boy Before the Bottle

The film adapts Suzanne Collins' 2025 novel, and it sits neatly between the two halves of the series: a sequel to The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) and a prequel to The Hunger Games (2012). The setting is the 50th Hunger Games, the second Quarter Quell, and Entertainment Weekly spells out the Capitol's twist for this anniversary edition. Every district must send two boys and two girls, so 48 children go into the arena instead of 24.

The Haymitch we meet here barely resembles the man Harrelson played. Producer Nina Jacobson told EW it mattered that audiences see he was once "young, optimistic, hopeful, and almost carefree — even amidst the poverty and grime" of District 12. He brews moonshine, keeps his head down, and loves a girl named Lenore Dove Baird (Whitney Peak). Lenore is the one who can't look away from what Panem is. She comes from the Covey, the wandering musicians who gave the world Lucy Gray Baird in Ballad, so this is the film where the two prequels finally hold hands.

The Team Behind the Camera

Francis Lawrence directs again, from a screenplay by Billy Ray and Michael Lesslie, with Collins credited for the adaptation. Ray's return is a homecoming too: Wikipedia's entry on him lists the first Hunger Games movie among his credits. Cinematographer Jo Willems, who EW notes has shot every film in the series since Catching Fire, is back, and so is composer James Newton Howard.

That continuity is more than a comfort for fans. It explains a striking visual choice in the new film, because Lawrence and Willems are repeating a trick they first pulled in Catching Fire, the last time the series sent its heroes into a Quarter Quell.

Why the Arena Looks Like Paradise

Collins' novel calls this arena a "poison paradise," and the trailers take her at her word. Watch for the wide shot of the arena in Trailer 2, which EW singles out as far more colorful than anything in the earlier films. "In terms of the look of the movie, I think color was definitely something that we wanted to push," Willems told Entertainment Weekly, explaining that he wanted to leave behind the "subdued colors" of earlier entries. He was quick to add, "Not that [this] is a happier film or anything." The beauty is the bait.

Getting that beauty on camera was a slog. Willems told EW the arena was filmed in a remote valley in Spain's Cantabrian Mountains, reached through little villages, and that the crew had to "drag everything up the hill" each day. One night scene, with two characters and some squirrels, played out on a dirt path about ten feet wide. He said that if he'd been shooting on film rather than digital, he "would've had to probably turn down the location."

Somiedo, in Asturias, is among the Spanish shooting locations Wikipedia lists for the film, which wrapped in Berlin in November 2025.

Now the trick. Willems told EW the arena sequences open up to the full IMAX frame, shot on high-resolution IMAX-approved digital cameras whose sensors allow a taller picture. As ComingSoon pointed out in its write-up of that interview, Catching Fire did the same thing, shifting its frame size as the tributes entered the arena. It's hard not to read the move as part of the cruelty: the screen grows at the exact moment the kids step into the place built to kill them, as if the Capitol wanted you to enjoy the view. IMAX released its own version of the trailer, cut for the format.

Familiar Names, Younger Faces

Half the fun of this cast is matching new faces to roles you already know. Here is who's who, per Entertainment Weekly's guide and Wikipedia's cast list:

• Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow, the role Donald Sutherland played in the original films and Tom Blyth in Ballad.
• Jesse Plemons as a young Plutarch Heavensbee, the part originated by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Here he's a cameraman for the Games.
• Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket, with Iris Apatow as her sister Proserpina.
• Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman, the host Stanley Tucci played.
• Mckenna Grace as Maysilee Donner, Haymitch's fellow District 12 tribute and, as EW notes, the original owner of the mockingjay pin that becomes Katniss's symbol.
• Ben Wang as Wyatt Callow, the other District 12 boy, from a family known for taking bets on the Games.
• Kelvin Harrison Jr., Maya Hawke and Lili Taylor as the past victors Beetee, Wiress and Mags.
• Glenn Close as Drusilla Sickle, the District 12 escort, and Billy Porter as her estranged husband, the stylist Magno Stift. Both characters are new to the films.

Keep an eye on two smaller names. Wikipedia's cast list has Scot Greenan as Burdock Everdeen, Haymitch's best friend, and Grace Ackary as Asterid March: Katniss's future parents, still teenagers.

And yes, the originals are back. EW reports that Jennifer Lawrence confirmed on the Call Her Daddy podcast that she returns as Katniss, alongside Josh Hutcherson's Peeta and Harrelson's older Haymitch. "Josh and I didn't walk to the bathroom without our arms around each other," she said of the shoot.

Francis Lawrence with Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence at Comic-Con in 2015, promoting Mockingjay – Part 2. A decade later, all three were back in Panem.

What the First Audiences Said

The film premiered in London on October 28, and the social-media reactions TheWrap rounded up that night circled one name. Collider's Perri Nemiroff wrote that Zada had her "jaw on the floor time and time again," and critic Griffin Schiller called the film the "Rogue One/Andor of the franchise," a comparison that tells you to expect a story about rebels who pay full price. Treat premiere-night posts as what they are, the first word from a friendly room. Full reviews haven't arrived yet.

A Tragedy Told Backward

What makes this one different from every other Hunger Games film is that we already know how the hero turns out. We met him first with a drink in his hand, needling two scared kids from his own district. So every scene of Zada smiling, flirting with Lenore and dodging trouble plays like a photograph of someone before an accident. The trailer gives Haymitch the cynic's line, "The Capitol has all the power. They always have," and gives Lenore the answer: "That doesn't mean they always will." The film asks us to watch that argument from the side of the person who lost it, and to understand that the drinking, the jokes and the distance were scar tissue, not character. Anyone who has watched a funny, guarded adult and wondered what happened to them will know the feeling.

Tickets, Runtime and the Soundtrack

• Release: in theaters and IMAX nationwide on November 20, 2026.
• Early access: IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, ScreenX, Cinemark XD, Regal RPX, AMC Prime and other premium formats from Wednesday, November 18, at 6 p.m., per the studio announcement reported by BroadwayWorld. Only participating theaters have those shows, so check local listings.
• Runtime: 158 minutes, according to the Irish Film Classification Office listing reported by Screen Rant. That's one minute longer than Ballad, making it the longest film in the series, and Parade reported that Lawrence's first cut ran 4 hours and 12 minutes.
• Rating: PG-13, which Screen Rant reports is for strong violence, bloody images, disturbing material, some smoking and teen drinking. Think twice before bringing younger kids.
• Soundtrack: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Album) arrives November 13 via MCA, a week before the film. According to uDiscover Music, the lead single is Noah Kahan's "Draw You Out," co-written and co-produced with Aaron Dessner, and the album, executive produced by Dave Cobb, gathers 29 artists.
• Homework: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is the direct lead-in, and it's where you meet the Covey, the traveling musicians Lenore descends from.

On November 20 the carriages roll out again, and this time we ride in one with Haymitch before the flare hits. If you're stacking up November epics, our guide to The Rings of Power Season 3 covers the other big one. And if you rewatch Catching Fire first, keep your eyes on the top and bottom edges of the screen when Katniss's tube rises into the arena: the picture grows taller, the same move Willems is making again.