First trailer for The Crown and Top Boy stars' new movie Empire of Light

We're gearing up for this year's awards race, and it wouldn't be a surprise to see Empire of Light among the contenders.

Searchlight Pictures has released an excellent teaser trailer for Sam Mendes's new movie which boasts an impressive cast led by The Crown's Olivia Colman and Top Boy's Micheal Ward.

The teaser is light on actual plot details, but we do hear Toby Jones's projectionist talk about the magic of cinema in a voiceover as we see scenes including Colman looking tearfully at a screen and Ward's character dealing with racists.

"Film, it's just static frames with darkness in between. But there's a little flaw in your optic nerve, so if I run the film at 24 frames per second, it creates an illusion of motion," Jones's character says.

"An illusion of life, so you don't see the darkness. Out there, they just see a beam of light, and nothing happens without light."

While the teaser is light on plot details, we do know that Empire of Light is set in an English seaside town in the early 1980s, and is set to be a "powerful and poignant story about human connection and the magic of cinemas".

With that cast – which also includes Colin Firth, Tom Brooke, Tanya Moodie, Hannah Onslow and Crystal Clarke – and a plot revolving around cinema, we can already hear the nominations rolling in.

The movie will receive its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival next month and will also screen at the BFI London Film Festival on October 12.

"Empire of Light is a very personal movie for me, and I can't wait to show it in my hometown," Mendes said.

Empire of Light is released in US cinemas on December 9 and in UK cinemas on January 13, 2023.

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Ian Sandwell

Movies Editor, Digital Spy  Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor.  Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world.   After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.