Angelina Jolie returned to the director’s chair for Without Blood, an adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s 2002 book of the same name. Jolie wrote the screenplay alongside Baricco himself. She also produced the upcoming feature, which has finally settled on a release date following its festival premiere in 2024.
According to Variety, Without Blood will open in U.S. theaters on Sept. 18, 2026. The film is set in the aftermath of an unnamed conflict. In the book, we meet a young girl named Nina whose father and brother are both killed by a group of murderous men while she hides. One of the men, Tito, finds her hiding spot but doesn’t say anything, leaving her alone. The moment haunts him from then on. We pick up decades later, when Nina is in her 50s. She has tracked down Tito and invites him for a drink. Tito suspects that she had something to do with the deaths of the other two attackers and is inviting him out to exact her final revenge, but he goes anyway.
Without Blood stars Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir as Nina and Tito, with other actors playing the characters at various stages of their lives. “Alessandro Baricco’s ‘Without Blood’ examines universal truths about trauma, memory and healing,” Jolie said in a statement. “The emotional intimacy and openness that our cast and crew brought to this film was extraordinary and exciting to be around. I hope that Salma and Demián’s brave performances will inspire the type of conversation that Baricco sought in writing the novel.”
Hayek Pinault, who starred alongside Jolie in the 2021 Marvel movie Eternals, also weighed in. “Having the opportunity to be directed by Angelina Jolie in ‘Without Blood’ was a profoundly enriching experience,” she said. “Her emotional intelligence and searing sensitivity bring to life a story about how the wounds we carry shape who we become, and the strength it takes to carry on. I am so thrilled that Brainstorm is bringing this visually stunning tale of revenge, guilt, and the long road back to our own humanity to U.S. audiences in theaters.”
Without Blood is only making its way to theaters now, but it premiered nearly two years ago at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Critics have already weighed in, and by and large, they were not kind. With 14 reviews counted, the movie currently has a 36% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics finding the film mediocre despite good intentions.
Soon enough, audiences can decide for themselves. Without Blood is the first movie Jolie has directed since 2017’s First They Killed My Father. Before that, she helmed movies like In the Land of Blood and Honey, Unbroken, and By the Sea. As an actor, Jolie will appear in the comedy Anxious People and the crime thriller Sunny.
