Lance Oppenheim’s narrative-feature debut transforms the rise of To Catch a Predator into a psychological thriller about ambition, performance and justice made for an audience.
In 2006, television journalist Chris Hansen was becoming one of the most recognisable faces in American true-crime programming. His carefully controlled confrontations on To Catch a Predator attracted enormous audiences - but they also blurred the boundary between public-interest reporting and televised spectacle.
That tension drives Primetime, A24’s new psychological crime thriller starring Robert Pattinson as a heightened, fictionalised version of Hansen.
Directed by Lance Oppenheim and written by Ajon Singh, the film is inspired by true events and Luke Dittrich’s article “Tonight on Dateline, This Man Will Die.” Rather than presenting a conventional biographical drama, Primetime examines the machinery surrounding a television phenomenon: the producers, performers, decoys, cameras and commercial pressures responsible for turning sting operations into appointment television.
A Journalist Becomes the Story
Set at the height of the programme’s success, the film follows Hansen as he receives the opportunity he has been working towards: a coveted prime-time slot for live sting operations targeting alleged child predators.
But the greater the audience becomes, the more the demands of television begin to shape the reporting. Investigations need bigger targets, confrontations require memorable moments and serious journalism is increasingly packaged as repeatable entertainment.
Pattinson’s Hansen is therefore presented as both journalist and performer - a man attempting to expose wrongdoing while becoming trapped inside the commanding television persona he has constructed.
Director Lance Oppenheim describes Primetime as “more of a fever dream than a conventional biopic.” The approach allows the film to move beyond imitation and explore the wider culture surrounding Hansen, from the authority of traditional network news to the programme’s unexpected afterlife as an internet meme.
Inside the Production Apparatus
The story also focuses on the people working behind the camera.
Merritt Wever plays Andie Bender, the fictional producer responsible for managing the increasingly complicated sting operations. Skyler Gisondo appears as Dan Plum, an aspiring performer hired to work as an adult decoy posing as a minor.
Dan’s developing relationship with Hansen becomes central to the film. While Hansen understands the power of the camera, Dan enters the production with a performer’s desire to be seen. Their dynamic provides a window into a workplace where law enforcement, journalism and entertainment are operating within the same carefully constructed environment.
Matthew Maher portrays Xavier Von Erck, while Phoebe Bridgers makes her feature-film acting debut as Del. The supporting cast includes Bokeem Woodbine, Alex Winter, Anna Faris, Sean Bridgers, Jessica Hecht and Jeff Zucker, appearing as himself.
From Documentary to Psychological Thriller
Primetime marks Oppenheim’s first scripted feature following the documentaries Some Kind of Heaven and Spermworld, as well as the HBO series Ren Faire.
His documentary work frequently explores people building elaborate worlds around ambition, identity and power. In Primetime, that interest is applied to a television production in which artificial environments - decoy conversations, staged homes and hidden cameras - produce consequences that are very real.
The film is presented as a media collage, combining the visual language of early-2000s network television with a more hallucinatory portrait of its central character. As the operations escalate and one investigation ends in tragedy, Hansen’s certainty begins to fracture.
The result is positioned as a character study rather than a simple judgement of its subject. It asks what happens when the pursuit of justice must also satisfy ratings - and what prolonged exposure to that conflict does to the people operating inside it.
Produced by Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, Fred Berger, William Iannaccone, Robert Pattinson, Brighton McCloskey, Lars Knudsen and Ari Aster, Primetime premiered in competition at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival.
A24 will release Primetime nationwide in the United States on September 25, 2026. The film runs 110 minutes and is rated R.
This advance preview was prepared using official press notes supplied by A24. It is not an independent review of the film.
