Nightmare Alley is a 2021 noir-style psychological thriller film directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, David Strathairn, Richard Jenkins, Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman, and Mary Steenburgen.

The film is based on the 1946 novel of the same name by William Lindsay Gresham, and is a remake of the 1947 film adaptation.

Plot

The film follows Stanton Carlisle (Cooper), a down-on-his-luck drifter who joins a traveling carnival and learns the tricks of the mentalist trade from Zeena (Collette) and Pete (Strathairn), a clairvoyant and her alcoholic husband.

Stanton soon becomes a successful mentalist, using his newfound skills to con the wealthy elite of 1940s New York City. However, his ambition grows, and he schemes to con a dangerous tycoon (Jenkins) with the help of a mysterious psychiatrist (Blanchett).