People in the audience become very quiet when they hear the same story told over and over, but they still do their best to pay attention. That’s how the Hadestown proshot makes you feel. It’s a live-capture film of Anaïs Mitchell’s famous musical, recorded at the Lyric Theatre in London between late February and early March 2025. This project could have looked like something from a museum. It feels like the thing itself instead.
The movie, which was directed by Brett Sullivan, brings back five main actors from the Broadway show: Reeve Carney as Orpheus, Eva Noblezada as Eurydice, André De Shields as Hermes, Amber Gray as Persephone, and Patrick Page as Hades. These aren’t new people learning old roles. They play these parts with a comfort that can only come from telling the same story over and over again and finding new things to say about it each time.
For people who haven’t seen the show, Hadestown retells the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, along with the story of Hades and Persephone’s marriage, and sets it in America during the Great Depression. New Orleans jazz and Appalachian folk music are mixed by Mitchell in a way that shouldn’t work so well. The result is a score that sounds both very old and very new at the same time. Songs like “Wait for Me” and “Why We Build the Wall” are important outside of the stage. They stay.
What makes the proshot work, and it does work, is that the filmmaking is clear without taking away from the live performance itself. The way Sullivan’s camera moves is deliberate, and it captures the little things that people in the back rows of a theater often miss. There was a look between Noblezada and Carney. The steady, slow authority in Page’s posture. As De Shields, who won a Tony for this role, he commands every frame with a presence that cameras can either lessen or amplify. This time, it’s the second.
The movie had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on June 8, 2026. It then came out in theaters across North America on July 24, 2026. It was only supposed to be shown for five days at first, but because of high demand, it was shown for six days. On Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of critics gave it good reviews, and Metacritic said it got perfect reviews from all critics. Those numbers aren’t small, but they don’t fully explain why so many people are there.
It seems like people are eager for this kind of link—something that connects the unique experience of live theater with the ease of access to movies. Perhaps more than most shows, Hadestown makes a strong case for why that bridge should be built. Even though the story is sad, Mitchell has always insisted on telling it. Hismes says that at the end of the show. It’s a sad song, but it needs to be said again because some truths need to be told over and over.
The movie will be shown in theaters in the UK in October. This is a good place to start if you haven’t seen Hadestown on stage or screen yet. Even if you have, there’s a good chance you’ll find something you missed the first time.
