AwardsWatch - Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer shine bright in first trailer for psychological thriller ‘Luce’

Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer shine bright in first trailer for psychological thriller ‘Luce’

An all-star high school athlete and accomplished debater, Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) is a poster boy for the new American Dream. As are his parents (Academy Award nominees Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, who co-starred in the remake of Funny Games), who adopted him from war-torn Eritrea a decade earlier. His African American teacher, Harriet Wilson (Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer), believes he is a symbol of black excellence that sets a positive example for his peers. But when he is assigned to write an essay in the voice of a historical twentieth-century figure, Luce turns in a paper that makes an alarming statement about political violence.

Luce was directed by Julius Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox) and written by Onah and J.C. Lee from Lee’s play. It premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Neon will release Luce on August 2nd. Here is the first trailer.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.