Ethan Hawke Means Business In First Trailer For Paul Schrader’s FIRST REFORMED

I can’t help but feel like Paul Schrader deserves more respect. He gets accurate renowned as screenwriter of classics like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, but as a director his filmography is a different kind of impressive. To span from films like Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters to Affliction to the delightfully unhinged Dog Eat Dog is no little thing, and I don’t think we appreciate him enough.

With that in mind, Schrader is back with First Reformed, which looks excellent based on this first trailer:

Similar to Schrader, you don’t always know what you’re getting with a lead Ethan Hawke performance, but he looks perfectly suited here as a conflicted priest who probably gets into some nefarious non-priest shit. I’m not 100% sure what shit that involves (although suicide bombing appears to play a role), but I can’t wait to see it and find out.

First Reformed hits theaters May 18.