'Tangles' Trailer Reveals Release Date for Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Seth Rogen's Animated Alzheimer's Drama

Some of the year’s most talked-about films have come from festivals rather than studio slates, and ‘Tangles’ is the latest example. A hand-drawn, black-and-white animated feature with a voice cast that reads like a comedy hall of fame, it has been building quiet momentum since it premiered at Cannes. Now the first ‘Tangles’ trailer has arrived, and it finally puts a date on when audiences can see it.

Distributor IFC has released a 1:36 trailer that sets the film for a theatrical release in January. The date follows an Oscar-qualifying run that IFC and Sapan Studio planned before the end of 2026, with a wider expansion following in early 2027.

The preview introduces a story that is both personal and deeply relatable. ‘Tangles’ follows an artist who returns home after Alzheimer’s disease begins to erase her mother’s vibrant personality, and the trailer pairs the film’s expressive hand-drawn style with the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston and Seth Rogen.

First trailer for ‘TANGLES’, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston and Seth Rogen. The film follows an artist who returns home after Alzheimer’s disease begins to erase her mother’s vibrant personality. In theaters on January 22. https://t.co/yI8F1W5l1G
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 21, 2026

The film is adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s 2010 graphic memoir ‘Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me.’ Abbi Jacobson voices Sarah, a queer magazine illustrator in 1990s San Francisco who is falling in love with her girlfriend Donimo (Samira Wiley) when she has to go back to her family in Maine to care for her mother, Midge. Louis-Dreyfus voices Midge, a once-sharp intellectual whose spirit is fading, and Cranston plays Sarah’s father, Rob, while Beanie Feldstein voices her sister Hannah.

The supporting cast is stacked with comedians, including Seth Rogen, Bowen Yang, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes and Pamela Adlon. That balance matters, because the film is billed as a dark comedy that finds humor, awkwardness and family absurdity within the painful realities of caregiving and grief.

Leah Nelson, a co-founder of the Vancouver animation studio Giant Ant, makes her feature directorial debut, working from a screenplay she wrote with Leavitt and Trev Renney. The film keeps the memoir’s sparse, black-and-white style and uses occasional bursts of color when the protagonist’s emotions spill over. According to Nelson, the book reminded her of ‘Persepolis’ because it was so raw, uninhibited and funny, and the project has been in development since 2013.

The personal connection runs through the production. Nelson has said her own family dealt with dementia, and Jacobson has said her grandmother had Alzheimer’s. Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen, who produced through Point Grey Pictures and Lylas Pictures, are longtime Alzheimer’s advocates, and the closing credits include a long list of names submitted by cast and crew members who have been affected by the disease.

The festival run has been impressive. ‘Tangles’ premiered in the Special Screenings section at Cannes, then screened in competition at Annecy and in San Sebastián, where it won the Sebastiane Award. It later played in the Centrepiece section at the Toronto International Film Festival, and IFC and Sapan Studio acquired North American rights ahead of that screening.

Early reaction has been strong. Little White Lies called it a beautifully judged adaptation helped by an amazing vocal cast, while another outlet named it one of the best films of 2026, animated or otherwise. Cartoon Brew noted that the distribution deal makes it an immediate contender in this year’s competitive animated feature Oscar race.

The trailer arrives with that awards momentum behind it. Louis-Dreyfus is also a producer on the film, and the voice cast brings together some of the most decorated names in television comedy for a story about the opposite of laughter, which may be exactly why it lands.

For now, the release date gives audiences a clear marker, and the trailer gives a glimpse of how the film turns an unforgiving subject into something gentle, funny and heartbreaking. With a limited release leading into a wider rollout, ‘Tangles’ looks set to be one of the winter’s most emotional theatrical experiences.