'The Gallerist' Trailer Sells a Dead Body as High Art in Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega's Dark Comedy

Few settings invite satire quite like the glittering excess of Art Basel Miami, where ego is currency and opening-night buzz can make or break a career. That is exactly the world director Cathy Yan drops her audience into with ‘The Gallerist‘, a dark comedic thriller about an ambitious gallery owner who will do almost anything to prove herself.

Yan, who previously directed ‘Birds of Prey’, premiered the film at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, her return to the festival where her debut feature ‘Dead Pigs’ first screened in 2018. Roadside Attractions and Vertical later picked up the U.S. rights, and the movie now has a late-year theatrical slot waiting for it.

Roadside Attractions, Vertical and MRC have now released the first trailer for ‘The Gallerist’, ahead of its December 4 opening in theaters. Natalie Portman stars as Polina Polinski, a Miami gallery owner facing mounting financial hardship after a nasty separation. Jenna Ortega plays her assistant, Kiki.

The trailer leans into the film’s wildly dark premise. After a fatal accident at the gallery, Polina and Kiki have to cover up the fact that a dead body is real, and the art world turns out to be more than willing to believe he is simply part of a sculpture. What follows is a game of deception and a comedy of errors as Polina tries to turn the incident into a career-defining sensation.

First trailer for Cathy Yan’s ‘THE GALLERIST’ starring Natalie Portman, Jenna Ortega, Sterling K. Brown, Daniel Brühl, Charli xcx, Zach Galifianakis, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Catherine Zeta-Jones. In theaters December 4. https://t.co/psaWtrveXZ
— Film Updates (@FilmUpdates) November 5, 2026

The cast around Portman and Ortega is remarkably deep. Zach Galifianakis plays the insufferable art influencer Dalton Hardberry, whose visit to the gallery sets the chaos in motion. Sterling K. Brown plays Polina’s feuding ex, Tom, while Da’Vine Joy Randolph appears as emerging artist Stella Burgess.

Catherine Zeta-Jones joins the scheme as Marianne Gorman, a veteran who joins the scheme. Her role reunites her with Ortega, her co-star on ‘Wednesday’. Daniel Brühl appears as a collector, and pop star Charli xcx turns up as a character named Alex.

Deadline highlights the credentials on the call sheet, noting that the ensemble includes Academy Award winner Randolph, Emmy winner Brown, two-time Emmy winner Galifianakis and Grammy winner Charli xcx. Portman also produces the film through her company MountainA, alongside Sophie Mas and a team of other producers.

The film’s reception out of Park City was divided. Variety called it a facile but fun art-world satire that skewers how curators can get away with almost anything, while the Sundance Institute’s own coverage described it as a furious, funny and tightly wound farce. Reviewers who liked it pointed to the pacing, the committed performances and the film’s tinge of meanness.

Others were far less forgiving. JoBlo’s review dismissed it as a misfire whose clever premise is not particularly well thought out, calling it the festival’s biggest disappointment. That split makes the trailer especially interesting, because audiences can now judge the tone for themselves before the film opens.

At its core, ‘The Gallerist’ is a story about art and commerce and the ugly intimacy between them, which is how Yan framed the film during a Sundance Q&A. The premise treats the art market as a place where provocation can be mistaken for genius, and where nobody wants to ask too many questions about where a piece came from.

The film also arrives as a showcase for a director who has moved between indie filmmaking and studio blockbusters. Yan wrote the screenplay with James Pedersen, and one Sundance review noted that the film’s frantic, excess-prone energy is kept lively by its music and its roaming camera work.

The release also lands in a busy stretch for its leads. Portman is set to appear next in the romantic film ‘Good Sex’ and the psychological thriller ‘Pumping Back’. Ortega has ‘The Great Beyond’ and ‘Nasty’ ahead, along with a return in ‘Wednesday’ Season 3.

With a trailer now out and a December opening on the calendar, ‘The Gallerist’ is positioned as one of the stranger and more star-packed comedies of the holiday season. Whether it lands as a sharp satire or a divisive curiosity, its central gag is hard to forget.