The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

A closer look at the story

Sixty-four years before he rules Panem as its tyrant president, Coriolanus Snow is the last hope of a disgraced, fading family in the Capitol. When he is chosen as a mentor for the 10th Hunger Games, he sees the assignment as a chance to change his fortunes. But when the tribute he is given turns out to be Lucy Gray Baird from impoverished District 12, he is thrown into disappointment and panic. Lucy, however, manages to capture everyone's attention with the song she sings at the reaping ceremony, and Snow begins to believe he can turn things to his advantage. The pair team up and start racing the clock to stay alive, and in the end it will become clear which of them is the songbird and which the snake. Francis Lawrence directs this 157-minute 2023 adaptation of the Suzanne Collins book, starring Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Hunter Schafer.