All your Charli xcx The Moment questions, answered

After conquering the pop world with brat, Charli xcx quickly channelled her newfound career momentum into a pivot to movies. One of those projects is The Moment, a film out in 2026. With today's announcement of the cast, here's everything we know about the movie.

On November 19, Charli xcx unviled the movie poster for The Moment.

The Moment is coming from Charli's production company Studio365 and venerated arthouse label A24. Based on an original idea from Charli, The Moment is directed by Aidan Zamiri and co-written by Zamiri with Bertie Brandes. Zamiri is best known as a music video director, helming two visuals from brat ("Guess" feat. Billie Eilish, "360") as well as videos for FKA twigs, Yung Lean, and more.

A press release offers a little more insight into the film's plot: "A rising pop star navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut."

Without knowing the exact genre of the film (or indeed, much of anything about it), that synopsis and the tense sound of the trailer's music strongly reminds me of Hurry Up Tomorrow, a film inspired by The Weeknd's pop star struggles co-written by Abel Tesfaye and directed by Trey Edward Shults. That film, of course, was a critical and commercial flop, though the soundtrack continues to do very well.

The Moment could end up being a totally different film! But right now the prospect of getting two identically-plotted autofictional pop star psychodramas in two years is too hilarious to resist.

Based off the limited details, it was safe to assume that The Moment was at the very least inspired by the career-defining and meteoric event that was brat summer and how Charli herself navigated that sudden and extreme rise. In October, Charli xcx indeed confirmed that she came up with the idea of the film amid the brat whirlwind, and that the film's genesis could actually be traced back to a message.

Per Vanity Fair, the pop star said she sent The Moment director Aidan Zamiri a "word vomit" message in the middle of the Sweat tour during September 2024. "It almost felt like a diary entry of, ‘This is how I feel right now,’ ” said Zamiri of the message. “This feeling of having just almost got everything she could have wanted, and what that felt like on kind of a human level.”

A few months later, Zamiri and writer Bertie Brandes had finished the screenplay, and this past Spring, Charli and the cast shot the movie.

While it's still unclear on what kind of film exactly The Moment will be, Charli xcx has been clear about what it isn't: a concert film or tour documentary.

In that interview with Vanity Fair, the pop star decisively shot down the idea that The Moment will fit into any category of non-fiction. Instead she calls it a "2024 period piece" and "fiction, but it’s the realest depiction of the music industry that I’ve ever seen.”

Of tour documentaries, Charli xcx also said: “I feel like my problem with a lot of musician documentaries is it often shows the musician coming up against some kind of opposition and eventually overcoming it to be the hero. And that’s just not been my experience, you know? Maybe it has been a lot of other people’s, and that’s awesome.”

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The cast was revealed in a video heavily inspired by the title sequence to Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void, soundtracked by the remix of Icona Pop's Charli-featuring hit "I Don't Care" that's appeared at a few concerts. Charli xcx will play the film's lead. Hollywood heavyweights Rosanna Arquette and Alexander Skarsgard will join alt-comedy stars Kate Berlant and Rachel Sennott alongside Charli's musical collaborators Shygirl and A.G. Cook (Cook will also compose the film's score). See the full cast in the very seizure-unfriendly video above.