ALEX BROWN
Lionsgate released the first teaser trailer for Killing Castro on November 12, a Cold War thriller starring Diego Boneta as Fidel Castro and Al Pacino as a CIA operative. Directed by Eif Rivera, the film dramatizes Castro’s 1960 trip to New York for the United Nations, when he moved his delegation to Harlem’s Hotel Theresa. It opens in select theaters on December 11, 2026, and on digital on December 18.
Watch the Killing Castro teaser
At just over a minute, the teaser is mostly mood: smoky rooms, nervous agents and Pacino quietly setting the stakes. It’s enough to show that the film is pitched as a political pressure-cooker rather than a straight biopic.
What is Killing Castro about?
According to Lionsgate’s official synopsis, the CIA, the FBI and the Mafia all close in on Castro to stop him from delivering a pivotal UN speech shortly after he took power in Cuba. When Castro unexpectedly relocates to the Hotel Theresa at the invitation of Malcolm X, a CIA operative, a young translator and a hotel worker get pulled into a covert plot against him.
The setting is real. In September 1960, Castro’s delegation left a Midtown hotel after a dispute and checked into the Theresa, then one of Harlem’s best-known hotels, where Malcolm X met him. The film builds a thriller around that week; how closely it sticks to the historical record is something audiences will judge in December.
Killing Castro cast
- Diego Boneta as Fidel Castro
- Al Pacino as a CIA operative
- Xolo Maridueña as a young translator
- KiKi Layne as a hotel worker
- Kendrick Sampson as Malcolm X
- Alexander Ludwig, Ron Livingston, Nicole Beharie, Titus Welliver, Frankie Faison, Paul Ben-Victor, Logan Marshall-Green
Who made Killing Castro?
Eif Rivera, best known for music videos, directs from a screenplay by Thomas V. DeGrezia and Leon Hendrix III, based on an earlier script by Colin Bateman. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and DJ Khaled are attached through Lionsgate’s credits, with production by Romulus Entertainment and G-Unit Film & Television. The film screened in the industry market at TIFF before Lionsgate set its release.
Release date
The one-week gap between theaters and digital is short, which suggests Lionsgate sees home viewing as the main audience. It lands the same week as other December prestige releases we’ve covered, including Danny Boyle’s Ink and The Debut, both opening December 11.
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Sources: Lionsgate Movies (YouTube), FirstShowing, The Hollywood Reporter