We at Collider are happy to exclusively debut a new poster for The Orchard’s upcoming heist film American Animals. Directed by Bart Layton, the filmmaker behind the compelling documentary The Imposter, this film is based on a true story and blends fact and fiction in a really engaging way. The story follows four friends who attempt to execute one of the most daring heists in U.S. history, stealing a rare book from a college library’s secure archives. While the ensemble includes Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, and Blake Jenner, the film is also interspersed with talking head footage of the characters’ real-life counterparts reflecting on their actions with the benefit of hindsight, and offering new shadings that expand this far beyond your traditional heist movie.

I caught the film at Sundance and it’s a really fascinatingly told story, with those real-life interviews ensuring that it’s a wholly unique viewing experience. Moreover, Peters delivers quite possibly the best performance of his career, and his work here is further proof that he really deserves to be a bona fide movie star.

Check out the exclusive American Animals poster below. The film also stars Jared Abrahamson and opens in theaters on June 1st.

 

Here’s the official synopsis for American Animals:

American Animals is the unbelievable but entirely true story of four young men who attempt to execute one of the most audacious art heists in U.S. history. The film centers around two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky.

 

Spencer (Barry Keoghan), is determined to become an artist but feels he lacks the essential ingredient that unites all great artists – suffering. His closest friend, Warren (Evan Peters), has also been raised to believe that his life will be special, and that he will be unique in some way. But as they leave the suburbs for universities in the same town, the realities of adult life begin to dawn on them and with that, the realization that their lives may in fact never be important or special in any way. Determined to live lives that are out of the ordinary, they plan the brazen theft of some of the world’s most valuable books from the special collections room of Spencer's college Library. Enlisting two more friends, accounting major Eric (Jared Abrahamson) and fitness fanatic Chas (Blake Jenner), and taking their cues from heist movies, the gang meticulously plots the theft and subsequent fence of the stolen artworks. Although some of the group begin to have second thoughts, they discover that the plan has seemingly taken on a life of its own. Unfolding from multiple perspectives, and innovatively incorporating the real-life figures at the heart of the story, writer-director Bart Layton (The Imposter) takes the heist movie into bold new territory.