It sometimes feels that in recent memory, the Coen-esque small town crime thriller or darkly comedic crime caper is a genre that is in some danger of overexposure, but at the same time it’s hard to break away from them entirely. This is a niche with some serious staying power, and they’ve always provided an entertaining way for recognizable performers to “break bad” in particular. Just ask Sydney Sweeney, who appears to be doing exactly that in the first trailer for Tony Tost’s Americana, which you can view below. The macabre blend of comedy and bloody criminal antics premiered to strong but limited reviews at SXSW back in 2023, and has seemingly been hanging around gathering dust ever since, likely compounded by the SAG and writer’s strikes. Now it’s finally seeing the light of day, with an Aug. 22, 2025 release.
Sweeney, a star of HBO’s Euphoria and beyond, is playing “Penny Jo Poplin,” a diner waitress and aspiring country singer somewhere in Big Sky Country, who along with her boyfriend or confidante Lefty Ledbetter (Paul Walter Hauser of the recent Luckiest Man in the America ) stumbles her way into a local criminal plot to steal a valuable “Lakota Indian ghost shirt,” proudly displayed by a vain Toby Huss–exactly the sort of character actor you want to see in this sort of project. The film also stars singer Halsey (who appeared in Maxxxine), Dark Winds‘s fantastic Zahn McClarnon, Simon Rex, and Eric Dane, who just starred alongside Samara Weaving in another darkly funny thriller, Borderline. Also in Americana: A deluded little, appropriating white boy who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Sitting Bull, notably stealing most of the trailers’ best lines.
“Everybody is trying to get a valuable object” is of course a premise that we’ve seen a million times in various crime capers plotted somewhere on the Guy Ritchie matrix, but at least Americana has its interesting and varied cast to fall back on. In terms of tone, director Tony Tost is currently the showrunner on the second season of Peacock’s Poker Face, so that might give some indication of what to expect. You can check out the first Americana trailer below.
