The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)

Verdict

A sharp, bleak prequel that works best as a character study of ambition curdling into authoritarianism, with strong performances and a surprisingly operatic romance. It’s less propulsive than the main series, but the political world-building and moral decay give it real bite.

Best for

• fans of dystopian dramas with a villain-origin angle
• viewers who like tragic romance inside genre spectacle
• audiences interested in political allegory and power psychology
• people who enjoyed the darker, more cynical side of YA adaptations

Skip if

• you want the fast-paced arena action of the original films
• you prefer a straightforward hero’s journey
• you’re not interested in a slow-burn, dialogue-heavy prequel
• you dislike stories centered on manipulative antiheroes

Overview

This prequel is at its strongest when it treats Coriolanus Snow not as a future tyrant in waiting, but as a young man whose vanity, hunger, and self-justifications are already hardening into ideology. The movie has a colder, more intimate feel than the main Hunger Games films, trading spectacle for psychological pressure and a steady sense of dread.

Worth noting

Rachel Zegler gives the film its pulse as Lucy Gray Baird, bringing charisma, unpredictability, and a performer’s instinct for survival. The relationship between Snow and Lucy Gray is the engine here: part romance, part power struggle, part mutual exploitation. That tension keeps the story compelling even when the plotting becomes familiar.

Bottom line

It’s not as cleanly engineered as the best entries in the franchise, and some viewers may miss the emotional clarity of Katniss’s arc. But as a study in how charm, class resentment, and ambition can mutate into cruelty, it lands well. The result is a glossy but bitter dystopian drama with a nasty streak and a strong sense of consequence.

Top Letterboxd reviews

clem clem (4★) · 60399 likes

never trust a man during his buzz cut era

Lauren (5★) · 52896 likes

men have one bad breakup in high school and make it everyone’s problem for the rest of their life

gracky (4★) · 41091 likes

caught myself getting upset when the bad guy i know is bad turns out to be bad

emily k (5★) · 37865 likes

me when the situationship who broke my heart and left me in the woods introduces me to a plant and then 64 years later a girl named after the same plant starts an uprising against my government

Cesar (4★) · 30261 likes

S(he) be(lie)ve(d)

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Topics

dystopian drama, YA adaptation, political thriller, origin story, dark romance, class struggle, authoritarian rise, survival, moral ambiguity, prestige spectacle