Alfonso Cuarón prepares his return to cinema: “I’m writing a horror film”
Eight years after Roma, the Mexican filmmaker is preparing his next feature film. And he finally plans to tackle a genre that has fascinated him for a long time: horror.
Will Alfonso Cuarón scare us?
Absent from cinemas for a while, the director of Son of man is preparing his return to the big screen with a project that should mark a turning point in his career. Invited to the Busan International Film Festival, the filmmaker revealed that he was working on a horror film. A first for someone who has not directed a feature film since his Oscar for Romein 2018, for Netflix. His last theatrical project dates back to Gravityalmost 15 years ago…
“I’m writing a horror story, very carefully and slowly. It’s very interesting“, he confided during a masterclass in South Korea. A statement which confirms his long-standing desire to dabble in the genre, even if no details on the plot or the production schedule have yet been revealed.
In 2024, during the Locarno Festival, Alfonso Cuarón had already mentioned this ambition: “My aspiration is to one day make a horror film.” He then explained that he was thinking about an idea, citing two works by Roman Polanski among his references: Rosemary’s Baby And The Tenant. Two classics where anxiety is born as much from paranoia as from the gradual loss of bearings.
at busan international film festival, director jonas cuarón also expressed his fondness for korean cinema. “i have great respect for the way they build stories upon a genre foundation while seamlessly incorporating humor into them,” director jonas said, citing bong joon-ho’s ‘the host’ (2006) and ‘parasite’ (2019), park chan-wook’s ‘no other choice’ (2025), and na hong-jin’s ‘hope’ (2026) as particularly impressive works.
— son yejin 𝙥𝙞𝙘𝙨 (@sonyejinpics) October 8, 2026
This return to cinema will have taken its time.
From Romethe filmmaker directed the series Disclaimer for Apple TV, in 2024, but several feature film projects never came to fruition. He did not wish to specify its nature to Busan. Among the avenues discussed in recent years was notably Janea biopic dedicated to the writer Philip K. Dick with Charlize Theron, entered pre-production at the end of 2019 before the pandemic disrupted the schedule. Cuarón had also been approached to direct the next James Bond, before withdrawing from the race to devote himself to other projects.
Horror, however, is not a territory that is so far from his cinema. The oppressive dystopia of Son of manthe struggle for survival Gravity or the disturbing atmosphere of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban already demonstrate his taste for tension and anguish.
