Her Private Hell opens in French theaters on September 23 through The Jokers Films.
Sophie Thatcher stars as Elle, a troubled young woman searching for her father while a mysterious mist consumes a futuristic metropolis and unleashes an elusive deadly presence.
Her journey collides with Private K, an American soldier played by Charles Melton who is trying to rescue his missing daughter.
Refn is returning to theatrical features after a decade
The Neon Demon was released in 2016. Refn did not stop directing after that, making the series Too Old to Die Young and Copenhagen Cowboy, but Her Private Hell is his first feature built again for a conventional theatrical run.
It also concentrates many of his familiar obsessions into one movie.
Highly controlled compositions, saturated colors, abrupt violence and characters moving through dreamlike rather than strictly realistic spaces are all immediately present.
Refn has not returned to become more anonymous.
The mist contains more than one story
The central synopsis emphasizes Elle and Private K, but the film expands around several young women moving through the same dangerous city.
Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Frøseth and Shioli Kutsuna are part of that wider ensemble, while the story also introduces a mysterious killer known as Leather Man.
Dougray Scott and Diego Calva also appear.
The result is not structured like a straightforward survival movie in which two characters simply escape a monster-filled fog. Refn layers separate trajectories until the city begins to feel less like a real place and more like a neon purgatory.
Refn has called it “dadsploitation”
The director has connected the movie directly to his own experience as a father and to a serious heart condition that required surgery in 2023.
Refn has described that period as a creative and personal reset. Her Private Hell emerged partly from his fears about protecting his children and from the fantasy of a father willing to cross impossible territory to save his daughter.
He has jokingly labeled that part of the film “dadsploitation.”
Underneath the stylized violence and artificial light, the movie is therefore rooted in an unusually personal anxiety.
Sophie Thatcher remains firmly inside genre cinema
Thatcher fits the material naturally after Yellowjackets, Heretic and Companion, projects that repeatedly place her characters between psychological vulnerability and increasingly unstable genre threats.
Melton enters from a different direction after performances including May December. Refn uses his physical presence and restraint to make Private K feel closer to a mythic soldier figure than a conventional action lead.
That difference between the two actors is part of the film's design: Elle and Private K often seem to belong to separate stories before the nightmare begins pulling them together.
Cannes already showed how divisive the movie can be
Her Private Hell screened out of competition at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
The reception followed a familiar Refn pattern. The film's visual control and atmosphere attracted admiration, while its loose narrative logic and emphasis on sensation produced much colder reactions elsewhere.
That division is not especially surprising. Refn has repeatedly said he values strong responses more than broad consensus.
The film runs 110 minutes
Her Private Hell runs for 1 hour and 50 minutes and mixes crime, horror, science fiction and psychological drama.
The French release begins on September 23, 2026.
After 10 years without a new theatrical feature from Refn, the question is not whether he has softened his style. Her Private Hell suggests he has returned because he wanted to push further into it.
