Sunrise on the Reaping Tickets Go On Sale October 28. The Early Shows Are Premium Only. Here Is What to Expect.

Lionsgate has put a time on the scramble. Tickets for The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping go on sale Wednesday, October 28, at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT), for every showtime at once, including early screenings two days before the film opens. The catch is the format: those first shows are on premium screens only.

The film opens wide on Friday, November 20, 2026. It is Francis Lawrence's fifth film in the series, it is rated PG-13, and at a listed 158 minutes it is the longest Hunger Games movie yet. It also becomes the sixth entry on our Hunger Games movies ranked list the day it opens. Here is what to expect, and what to know before you pick a seat.

Tickets and the November 18 early shows

• On sale: Wednesday, October 28, at 9 a.m. ET, through Fandango and theater websites.
• Early access: Wednesday, November 18, from 6 p.m. local time, two days before release.
• Early access formats: IMAX, Dolby Cinema, 4DX, ScreenX, Cinemark XD, Regal RPX, AMC Prime and other exhibitor-branded premium large formats. Not every theater is taking part.
• Wide release: Friday, November 20, 2026, in standard and premium formats.

If your nearest theater has no premium screen, the 18th is off the table, so check local listings before October 28. And if IMAX is the point, book the opening week. Netflix's The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth opens in IMAX theaters only on November 25 for a two-week run, so Haymitch will be sharing (or losing) those screens five days in.

Make your tier list right here

Five Hunger Games films, head-to-head. Tap the one you prefer and we will build your order, then label it S through D.

Which do you prefer?

The Hunger Games 2012

VS

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire 2013

Tap your favorite

The story: Haymitch's Games, 24 years before Katniss

The film adapts Suzanne Collins' novel, published on March 18, 2025. It opens on the morning of the reaping for the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, when every district has to send twice the usual number of tributes. Joseph Zada plays a 16-year-old Haymitch Abernathy, the District 12 kid who grows into the drunk, sharp-tongued mentor Woody Harrelson played in the first four films.

In the arena, Haymitch allies with Maysilee Donner (Mckenna Grace), another District 12 tribute, and joins a coalition working against the Capitol and President Snow. Book readers already know her name for another reason: in Collins' novels, the mockingjay pin Katniss wears into her first Games once belonged to Maysilee.

Who plays whom, and who played them before

Much of this cast is a younger version of someone you already know. Here are the recasts, with the actor who played the same character in the earlier films:

• Joseph Zada as Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson)
• Ralph Fiennes as President Coriolanus Snow (Donald Sutherland, and Tom Blyth in The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes)
• Jesse Plemons as Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
• Elle Fanning as Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks)
• Kieran Culkin as Caesar Flickerman (Stanley Tucci)
• Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Beetee Latier (Jeffrey Wright)
• Maya Hawke as Wiress (Amanda Plummer)
• Lili Taylor as Mags Flanagan (Lynn Cohen)

Beetee, Wiress and Mags are the three to watch if you love Catching Fire. By the 50th Games all three are already past victors (Mags won the 11th, Beetee the 34th, Wiress the 49th), a quarter century before they walk into the Third Quarter Quell beside Katniss. Beetee's son Ampert (Percy Daggs IV) is one of this year's District 3 tributes.

The new faces: Whitney Peak plays Lenore Dove Baird, Haymitch's girlfriend. Glenn Close is Drusilla Sickle, District 12's Capitol chaperone, and Billy Porter is Magno Stift, the district's stylist. Ben Wang and Molly McCann play Wyatt Callow and Louella McCoy, the other two District 12 tributes. Scot Greenan and Grace Ackary play Burdock Everdeen and Asterid March, Katniss's future parents. And Lenore Dove's uncle is Clerk Carmine, one of the Covey from The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, now played by Jeffrey Hallman.

Are Katniss and Peeta in it?

Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter both reported in December 2025 that Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson return as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, and TMDB lists both in the cast. Lionsgate has not said how much of them you will see. The reporting has pointed to a flash-forward.

The same team, one more time

Lawrence has directed every film since Catching Fire. The screenplay is by Billy Ray, who co-wrote the 2012 original, and Michael Lesslie, who co-wrote The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, from an adaptation by Collins herself. James Newton Howard, who has scored all five films, is back, and so is cinematographer Jo Willems, who shot all four of Lawrence's earlier entries. Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson and Lawrence produce.

The rating and the runtime

It is rated PG-13 for "strong violence, bloody images, disturbing material, some smoking and teen drinking," the same rating every film in the series has carried. The listed runtime is 158 minutes (2 hours 38 minutes), one minute longer than Ballad, so budget for the trailers on top.

The soundtrack

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (The Album) arrives November 13 on MCA Records, a week before the film. Dave Cobb produced it, and it gathers 29 artists. The lead single, Noah Kahan's "Draw You Out," co-written with Aaron Dessner, has been out since October 2. James Newton Howard's score gets its own separate album.

How big can it open?

Boxoffice Pro's long-range forecast puts the opening weekend at $55 million to $65 million. That would beat the $44.6 million The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes opened to in November 2023. It would also sit far short of the Katniss years, when the four films opened between $102.7 million (Mockingjay - Part 2) and $158.1 million (Catching Fire).

Ballad asked fans to spend two and a half hours with a young Snow. This one brings back Effie, Beetee, Wiress, Mags, Plutarch and Caesar, and reportedly Katniss and Peeta. The rest of the month is in our November 2026 movie guide.

Before you go: the rewatch

All five earlier films stream on Hulu in the US, and together they run 11 hours and 45 minutes. Short on time? Watch two. Catching Fire gives you the older Beetee, Wiress and Mags in another Quarter Quell, and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes gives you young Snow and the Covey, the family Lenore Dove's story ties back to.

Then settle the argument before the new one starts. Our tier list puts Catching Fire alone in S-tier and Mockingjay - Part 1 at the bottom. Rank the five head to head on Shortlist, share the list, and see where the sixth lands on November 20.

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