The psychological thriller The Man in My Basement is set to make its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), marking one of the year’s most anticipated literary adaptations.
Directed by Nadia Latif and based on the acclaimed novel by Walter Mosley (Devil in a Blue Dress, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey), the film stars Corey Hawkins, Willem Dafoe, and Anna Diop in a chilling story about secrets, survival, and the sins buried deep beneath the surface.
The ensemble cast also includes Jonathan Ajayi, Gershwyn Eustache Jnr., Pamela Nomvete, and Tamara Lawrance.
In The Man in My Basement, Corey Hawkins portrays Charles Blakey, a man at a personal and financial crossroads in the historically Black enclave of Sag Harbor, New York. Facing foreclosure on his family’s ancestral home, Charles receives a strange and unsettling offer from the enigmatic Anniston Bennet (played by Willem Dafoe): rent out his basement for the summer—for a sum large enough to erase his debts.
What begins as a lifeline quickly twists into a descent into psychological warfare. As the arrangement unfolds, Charles finds himself forced to reckon with his family’s history, buried traumas, and the racial undertones that shape the dynamic between him and Bennet. The result is a claustrophobic, cerebral thriller that explores the horrors that fester when guilt, power, and race collide.
The screenplay is co-written by Mosley and director Nadia Latif. The project is produced by Diane Houslin p.g.a., John Giwa-Amu p.g.a., with Dave Bishop and Len Rowlands p.g.a. also serving as producers.
The film will hit theaters and stream on Hulu in fall 2025 following its TIFF debut.
An official teaser is now available, along with first-look stills courtesy of Andscape—the Black-owned content studio behind the film. A division of The Walt Disney Company, Andscape is known for telling nuanced stories that explore the complexity of Black identity through journalism, film, books, music, and television.
The Man in My Basement is an urgent, genre-bending adaptation that promises to provoke, unsettle, and spark vital conversations.