Bradley Cooper, Laura Dern & Andra Day Step Out for Searchlight’s Is This Thing On? Special Screening
Photo by Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Searchlight Pictures
A quiet New York industry crowd turned out as Searchlight unveiled Bradley Cooper’s latest directorial turn.
Searchlight Pictures slipped Is This Thing On? into New York on Monday night with the kind of screening that doesn’t need a step-and-repeat megaphone to matter. It was intentional, quiet, and extremely well-curated — a precision piece of awards-season positioning that felt engineered around the film’s strengths. Bradley Cooper’s third feature has been gathering energy since the fall festivals, and this screening made clear that momentum isn’t slowing; it’s sharpening.
Cooper arrived alongside Laura Dern, marking one of the film’s most visible nights since its debut. What’s striking is how confidently Is This Thing On? sits in the lineage of his filmmaking. After the operatic emotional scale of A Star Is Bornand the structural formalism of Maestro, this is a pivot toward something smaller and more combustive — the kind of story that doesn’t announce itself but lingers. The room responded to exactly that. Conversations between guests kept circling back to the same observations: how precise the writing is, how lived-in the fights feel, how much of the film’s impact comes from what Cooper doesn’t underline.
Andra Day, who delivers one of the film’s standout supporting turns, was among the first to draw the night’s attention. Her performance has already become an early talking point among awards watchers, and the reception she received here only supports that trajectory. Dern, in sleek noir black, spent much of the evening moving through the crowd with the easy assurance of someone who knows the work she’s part of is hitting. Even the industry regulars and downtown creatives in attendance — the ones who don’t clap unless something genuinely lands — seemed locked in.
There was also a looseness to the night that worked in the film’s favor. Cast members drifted between conversations, stylists and actors compared notes, and the energy stayed warm rather than hyper-controlled. It’s the kind of environment most films dream of during awards season: a gathering of people who aren’t performing approval but actually talking about the movie. I recently wrote that the film is “one of Cooper’s most emotionally grounded works yet,” and watching the crowd cycle through their reactions only reinforced that.
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Below is a full look at the night’s standout attendees and their arrivals:
As the night wound down, the conversation kept circling back to the same thing: Is This Thing On? hits differently. Cooper’s shift from the operatic sweep of A Star Is Born and the meticulous precision of Maestro has landed him in a more intimate, combustible register — one that feels purpose-built for audience discovery. Monday’s screening didn’t play like awards-season machinery; it played like a film people genuinely want to talk about.
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With Dern cutting through the room in quiet command, Andra Day becoming the performance everyone is already whispering about, and Cooper drifting between groups the way directors do when they know the movie is finally speaking for itself, the film’s momentum felt unmistakable. This wasn’t a campaign stop. It was a confirmation.
And with Is This Thing On? arriving in theaters December 18 — positioned squarely as one of Searchlight’s final prestige pushes of the year — the energy in the room suggested it’s about to find the audience it was made for.
Watch the official trailer below:
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