The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, it serves as a prequel to The Hunger Games (2012), and is the fifth installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film stars Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, and Viola Davis.

Set 64 years before the events of the first film, its plot follows the events that lead a young Coriolanus Snow on the path to becoming the tyrannical leader of Panem, including his relationship with the Hunger Games District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird during the 10th Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes premiered in Berlin on November 5, 2023, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 17, 2023, by Lionsgate Films.

The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a financial success, grossing $337.4 million worldwide against a production budget of $100 million. After the films release, The Hunger Games film series became the 20th-highest-grossing film franchise of all time, having grossed $3.3 billion worldwide.

Years later, Crassus’ son, Coriolanus, is one of twenty-four Academy students selected to mentor a 10th Annual Hunger Games tribute. Coriolanus hopes for the Plinth Prize scholarship to restore his family’s prosperity.

Games creator and Academy dean, Casca Highbottom, advises the mentors to focus on entertainment rather than tributes winning. Coriolanus’ wealthy friend and fellow mentor, Sejanus Plinth, resents the Games’ cruelty.

Coriolanus is assigned District 12’s female tribute, Lucy Gray Baird. During the reaping ceremony, she engages Capitol viewers by slipping a snake down the dress of Mayor Lipp’s daughter, Mayfair, then defiantly singing.

Coriolanus earns Lucy Gray’s trust accompanying her to the Capitol Zoo, where tributes are publicly caged. Another mentor, Arachne Crane, taunts her tribute, who kills her. Coriolanus promotes Lucy Gray to Capitol citizens, to Highbottom’s displeasure, as he paired Coriolanus with a District 12 tribute to fail.

Coriolanus proposes a sponsorship scheme to Head Gamemaker Dr. Volumnia Gaul: to increase ratings, Capitol viewers can monetarily support tributes. Coriolanus’ academic partner, Clemensia Dovecote, claims credit for the proposal.

Gaul places the proposal paper into a tank of genetically-modified snakes that attack only unfamiliar scents. When Clemensia is forced to retrieve it, the snakes severely bite her, confirming Coriolanus’ sole authorship.

While touring the arena, rebel bombs explode, killing several tributes and mentors. After Lucy Gray saves Coriolanus from debris, he gives her rat poison as a weapon and says she can hide in a bombed hole in the arena floor.

In the initial bloodbath, Lucy Gray enters the hole with fellow District 12 tribute, Jessup. Sejanus sneaks into the arena and mourns his fallen tribute and former friend, Marcus. Gaul persuades Coriolanus to retrieve Sejanus. A tribute attacks them, but Coriolanus kills him.

The president’s son, Felix Ravinstill, dies from injuries sustained in the bombing. As revenge, Gaul releases the snakes into the arena, killing every remaining tribute but Lucy Gray; earlier, Coriolanus secretly put a handkerchief bearing her scent into the tank.

Caving to public pressure, Gaul declares Lucy Gray the victor. Later, Highbottom confronts Coriolanus with the handkerchief and the rat poison, sentencing him to twenty years’ Peacekeeper service. Coriolanus bribes an officer to transfer him to District 12, and Sejanus volunteers to join him.

In District 12, Coriolanus and Sejanus visit a bar where Lucy Gray performs with the Covey, a formerly nomadic band; Coriolanus and Lucy reunite. Shortly after, Coriolanus is to transfer for officer training in District 2.

Meanwhile, Sejanus becomes involved with the rebels. Coriolanus confronts Sejanus and records his admission using a jabberjay, sending it to Gaul. Coriolanus later finds Sejanus meeting with rebels Spruce, Lucy Gray’s ex-boyfriend Billy Taupe, and Mayfair, Billy’s new girlfriend.

In the ensuing confrontation, Coriolanus fatally shoots Mayfair and Spruce kills Billy. Spruce hides the guns, but he and Sejanus are hanged for treason.

Lucy Gray and Coriolanus flee north. Lucy Gray knows he killed two people, but he accidentally reveals a third (Sejanus), raising her suspicions. At a small cabin, Coriolanus finds the hidden weapons tying him to Mayfair’s murder.

Lucy Gray, distrusting Coriolanus knowing she could incriminate him, disappears into the woods. Coriolanus, pursuing her, is bitten and disoriented by a snake she laid as a trap. He blindly shoots his rifle after jabberjays mimic her voice, but her fate is left unknown.

Coriolanus dumps the guns into the lake near the cabin. With no remaining witnesses, he returns to District 12. Rather than District 2, Coriolanus is sent to the Capitol, where Gaul reveals she procured him a pardon and scholarship to the Capitol University.

Sejanus’ parents, unaware Coriolanus caused their son’s death, make him their heir. Highbottom tells Coriolanus he never intended the Games to become a reality; he drunkenly conceived the idea, but his friend, Crassus Snow, submitted it as their joint academic project.

Highbottom abhorred the violence it caused and never forgave Crassus, turning to morphling and mistreating Coriolanus because he hated his father, blaming him for ensuring the Games’ continued cruelty. Coriolanus slips poison into Highbottom’s morphling vial, killing him and beginning his rise to power.