'All Day And A Night' Trailer: Jeffrey Wright And 'Moonlight' Star Ashton Sanders Are In A Cycle Of Violence

Ryan Coogler rightfully earned loads of praise for directing and co-writing Marvel Studios' Black Panther, but his co-writer on that film, Joe Robert Cole, sort of fell by the wayside in a lot of the discussions about that movie. Now Cole is putting a new film entirely on his own shoulders: he's written and directed a generational drama for Netflix called All Day and a Night, and its trailer has just arrived. Check out Jeffrey Wright (Westworld) and Ashton Sanders (Moonlight) as a father and son seemingly trapped in a cycle of violence below.

All Day and a Night Trailer

One reason Black Panther received so much acclaim was because of the way it incorporated pressing social issues and themes into its story instead of simply being another disposable, breezy superhero movie. All Day and a Night seems similarly interested in tangible issues that people of color can face, and Joe Robert Cole (who previously wrote and directed 2011's Amber Lake) looks to be taking full advantage of this opportunity to explore ideas about masculinity, disillusionment, the cyclical nature of violence, and the systems that can indirectly perpetuate all of those things.

Cole, who co-produced and wrote multiple episodes of American Crime Story, is reuniting with producers Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson (The People vs. O.J. Simpson) for this project, and Jared Ian Goldman (Ingrid Goes West) is also producing.

Sanders, who was very good in Moonlight but also shined brightly in HBO's Native Son, looks like he's continuing his upward trajectory, and Wright is back in gangster mode after recently starring in the HBO film O.GIsaiah John (Snowfall), Kelly Jenrette (The Handmaid's Tale), Shakira Ja'Nai Paye (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), Regina Taylor (The Unit), Christopher Meyer (The Affair), and the electric Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen) round out the rest of the cast.

Here's the official synopsis:

As soft-spoken Jahkor Abraham Lincoln (Ashton Sanders, Moonlight) struggles to keep his dream of rapping alive amidst a gang war in Oakland, his ill-fated life and real-world responsibilities drive him further and further across the line of right and wrong with tragic consequences. Landing in prison beside his father, J.D. (Jeffrey Wright, Westworld) whom he never wanted to be like, Jahkor embarks on an unlikely journey of self-discovery, exploring the events that unite them, in hopes of helping his newborn son break a cycle that feels unavoidable.

All Day and a Night debuts on Netflix on May 1, 2020.