Riding Oscar Buzz, Amanda Seyfried's The Testament of Ann Lee Lands Release Date
Searchlight Pictures has locked a release date for The Testament of Ann Lee after its buzzy 2025 Venice world premiere, with Amanda Seyfried’s turn as the Shaker movement’s founder igniting early Oscars chatter.
Searchlight just circled Christmas for The Testament of Ann Lee, a musical drama where Amanda Seyfried plays the woman who founded the Shakers. Yes, it is a musical about the Shakers. I did not have that on my 2025 bingo card, and apparently critics didn’t either, because the Venice premiere last month kicked up a wave of praise and immediate Oscars chatter around Seyfried.
The quick version
- Release: December 25 in select theaters (classic awards-season rollout)
- Distributor: Searchlight Pictures
- World premiere: 2025 Venice International Film Festival, about a month ago
- Current Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer: 91% since Venice
- Genre: Musical drama
- Director: Mona Fastvold (The World to Come, The Brutalist)
- Writers: Mona Fastvold and Brady Corbet
- Cast: Amanda Seyfried as Ann Lee; Thomasin McKenzie as Mary; Lewis Pullman as William Lee; Christopher Abbott as Abraham; Stacy Martin as Jane Wardley; Tim Blake Nelson; Matthew Beard; Viola Prettejohn; and more
- Producers: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold, Andrew Morrison, Joshua Horsfield, Viktória Petrányi, Gregory Jankilevitsch, Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska, Lillian LaSalle, Mark Lampert
- Buzz: Early Best Actress predictions for Seyfried
So what is it, exactly?
Seyfried plays Ann Lee, the English-born spiritual leader whose followers became the Shakers. The film dives into her movement’s ecstatic highs and brutal costs, with an emphasis on how her message pushed gender and social equality long before that was fashionable. Lee also believed she embodied a divine role that flipped expectations of who can lead a faith.
"In her followers eyes, Ann Lee was the female incarnation of Christ."
That idea is not just a footnote here; it’s the axis the story spins on. And because this is a musical, the movie leans into the feverish conviction of the group — the utopia they thought they were building, and what it took to hold that vision together.
The awards-season angle (aka the inside baseball)
Dropping on December 25 in a limited run is the classic 'we want Academy voters to see this immediately' move from Searchlight. The Venice slot did what it was supposed to do — get everyone talking about Seyfried. A 91% on the Tomatometer this early doesn’t lock anything, but it absolutely keeps the Best Actress drumbeat going as screeners start flying around town.
Who is steering the ship?
Mona Fastvold — who most recently made The World to Come and The Brutalist — directs and co-wrote the script with Brady Corbet. The ensemble is stacked in that very Searchlight way: Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott, Stacy Martin, Matthew Beard, and Viola Prettejohn all orbit Seyfried’s Ann Lee, with roles that line up closely to the real figures around the movement.
Bottom line: musical, historical, provocative, timed to the day for awards attention. If you were waiting for the 'surprising period piece that suddenly becomes an actor’s showcase' slot this season, this might be it.