“Fear the Walking Dead” actor Frank Dillane becomes a star thanks to Harris Dickinson and his writing/directing debut, “Urchin.” Rising distributor 1-2 Special’s flagship release started its journey at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where Dillane won best actor out of Un Certain Regard for his portrayal of a London rough sleeper circling the drain of his own self-destruction. After Cannes, Dickinson and Dillane brought “Urchin” to the Telluride Film Festival as an Oscar-hopeful bid. “Urchin” opens in theaters October 10 from 1-2 Special. Watch the trailer below.
Starring Dillane as an unhoused, drug-chasing drifter in London, and in the vein of Mike Leigh’s “Naked” in terms of toxic emotional candor, “Urchin” follows Mike (Dillane) as he stumbles through addiction, and London’s correctional and reformatory systems, trying to build his life back up again. In addition to the Un Certain Regard acting prize, the devastating “Urchin” also won the FIPRESCI prize. (IndieWire’s Anne Thompson even deemed Dillane a potential Oscar contender.)
From IndieWire’s review of Urchin: “Dickinson’s lithe and tetchy script only feigns at a clean hero’s journey in order to undercut it with the chaos of human behavior, and what might have been a nice three-act story about a moppet on the mend sours into something far less digestible or instructive… Of course, ‘Urchin’ is all the more rewarding for its messy approach to Mike’s disarray, which rejects a clear diagnosis in favor of honoring a character who feels like he can’t even afford to understand himself. Dickinson’s film — shaped by people he knew growing up, and further informed by his work with a variety of social outreach charities — reflects a mature, and frequently harrowing, recognition of how people can be held captive by the centrifugal force of their own behavioral patterns.”
The cast also includes Megan Northam and Dickinson himself, who will soon be shipped off to Beatles land to play John Lennon for Sam Mendes’ upcoming Apple quadrilogy. “The Beast” and “Passages” cinematographer Josée Deshaies is the director of photography on “Urchin.”
Started this past February ahead of the Berlinale by Sideshow co-founding executive Jason Hellerstein, 1-2 Special has picked up a handful of festival movies this year. The distributor is firmly in the Radu Jude business, with North American rights to the Romanian director’s Silver Bear winner “Kontinental 25” and upcoming Locarno premiere “Dracula.” There’s also Christian Petzold’s “Miroirs No. 3,” bought for the U.S. from Metrograph Pictures, which paused theatrical releases this year, and Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner “A Poet” coming up.
“Urchin” opens in New York and Los Angeles October 10 before a nationwide release October 17.