Bill Hader's Horror Debut 'They Know' Enters Sound Mixing
Hader said at IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit that the MRC film, starring Linda Cardellini, is being prepared for distributors.
Bill Hader said his first directed feature, the MRC horror film They Know, is in the sound-mixing stage and is being prepared to be shown to distributors, according to IndieWire. The film finished shooting in May.
Hader directed, wrote and stars in They Know, which also stars Linda Cardellini. In the film he plays a divorced father who suspects his ex-wife's secret new partner is having an unorthodox effect on his children.
He discussed the project at IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 2026 Summit in Los Angeles on Saturday, in a conversation titled What No One Tells You About Directing Your First Feature. The conversation was hosted by Chris O'Falt, IndieWire's VP of features strategy.
Hader said a 2025 film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Cloud, helped him find the approach to finishing his own movie. He saw Cloud at the Nuart Theater in 2025.
Hader had previously abandoned drafts of They Know because their endings felt like every other horror movie. Before turning to directing features, he spent eight years in the cast of Saturday Night Live and co-created and starred in the HBO series Barry, directing many of its episodes; in 2019 he received a Directors Guild of America award for Barry.
Quick answers
What is Bill Hader's first directed feature?
They Know, an MRC horror film that Hader directed, wrote and stars in alongside Linda Cardellini.
When will They Know be released?
No release date has been announced. Hader said the film is in sound mixing and is being prepared to be shown to distributors.