Daisy Edgar-Jones is caught up in a murder case in Where the Crawdads Sing trailer

The first trailer for Where the Crawdads Sing has dropped, promising a high-stakes drama of love, loss, and murder.

Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Delia Owens, the movie takes place over the course of 17 years in the '50s and '60s and follows Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones), who was abandoned by her family as a child and has to learn to survive on her own in the North Carolina marshlands. 

As a young woman, Kya gets caught up in a whirlwind romance that ends badly. Soon after, however, the man is found dead and Kya is caught up in a murder trial with seemingly insurmountable evidence against her. Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer Jr., and David Strathairn also star. 

The trailer features a new original song by Taylor Swift as the backdrop to our introduction to Kya's life – we get the potted history of her difficult childhood into her teenage years. That's where things take a dark turn for Kya when she becomes suspect number one in a murder case.

The movie was directed by Olivia Newman – this is her second feature film after the 2018 Netflix movie The First Match, which starred Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Colman Domingo. Reese Witherspoon is on board as a producer, while Lucy Alibar, who previously co-wrote Beasts of the Southern Wild, penned the script. 

Where the Crawdads Sing arrives on the big screen on July 15. In the meantime, check out the other upcoming movies on the horizon in 2022 and beyond.

Entertainment Writer

I’m an Entertainment Writer here at GamesRadar+, covering everything film and TV-related across the Total Film and SFX sections. I help bring you all the latest news and also the occasional feature too. I’ve previously written for publications like HuffPost and i-D after getting my NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism.