The first trailer for James Gray’s Paper Tiger is finally here, and it looks like the kind of crime drama that would rather let family tension simmer than unload every bullet in the trailer. Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson lead the 1986 New York story, in which two brothers stumble into a Russian mafia nightmare through a seemingly lucrative canal-cleanup scheme. 

For fans of Gray, that premise already sounds like familiar territory in the best possible way. The filmmaker behind Little Odessa, The Yards and We Own the Night has repeatedly treated crime as a family disease rather than merely a genre playground, and Paper Tiger appears to return him to that bruised New York landscape. 

There is also a very specific kind of Gray melancholy in the footage. The streets feel grimy, the American Dream feels slightly rotten, and Adam Driver playing a swaggering former cop opposite Miles Teller’s more straight-laced family man makes the brotherly dynamic look like the real ticking bomb.

Cannes critics already responded strongly to the film, with The Guardian praising its emotional weight and its portrait of working-class family life. Now, the fans are wasting no time in pushing forward each element of the film. From the creative team to the actors, nothing seems to have missed the mark for them. 

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With the trailer having escaped the festival bubble, fans are beginning to react exactly as expected.

The fans' excitement comes from more than simply putting a famous actor and director back together. Adam Driver has previously worked with James Gray on The Yards and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Paper Tiger looks like a particularly natural reunion, especially after Gray’s more expansive detour into space with Ad Astra. Fans have coveted the regrouping under DiscussingFilm's post of the trailer on X. 

“Adam Driver and James Gray reuniting after all these years is an absolute dream come true. Gray is a master of the gritty, slow-burn American tragedy. NEON has a certified masterpiece on their hands,” wrote @StrokeOGenius.

“I have not heard too much about Paper Tiger…but one of the things I like is the small budget is $15mil which probably means this is probably going to be a more dialogue-driven head-game of a film with the violence and crime serving the drama rather than the other way around,” @Nostalgia150360 wrote.

“That cast alone sold me. The trailer is just a bonus,” wrote @Maximumolusegun .

It is difficult to argue with the logic. Driver and Scarlett Johansson are reuniting for the first time since Marriage Story, while Miles Teller gets the role of Irwin, a hardworking engineer whose attempt to build a better life becomes tangled with his brother Gary’s dangerous connections. 

“Sign me up for this cast and creative team. Looks like a tense, heavy hitting thriller,” said @VeloFc1 .

That is perhaps the cleanest description of what Gray appears to be doing. The Cannes response already highlighted the film’s combination of suspense and emotional intimacy, including sequences that push the family drama into outright thriller territory. 

“James Gray returning to a gritty, 80s NYC crime family drama? We are so back,” wrote @Soulflick0.

For longtime Gray devotees, that may be the real selling point. Paper Tiger is not simply another gangster movie. It is Gray returning to the Queens and New York family mythology that has shaped much of his filmography, now filtered through a story loosely inspired by his family history. With Paper Tiger opening the New York Film Festival on September 25 before its November 13 theatrical release, the trailer has given the wider audience its first real taste of what Cannes attendees have already been talking about. 

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Will audiences embrace Gray’s slow-burn brand of cinematic heartbreak? Share your thoughts in the comments.