Netflix's The Woman In The Window - What We Know So Far

In the years since Gone Girl changed the thriller game, female-fronted dramas have been more popular than ever... and a new mystery is coming to a streamer near you soon.

Based on A.J. Finn's popular novel of the same name, The Woman in the Window, which has been waiting for release since 2019 — due partly to test screenings requiring reshoots and largely to the COVID-19 pandemic — is now set for release on Netflix. Directed by Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Pride & Prejudice) and written by playwright Tracy Letts (who has also acted in films like Little Women and The Post), The Woman in the Window is the newest thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end... and unlike its fellow murder mysteries, the real-life drama surrounding author A.J. Finn is almost as compelling as the book itself.

If you loved movies like Gone Girl and Girl on a Train, you'll definitely be a fan of The Woman in the Window as well — so here's everything you need to know about it, from the release date to the cast to the plot.

After the novel hit shelves and made waves in 2018, everyone wanted to adapt The Woman in the Window for the big screen, and was originally acquired by 20th Century Fox's offshoot Fox 2000. Initially, the film was scheduled for a fall 2019 release, but after test screenings went awry, Disney stepped in to help reshape the film and fix its issues. However, when Disney bought 20th Century Fox in 2020 and liquidated Fox 2000, the film's fate was in flux until August of that year, when multiple outlets reported that Netflix was in talks to snag the film's exclusive streaming and release rights.

Now, The Woman in the Window will forgo a theatrical release and hit Netflix on May 14, 2021, meaning that fans of the book will finally get to see an adaptation of this thrilling tale.

Beyond Wright and Letts, who form a powerhouse team behind the scenes, The Woman in the Window boasts an all-star cast packed with A-listers and Academy Award nominees and winners alike. Amy Adams leads the film as anxious agoraphobe Dr. Anna Fox, who spends her time spying on her neighbors from her window, alongside Oscar Gary Oldman, who plays her sinister neighbor Alistair Russell.

Rounding out the cast are Falcon and the Winter Soldier stars Anthony Mackie and Wyatt Russell, Bryan Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Oscar winner Julianne Moore, giving fans reason to get excited. The Woman in the Window has a fairly limited cast of characters since the scope of the story is relatively small, but even so, it's assembled a seriously impressive group of performers to tell this tale.

Much like Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window tells the story of a troubled, unreliable woman that nobody believes who thinks she witnesses a life-changing event, only to get sucked into a terrifying situation from which she can't escape. Alone in her home, Anna Fox (Adams) drinks too much and spends the majority of her time spying on her neighbors, and one night, she watches passively as Jane Russell (Moore), mother to Ethan (Fred Hechinger) and wife to Alistair is stabbed to death. However, when Anna tries to investigate the mystery, she finds herself dragged into the Russell family's messy home life.

The Woman in the Window, like other books and films of its kind, uses Anna's unreliability as a tool to shape an extraordinarily complicated narrative... which only gets more complex when the audience learns a troubling secret about Anna herself. There's no question that Adams — who has experience playing a troubled character with addiction issues, as she did in the HBO miniseries Sharp Objects — will bring Anna to life perfectly, giving thriller fans a new whodunit to solve.

The Woman in the Window will be available exclusively on Netflix on May 14, 2021.