Cooper Hoffman

In Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk (2025), Cooper Hoffman lets Raymond Garraty’s stride shorten as fatigue takes hold. The boy arrives with a grievance and a plan, neither of which Hoffman hurries to explain. We found the walk hard to sit through because the dwindling length of those steps makes the effort of continuing so plain.

His first acting role was the lead in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza (2021), where his rapport with his co-stars was already a strength. Supporting parts in Wildcat (2023) and Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night (2024) followed. The Long Walk and Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex (2026) put him back in leading roles. These are good films whose weaknesses make the value of his casting especially clear.

In The Long Walk, David Jonsson gives him a particularly useful partner as McVries, who responds to the contest by trying to make a friend. Their conversations about mothers, girls and the prize give the film something to hold our attention beyond its brutal rules. Hoffman’s reserve leaves room for Jonsson’s cheerfulness, and their friendship becomes worth caring about. The single idea lasts longer than we expected, though even these two cannot sustain it for the whole film.

Araki asks for a different kind of responsiveness in I Want Your Sex. Hoffman’s Elliot Bell is an assistant seduced by his employer, Olivia Wilde’s artist Erika Tracy, and his charm keeps Elliot interesting in his own right. Wilde makes Erika confident, selfish and funny; Hoffman makes us believe Elliot wants her. That attraction allows their scenes to accommodate desire and embarrassment without pausing to explain either. We can enjoy the comedy without forgetting who has the authority.

Araki’s unnecessary plotting still gets in the way, despite the work Hoffman and Wilde do together. We would happily watch Hoffman in a less busy film that gave two actors time to talk. Start with The Long Walk for his partnership with Jonsson, but choose another evening if cheering up is the priority.