The Childhood of a Leader

The Childhood of a Leader (2016) is a psychological drama you can watch online on iFILM, written and directed by Brady Corbet in his feature debut. Bérénice Bejo, Liam Cunningham, Stacy Martin and Robert Pattinson star in a film structured around three episodes from one boy's early life.

France, 1918. Young Prescott's father works for the American government during the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles. The child watches — diplomats trading futures, adults performing civility they don't feel, a household where power is everything. Each episode is a tantrum. Each tantrum is a lesson absorbed. What forms in him is not rage but something colder.

Corbet built the film as a slow-burn origin story for authoritarianism itself, and Scott Walker's relentless orchestral score makes the dread physical. This is not comfortable viewing — it's precise and genuinely unsettling. Watch The Childhood of a Leader (2016) online on iFILM.