Tom Waits Stars as John Malkovich’s Brother in ‘Wild Horse Nine’ Trailer

The trailer for Martin McDonagh‘s Wild Horse Nine has arrived, and it features John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, and — to every music fan’s delight — Tom Waits.

The film, set in 1973 just before the Chilean coup, stars Malkovich and Rockwell as CIA agents. The trailer opens with the duo on an airplane, bickering as Malkovich asserts his seniority (“I’ve killed people in countries you can’t even spell,” he tells him). Waits, who plays Malkovich’s brother Chris, appears around the two-minute mark.

Wild Horse Nine, out Nov. 6, also stars Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey, and more. It marks McDonagh’s first new film since 2022’s The Banshees of Inisherin, and his second time working with Waits, after 2012’s Seven Psychopaths. “As soon as Tom pops up on screen, there’s something iconic and mesmerizing about him,” the director told Vanity Fair on Wednesday.
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Waits has spent the better part of the last decade appearing in movies, recently having roles in 2025’s Father Mother Sister Brother (made by his frequent collaborator, Jim Jarmusch) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2021 film Licorice Pizza.

Despite releasing his last studio album 15 years ago (2011’s Bad as Me) and performing his last full set in October 2013 (at the Bridge School Benefit), he’s been looking back on his discography, celebrating anniversaries with unreleased recordings. He played a brief set at the 2022 tribute concert for his friend, producer Hal Willner, and dropped a performance of his 1976 song “Tom Traubert’s Blues” for the Italian docuseries Il Fattore Umano (The Human Factor) last year.