The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an American dystopian science fiction action thriller film directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt. It is based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, serves as a prequel to The Hunger Games (2012), and is the fifth installment in The Hunger Games film series. The film stars Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Jason Schwartzman, and Viola Davis. Set 64 years before the events of the first film, its plot follows a young Coriolanus Snow, his relationship with the Hunger Games tribute Lucy Gray Baird, and the events that eventually lead him on the path to becoming the tyrannical leader of Panem.