Dracula - A Love Tale, everything you need to know about Luc Besson's film
Luc Besson reinvents the vampire myth with Dracula - A Love Tale, a story of love between light and darkness.
The myth of Dracula returns to cinema in a completely new guise. After decades of more or less faithful adaptations, Luc Besson chooses to reinterpret Bram Stoker's masterpiece with a new, intimate, and melancholic sensibility. Dracula - A Love Tale presents itself as a romantic gothic imbued with pathos, where the prince of darkness abandons his monstrous dimension to reveal the wounds of a broken soul. Filmed between Finland and France, the movie promises to restore a tragic and modern charm to the vampire legend, transforming darkness into a love song. Here's everything we know!
The plot of Dracula - A Love Tale
Set between 15th-century Transylvania and 19th-century Paris, Dracula - A Love Tale intertwines myth and melancholy in a tale of desire and damnation. The protagonist, Vladimir, is a prince shattered by the sudden death of his wife: a pain so profound that it drives him to renounce God and be cursed with immortality. From that moment on, he is condemned to wander through centuries, feeding on the blood of the living and the echo of his own remorse.
Centuries later, amidst the golden shadows of a decadent and fascinating Paris, Vladimir meets a woman identical to his lost love. Convinced that she is the reincarnation of his beloved, the vampire faces an eternal dilemma: to redeem himself through love or to sink forever into damnation.
Luc Besson defines the film as "an eternal love story, not one of fear". This statement encapsulates the profound meaning of the work: a Dracula who inspires not terror, but compassion. An immortal soul who, in his long wandering, seeks not victory over time, but the possibility of loving again.
The cast of Dracula - A Love Tale, the 2025 film
In the role of the protagonist, we find Caleb Landry Jones (Harvest, Dogman, Finch, Breaking Bad), a versatile actor who had previously collaborated with Luc Besson in Dogman. The American actor gives face to a complex and tormented Dracula, marked by centuries of solitude and remorse.
Alongside him, Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Spectre, No Time to Die, Big Eyes, Only Murders in the Building, Frankenstein) plays an enigmatic priest, a figure representing the thin line between faith and perdition.
Zoë Bleu (Gonzo Girl, Signs of Love), daughter of actress Rosanna Arquette, plays a dual role - Elisabeta and Mina Murray - embodying the dual nature of desire and purity that runs through the entire story.
The cast is completed by Matilda De Angelis, Ewens Abid, David Shields, Guillaume de Tonquédec, Bertrand-Xavier Corbi, Salomon Passariello, and Haymon Maria Buttinger.
When is Dracula - A Love Tale released?
Dracula - A Love Tale will arrive in Italy on October 29, 2025, distributed around Halloween. The film will have its world premiere at the Rome Film Fest 2025, within the Grand Public section, where Luc Besson will once again engage with the international audience and critics.
The director of Dracula - A Love Tale: Luc Besson
After international successes like Léon and The Fifth Element, Luc Besson returns behind the camera with a more intimate and introspective project. The French director, known for his powerful visual style and protagonists driven by strong internal contrasts, here tackles a universal theme: love that survives time and death.
Besson explained that he had never been a fan of horror films or the character of Dracula, but he allowed himself to be captivated by the idea of transforming the myth into an "eternal" love story, where the monster gives way to the man and his fragility.