The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is a 2023 American dystopian action film directed by Francis Lawrence from a screenplay by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt. Based on the 2020 novel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, it 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, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, and Viola Davis. Set 64 years before the events of the first film, its plot follows the events that lead a young Coriolanus Snow on the path to becoming the tyrannical leader of Panem, including his relationship with the Hunger Games District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird during the 10th Hunger Games.