The Thing with Feathers out on OTT in India: Benedict Cumberbatch's psychological drama is streaming now!

Benedict Cumberbatch's The Thing with Feathers finally released in India on Lionsgate Play (also accessible via OTTplay Premium) on January 9. The psychological drama made its world premiere at the 41st Sundance Film Festival and later released in theatres in 2025. The movie is adapted from Grief Is the Thing with Feathers novella by Max Porter from 2015, and grossed $0.73 million at the worldwide box office, as per Box Office Mojo.

What’s the plot of The Thing with Feathers

The psychological drama blends death, coping with the grief, the resilience and enduring nature of hope, personified as a bird that lives within the soul, offering comfort and strength without anything in return. The story follows a middle-aged widower struggling to raise his two sons while grieving his wife and their mother’s sudden tragic death in their London apartment.

The Thing with Feathers explores how literature and art provide a path to healing. The boys are tasked by a Crow to draw their mother from memory, a process that helps them move toward acceptance of her death. Throughout the movie, the narrative follows the family’s first year of their loss, the crow life figure’s arrival that guides the father and the two sons toward a new shape for their growth as they learn to live with their grief as a permanent, manageable companion.

Benedict Cumberbatch's experience filming The Thing with Feathers

The English actor recently had a chat with Filmfare and shared his experience working in a grieving movie like The Thing with Feathers. Benedict Cumberbatch shared that Max Porter’s novel is an exceptional piece of prose and it's lyrical, damaged, salvational, majestical, mundane, domestic, real and surreal. Hence, he wanted to keep the father’s humanity in the movie. As an actor, he wanted to be able to bring across somebody who is very human in his failings, someone who is working through things moment by moment. According to Cumberbatch, everyone in the movie knew that grief is a universal experience. It’s also a very rare thing in culture to explore that through a male character’s perspective.

The Thing with Feathers FAQs:

Q: Where to watch The Thing with Feathers in India?

A: The Thing with Feathers is streaming on Lionsgate Play (OTTplay Premium) in India.

Q: Is The Thing with Feathers based on a true story?

A: No, The Thing with Feathers is a fictional psychological drama, adaptation from Max Porter's 2015 novella Grief Is the Thing with Feathers.

Q: What is the meaning of The Thing with Feathers?

A: The movie title, The Thing with Feathers, is a play on the famous Emily Dickinson poem, Hope, is the thing with feathers.