The Ballad of Wallis Island

James Griffiths' The Ballad of Wallis Island premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, and Focus Features picked it up for international distribution soon after. Tom Basden and Tim Key co-wrote it and star in it. Both are veterans of the British alternative-comedy circuit: Basden created the BBC series The Wrong Mans, and Key is best known for his work on Stath Lets Flats and for his deadpan poetry tours.

The screenplay expands Basden and Key's 2007 short film of the same name, which had won the BIFA for Best Short. Carey Mulligan plays the third lead, and she and her real-life husband Marcus Mumford, of Mumford & Sons, perform several of the film's original songs together; Focus released a soundtrack EP alongside the film. Adam Suschitzky is the cinematographer and the score is by the composer Will Lyman. It is a small film, built around a handful of songs and a double act that has been refining this material for years.

It was shot in spring 2024 on the Welsh island of Anglesey, partly at Llanddwyn Island and along the Menai Strait. It ranks among the highest-rated UK comedies of 2025 on Letterboxd, and went into BAFTA consideration for early 2026. Griffiths, best known for the comedy series Episodes and the Cuba Gooding Jr. comedy Cuban Fury, has called it the smallest and most personal feature he has directed.