Three Thousand Years of Longing

Alithea Binnie is a solitary British scholar of literature and mythology who travels to Istanbul to give a series of lectures on storytelling. There she buys an old glass bottle as a souvenir, and when she cleans it a djinn appears before her. He has been trapped for thousands of years and offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. Alithea hesitates, knowing how poorly such bargains tend to end in the tales she has studied, and instead of wishing she asks to hear his account of how he came to be imprisoned. The encounters and stories he shares gradually draw her toward a wish neither of them expects.

George Miller directed and co-wrote the film with Augusta Miller, following Mad Max: Fury Road and preceding Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Tilda Swinton stars as Alithea and Idris Elba as the djinn, with Erdil Yaşaroğlu, Sabrina Elba, Sarah Houbolt and Seyithan Özdemir among the credited cast of 82. Made in Australia, the United Kingdom and China for about 60 million dollars, it earned roughly 20 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from around 72,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.9 from 1,736 votes. A critics' rating of 6.5 from 261 reviews places it slightly below audience scores, though the gap is modest.