His Three Daughters Budget

What Is the Budget of His Three Daughters (2024)?

His Three Daughters (2024), written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, was produced on an undisclosed independent film budget. Industry estimates place the production cost in the range of $2,000,000 to $5,000,000, in line with comparable single-location chamber-drama indies anchored on a small ensemble. The film was financed through Likely Story (Anthony Bregman's production company), Tango Pictures, and additional independent partners, with worldwide rights acquired by Netflix in early 2024 following the film's September 2023 Toronto International Film Festival premiere.

Netflix paid an undisclosed sum for global rights, in line with the streaming service's mid-2020s strategy of acquiring TIFF and Sundance prestige indies with awards potential. The film occupied roughly the same budget tier as a typical American Mumblecore or chamber-drama feature, distinguished primarily by the prestige ensemble (Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen) and the quality of the Jacobs screenplay.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

The estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 production budget covered:

• Above-the-Line Talent: Writer-director Azazel Jacobs (The Lovers, French Exit) took feature-director rates. The three lead performers, Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen, took ensemble indie scale fees with deferments and back-end participation appropriate to a single-location indie. Veteran actor Jay O. Sanders appeared in the small but pivotal supporting role of Vincent, the father.
• Single-Location New York Apartment Shoot: The film takes place almost entirely inside a single Manhattan apartment, with rare exterior cutaways. Production designer Sam Lisenco built the interior in a Brooklyn warehouse, allowing controlled lighting and camera movement that would have been impossible in a practical apartment location.
• Cinematography: Director of photography Sam Levy (Lady Bird, Frances Ha) shot the film on 16mm-styled digital, with extensive close-up work and a deliberate quiet visual register suited to the chamber-drama framework. Levy's involvement was a meaningful line item for a single-location indie of this budget.
• Compressed Schedule: Principal photography took place over approximately three weeks in fall 2022, an aggressive schedule that contained costs but required extensive rehearsal time to make the performance-driven structure work.
• Score: Composer Ben Spear scored the film with a sparse piano-and-string palette appropriate to the intimate drama.
• Festival and Acquisition Costs: The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023, with subsequent appearances at Sundance and other festivals adding to the prestige rollout before the Netflix acquisition and September 2024 streaming launch.

How Does His Three Daughters' Budget Compare to Similar Films?

The estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000 budget aligns with peer single-location indie dramas and Netflix acquisitions:

• Marriage Story (2019): Budget $18,000,000 | Streaming release (Netflix). Noah Baumbach's Netflix family drama occupied a substantially higher budget tier and demonstrated the upper end of Netflix's prestige acquisition strategy.
• The Lost Daughter (2021): Budget $11,000,000 | Streaming release (Netflix). Maggie Gyllenhaal's directorial debut, also Netflix-distributed and family-themed, cost meaningfully more.
• I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020): Budget undisclosed (estimated $7,500,000) | Streaming release (Netflix). Charlie Kaufman's contemporaneous Netflix indie operated at a slightly higher budget tier.
• Causeway (2022): Budget undisclosed (estimated $4,000,000) | Streaming release (Apple TV+). Lila Neugebauer's contemporaneous chamber drama with Jennifer Lawrence occupied the same budget band.
• Manchester by the Sea (2016): Budget $9,000,000 | Worldwide $79,000,000. Kenneth Lonergan's acclaimed grief drama cost more and rolled out theatrically.

His Three Daughters Box Office Performance

His Three Daughters received a limited US theatrical release through Netflix on September 6, 2024 before its global streaming launch on September 20, 2024. The limited theatrical run was a prestige positioning exercise rather than a wide commercial release:

• Production Budget: estimated $2,000,000 to $5,000,000
• Estimated Prints & Advertising (P&A): undisclosed (Netflix prestige limited theatrical + global marketing)
• Total Estimated Investment: undisclosed
• Worldwide Gross: approximately $100,000 (limited theatrical, primarily New York and Los Angeles)
• Net Return: producers recouped via Netflix acquisition; streaming returns measured internally
• ROI: positive for producers; Netflix returns measured on prestige and engagement metrics

Netflix has not published streaming data specific to His Three Daughters, but the film reached the top 10 on the service during its September 2024 launch week and remained in the top streaming releases through October 2024. The Netflix acquisition allowed Likely Story and its production partners to recoup the production budget, with the streaming service deriving prestige and engagement value rather than direct revenue measurement.

The film became one of Netflix's most-acclaimed indie acquisitions of 2024 and figured prominently in awards-season conversation, particularly for Carrie Coon's lead performance.

His Three Daughters Production History

Azazel Jacobs wrote His Three Daughters in 2021, inspired in part by his own family experiences and the New York apartment of his late father, the experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs. The screenplay revolves around three estranged adult sisters reunited in a Manhattan apartment to care for their dying father in his final days. Jacobs had been wanting to work with Carrie Coon since her television breakthrough in The Leftovers, and the screenplay was developed with the three central performers (Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen) in mind.

Anthony Bregman's Likely Story (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Foxcatcher) financed the project alongside Tango Pictures. Principal photography took place over approximately three weeks in fall 2022, primarily in a Brooklyn warehouse stage where production designer Sam Lisenco had built the central Manhattan apartment interior. The compressed schedule required extensive pre-production rehearsal with the three lead performers, who developed the sister dynamic over multiple read-through sessions before cameras rolled.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2023 to strong reviews. Netflix acquired worldwide rights in early 2024 in a competitive bidding process. The streaming launch was preceded by a limited US theatrical release through Netflix's prestige theatrical positioning, including a New York Film Festival closing night slot in late September 2024 and Los Angeles awards-qualification screenings. Veteran character actor Jay O. Sanders, in the small but pivotal role of the dying father Vincent, contributes to the climactic emotional reversal of the film's final act.

Awards and Recognition

His Three Daughters received substantial year-end critical recognition without breaking through to the major industry ceremonies. The film earned three Independent Spirit Award nominations in 2025: Best Film, Best Director (Azazel Jacobs), and Best Female Lead (Carrie Coon). Coon also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama and a SAG Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.

The film was nominated at the Gotham Awards (Best Feature, Best Screenplay for Jacobs), the Critics' Choice Awards (Best Acting Ensemble), and multiple regional critics' circles. Jay O. Sanders received the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor for his late-arriving turn as Vincent. The film did not receive Academy Award nominations, a notable omission that was widely flagged in awards coverage. Several critics groups (including the National Board of Review) named His Three Daughters one of the best independent films of 2024.

Critical Reception

His Three Daughters received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The film holds a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 162 critic reviews, with a critical consensus describing it as "an exquisitely performed family drama." On Metacritic, the film scores 87 out of 100, indicating universal acclaim.

Critics broadly praised the three lead performances by Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen as well as the precision of Azazel Jacobs' screenplay and the surprise pivot in the final act. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that the film "achieves a quiet, accumulating power thanks to three performances of remarkable specificity." Justin Chang of The New Yorker called the film "a small miracle of observation, sustained at chamber-drama scale across three of the most lived-in performances of the year."

David Ehrlich of IndieWire wrote that "Carrie Coon delivers what may be the lead performance of the year." Several critics flagged the film's structural choice to delay the appearance of the dying father (Jay O. Sanders) until late in the running time as one of the year's most effective dramatic gambits. The film's near-unanimous critical acclaim and award-season visibility ranked it among Netflix's strongest 2024 prestige acquisitions, even as the Academy Awards ultimately overlooked it.