Jordan Firstman’s Club Kid Opens in Theaters: How the Instagram Impressions Guy Became 2026’s Best-Dressed Director

Six years ago, Jordan Firstman was the guy in your Instagram feed doing impressions while the rest of the world was stuck at home baking sourdough. Today his first feature film opens in American cinemas with A24 behind it, a Cannes premiere on its CV and a 17 million dollar bidding war in its rear-view mirror. Somewhere along the way, he also became the best-dressed director of the year, at least according to Nylon, which credited him with “zero misses” on the red carpet. You might call that a career glow-up. The internet would call it main character energy.

Club Kid opens in limited release in the United States on 6 November 2026 and expands on 13 November. Firstman wrote it, directed it and plays the lead, which means that for once the man on the red carpet and the man behind the camera are literally the same person.

From Search Party to Cannes

Firstman was born in 1991 on Long Island and grew up in Northport, New York. Before anyone outside comedy circles knew his name, he was writing for and appearing in the cult series Search Party. His short film Call Your Father was nominated at Sundance in 2016. Then came the pandemic, when his Instagram Live impressions made him one of the more unexpected stars of lockdown culture.

He did not stay a meme for long. In 2023 he played a fictionalised version of himself in Rotting in the Sun, which premiered at Sundance. He joined FX’s English Teacher and HBO’s I Love LA, the series created by Rachel Sennott. Club Kid is the next level: it premiered in May 2026 in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival and A24 bought the worldwide rights for 17 million dollars after a bidding war, as TheWrap reported. For a debut feature about queer nightlife and fatherhood, that is a remarkable price tag.

What Club Kid is actually about

Firstman plays Peter, a washed-up underground party promoter in New York who suddenly has to look after Arlo, a 10-year-old son he never knew he had. Reggie Absolom plays the boy. Cara Delevingne appears as Peter’s business partner Sophie and Diego Calva plays Oscar, the social worker who complicates things in a romantic way. The film was shot on 35mm by cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra, a choice that gives the club scenes a grainy warmth that phones simply cannot fake.

If the premise rings a bell, it should. Hollywood has loved the irresponsible man meets responsible child formula since at least Three Men and a Baby and About a Boy. The difference here is the setting. The title borrows from New York’s Club Kids, the flamboyant 1990s nightlife scene that later inspired the 2003 film Party Monster with Macaulay Culkin. Peter is fictional, but he lives in that tradition of glitter, guest lists and very late mornings.

The reviews so far are warm. TheWrap called the film “heartwarming”. But Why Tho gave it 8 out of 10, praising the bond between father and son, the authenticity of its queer party world and a standout scene for Kirby Howell-Baptiste. The same review also finds the opening too ironic and says the film spends a bit too long in clubs. Which, given the title, is a little like complaining that Jaws has too much water.

The press tour as runway

Then there are the clothes. Firstman works with the stylists Chloe and Chenelle Delgadillo, who have built him a look that is high fashion without becoming a costume. According to Nylon, he wore Givenchy by Sarah Burton at the Paris premiere on 20 October, Tom Ford in New York on 29 October and Bottega Veneta at the Los Angeles premiere on 4 November. Prada showed up in Rome and Saint Laurent in Toronto. At the Los Angeles afterparty at the Vista Theatre, he added a homage to Gregg Araki, the director of The Doom Generation and Mysterious Skin, a deep cut for anyone who knows their queer cinema history.

The common thread is tailoring that fits properly: not shrink-wrapped, not oversized, simply right. That sounds like a small thing. In an industry where male directors have historically treated the red carpet as an obligation somewhere between a dentist appointment and a tax audit, it is not.

Classic film history has its well-dressed directors, of course. Alfred Hitchcock turned a simple line drawing of his own profile into one of television’s most famous logos. But the modern version is different. When a director is also the star, the writer and someone who built his audience on social media, every premiere photo becomes part of the marketing. For an independent film without a superhero budget, a great red carpet picture travels further than many trailers. That is our interpretation, not a statement from A24, but the logic is hard to miss.

Why it matters beyond one good suit

Firstman’s rise says something about how cultural careers now work. The path from viral clip to Cannes used to sound like a joke. Now it is a business model, provided the talent is real and the work holds up. Club Kid seems to pass that test with critics, at least so far. Whether it also finds an audience in cinemas is the open question of the coming weeks.

A German release date has not been announced in the sources we reviewed. Until then, you can study the press tour photos like an archive and wait. If the film’s box office matches its wardrobe, the next premiere outfits will not need a stylist’s press release. They will be the press release.