Alec Baldwin pleaded for an acquittal and begged the public to leave him alone in the trailer for a new documentary about his trial over the fatal 2021 shooting on the set of the Western film Rust in New Mexico.
"I want to be acquitted so I can walk out the door and everybody just leave me alone," Baldwin says in the trailer for The Trial of Alec Baldwin, which arrives in theaters October 1. "I never dreamed of my life that this would come down to this."
The Rust shooting
In October 2021, Baldwin was holding a prop revolver on the set of Rust when it went off, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring the film's director, Joel Souza.
Baldwin, 68, has strenuously denied pulling the trigger and has said he was assured there was no live ammunition inside the gun. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but a New Mexico judge dismissed the case in 2024, citing prosecutorial misconduct.
Baldwin, who periodically plays Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live, was followed by cameras from 2023 onward as the legal case against him played out, capturing the material now featured in the documentary.
A director with a Trump connection
The film is directed by Rory Kennedy, a sister of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now serves as Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy joined several of her relatives in publicly denouncing her brother over his third-party campaign in the 2024 presidential election.
In a confessional shown in the trailer, Baldwin recalls learning of Hutchins' death. "When they told me she died, I was in shock. I was in disbelief," he says.
He goes on to reflect: "If you said to me: 'Hike up Mt Everest and she'll come back,' I'd be packed and ready to do. Whatever I could do. But there's nothing you can do." The trailer ends with Baldwin saying, "People who watch this will see so much of me at my worst."
Hilaria Baldwin's warning
Baldwin's wife, Hilaria, 42, with whom he shares seven children under the age of 13, also appears in the trailer, warning that the "paparazzi are already coming" and telling her husband, "You need to take the kids out of town."
Hilaria became a viral flashpoint days after the shooting when she interrupted Baldwin during an impromptu roadside press conference, scolding a reporter for briefly forgetting Hutchins' name.
She said she had driven the family to Vermont to "limit the PTSD" and filmed part of the exchange herself. When she cut off one of Baldwin's answers and told reporters "no details," he snapped back, "Do me a favor? I'm going to answer the question."
The case against Baldwin
A New Mexico judge dismissed the manslaughter case against Baldwin in July 2024, ruling that prosecutors had mishandled bullets treated as evidence in a way that "impacted the fundamental fairness of the case." The prosecutor countered that the bullets were left out of the case file because they came from a source she mistrusted and did not "even match the evidence that was found at the scene."
When the charge was dismissed, Baldwin broke down in tears in Hilaria's arms and shared a kiss with her in the courtroom.
Rust's armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was responsible for the weapons on set, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to the maximum 18 months, the same penalty Baldwin would have faced if convicted, before she was released early for good behavior.
In January 2025, Baldwin sued members of the Santa Fe County District Attorney's office, accusing them of "malicious" prosecution. A judge dismissed that case in July after Baldwin failed for months to file additional required documents.
Hutchins' widower speaks out
Halyna Hutchins' widower, Matthew Hutchins, received a producer credit on Rust as part of a wrongful death settlement reached after the shooting.
He has said he respects the court's decision to dismiss the case but had hoped for further legal proceedings. "We look forward to presenting all the evidence to a jury and holding Mr Baldwin accountable for his actions in the senseless death of Halyna," he said.
Rust's release and what's next
Rust had its world premiere at a film festival in Poland in September 2024 before opening in the United States in May 2025 to a polarized critical response.
Speaking to Variety ahead of her documentary's premiere at the DOC NYC film festival last November, Kennedy called the case "tricky" because it involved more than one victim. "There is Halyna, who is the victim in this story, and I, of course, have enormous empathy for Halyna and her family given my own background and experience," she said. "But I think there should be room to see how there can be more than one victim. There can be a spectrum of victims in different situations, and it's important to have space for that."
Kennedy's own father, Robert F. Kennedy Sr., was assassinated while her mother, Ethel Kennedy, was pregnant with her.
