Timothee Chalamet joins the illustrious band of actors, including Heath ledger, Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett, who have portrayed the ever-enigmatic Bob Dylan on the big screen as he transforms into the American singer-songwriter in the teaser for James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown.

Inspired by Elijah Wald’s 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric, which traces Dylan’s journey from his folk-revivalist avatar in Woodstock to his electric period that began in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival, the new movie will arrive in the theatres in December.

Taken from the refrains of Like a Rolling Stone, the most well-known song in Dylan’s repertoire, A Complete Unknown will also showcase the musician’s emergence as a key figure in the American folk music scene at the beginning the 1960s and his eventual departure from its values in favour of what he would famously term as “that thin mercury sound”.

The one-minute-52-second-long teaser features Chalamet embodying Dylan’s iconic style, complete with unruly hair, sunglasses and a harmonica hanging from his neck. It takes us through Dylan’s evolution from a Minnesota-born small-time musician to a key figure in folk music, culminating into his revolutionary electric performance in Newport which sent folk purists like Pete Seeger into a frenzy.

In the teaser, we also see Dylan navigating the streets of Manhattan, visiting Cafe Wha? and Hotel Chelsea. It includes a rendition of Dylan’s 1963 protest song A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall. The teaser also delves into Dylan’s relationships with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning).

“Timothée Chalamet is Bob Dylan in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. A Film By James Mangold. Co-starring Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz and Scoot McNairy. ONLY in theaters this December. #ACompleteUnknown,” the official handle of Searchlight Pictures wrote on X alongside the teaser.

Apart from Chalamet, the ensemble cast of A Complete Unknown also features Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, P.J. Byrne as Harold Leventhal, Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie, Dan Fogler as Albert Grossman and Will Harrison as Bob Neuwirth.

A Complete Unknown is not, however, the first movie on Dylan. Filmmaker Todd Haynes made the musical drama film I’m Not There, taken from the title of yet another Dylan song, in 2007. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger (his final film to be released during his lifetime) and Ben Whishaw portrayed the character of Dylan in that experimental biographical film. Filmmaker Martin Scorsese has also made two documentaries on the American icon — No Direction Home (2005) and Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story (2019).