Millie Bobby Brown’s new Netflix movie could be a defining moment for the Stranger Things star.

Best known for playing Eleven in Stranger Things, Brown is now set to star in a World War II movie, titled Nineteen Steps, that will be based on Kathleen McGurl’s bestselling 2023 novel of the same name. Brown additionally serves as a producer on the project alongside her husband, Jake Bongiovi.

Per Deadline, it’s been announced that Nineteen Steps will be directed by Tom Hooper. Hooper won the Best Director Academy Award in 2011 for The King’s Speech, which he then followed up with Les Misérables in 2012 and The Danish Girl in 2015. He also directed Cats.

Why is Millie Bobby Brown’s new Netflix movie a big deal?

Brown became a household name due to the popularity of Stranger Things; however, Stranger Things is now over. All the actors involved with the show are moving on to other projects — Sadie Sink, for example, is set to appear in Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Finn Wolfhard stars in a movie that premiered at South by Southwest last month.

Brown, too, has done acting outside of Stranger Things. She’ll soon be seen reprising her role as Enola Holmes and is also attached to star in a rom-com titled Just Picture It. 

Nearly all of Brown’s credited acting work — including Enola Holmes 3 and Just Picture It — is for Netflix. Up until this point, most of the Netflix movies she’s appeared in have been broad popcorn flicks; in addition to Enola Holmes, you’ve got titles like 2024’s Damsel and 2025’s The Electric State. Nineteen Steps is something that sounds much more serious, and it’ll really serve as a test to see if she can lead prestige-type projects.

Of course, since it’s Netflix, we ultimately won’t really know if Brown can carry a movie that’s financially successful (she’s been a part of some MonsterVerse movies that have been released in theaters, but those certainly aren’t sold on her name). It’ll give us a sense of whether she intends to stick to acting long-term, though. After the Olympic movie she was going to be in fell apart, many were wondering if she’ll only just be appearing in straight-to-streaming crowdpleasers. Nineteen Steps has the opportunity to really open her career up in a big way, if it is indeed a good flick.