Oscar Isaac will experience a most violent year…

The 34-year-old Guatemalan/Cuban actor will star alongside Alessandro Nivola, Jessica Chastain and Albert Brooks in J.C. Chandor’s thriller A Most Violent Year.

From Participant Films and Image Nation Abu Dhabi, the thriller is set during the winter of 1981 in New York — one of the most violent years on record in the city’s history.

The story “follows the lives of an immigrant and his family trying to expand their business and capitalize on opportunities as the rampant violence, decay and corruption of the day drag them in and threaten to destroy all they have built.”

A Most Violent Year, written and directed by Chandor, will be distributed by A24 in North America.

A24 acquired the rights at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.