The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a very different sort of story than the previous Hunger Games movies, focusing on a mentor as the main character rather than one of the participants in the annual battle royale. But it's not just any mentor in the spotlight--this prequel is all about young Coriolanus Snow, who will grow up to become the evil President Snow. This is the story of how and why he ended up on that path toward being an oppressive dictator.

Warning: This article contains numerous spoilers for The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, including a detailed discussion of its ending.

These games are nothing like those that Katniss and Peeta would fight in decades later--here, we're seeing the 10th edition of the Hunger Games, many years before the powers-that-be in Panem had turned it into a huge spectacle. The tributes are treated like garbage, brought into the Capitol in rusty train cars, and then dumped in an empty pen at the zoo with no food except what the mentors provide.