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Christian Bale’s body is full of metal? (Photo Credit – Amazon Prime Video)

Christian Bale isn’t just known for his transformative acting skills and intense roles—his life behind the scenes is as full of grit and metal as his on-screen personas. In a candid throwback, Bale opened up about how his body became a literal metal patchwork after years of injuries. “I’ve had so many accidents,” he shared, revealing a lifetime of scars and screws that could rival the most brutal action hero.

Bale’s career has been a thrilling ride of extreme transformations, from The Machinist to Batman Begins, but his time on set is only half the story. While filming Knight of Cups with director Terrence Malick, he dove into the role of a disillusioned screenwriter drifting through LA’s glamorous but soulless landscape. Working with Malick, known for his unconventional methods, was an experience he embraced.

Critics are possibly simultaneously the best and the worst thing to have ever happened to the world of art and literature. The deconstruction and analysis that goes into a piece of work takes away its creative individuality, instead substituting it with one person’s understanding of the subject.

Blade Runner [Credit: Warner Bros.]

Ridley Scott, one of the best directors Hollywood ever produced, has been unfortunate enough to face such extreme criticism that not only disillusioned him with the profession but made him bitter, reckless, vindictive, and somewhat transparent with his words. After all, a genius auteur who could make such a timeless epic as Blade Runner come alive on the big screen only to hear it being dismissed as ‘unimportant’ would rightfully lose his mind.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner Against the World

Pauline Kael, the most polarizing critic in the history of cinema has brought down the greatest of the greats like Stanley Kubrick,...

Richard Gere began his professional film career in 1975, appearing in the crime thriller "Report to the Commissioner." In 1976 and 1977, he secured notable supporting roles in "Baby Blue Marine" and "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," before securing his first leading role in 1978's "Bloodbrothers," a coming-of-age drama about two Italian-American brothers living in the Bronx. That same year, Gere appeared in Terrence Malick's dreamy "Days of Heaven," more or less securing him as a permanent Hollywood fixture. Gere has been working steadily ever since, using his affable on-camera charm and approachable good looks to remain one of the industry's most reliable movie stars. His high-profile marriage to model Cindy Crawford in 1991 only added to the actor's status as a sex symbol.

Gere often takes roles that require more razzle-dazzle than deep acting range, but Gere has been nominated for Golden Globes and Emmys, and won a SAG Award, so he's no slouch as a thespian.

Throughout her already prolific career, producer/actor Margot Robbie has proven herself to have a taste that's as discerning as it is eclectic. Most actors attempt to demonstrate their ability to take on as large of a range of projects as possible, yet the demands of the business and marketing sides of the film industry usually see them typecast in some form, usually in a genre if not a specific type of role. This is why Robbie's career is worth pointing out for how diverse it is; she's been able to find a niche for herself that has allowed her to easily move between action films, dramas, period pieces like "Mary Queen Of Scots," comedies, genre flicks, and prestige pics, all while growing her A-list status and not being relegated to either an awards-bait character actor or a paycheck-bait comic book movie star. As a producer, she's demonstrated a steady...

Marrakech International Film Festival will present honorary tributes to Sean Penn, David Cronenberg and late Moroccan actress Naima Elmcherqui at its 21st edition this year (November 29-December 7).

The festival will present a programme dedicated to each person, featuring highlights from their careers.

Marrakech describes Penn as “one of the most gifted actors of his generation”, highlighting his work with filmmakers including Brian De Palma (on Casualties Of War), Oliver Stone (on U Turn), David Fincher (on The Game) and Terrence Malick (on The Tree Of Life).

The festival notes that Canadian filmmaker Cronenberg “has built up a singular body of work that fascinates,...

Sean Penn, Canadian writer-director David Cronenberg, and late Moroccan star Naïma Elmcherqui will be honored at the 21st edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival in Morocco.

Fest organizers, in unveiling the news on Wednesday, described them as “three great artists whose contributions and influence have had a significant impact on cinema for several decades.”

For his homage, Penn will make his first appearance at the Marrakech festival and his first visit to the country of Morocco, organizers said.

“A revelation with his very first roles, Sean Penn established himself in the 1980s and 1990s as one of the most gifted actors of his generation in collaborations with prestigious filmmakers, including Brian De Palma, Oliver Stone, David Fincher, Terrence Malick, and Woody Allen,” the fest said, lauding his “intense acting, passion, and dedication to his craft” throughout his work. “Alongside being one of the greatest actors in contemporary cinema, Penn...

The Marrakech International Film Festival will honor Sean Penn and David Cronenber and late Moroccan actor Naïma Elmcherqui at its upcoming 21st edition, kicking off in late November.

The posthumous honor for Elmcherqui (aka Lamcharki) has been announced just three weeks after her death at the age of 81 years old on October 5.

Elmcherqui was one of Morocco’s most revered actresses with highlights of her 60-year career including Badis (1989) Allal Al Kalda (2003) and Autumn of Apple Trees (2021), for which she received the Best Actress award at the Arab Film Festival in Malmö.

A life-long supporter of emerging talent, she also took a role in Nabil Ayouch’s first 1992 short film Les Pierres bleues du desert, starring a teenage Jamel Debbouze, who would go on to become one of Morocco and France’s best known comedians and actors.

The festival described Elmcherqui as an advocate of Moroccan culture and “a loyal...

Exclusive: Jessica Chastain, Brendan Fraser and Bryan Cranston have joined Al Pacino in the mystery thriller Assassination. The film will be directed by Barry Levinson from a script by David Mamet, Levinson and Sam Bromell.

The film offers up a new take on the JFK conspiracy, centering around Kilgallen (Chastain), one of the most famous voices in media at the time. When she suspects that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, she uses her fame and influence to find President John F. Kennedy’s real killer. Part murder mystery, part film noir, Kilgallen’s journey will put her up against the CIA, mafia bosses and the FBI, all who would love nothing more than to make her and this story disappear.

“Dorothy Kilgallen was the first female crime reporter in America. She was the only woman to ever cover the JFK case. The only reporter to speak with Jack Ruby.

They say that time flies, but memories last forever, and perhaps no filmmaker alive today seems more desperate in their plea for you to remember the good times than Robert Zemeckis. Maybe that’s why his latest tech trek “Here” finds him reuniting with the dream team that made “Forrest Gump” such a lasting—for better or worse—piece of cinema history. From his pair of leading stars down to the film’s screenwriter, to his own depleting sense of filmic wonder, Zemeckis has ensured that everyone has been reassembled to go down with the ship.

Like if Terrence Malick had dropped his scribbled “Tree of Life” notes in his favorite kombucha cafe, only for it to be claimed by a failed theater kid who found his solace in a wall poster of Elon Musk, “Here” attempts to cover the entire expanse of what it means to be human—to live,...

In Hollywood, most movies tell stories. But not “Here.”

Adapted from a conceptual graphic novel by Richard McGuire where the perspective is the same on every page — the living room of a century-old American house — while rectangle-shaped panels within each frame reveal actions from different years, if not entirely separate epochs, “Here” is about an idea.

Have you ever sat in a place — maybe a hotel room, a park bench or a remote clearing — and wondered what happened there before? How many people have kissed on that exact spot? Or fought, or fallen in love? And what does that say about human experience, that people can be linked by common actions, and places can hold both memories and secrets?

There are deep thoughts to be found down such rabbit holes, and a film version of “Here” points in roughly the right direction, only to get distracted by a handful of far shallower threads — namely,...

Exclusive: Voltage Pictures has acquired global rights to the horror thriller O.T.H.E.R, starring Olga Kurylenko.

The David Moreau written and directed feature follows Alice (Olga Kurylenko), who reluctantly returns to her childhood home after the sudden death of her estranged mother, only to discover the house—eerily frozen in time—hides a sinister secret: a high-tech surveillance system tracks her every move as a dark presence lurks in the shadows, driving her toward a terrifying revelation.

Voltage will officially launch global sales for the film at the American Film Market (AFM) 2024. Wild Bunch is set to release the film in France in 2025.

Currently in post-production, O.T.H.E.R. is produced by Radar Films’ Clément Miserez and Matthieu Warter. Umedia’s Bastien Sirodot and Cloé Garbay are associate producers.

The supporting...

Correction: An early version of this article indicated that Studiocanal had acquired global rights to 11 River Road Entertainment, but Searchlight holds domestic U.S. and Canada rights to “12 Years a Slave” and U.S. and U.K. rights to “The Tree of Life.”

Studiocanal and River Road Entertainment have announced an exclusive international distribution deal for 11 celebrated films, including Steve McQueen’s Oscar-winning “12 Years a Slave,” Terrence Malick’s Palme d’Or-winning “The Tree of Life” and Sean Penn’s critically acclaimed “Into the Wild.”

The partnership brings together Europe’s leading production and distribution house, Studiocanal, and the American independent film production giant, River Road Entertainment, in a multi-territory arrangement covering TV, SVOD, theatrical and other media platforms.

Under the agreement, Studiocanal will distribute nine feature films and two documentaries, a roster of prestigious titles that have collectively earned over $440 million at the global box office.

Juliette Hochart,...

Senna and Amy filmmaker Asif Kapadia turns to dystopian filmmaking with 2073, starring Samantha Morton. Here’s our review:

Best known for his award-winning documentaries Senna, Amy and Diego Maradona, director Asif Kapadia has made something quite different with 2073 – a feature that blends dystopian fiction with archive footage to deliver a stark warning about humanity’s present course.

Samantha Morton provides a haunted-looking focal point as Ghost, a denizen of the dystopian New San Francisco in the titular year 2073. Although remaining silent in the film itself, Morton provides a soulful voiceover as Kapadia cuts from footage of her scrambling around the remains of a department store – her refuge from the militarised state patrolling the rest of the city – and sequences that show what led to our planet’s collapse.

Kapadia has previously said he was inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 short film La Jetee when he made 2073, though in practice its...

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “Scream” breakout Mikey Madison is heading to the Strip…in Las Vegas, that is.

Madison leads Sean Baker‘s “Anora,” which has been deemed an Oscar frontrunner with Madison as an actress to watch this awards season. Madison plays an exotic dancer and sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). Vache Tovmaysa, Yura Borisov, and Baker’s frequent collaborator Karren Karagulian also star.

Baker will be the keynote speaker at IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking Summit.

“Anora” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2024, and was the first American film to win since Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” in 2011. “Anora” will be released by Neon, which handled the distribution of fellow Palme d’Or winners “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Anatomy of a Fall,” which all went on to be Oscar-nominated. “Parasite” and “Anatomy of a Fall” both won Oscars.

From Troy to Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Brad Pitt’s filmography is filled with one iconic project after the other, making it impossible for us to pick a favorite. However, his Se7en co-star Morgan Freeman has a film picked out that he cannot stop singing praises of and it is a rather underrated one – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Quite a mouthful.

Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt in Seven (1995) | Credits: New Line Cinema

The epic revisionist Western film retold the story of American outlaws Jesse James and Robert Ford, the latter of whom killed the former and went on to capitalize on the murder. Morgan Freeman, one of the greatest actors to have blessed the film industry, couldn’t stop watching the film for all the right reasons.

An Underrated Brad Pitt Film Brad Pitt’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward...

Truth or Dare‘s Cassandra Scerbo, John Wick actor Adrianne Palicki, Hostile‘s Q’orianka Kilcher and Braveheart‘s Angus Macfadyen have boarded The Wolf and the Lamb, a folk horror/thriller from writer and director Michael Schilf.

The genre pic takes place during the western expansion of the 1870s and is shooting in Montana. Scerbo plays a widowed school teacher searching for her only son, played by Jaydon Clark (The Rookie), who is the latest child to go missing in a tight-knit mining camp. But when the son miraculously returns, he is more monster than man.

Scerbo is known for playing Nova Clark in the Sharknado film series and appearances on the Grand Hotel and Guerrila TV series. Friday Night Lights alum Palicki is also known for turns on ABC’s Marvel drama Agents of Shield and Seth MacFarlane’s Fox dramedy The Orville.

Kilcher’s big break came at...

Making her directorial debut for “V/H/S/Beyond” with the segment “Stowaway,” Kate Siegel knows she’s asking the world to see her differently. She just doesn’t want to think about it.

“I find it easy to talk about my acting, and I find it easy to talk about filmmaking, but I find it hard to talk about my place in the industry because I don’t want a sense of that,” Siegel told IndieWire. “I can’t allow that to get inside or it might take root and grow a really nasty tree.”

As an actress, Siegel has been there before. She’s known for frequently starring in her husband Mike Flanagan’s work, collaborating with him on projects like “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” “The Haunting of Hill House,” and “Hush,” which she also co-wrote. That success came at a cost for Siegel, who rose to fame against sexist bullying...

It would be easy to call 1979 a red letter Cannes for New Hollywood: Apocalypse Now got Francis Ford Coppola his second Palme d’Or (split with Volker Schlöndorff for The Tin Drum), Terrence Malick received Best Director for Days of Heaven. Outside of the spotlight of official competition, another American film playing in the International Critics’ Week walked away with the second ever Camera d’Or for best first feature. Directed by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, Northern Lights returned the pair to their North Dakota roots by documenting 94 year-old Henry Martinson, a socialist organizer instrumental in the victory of […]

The post “North Dakota is Trump Country Today”: John Hanson and Rob Nilsson on the 4K Restoration of Northern Lights first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

It would be easy to call 1979 a red letter Cannes for New Hollywood: Apocalypse Now got Francis Ford Coppola his second Palme d’Or (split with Volker Schlöndorff for The Tin Drum), Terrence Malick received Best Director for Days of Heaven. Outside of the spotlight of official competition, another American film playing in the International Critics’ Week walked away with the second ever Camera d’Or for best first feature. Directed by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson, Northern Lights returned the pair to their North Dakota roots by documenting 94 year-old Henry Martinson, a socialist organizer instrumental in the victory of […]

The post “North Dakota is Trump Country Today”: John Hanson and Rob Nilsson on the 4K Restoration of Northern Lights first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Kris Kristofferson, the legendary “outlaw” country singer-songwriter and actor, died this weekend at 88. Kristofferson won four Grammys throughout his career, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. He was a member of The Highwaymen, a platinum-selling country music supergroup that also featured Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, and many of his songs were covered by other artists to great success including Cash (“Sunday Morning Coming Down”), Janis Joplin (“Me and Bobby McGee”), Al Green (“For The Good Times”), and Gladys Knight (“Help Me Make it Through the Night”) just to scratch the surface.

In the early 1970s, as his recording career began taking off, he began appearing in films. His first credit was in Dennis Hopper’s “The Last Movie” and then he starred in Sam Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” with James Coburn and Bob Dylan. In 1974 he co-starred opposite Ellen Burstyn (who won an...

Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is a head-scratcher from start to finish, feeling more like a Terrence Malick film than one from the legendary director of Apocalypse Now and The Godfather. While the premise offers an intriguing concept, the muddled storyline and absence of a clear protagonist leave it feeling disjointed. The saving grace, however, comes from the eccentric performances of Shia Labeouf and Aubrey Plaza, which add a spark of unpredictability to an otherwise chaotic film.

The actor was told to act like smoke by Terrence Malick and saw Peter Bogdanovich soak his cravat in iced water before he wore it. She talks about shooting with Kristen Stewart, investigative acting, and filming The Teacher in Palestine

Imogen Poots has a confession. “I drew a man’s penis too big recently,” she says, her anime eyes widening. The 35-year-old London-born actor is sitting at home in New York in an olive baseball cap. Willygate occurred at a life-drawing class she attends in Brooklyn. “The art teacher said I needed to get my proportions right, so I erased what I’d done. But then the model, who looked like a young Sam Shepard, came over and saw where the original penis had been, and realised it had been downsized.” She is pondering whether to find another class. “There’s a bunch all over the city but I’m running out of options.

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. Et/ 4:00 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

If there is one major Oscar race that has changed the most due to the Academy’s push to become more globally-minded, it is the Best Director race. Recent surprise nominees, from “Anatomy of a Fall” filmmaker Justine Triet last year to “Triangle of Sadness” director Ruben Östlund and “Drive My Car” director Ryusuke Hamaguchi the years prior, have often been directors that appealed more to the tastes of international voters.

Fast forward to now, and that sort of Cannes crowd really is leading the conversation...

Rome’s Mia film and TV market has selected 60 projects for its co-production market, which runs from October 14-18th.

More than 600 projects were submitted this year from 90 countries worldwide. Of these, 60 will be presented, spanning films, animation, documentaries and scripted TV dramas.

14 feature-length film projects, coming from 10 countries are being presented at Mia’s Film Co-Production Market & Pitching Forum.

They include French director Yves Piat’s Borderline, following on from his Oscar-nominated short Nefta Football Club.

UK director Juliet Ellis also presents coming-of-age feature Braids, following her 2021 debut Ruby.

Carlo S. Hintermann - whose debut film The Book of Vision...

For her fifth feature as director, Angelina Jolie has gone so far back to basics that Without Blood could quite easily be her debut. That isn’t a criticism, rather an observation about how hard it is, even for A-list talent, to make films about the brutality of war, even though many are raging all around us and, by displacing people in their thousands, feeding the anti-immigrant sentiment currently creeping up all around the world. But even after tackling conflicts in Bosnia, Cambodia, and even the Second World War, adapting Alessandro Baricco’s 2002 short story of the same name is a bold gambit; it’s a deliberately ambiguous two-hander that will have viewers wondering if they’ve missed a title card or two. What year is this? And where in the world are we?

The two stars...

Bre Tiesi may have risen to fame through her glamorous persona in Netflix’s Selling Sunset, but her journey in front of the camera, seemingly started long before she became a household name in the real estate and reality TV world. While many associate her with her luxurious listings and bold personality, Tiesi’s IMDb reveals a much more unexpected path.

Bre Tiesi in Selling Sunset | Done and Done Productions

As she continues to make headlines for her work, a glance back at her previous work reveals a fascinating yet somewhat questionable connection to major projects. How did Tiesi go from these low-profile roles to making waves in a Netflix dystopian thriller? Let’s dive into the story behind Bre Tiesi’s curious acting career.

Bre Tiesi in Uglies: A Netflix Dystopia That Sparked Online Reactions Joey King in Uglies / Netflix

The release of Uglies on Netflix brought together an intriguing cast,...

CAA’s Roeg Sutherland is set to be honored with the Zurich Film Festival’s Game Changer Award for his outstanding achievements and contributions within the film industry.

The co-Head of CAA’s Media Finance department as well as its International Film Group, will be presented with the award during the festival’s industry-focused Zurich Summit, which takes place in October within the framework of the 20th Zurich Film Festival (Zff).

As part of the recognition, FilmNation Entertainment CEO Glen Basner will host the Game Changer Award recipient conversation, in which he will speak with Sutherland about his journey.

“Roeg is a passionate cinephile and industry leader, who has not only discovered, but also nurtured and developed the careers of countless artists. In the past several years, he has secured financing and sold some of the most important and critically acclaimed films, both domestic and international,” commented Zff Artistic Director Christian Jungen.

When it comes to Sean Penn, all is fair in lights, camera, and action. But surprisingly, the luminary known for his commanding presence and intricate performances, had certain issues when it came to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Although the Brad Pitt starrer garnered ecstatic reviews, Penn was left confused and disappointed with his role.

Sean Penn in The Tree of Life | image: Cottonwood Pictures

As Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life marked a departure from the familiar stage where Sean Penn thrives, the actor found himself struggling to match his need for a defined narrative with the film’s enigmatic vision. Therefore, the juxtaposition of Penn’s own creative ego with the daring nature of Malick’s cinematic experiment led the actor to openly share his frustration with the project.

Sean Penn Voiced His Discontent with Brad Pitt’s The Tree of Life

Sean Penn’s...

An unnamed village, an unknown time; somewhere in Britain, sometime in the Late Middle Ages, something is about to end. Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Harvest sees the twilight of an old social order, but is not mourning a paradise lost. That would be too simplistic a comparison for a filmmaker whose work has always succeeded in weaving the allegorical with the political, such as gender constructs in Attenberg or Chevalier. Nine years after the latter, the Greek director returns to feature filmmaking with an adaptation of Jim Crace’s acclaimed book of the same name, making Harvest her third film and first period piece.

Harvest season comes with warm yellows (fields), bright greens (meadows), and deep blues (the lake). Amidst all of this beauty, we find Walter Thirsk (Caleb Landry Jones), a villager whose bright eyes and pale skin may mislead you: he is so deeply immersed in this natural world––its cycles,...

There is a sense-memory of Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven when Harvest begins; we are in the midst of a wheatfield, the ripe ears above us, the blue sky glimpsed between the stalks. Caleb Landry Jones appears, caressing a butterfly. Then he bites off a piece of mossy wood, chews experimentally and spits it out; we have just shifted sideways from Malick’s lyricism into the unpredictably strange, unforgiving world of Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari.

Venice competition title Harvest is set in what is probably a Scottish village sometime in the 18th century, when much of the country was being convulsed by an agricultural revolution. During the Clearances, thousands of peasant farmers were evicted to make way for industrial-scale sheep farming, their fields grassed, and woods razed for pasture. Landry Jones plays Walter Thirsk, who came to this imaginary village — so remote that it doesn’t require a name,...

With her small but delicious body of directorial work, Greek New Waver Athina Rachel Tsangari has amassed a loyal fanbase. Her debut “Attenberg” (2010) announced a talent capable of balancing absurdist humor with an infectious warmth for human weirdness. Where lauded contemporary Yorgos Lanthimos makes his characters suffer to drive existential points home, Tsangari uses deadpan observations as a way to affectionately deepen her psychological portraits. Crucially, her creations care about each other, even if they are often hamstrung by certain weaknesses.

The announcement of a third feature, “Harvest,” world premiering at Venice, nine years on from “Chevalier,” was cause for genuine excitement among Tsangari heads. Forays into a TV miniseries (“Trigonometry” in 2020) and regular producing gigs have been no substitute for a feature film brewed in her singular mind palace. So, how does “Harvest” stack up?

At first glance, it seems like Tsangari has totally switched things up. Her first...

“I’ve never worked with a hog before,” Ben Stiller says. “So when they started making crazy sounds, I’m like, ‘Wait a minute! Am I safe?’” At this, Stiller squeals and snorts like an irate pig, mimicking the scene-stealing sows from his new comedy “Nutcrackers.”

Stiller had to be ready for anything when it came to making the low-budget indie about a workaholic real estate developer who becomes a guardian to his unruly nephews after their parents die. That openness started with his co-stars, Homer, Ulysses, Arlo and Atlas Janson, four brothers who range in age from 5 to 13, who’d never been on a film set. Instead of a Hollywood soundstage, the movie was shot on their family’s Ohio farm, a rural homestead filled with chickens, goats and, yes, hogs. Clearly, Stiller wouldn’t be spending time relaxing in a trailer or enjoying other movie star perks.

“When I called Ben,...

Pedro Almodóvar has long grappled with mortality in his films, oftentimes using it as a window into society’s views on gender, relationships, and what it means to leave one’s mark. In The Room Next Door, the Spanish auteur migrates those internal inquiries stateside, finding universal resonance in a simple story of a woman confronting the end of her own story. Based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel, the film sees Martha request Ingrid’s company as she ends her battle with cancer, hoping to regain lost connections and impart whatever wisdom remains in her waning moments.

On the surface, this premise echoes Martin Scorsese’s depictions of criminals clinging to brotherhood in the face of punishment or death. But where Goodfellas or The Departed find brotherhood through shared experiences on the fringes of society, Almodóvar locates it through intellectualism and creativity.

As Ingrid and Martha reconnect through recollections of...

“The Piano Lesson” seems to be hitting all the right Oscar notes.

With Black excellence, impeccable filmmaking, and towering performances, Netflix’s “The Piano Lesson” hit the awards season scene this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival. Debut director Malcolm Washington and stars John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler were on hand as the film premiered to strong reviews. Given the response and Netflix’s enthusiasm for the project, “The Piano Lesson” could find itself with a best picture nomination.

The latest adaptation from the late playwright August Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” the film is set in 1936 Pittsburgh. It follows the Charles family as they grapple with familial trauma and the (literal) ghosts of their ancestors — it’s a history of violence and cruelty and oppression that are illustrated in the elaborate decorations and designs that have been carved into a piano. And the fate of that family heirloom — whether...

From “Boy A” (the movie that launched Andrew Garfield’s career) to “Zero for Conduct,” movies set in broken boarding schools and juvenile reformatory centers are a dime a dozen. With “Nickel Boys,” director RaMell Ross finds fresh colors in such a rigidly codified genre, turning a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel into a minimalist tone poem. The book by Colson Whitehead is brilliant, but much of it you’ve probably seen before on-screen, so Ross strips away as many of the words as possible, searching instead for images to tell the story of Elwood, a Tallahassee teen who’s so much more than a victim of the system.

Except, Ross doesn’t tell the story so much as inhabit it, to the extent I found myself wondering whether I could have followed the plot — which alternates between the 1960s and the early 2000s — had I not already read Whitehead’s novel.

I consumed Barry Jenkins’ 10-part limited series adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad over the course of a weekend because, basically, I couldn’t stop. It was extraordinary storytelling and filmmaking, if harrowing in its uncompromising depiction of slavery. Whitehead followed that book up with The Nickel Boys in 2019, and like Underground Railroad, won a Pulitzer Prize for it. Based on this, I looked forward to the film version, its title shortened to simply Nickel Boys, especially since it also came from Plan B., producers of The Underground Railroad and Oscar-winning Best Pictures 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight. As it turns out, shortening the title wasn’t the only change in the RaMell Ross screen version that just had its world premiere this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival and will also be opening the New York Film Festival.

Admittedly a difficult book to transfer its rhythms to a different medium,...

Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross’ big screen interpretation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Nickel Boys, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival’s Herzog Theatre on Friday night. Reactions among attendees, including numerous Academy members, have been strongly divided — many were impressed and deeply moved by the film, while others were left cold by it — leaving its Oscar prospects somewhat up in the air.

Ross is a tremendously gifted filmmaker who was Oscar-nominated and won a Peabody Award for his unconventional 2018 documentary feature Hale County This Morning, This Evening, which looked at the Black experience in a part of Alabama. Now just 42, he is making his narrative directorial debut with Nickel Boys, the script of which he co-wrote with his Hale County producer Joslyn Barnes.

The story centers on two young Black men, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), who, in the 1960s, while the...

We love seeing which films rank among our favorite directors’ list of best ever — the ones that left a mark and steered them in the path of becoming some of the most renowned artists of the medium. But let’s face it, we don’t mind a little conflict, either. But Park Chan-wook wasn’t going after his fellow directors in a physical way but rather in a much more damming way — attacking their work!

In a recently unearthed slam session from 1999, Park Chan-wook called out 10 films that he considered the most overrated ever. Keep in mind that by this point, the South Korean director only had two features to his credit. So what’s on the list and what did he have to say? Let’s check it out:

Park Chan-wook primarily took issue with American films, opening the list with Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, which can...

September marks Marcello Mastroianni’s centennial, and the Criterion Channel pays respect with a retrospective that puts the expected alongside some lesser-knowns: Monicelli’s The Organizer, Jacques Demy’s A Slightly Pregnant Man, and two by Ettore Scola. There’s also the welcome return of “Adventures In Moviegoing” with Rachel Kushner’s formidable selections, among them Fassbinder’s Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Pialat’s L’enfance nue, and Jean Eustache’s Le cochon. In the lead-up to His Three Daughters, a four-film Azazel Jacobs program arrives.

Theme-wise, a set of courtroom dramas runs from 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder to My Cousin Vinny and Philadelphia; a look at ’30s female screenwriters includes Fritz Lang’s You and Me, McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, and Cukor’s What Price Hollywood? There’s also a giallo series if you want to watch an Argento movie and ask yourself,...

Exclusive: Amid the theatrical release of their horror pic Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer and Dan Stevens, Waypoint Entertainment has announced the launch of new genre label Cweature Features.

Helmed by industry veterans Ken Kao and Josh Rosenbaum, the label will offer a collaborative sanctuary for filmmakers to create horrifying auteur content, supported by the expertise of its seasoned team. The name Cweature Features (pronounced “Kwee-Cha Fee-Chas”) was inspired by the tendency of Kao’s young children to mispronounce creature as “cweature,” with their teeth still coming in. He and his wife came to realize that the little ones resembled little “cweatures” themselves, and the moment evoked nostalgia for Kao, for the period in his childhood when his early love for all things scary began. Cweature Features will embrace the idea that horror is an experience that transcends age, blending fear with fun and not taking itself too seriously.

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Wokeness, gender fluidity, the audacity of ageing … Madwomen of the West is a play giving ‘women of a certain age’ a voice – and audiences are loving it. We meet two of its outspoken stars, Brooke Adams and Caroline Aaron

Brooke Adams was a huge star in her 30s after appearing alongside a brooding Richard Gere in Days of Heaven, Terrence Malick’s tragic and masterful film about farm workers. But she walked away from the business in her 40s and instead devoted herself to painting and parenting. Adams was decidedly retired. “I had quit acting,” she says.

But actor Caroline Aaron, her longtime friend, had other ideas. “I tried to bring her out of retirement,” recalls Aaron, who has notched up more than 40 years in the business, most recently playing mother-in-law Shirley in The Marvelous Mrs Maisel. She approached Adams with Madwomen of the West – the timing was right, it...

When it comes to meta experiments that blur those good ole lines between fiction and the filmmakers’ own non-fiction life stories, there’s a risk that the resulting feature can border on being impenetrable if audiences aren’t fed a load of exposition in advance. That’s far less of an issue for classically-told narratives from mega-famous artists delving into (semi)autobiography (like Steven Spielberg with “The Fabelmans”), but definitely so for smaller scale projects from independent filmmakers whose output is more peculiar. What can be a compelling behind-the-scenes story as described in a press kit may not necessarily translate into the finished feature as something engaging, or even coherent, to anyone coming to the work without the luxury of reading production notes before the screening.

This is thankfully not the case with “Invention,” a compact, compelling and warm fiction and documentary hybrid, credited as “A film by Callie Hernandez...

The Humble Beginnings of a Master Emmanuel Lubezki is one of the most decorated cinematographers currently working, having garnered three back-to-back Academy Awards for Best Cinematography — an unprecedented feat and something of a victory lap for a man who had become highly sought after by the time the 2010s rolled around. Cinematographers often take the back seat compared to the directors they work alongside, but Lubezki has the privilege of both being a gifted cameraman and having collaborated with some of the finest filmmakers in or out of Hollywood: Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Terrence Malick, Tim Burton, the Coen Brothers, just to name a few. Lubezki started out, perhaps most consistently, as Cuarón’s go-to cinematographer, with their careers basically starting out conjoined at the hip; with Cuarón’s debut feature, ‘Sólo con tu pareja,’ in 1991, Lubezki was unleashed upon the world — only not quite. He would work with...

If we had a dollar for every time Val Kilmer kissed a guy, we would have two dollars, which is not a lot but, weirdly, it has happened two times (one of them being Robert Downey Jr).

Val Kilmer in Top Gun: Maverick (2022) | Paramount Pictures

The other actor that Kilmer has kissed on-screen is The Penguin actor Colin Farrell. Well, Val Kilmer and Farrell became good friends but the Top Gun actor held nothing back when he talked about Farrell’s fame in Hollywood.

Val Kilmer Was Jealous of Colin Farrell’s Fame

Starring in the 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Val Kilmer, and Robert Downey Jr. shared the screen together while the Iron Man actor hadn’t found his fame yet.

Colin Farrell in Phone Booth | Fox 2000 Pictures

During one of the interviews back in 2005, Kilmer talked about how Colin Farrell had already worked with iconic directors Michael Mann,...

Dennis Davidson’s UK and US-based Elizabeth Bay Productions (Ebp) is partnering with Atlanta-based finance platform FilmHedge to back the fledgling company’s film and TV production slate.

The partnership with fin-tech firm FilmHedge will be managed by chief operating officer Chandler Heinz Laun, who will have oversight over Ebp’s creative packaging and individual project financing plans. Prior to FilmHedge, Laun worked at ICM Partners.

Ebp has been building its development slate in close collaboration with UK-based sales agent WestEnd Films, with which it has signed a first-look deal.

UK-based Davidson, founder of publicity agency Dda, is the head of Ebp.

Elizabeth Bay Productions (Ebp), one of the companies behind Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life,” has secured a financing deal with FilmHedge and a first-look agreement with WestEnd Films.

Atlanta-based finance platform FilmHedge will provide funding for Ebp’s slate of film and television projects. This partnership will be steered by FilmHedge’s COO, Chandler Heinz Laun, who will oversee Ebp’s creative packaging and individual project financing plans. Laun was previously a member of the independent film financing and distribution department at ICM Partners.

Simultaneously, Ebp has entered into a first-look deal with U.K.-based sales company WestEnd Films. This arrangement grants WestEnd the initial option to sell projects from Ebp’s developing slate, providing Ebp with enhanced international distribution capabilities and access to additional financing. For WestEnd, the deal offers an opportunity to tap into Ebp’s development and production expertise as the sales company continues its expansion into production.

Elizabeth Bay Productions (Ebp), whose principal is publicity firm Dda founder Dennis Davidson and whose team includes executive producer/producer Grant Hill, known for his collaborations with director Terrence Malick and the Wachowskis on various The Matrix films, has struck a financing agreement with FilmHedge and entered a first-look deal with U.K.-based sales company WestEnd Films.

The new partnership with Atlanta-based finance platform FilmHedge will provide financing for the production house’s film and TV slate. Ebp’s film projects include The Dimona Affair, a whistle-blower story inspired by true events, written by Fred Schepisi (Six Degrees of Separation, Roxanne, A Cry in the Dark) from a story by Morris Rosmarin. Schepisi will also direct, with Jeff Wilbusch (Unorthodox) playing the male lead and producing alongside Schepisi, Simon Moseley and Davidson.

The relationship will be managed by FilmHedge’s COO Chandler Heinz Laun who will have “oversight over...

In one of the most pleasant surprises of the year, Sean Baker picked up the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his latest feature Anora, marking the first American film to do so since Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. The Starlet, Tangerine, The Floria Project, and Red Rocket director has carved out a fascinating niche in indie cinema exploring sex work in a thrilling, sensitive, humorous way. His latest follows Mikey Madison’s character as a stripper from Brighton Beach who elopes with the son of a Russian oligarch, and whose family travels to New York to force an annulment. Ahead of an October 18 release from Neon, the first trailer has now arrived.

Luke Hicks said in his review, “From then on, Anora is a riotous chase, a nonstop, clusterfuck, screaming-match rollercoaster that doesn’t let you breathe until the final minutes, when it also...

Sean Baker’s latest triumph is an Oscar frontrunner, and now finally the first trailer for “Anora” is here.

The highly-anticipated “Anora” won the Palme d’Or at Cannes 2024, and proved “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” breakout Mikey Madison is an actress to watch this awards season. Madison plays an exotic dancer and sex worker who marries the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn).

Vache Tovmaysa, Yura Borisov, and Baker’s frequent collaborator Karren Karagulian.

The feature was the first American film to win the Palme d’Or since Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” in 2011.

Writer/director Baker previously helmed Oscar-nominated film “The Florida Project,” groundbreaking iPhone movie “Tangerine,” and Simon Rex’s career-best “Red Rocket,” which also centered on sex work.

“Anora” will be released by Neon, which handled the release of fellow Palme d’Or winners “Parasite,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and “Anatomy of a Fall,...

Just when you think that horror — currently in a major gold rush — is all out of fresh ideas, along comes In A Violent Nature. This is a film that takes the familiar gore of the slasher movie and gives it a fresh, gently experimental sheen. It’s not always an experiment that works, but it’s a very good sign that it exists.

Filmed by writer-director Chris Nash on a presumably minimal budget in the wilds of Ontario, Canada, the conceit here is: what if there were a slasher film told from the perspective of the guy doing the slashing? In this case, said slasher in question is Johnny, played by Ry Barrett: a mysterious brute figure who is seemingly awakened from a slumber when something very precious is taken from him, and who quickly sets out on a deadly warpath to get it back.

He is a fearsomely effective boogeyman.