News

“I was sure none of these people at the Actors Studio actually considered me an actor. I was a pretty boy, a real conventional kid who somehow had staggered into this mélange." - Paul Newman, The Extraordinary Life Of An Ordinary Man

For Montgomery Clift, there was Howard Hawks’ Red River...

[This story contains major spoilers from the finale of The Day of the Jackal.]

Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne says he was initially reluctant to join The Day of the Jackal when he was first approached.

“I loved the original movie and the Frederick Forsyth book. So when the first three scripts arrived in my inbox, there was a level of hesitation because you don’t want to butcher something you love,” Redmayne tells The Hollywood Reporter.

But he was sold once he realized that Peacock and Sky had modernized Fred Zinnemann’s classic 1973 big screen adaptation. “I read the first episode or two of this series and I found it so propulsive and compelling and the character so enigmatic, that I just wanted to know what happened next,” says Redmayne.

What’s more, the first season finale, which released on Thursday night, had an appealing surprise twist: Redmayne’s Jackal would kill Bianca Pullman (played by Lashana Lynch in...

Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Day of the Jackal season 1 finale.The Day of the Jackal's EPs tease the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne) season 2 missions and his motive after season 1's shocking twist that sets the TV remake on a different path from Fred Zinnemann's 1973 movie and Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel. Not only does the Jackal successfully pull off another near-impossible shot, but he also lives another day when coming face to face with MI6 agent Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch), who was supposed to be the one to catch him.

Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant, the EPs behind the series, explain to The Hollywood Reporter what the Jackal is up to in season 2, which has already received a green light. Neame shares that "there's a serious bit of unfinished business" for the Jackal, with his wife and child's whereabouts unknown and a debt being owed. Marchant further teases...

[This story contains major spoilers from the Day of the Jackal season finale.]

When The Day of the Jackal executive producers Gareth Neame and Nigel Marchant took on a TV remake of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 historical novel, they had a dilemma.

Should they kill off the chameleon assassin played by Eddie Redmayne, as happened in the original 1973 movie? Or have him survive for a second season and another possible multiseason franchise?

As viewers saw during the Sky and Peacock series’ riveting two-episode finale (released on Thursday night), the Jackal — in a shock twist — survives the 10-episode first season, and it’s Bianca Pullman, Lashana Lynch’s MI6 agent who pursued Redmayne’s Jackal across Europe, who meets a grisly death in the end.

Of course, that’s a flip ending to Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 film adaptation where Lebel, the reluctant detective played by Michael Lonsdale, ultimately kills the Jackal just as the hired killer reloads his rifle for another shot. But saying goodbye...

"From Here to Eternity" is the 1953 Oscar winning feature, directed by Fred Zinnemann, based on the 1951 novel by James Jones, following three US Army soldiers, played by Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra, stationed on Hawaii in the months leading up to the attack on 'Pearl Harbor', December 7, 1941, with the film selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant":

"...in Hawaii in the months preceding the Japanese attack on 'Pearl Harbor', 'Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt' (Clift) reports for his new assignment as an infantryman. At his previous Post, Prewitt was a bugler and his unit's top boxer. But after a man died in the ring, Prewitt wants nothing to do with the sport.

"Trouble is, his new company commander, 'Captain Dana Holmes' (Philip Ober) has a championship boxing team and Prewitt's refusal to...

Firecreek made it possible for audiences to see what it would have been like had High Noon been a James Stewart Western. Easily one of the most iconic Westerns of all time, High Noon is Gary Cooper's best-known work in Hollywood. Released in 1952, High Noon starred Cooper and Grace Kelly in a Western tale that wound up with a slew of Academy Award nominations and wins.

Directed by Fred Zinnemann, High Noon received praise for its unique take on the Western formula. In the movie, Cooper plays married town marshal Will Kane, who realizes that he's completely on his own against a gang of outlaws. Will's story sees him try to rally the townspeople to help, but his neighbors and friends aren't willing to take a stand. It's a darker look at the setting than many Western movies of the 1950s provided, but the arc it offered to its...

The Day Of The Jackal may only be midway through its run on Sky, but more days of the Jackal are already on their way. That's right, folks — after hitting the mark with audiences around the world, becoming the biggest Sky Original of all time here and an instant No. 1 smash on Peacock stateside, Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett's Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch led espionage thriller has landed itself a swift Season 2 renewal.

A story of 'analogue spycraft' based on Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel, The Day Of The Jackal follows international assassin The Jackal (Redmayne), who — having just pulled off a spectacular kill in Munich — finds himself contracted to kill a tech billionaire with a God complex (Khalid Abdalla). At the same time, Lashana Lynch's MI6 agent Bianca Pullman tails the elite assassin, constantly having to spin the plates of her spiralling family life and her obsessive compulsion...

Throughout the history of the Oscars, there have been many directors who have received acclaim for their commitment to bringing classic Hollywood movies to life. Since its first award ceremony held nearly a century ago, the Oscars have been recognized as the highest honor achievable in the movie industry. Many actors, composers and directors have received recognition from the Academy, for their hard work in creating many acclaimed movies.

Since the first ceremony in 1929, the Academy has awarded directors for their dedication to transforming a script into a movie using actors, visual effects, and cameras. With the 96th ceremony set to take place on March 3, 2025, there are already predictions on who will receive nominations in the Best Director category. Many directors, including Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, have received multiple wins and nominations for their work in directing.

Frank Capra Won 3 Best Director Academy Awards Out Of 6 Nominations

Italian-American director...

Clint Eastwood might've appeared in 14 films after "Unforgiven" but his Oscar-winning directorial effort really does feel like a fond farewell to the genre that defined his career in front of the camera. For many, his stint as Will Munny, a worn down gunman making one last stand, sits as one of his finest and he could've hung up his acting hat for good there and then in one of the best Western movies of all time. For his co-star, Morgan Freeman, though, there's an earlier role rooted in Eastwood's time in the Old West that outshines even that.

Speaking to Rotten Tomatoes in 2023, the five-time Oscar nominee (one of which he won for his performance in Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby"), was asked about his favorite films. Of his five truly fascinating choices, one of them was Eastwood's own cold-blooded 1976 cowboy movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales." The film saw Easwood play the titular character,...

Complaining that you’ve seen this story before — specifically in regard to an adaptation of a book first published in 1971 that was already made into a movie in 1973 and again made into another movie in 1997 — is generally a waste of time. “The Day of the Jackal” is a piece of intellectual property. The only reason there’s a new iteration of Frederick Forsyth’s novel is because readers liked it back in the day, and then moviegoers liked seeing the story play out onscreen, and then moviegoers went to see it again 20 years later.

But hey, just because Roger Ebert ranked Fred Zinnemann’s “The Day of the Jackal” among his 10 best films of 1973 and then ranked “The Jackal” among his 10 worst films of 1997, that doesn’t mean the franchise is dead. If anything, it means most of the franchise’s maiden fans are dead — 1971 was a long time ago,...

The mountain lion that menaced Kim Bauer in the first season of Fox’s 24 was a feature, not a bug.

That ferocious feline, which probably still haunts Elisha Cuthbert’s dreams, was a proof of concept for how that boundary-breaking series could to extend its high-wire premise across 24 hours per season: Not everything could be an A-story or a B-story, but in Jack Bauer’s world, even the filler was fraught with tension.

Or at least it theoretically was. As even the most passionate fans will tell you, the detours were occasionally thrilling, occasionally ludicrously entertaining and sometimes just plain awful. But they served the purpose of elongating the excitement, and with 24, elongation was everything. Whatever pleasures the subsequent telefilm or two 12-part seasons provided, they made clear that a condensed 24 might be many things, but it wasn’t 24.

There wouldn’t have been room for a...

This isn’t Fred Zinnemann’s “The Day of the Jackal,” but the Peacock series brings forth just as much thrill and action as the 1973 film.

The series is based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel of the same name, and it’s cast Eddie Redmayne to take on Edward Fox’s role as The Jackal. Redmayne also serves as one of the executive producers for the series.

“The Day of the Jackal” was directed by Brian Kirk (“Game of Thrones”) and was written by Ronan Bennet (“Top Boy”).

Check out everything you need to know about how to watch below.

When does “The Day of the Jackal” come out?

“The Day of the Jackal” premiered on Peacock with the first five episodes of the series on Thursday, Nov. 14. New episodes will drop weekly every Thursday until its double finale on Dec. 12.

Where is “The Day of the Jackal” streaming?

“The Day of the Jackal...

The independent filmmaking community is up in arms over the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences’ recent decision to gut its archive and library, with some calling the cutbacks “a huge step backwards” and “disastrous” as they put pressure on the Academy to reconsider its decision.

On Oct. 30, AMPAS laid off 16 employees, roughly 2% of its total workforce. They were from the Academy Film Archive, which is responsible for the preservation, restoration and documentation of motion pictures, and the Margaret Herrick Library, home to millions of pieces of film history, from books to photographs to concept art to Oscar facts and more. The affected employees included archive director Mike Pogorzelski, preservation officer Josef Lindner and head of cataloguing Mike Brostoff, among others — many of whom have worked there for decades.

At the time of the layoffs, Academy CEO Bill Kramer characterized the staff cuts as part of a larger organizational restructuring.

John Ford's success at the Oscars speaks to the director's reputation as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Over the course of his long career in the industry, Ford worked with many of the most prominent actors in Hollywood from the 1920s to 1960s, pumping out a long list of memorable hits at the box office. Many were born from his collaborations with John Wayne, but it's important to note that his own directorial style, not necessarily Wayne or any other actor, that made Ford the Hollywood legend he is today.

Ford's work represents a very distinctive version of America, and his films often centered on specific themes and genres. Ford is well known for making Westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, among many others. John Ford was also well known for having served in World War II and for...

Oscar-winning actress Grace Kelly made just a handful of movies before transforming from a Hollywood princess into a real life one following her marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956. Let’s take a look back in the photo gallery above of all 11 of her films, ranked worst to best.

Kelly got her start performing onstage and in television before being drafted by Hollywood to appear in Henry Hathaway‘s ripped-from-the-headlines nail-biter “Fourteen Hours” (1951) when she was just 22-years-old. The next year found her starring as the concerned wife to an imperiled town marshal (Gary Cooper) in Fred Zinnemann‘s landmark western “High Noon” (1952).

She got her first Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress for John Ford‘s adventure yarn “Mogambo” (1953), playing one of two love interests (along with Ava Gardner) to big game hunter Clark Gable. The next year, Kelly upset frontrunner Judy Garland, who made a massive comeback...

The Day of the Jackal debuts with a strong Rotten Tomatoes score. Based on the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel of the same name, which was previously adapted into the 1973 film, the new series is set against a modern political backdrop and follows the titular British assassin and a tenacious intelligence officer who tracks him down in a thrilling game of cat-and-mouse across Europe. The show stars Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch in the lead roles alongside a supporting cast that includes rsula Corber, Charles Dance, Richard Dormer, Chukwudi Iwuji, Khalid Abdalla, Eleanor Matsuura, and Kate Dickie.

Now, following the show's premiere on Peacock, Eddie Redmayne's TV remake of the 1973 thriller has debuted with a strong Rotten Tomatoes score. The Day of the Jackal has debuted to an 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes with nine reviews from critics, which could fluctuate as more come in. With fewer than 50 ratings, the show doesn't yet qualify for an audience score.

Episodes viewed: 10 of 10

Streaming on: Sky / Now

Fred Zinnemann’s admirably faithful 1973 adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day Of The Jackal managed two rather unusual feats. It was, on the one hand, a surprising triumph of the mundane, with Michael Lonsdale’s methodical, shoe-leather approach to investigation paying dividends in what was essentially a nation-hopping police procedural. More interesting, though, was the way its dual Pov narrative encouraged audiences to root just as hard for Edward Fox’s cold-blooded assassin — a nameless cypher, about whom we end the film knowing almost nothing. It’s that latter point that Top Boy creator Ronan Bennett has seized upon with this modernised adaptation, electing to properly delve into the character of Forsyth’s chameleonic killer.

We become acquainted with Eddie Redmayne’s exceedingly British gun-for-hire via an extended prologue in which he meticulously sets up and executes a show-stopping kill. After baiting...

Burt Lancaster was an Oscar-winning actor who appeared in dozens of movies until his death in 1994. But which titles are among his finest? Let’s take a look back at 20 of Lancaster’s greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1913, Lancaster got into acting after performing as an acrobat in the circus. He made his movie debut in 1946 with a leading role in the quintessential noir thriller “The Killers” (1946). He earned his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor for Fred Zinnemann‘s wartime drama “From Here to Eternity” (1953), winning the prize just seven years later for playing a fast-talking preacher in “Elmer Gantry” (1960). Lancaster would compete twice more in the category (“Birdman of Alcatraz” in 1962 and “Atlantic City” in 1981).

In the 1950s, the actor decided to chart his own career by forming the production company Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, which churned out a number of successful titles including the Best Picture-winning “Marty...

Western movies have long been built on repeated tropes that define the genre. As the exciting stories of how cowboys, bandits, and outlaws make their way through a lawless life across the Wild West frontier, many tropes and cliches have reappeared time and time again to the point that they become readily associated with the genre itself. These tropes helped create a cinematic language for Western movies and helped them stand apart from other types of genre films.

Many of the best Western movies ever made were packed with tropes and cliches of the genre. The acclaimed collaborations of icons like John Wayne and John Ford would not have been possible without the foundations of the Western genre and the tropes and clichs that it embodied. From over-the-top brawls in dusty saloons to lone gunmen facing off against ruthless crooks in a lawless town, these tropes helped define Westerns.

A...

Ron Howard’s survival thriller “Eden,” starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney, has been set as the opening film of Italy’s Torino Film Festival with the director in tow.

“Eden,” which follows a pair of high-minded Europeans, played by Law and Kirby, who are seeking a new life on a previously uninhabited island in the Galápagos, will be having its international premiere in Torino after world premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September.

Landing the international launch of the survival thriller, with Howard on hand, marks a nice coup for the fest’s new artistic director, Italian actor/director Giulio Base. Torino’s upcoming 42nd edition will run Nov. 22-30.

Torino is Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, and is where Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino screened their first works. The festival’s lineup will be announced on Nov.

Lyon’s Lumière festival screened a fascinating footnote to the great duo’s career: Behold a Pale Horse, an adaptation of Emeric Pressburger’s novel by Fred Zinnemann

The Lumière festival in Lyon in south-east France – the home of 19th-century movie inventor-pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumière – always serves up mouthwatering classic films on the big screen. This is true once again this year, with a retrospective season of works by Fred Zinnemann, famously the director of High Noon and From Here to Eternity.

In one of its most interesting films, the festival also provided what could be the last remaining underexamined footnote in the history of the great Powell/Pressburger partnership that gave us Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

John Wayne is an American institution, and that's kind of a pity. The films he made from the 1930s through the 1970s all presented what many consider the most persistent cinematic archetypes of old-world machismo. Wayne was a symbol of stalwart, unbending manliness, a testament to the power of being gruff and insoluble. It is, however, hard to accept him as a positive role model when one recalls how bigoted he was in life. Every few years, his 1971 interview with Playboy Magazine resurfaces and a new crowd discovers Wayne vaunting the values of white supremacy and flippantly excoriating minorities.

He also, in that interview, talked about the moral righteousness of his old Westerns, saying that Europeans were in the right for stealing American land from the First Nation people. He was pretty despicable.

But he was also one of the biggest movie stars of all time, and cinema lovers have...

The 16th edition of the Lumière Film Festival kicked off in high style, with a glittering lineup of stars including Benicio del Toro, Tim Burton, Monica Bellucci and Vanessa Paradis plus high-profile directors Costa-Gavras and Giuseppe Tornatore gracing the red carpet in Lyon.

Bellucci, who’s in town to present a new documentary about the stage play in which she portrays Maria Callas, was among the last to take to the red carpet. After taking a few steps, she turned back with a playful gesture as if she had forgotten something, reached through the curtain, and drew out Tim Burton, to the delight of the 5,000-strong crowd: Burton’s unannounced appearance drew massive applause.

The pair famously met and fell in love in Lyon in 2022, when Burton was the recipient of the festival’s lifetime achievement Lumière Award, which was handed to him by Bellucci. The Italian actress has since...

Eddie Redmayne has played a doctor-slash-serial killer, a scientist, and now, an infamous assassin.

Redmayne leads the latest “The Day of the Jackal” adaptation, with the Peacock series centering on his eponymous hit man. The official synopsis reads: “‘The Day of the Jackal’ follows an unrivaled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal (Redmayne), who makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch) who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.”

Úrsula Corberó, Charles Dance, Richard Dormer, Chukwudi Iwuji, Lia Williams, Khalid Abdalla, Eleanor Matsuura, Jonjo O’Neill, Nick Blood, Sule Rimi, and Florisa Kamara also star.

The original “The Day of the Jackal” book centered on assassination attempts on French president Charles de Gaulle in 1963 amid the Algerian war of independence,...

As many cinephiles already know, the 1970s was a fantastic time for paranoid political thrillers, assassin movies (“The American Friend”), and films based on the rising tide of terrorism (“Black Sunday”; in fact we devoted an entire feature to this genre several years ago). One film that covered all those bases and was pretty popular then was 1973’s “The Day Of The Jackal,” directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Edward Fox and Michael Lonsdale.

Continue reading ‘Day Of The Jackal’ Trailer: Eddie Redmayne & Lashana Lynch Star In A Cat & Mouse Spy Peacock Series at The Playlist.

For producer Barry Navidi, Johnny Depp’s directorial comeback “Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness” marks a full-circle moment in an unconventional career.

Navidi’s first time working with Depp nearly 30 years ago on the 1995 project “Divine Rapture” ended in disappointment when the production was shelved. But on Tuesday, the two will celebrate a high with the world premiere of “Modi” at San Sebastian Film Festival.

Set in war-torn Paris in 1916, “Modi” follows 72 turbulent hours in the life of bohemian artist Amedeo Modigliani (Riccardo Scamarcio). Fleeing the police and contemplating leaving the city, Modi is convinced to stay by his fellow artists. After a night of hallucinations, he encounters American collector Maurice Gangnat (Pacino), who could change his life forever.

Born in pre-revolution Iran, Navidi grew up watching Hollywood and Indian films. One that made an impression was “The Godfather,” starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino. “Call it fate,...

[This article was originally published in 2017. It has been updated in August 2024.]

70mm is back! Thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Christopher Nolan, one of the oldest and grandest traditions in Hollywood is making a comeback after years of financial setbacks and near-extinction. As Nolan has said many times, shooting in 70mm proved an immersive and more textured experience than any other form of cinema.

Due to the costly nature of film and theaters’ lack of 70mm projectors, it’s been quite a challenge to get to a place where Tarantino and Nolan can make entire features using 65/70mm, but the preservation of film is turning in their favor.

Below, we’ve gathered 20 of the most essential 70mm film releases. From Stanley Kubrick to William Wyler and David Lean, it’s clear shooting in 70mm is mandatory for any epic filmmaker.

With additional editorial contributions from Zack Sharf.

“Oklahoma!” (1955)

Fred Zinnemann’s film adaptation of the 1943 stage musical was the...

Outland was Sean Connery's attempt at High Noon in outer space, but it failed to meet the high standard set by the classic Western film. Initially a box office failure, Outland has gained a cult classic status years later, known for its impressive visual effects. Despite mixed critical reception, Sean Connery's role as Marshal William T. O'Niel in Outland remains memorable to fans of the sci-fi thriller.

The cult classic Sean Connery movie Outland was the legendary actor's version of one of the greatest Western films ever made. Released in 1981, Outland is a science fiction thriller film written and directed by Peter Hyams, who's also known for his other sci-fi works such as Timecop (1994), 2010 (1984), and The Relic (1997). Connery stars in Outland alongside Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen, and Clarke Peters.

Connery is best known for portraying James Bond in several films such as Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), and...

Jay Kanter, the high-powered Hollywood agent who represented Marlon Brando, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe and served as the inspiration for Jack Lemmon’s character in the classic Billy Wilder film The Apartment, died Tuesday. He was 97.

Kanter died at his home in Beverly Hills, a spokesperson for the Independent Artist Group announced. His son Adam Kanter is a partner at Iag.

A favorite of mighty Music Corporation of America mogul Lew Wasserman, Kanter also spent seven years in England in the 1960s greenlighting European movies for Universal, produced films including the Elizabeth Taylor-starring X, Y and Zee (1972) and had a long business relationship with Alan Ladd Jr. at Fox and MGM.

When Brando was slumming around Paris after breaking out on Broadway in Streetcar Named Desire in the late 1940s, Kanter‚ then an McA junior agent, received a call from producer Stanley Kramer saying he wanted to hire...

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how the studios have lost interest in physical media, with Disney outsourcing its discs to Sony and questions over where the business is going in the wake of Redbox’s demise and Best Buy’s decision to stop selling Blu-rays and DVDs. Yet not only have the rumors of physical media’s death been greatly exaggerated as boutique labels step in to pick up the slack, but even at the studio level, praiseworthy efforts to showcase archival treasures are alive and well. Take, for example, the new Warner Archive Blu-ray of Raoul Walsh’s 1946 classic “The Man I Love.”

“The Man I Love” is a film beloved by cinephiles but hardly famous — among Warners’ 1940s releases, it’s a long way down from “Casablanca” and “The Maltese Falcon” when it comes to widespread popularity. It’s the kind of movie that...

This August, Prime Video is bringing you a lot of entertainment with the highly anticipated Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, an all-new action-comedy film starring John Cena and Awkwafina titled Jackpot!, and an animated Batman series titled Batman: Caped Crusader. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Prime Video this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 10 best films that are coming to Prime Video in August 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Fargo (August 1)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%

Fargo is a dark comedy crime drama film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The 1996 film follows the story of Jerry, a sales manager who is under a huge debt. To repay his loan he hatches a plan to hire two henchmen to kidnap his wife and...

Eddie Redmayne is getting his James Bond on for another literary adaptation of an iconic assassin tale.

The Academy Award winner leads the Peacock and Sky adaptation of “The Day of the Jackal,” based on Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel. The “contemporary reimagining” was announced as a series in November 2022.

Redmayne stars as lone assassin, the Jackal, who makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch) who is tracking down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe.

Úrsula Corberó, Charles Dance, Richard Dormer, Chukwudi Iwuji, Lia Williams, Khalid Abdalla, Eleanor Matsuura, Jonjo O’Neill, Nick Blood, Sule Rimi, and Florisa Kamara co-star. The teaser debuted during the 2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony on NBC and Peacock.

The original “The Day of the Jackal” novel centered on assassination attempts on French president Charles de Gaulle in 1963 amid the Algerian independence,...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

It often feels like movie marketing is an unimaginative, flood-the-zone proposition in our age of pre-sold, IP-driven blockbusters. But as we've recently been reminded via the carefully crafted ad campaigns for smaller genre efforts like "MaXXXine" and "Longlegs", marketing departments are still a vital part of the business. How you sell each movie has certainly changed with the evolution of the media landscape, but even the biggest films will always need some kind of push. After all, audiences aren't likely to flock to a movie that has zero presence in the marketplace.

There really isn't an exception to this rule. The closest you're liable to find might be the August 5, 1953 release of Fred Zinnemann's "From Here to Eternity." Based on James Jones' critically acclaimed novel set at the U.S. Army's Schofield Barracks in Hawaii just prior to the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor,...

Anthea Sylbert, the two-time Oscar-nominated costume designer who worked on Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Carnal Knowledge, Shampoo and Julia before becoming a studio executive and producer, has died. She was 84.

Sylbert died Tuesday in Skiathos, Greece, director Sakis Lalas told The Hollywood Reporter. Lalas just finished a documentary about Sylbert titled, My Life in 3 Acts.

Sylbert partnered with two-time Oscar-winning production Richard Sylbert on eight films and with his twin brother, Paul Sylbert — her first husband and another Oscar-winning production designer — on another three.

“Paul is the more bitter, more angry of the two,” she told Peter Biskind in 1993. “Someone once put it this way: Dick is more of a diplomat. He will put the ice pick somewhere in your back, you’re not quite sure, and you sort of feel tickled; Paul, while facing you, sticks it in your gut. I always used to think that if you put them together,...

After teaming with Noah Baumbach to direct one of the best-ever documentaries about filmmaking, De Palma, Jake Paltrow is back with a new feature. June Zero is a vividly textured telling of the preparations for the 1962 execution of Adolf Eichmann through a triptych of perspectives––a Jewish Moroccan prison guard, an Israeli police investigator (and Holocaust survivor), and a clever and precocious 13-year-old Libyan immigrant. In advance of the June 28 release from Cohen Media Group, we’re pleased to exclusively reveal a series of influences the director has programmed for NYC’s Quad Cinema.

“Origin Stories: Jake Paltrow’s Notes on June Zero,” which runs June 21-27, features seven films that informed and influenced June Zero, with titles spanning humanist deep-cuts of world cinema from the likes of Miloš Forman and Abbas Kiarostami to underscreened classics of 1970s Israeli cinema. Watch the exclusive trailer for the series below, along with...

Billy Wilder was the six-time Oscar winner who left behind a series of classically quotable features from Hollywood’s Golden Age, crafting sharp witted and darkly cynical stories that blended comedy and pathos in equal measure. Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.

After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter, earning Oscar nominations for penning 1939’s “Ninotchka” and 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn” and “Ball of Fire.” He...

This article contains spoilers for Hit Man.

“People are disappointed when they learn that hit men don’t really exist,” explains Gary Johnson. That might be a surprising statement given that it occurs early on in a movie called Hit Man. Throughout the film, Gary (Glen Powell) dons different disguises to meet with people who want to pay him money (or video games or boats) to kill people. But then again, it’s all a ruse, a police sting operation that mild-mannered teacher Gary does as a side gig.

As Gary explains, his job is to become the type of hitman that potential criminals imagine exists, so that he can embody that look and lure them into a state of safety. As smart as Gary certainly is, he doesn’t create these identities out of nothing. Rather he’s riffing on hired killers from pop culture history, which gives Powell...

A true entertainer, Frank Sinatra did more than just sing throughout his career. In the early thirties, Sinatra was destined to become a movie star. Frank was a true performer. He could do anything from dry comedies to the rigid character studies of drama and crime films. Starting early in musicals, he slowly made his way to be a more prominent star. A legendary entertainer that all of us know even if we aren’t aware! Things to do: Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to The Hollywood Insider Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision, values and mission statement here – Media has the responsibility to better our world – The Hollywood Insider fully focuses on substance and meaningful entertainment, against gossip and scandal, by combining entertainment, education, and philanthropy. ‘On the Town’ Frank began his acting...

“Thank you for your service.” The words have become a cliché, but Hollywood has tried long and hard to make them matter. The industry has produced countless films about warfare and those who died for their country (whom we remember this week). But it has had a mixed record on presenting characters suffering the after-effects of putting their lives on the line. They may have survived, but lost comrades and innocence. It is their moment, too.

World War II brought the most cinematic treatment, and one of the directors who himself served — William Wyler — later had the guts to depict the challenges soldiers faced when the fighting stopped. Vietnam was likely the most troublesome to depict, it being the one we lost. Right-winger John Wayne was up first, with “The Green Berets,” gung-ho in flavor. It wasn’t until the late ‘70s that a pair of exceptional movies focused less...

The Zone of Disinterest: Hazanavicius Reanimates the Holocaust in Moral Fable

What’s most interesting about director Michel Hazanavicius are his valiant attempts at dabbling in multiple genres and styles, clearly exemplifying a broad taste in cinematic subjects and inspirations. Unfortunately, most of these attempts often feel as if they’re missing key ingredients to make them noteworthy. After an earnestly disastrous remake of Fred Zinneman’s The Search (2014), a curiously dull biopic with Godard Mon Amour (2017) and a remake of a meta Japanese zombie comedy in Final Cut (2022), it would seem Hazanvicius works best when navigating humorous elements (like his Oss Bond spoofs from earlier in his career).…...

The Hollywood Blacklist ruined dozens of lives. United States-based artists who were sympathetic to, or even curious about, communism were demonized as traitors to their country and, due to hysterical pressure from The House Committee on Un-American Activities (aka Huac), banned from working in the industry. Disgraced and unemployed, blacklisted individuals were forced to leave the country if they wanted to continue working or, if they could not afford to relocate, find a line of work where being an alleged communist wasn't frowned upon. This latter option was, of course, dismally unlikely. The mental and financial burden of being completely shunned from one's industry was so unbearable that it led actor Philip Loeb to die by suicide.

This put Hollywood at war against itself. Anyone suspected of having communist ties was pressured to come clean and, if they wanted to continue working, name names (a cowardly practice savaged by films...

Gary Cooper was a two-time Oscar winner who starred in dozens of movies before his death in 1961, but how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1901, Cooper got his start in silent movies, most notably the aerial drama “Wings” (1927), which won the very first Academy Award as Best Picture. He would collect his own statuette as Best Actor for another WWI film: the biographical drama “Sergeant York” (1941). Directed by Howard Hawks, it helped create Cooper’s screen persona of an ordinary man capable of extraordinary courage in the face of adversity.

He won a second Best Actor trophy for playing a similar character in Fred Zinnemann‘s western “High Noon” (1952), which cast him as a retired marshal who must stand up to a gang of killers arriving on the noon train. Cooper earned additional nominations for similarly idealistic,...

Obviously it wasn’t by design, but the early-1950s renewal of the western genre, aided in large part by the success of Winchester ’73, which heralded a career second act for both its director, Anthony Mann, and its star, James Stewart, was answered in other quarters of the industry by multiple endeavors to take the once disreputable genre, previously dismissed as Roy Rogers/Saturday-matinee bunkum, all the way into the hallowed halls of state-sanctioned, capital-a art. And, as it happened, the two westerns that made a big runner-up showing at the 1952 and 1953 Oscars, High Noon and Shane, respectively, also served, by virtue of holding what wide swaths of the future cinephile demographic would come to view as Vichy letters of transit, as high-value targets for skeptics of the official cultural narrative.

These auteurist critics and film buffs, whose philosophy acquired definite contours some 10-odd years later, observed a different watershed moment: Rio Bravo.

It is the spring of “Baby Reindeer.” Netflix’s addictive limited series about a struggling comedian (Richard Gadd) working at a bar who makes the biggest mistake of his life when he gives a lonely woman (Jessica Gunning) a cup of tea on the house is the most watched series currently on the streamer and viewership is growing. And the fact that it’s based on a true story, makes “Baby Reindeer” even more creep and chilling. It’s a must-see voyeur thriller.

The same was true in the fall of 1987 with Adrian Lyne’s “Fatal Attraction.” Audiences flocked to the hard R-rated thriller which starred a wild-haired Glenn Close as an editor with a publishing company who has one-night stand with a happily married attorney (Michael Douglas) whose wife and daughter are out of town. Though it’s “understood” that it’s just a fling, Close’s Alex just won’t let go.

If Criterion24/7 hasn’t completely colonized your attention every time you open the Channel––this is to say: if you’re stronger than me––their May lineup may be of interest. First and foremost I’m happy to see a Michael Roemer triple-feature: his superlative Nothing But a Man, arriving in a Criterion Edition, and the recently rediscovered The Plot Against Harry and Vengeance is Mine, three distinct features that suggest a long-lost voice of American movies. Meanwhile, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Antiwar Trilogy four by Sara Driver, and a wide collection from Ayoka Chenzira fill out the auteurist sets.

Series-wise, a highlight of 1999 goes beyond the well-established canon with films like Trick and Bye Bye Africa, while of course including Sofia Coppola, Michael Mann, Scorsese, and Claire Denis. Films starring Shirley Maclaine, a study of 1960s paranoia, and Columbia’s “golden era” (read: 1950-1961) are curated; meanwhile, The Breaking Ice,...

It had all the elements of a good action movie – jeopardy, revenge, a mega budget – with even some casualties thrown in (albeit corporate).

The Bob Iger vs Nelson Peltz (who?) war is over now and Iger has won. But some filmmakers and ticket buyers might wonder: Did any of it matter? Would a modest change on the Disney board of directors have had any impact on the future of entertainment? (Peltz himself runs a hedge fund called Trian Partners and has no background in entertainment.)

To be sure, it’s been a good show, albeit a throwback to an era when Hollywood was run by Big Personalities, not monoliths like Amazon or Apple. The battles of that era were ego wars, not proxy wars — Redstone vs Diller or Murdoch vs Ted Turner, with bewildered stars and their reps huddled in the middle.

But now Iger has won – again. The onetime...

Everyone remembers their first time. That is the first time they saw Marlon Brando.

For the late Mike Nichols, seeing Brando on Broadway in 1947 in his seminal turn as Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams‘ “A Streetcar Named Desire,” was the catalyst that lead to his career in the arts which saw him become a rare Egot winner. The teenage Nichols and his then girlfriend’s mother were given tickets for the second night of the Elia Kazan-directed production. “There had never been anything like it, I know that by now,” Nichols recalled in a 2010 L.A. Times interview. It was, to this day, the only thing onstage that I had ever seen that was 100% real and 100% poetic. Lucy and I weren’t exactly theater buffs, but we couldn’t get up at the intermission. We were just so stunned. Your heart was pounding. It was a major experience.”

Susan L.

Italy’s Torino Film Festival will celebrate the centennial of Marlon Brando’s birth with a 24-title retrospective of films featuring the groundbreaking two-time Oscar winner, known for his naturalistic acting style and rebellious streak.

The Brando retro will be “the backbone” of the fest, according to its new artistic director, Italian actor/director Giulio Base. Accordingly, an image of Brando – photographed when he was shooting Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” – is featured on the poster for the fest’s upcoming 42nd edition, which will run Nov. 22-30.

Torino is Italy’s preeminent event for young directors and indie cinema, and is where Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino screened their first works. The festival’s lineup will be announced at a later date.

“As an actor, Brando has always been my guiding star and I had been wondering for a while – since way before being appointed at Torino...

Hollywood actor who was Oscar-nominated for his first role, playing opposite Marilyn Monroe, and later became a TV star

The actor Don Murray, who has died aged 94, made his big screen debut in 1956 opposite Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop. His performance as the gangling, wide-eyed cowboy who falls for a saloon bar singer earned him an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor and a Bafta nomination as most promising newcomer. Monroe was superb as Chérie and Murray as Beauregard, besotted and eager to marry, made the perfect foil.

His career continued strongly in 1957 with The Bachelor Party, in which he played a married man unhappy about the dubious happenings at a stag party, and A Hatful of Rain, as a Korean war veteran addicted to heroin. The director, Fred Zinnemann, described it as “the grimmest film I ever made”. Murray’s performance displayed the commitment that was to characterise much of his work.

Don Murray, who rose to fame co-starring with Marilyn Monroe in 1956’s Bus Stop and enjoyed a prolific career that stretched into the 21st Century with Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017, has died. He was 94.

His death was announced by his son Christopher to The New York Times. No additional details were provided.

Murray was Oscar-nominated for his debut performance as Beauregard “Beau” Decker, the lovestruck cowboy who falls for Monroe’s saloon singer Cherie in Joshua Logan’s Bus Stop, an adaptation of the William Inge play.

A conscientious objector during the Korean War who fulfilled his service obligation by working in German and Italian refugee camps, Murray became known for building an acting career in what were once called “message” movies, films with socially responsible themes. In Fred Zinnemann’s A Hatful of Rain (1957), he played a morphine-addicted war veteran, and in 1962 starred as a closeted (and blackmailed...