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Like death and taxes, sequels are an unavoidable fact of modern life. But unlike death and taxes, sequels aren’t always terrible. On the contrary, some of them are pretty great! The last 17 years have been so overrun by sequels, reboots, seboots, and requels that people have naturally continued to bemoan the film business’ lack of creativity, but a small handful of these movies have leveraged their franchises (and/or their pre-existing fanbases) to create something special.

Whether deepening a beloved character (“Spider-Man 2”), deconstructing a sacred saga (“The Last Jedi”), or breathing fiery new life into a dormant legend (“Mad Max: Fury Road”), these sequels proved that Hollywood isn’t out of new ideas, they’re just hiding them in plain sight.

Here are the 22 best sequels of the 21st century.

With editorial contributions from Eric Kohn, Kate Erbland, Jamie Righetti, Michael Nordine, Chris O’Falt, Anne Thompson.

22. “Blade Runner 2049...

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Ana de Armas is a brilliant and beautiful actor and she has proven her acting chops time and time again by giving several brilliant performances in recent years. She even added James Bond to the growing list of films. The Cuban actress is fluent in both Spanish and English and she has made a great career for herself in Hollywood by working with brilliant directors and actors. So, if you also love Armas’ brilliant performances and want to see more of her here are the 7 best movies starring Ana de Armas you can watch right now.

7. Ghosted (Apple TV+) Credit – Apple TV+

Ghosted is a romantic comedy spy action-adventure film directed by Dexter Fletcher from a screenplay co-written by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Chris McKenna, and Erik Sommers. The 2023 film follows Cole who falls head over heels for...

Director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is considered a cult classic, and the sci-fi film recently completed 42 years since its release. The film stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, and the performance remains one of the more underrated roles of the acclaimed actor. However, Ford wasn’t the first choice for the role.

One Oscar-winning actor was Ridley Scott’s first choice for Blade Runner (Credit: Warner Bros).

According to reports, one legendary Hollywood actor was initially the first choice for playing the lead role. However, the Academy Award-winning actor eventually dropped out of the film, paving the way for Ford to take it up. Nonetheless, Ford did not have a great experience working on the film. Here is how the casting of Blade Runner changed over time.

Ridley Scott Wanted to Cast Dustin Hoffman Over Harrison Ford in Blade Runner

Director Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was adapted from...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most talked about and controversial topics of our time as it is quickly being developed by organizations like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. People are afraid that it will take their jobs and in some cases it already has, it was also a big part of the 2023 writers and actors strike but don’t forget that AI has also been the topic of some of the greatest films ever made more recently it became the main villain in Tom Cruise‘s action-adventure film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1. So, we compiled a list of the 10 best films featuring AI that show us artificial intelligence in different lights including villainous and sympathetic roles.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence Credit – Warner Bros.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence is a sci-fantasy film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. Based on a 1969 short story titled Supertoys Last All Summer Long by author Brian Aldiss,...

Atlas is a sci-fi action thriller film directed by Brad Peyton from a screenplay by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite. The Netflix film follows the story of Atlas Shepherd, a brilliant but unsociable data analyst with a deep distrust for A.I. as she goes on a mission to capture a rogue robot that could destroy humanity but when the mission goes and her only hope to save humanity is to trust the robot, she must break down the walls she has built around her heart over the years. Atlas stars Jennifer Lopez in the lead role with Simu Liu, Sterling K. Brown, Gregory James Cohan, Mark Strong, Abraham Popoola, and Lana Parrilla starring in supporting roles. If you loved the futuristic visuals, intense drama, and explosive action in Netflix’s Atlas here are some similar movies you could watch next.

The Creator (Hulu & Rent on Prime Video) Credit...

Movie fans love to discover behind-the-scenes tidbits about their favorite films, and there are few movie facts more exciting than an improvised line or scene. Stories of improvisation remind us that filmmaking is a collaborative, creative process, and that sometimes the most unexpected ideas make the biggest impact.

Writers and directors lay the foundation and set the scene, while it's up to actors to make the characters their own. Take one of the most classic lines in "The Godfather," a perfect example of improvisation upon a strong foundation. The phrase "leave the gun," was written in the script, but actor Richard Castellano added the line "take the cannoli," turning it into the iconic catchphrase it is today. Clearly, Francis Ford Coppola's decision to keep that ad-lib in the final cut was the right one.

We now turn our attention to the world of science fiction, where actors are often...

When you think about improvisation in movies, you might initially think of comedies — the kind that come with blooper reels that are often just as good as the movie itself. We've all spent an inordinate amount of time watching and rewatching "The Office" bloopers or marveling at the unhinged absurdity of Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly's extemporaneous efforts in the "Step Brothers" blooper reel. Heck, you might even think of Chris Hemsworth improvising Thor lines.

But improv isn't, of course, just a comedic tool. Throughout the history of cinema, actors have embraced spontaneity to add an extra level of realism to their performances. Just look at Jack Nicholson and that famous "Here's Johnny" line from "The Shining." Then, there's Harrison Ford, who improvised one particular Indiana Jones moment in 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," adding a touch of levity to the action-adventure classic.

But just a year later,...

Exclusive: Indie filmmakers Courtney Stephens and Michael Almereyda are teaming to direct a new documentary about controversial scientist John C. Lilly, Deadline has learned.

Funded by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the project will look at the countercultural figure’s work as the inventor of the isolation tank, as well as his pioneering studies of dolphin intelligence and support of psychedelics as a positive means for expanding consciousness. The storytelling will be supported by interviews with Lilly’s contemporaries and colleagues, as well as extensive archival records.

Stephens was drawn to Lilly, having grown up near Marine World in the Bay Area, where the scientist worked with trained dolphins and computers in the early 1980s, hoping to teach the animals an Esperanto-like language that would allow for interspecies communication. Apple donated equipment to the lab, which was visited by figures ranging from Ram Dass to Olivia Newton John.

Blade Runner is one of the rare films that initially flopped at the cinemas but would go on to become one of the most acclaimed and beloved films in its genre. For years, critics and fans have deconstructed the messages and morality of the philosophy from the Philip K. Dick adaptation. Although the Harrison Ford sci-fi vehicle now has its legion of fans, many also think the film’s well-intentioned, heady themes and groundbreaking special effects are lowballed by the execution of the plot.

According to SlashFilm, the classic’s director, Ridley Scott, called out those who are critical of the movie’s pace in an interview with Total Film Magazine, “I hadn’t seen Blade Runner for 20 years. Really. But I just watched it. And it’s not slow. The information coming at you is so original and interesting, talking about biological creations, and mining off-world, which, in those days,...

You can always count on Ridley Scott to speak his mind, with results that vary from amusingly curmudgeonly to cringe-inducing. With his latest directorial effort, "Napoleon," arriving next month, that means the time has come for yet another round of Scott being completely out of f**ks to give while touring the press circuit. It's almost become an annual tradition thanks to his relentless work ethic, as the director has continued to release a new film every 12 to 18 months since turning 80 back in 2017. Yet, even after such a prolific career, there are few of his films that Scott maintains strong feelings about quite like the ones he has for "Blade Runner."

There's nary a film buff who doesn't know "Blade Runner" was a flop upon its release in 1982, only to evolve into one of the most influential sci-fi films ever made over the subsequent decades. The process of adapting Philip K. Dick...

Director Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner was written by Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples, based on the Philip K. Dick story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – and when director Paul W.S. Anderson brought Peoples’ sci-fi action script Soldier to the screen sixteen years later, he and his crew added in references that set the story within the universe of Blade Runner. But during an interview with author Danny Stewart for the book Soldier: From Script to Screen (pick up a copy on Amazon), Peoples revealed that he had never intended for Soldier to be connected to Blade Runner.

When asked if he wrote Soldier as a “side-quel” to Blade Runner that was set in the same universe, Peoples answered, “No, I never had any thoughts about that.” The screenwriter went on to reveal, “I wrote Soldier in 1984. Very quickly on my own. I wrote it because...

The Blade Runner franchise is continuing to expand. While director Jeremy Podeswa gears up to go into production on the Blade Runner 2099 series pilot for Amazon’s Prime Video, Annapurna Interactive has unveiled a teaser trailer for the video game Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth! The 2033 setting of this game puts it right in between the events of the original Blade Runner (which was set in 2019) and the sequel Blade Runner 2049. The trailer can be seen at the bottom of this article.

Game Informer notes that while Annapurna Interactive has released several games over the last few years, this is the first one they have developed in-house. And Annapurna notes that Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth is the first new Blade Runner game for consoles and PC in development in 25 years. 110 Industries announced that they’re developing their own Blade Runner game last year, but that one’s not...

I’m going to ask you a series of questions. Just relax and answer them as simply as you can. It’s your birthday, someone gives you a calfskin wallet. You’ve got a little boy, he shows you his butterfly collection, plus the killing jar.

For years, Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford had very different ideas about how Deckard, the character Ford played in Scott’s 1982 movie Blade Runner, would respond to those questions/statements. After all, they come from the Voight-Kampff Test, an examination of empathy used to distinguish between human beings and replicants, the artificially created organic beings that Blade Runners like Deckard hunt down and “retire.” Scott had long maintained that Deckard himself was a replicant, resulting in a delicious irony at the center of the film. However, Ford followed the version of Deckard in the source material, the 1968 Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?...

Hedy Lamarr starred in Jack Conway’s Boom Town with Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, and Frank Morgan (in the exhibition) Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Hedy Lamarr: Actress. Inventor. Viennese is an impressive exhibition curated by Danielle Spera (director of the Jewish Museum Vienna from 2010 - 2022) and designed by Stefan Fuhrer (Fuhrer Vienna) at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. You can watch scenes from Georg Jacoby”s Money on the Street with Heinz Rühmann, Carl Boese’s No Money is Needed, Gustav Machatý Ecstasy, John Cromwell’s Algiers (1938), Georg Misch’s Calling Hedy Lamarr (2004), and Hedy Lamarr – An Ingenious Mind (2022).

Danielle Spera with Anne-Katrin Titze on the KaDeWe Group Lamarr building, Rem Koolhaas and his Oma partners: “Ellen van Loon is the architect and she is great to work with …”

Hedy’s beauty was an inspiration for Walt Disney’s Snow White, Batman co-creator Bob Kane’s Catwoman,...

(Welcome to Best Actor Ever, an ongoing series where we explore the careers and performances of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen.)

If the young Denzel Washington had his way, the now 68-year-old Mount Vernon native would have a bust in Canton's Pro Football Hall of Fame. The man who would be Malcolm X, Rubin Carter, and Alonzo Harris initially had his sights trained on the gridiron before he enrolled at Fordham University in 1977, where he was a skilled enough athlete to play under Coach P.J. Carlesimo for the school's junior varsity team. "He would run us all day, and make us work," Washington told the New York Times in 1998. "But you know what? We were always prepared for the fourth quarter, and we hardly ever lost. Some of the things I learned from him, I still apply myself."

Washington knew by this point that a pro sports...

Science fiction writer Philip K. Dick wrote numerous novels and short stories that question the nature of reality and human perception by focusing on characters in capitalistic, dystopian futures. His 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is one of those works — it follows a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard who is assigned to "retire" six androids who escaped to off-world colonies. Ridley Scott eventually adapted this novel for the big screen with 1982's "Blade Runner," which retained some of the book's themes despite veering away from much of the plot in Dick's original work.

The book-to-screen journey for "Electric Sheep" was a long one, laden with studio refusals and rotating scripts because the book's premise was either heavily altered or too ambitious to be realized on screen. Scott also wasn't the only filmmaker who tried to adapt the story — years before his efforts, a young Martin Scorsese was heavily interested in optioning Dick's novel.

Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" is one of the most seminal science-fiction films of its time. It took a genre that was dominated at the time by flashier, more optimistic franchises like "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" and provided a unique, darker vision, both thematically and aesthetically. It also merged themes from both sci-fi and noir, popularizing a cyberpunk aesthetic that would influence all sorts of media from series like "Battlestar Galactica" and "Ghost in the Shell," to video games like "Cyberpunk 2077" and "Deus Ex." While Scott himself doesn't strictly consider the film "science fiction," it certainly left a significant impact on the landscape of the genre.

The film follows former cop Rick Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, in an alternate dystopian version of Los Angeles circa 2019, where he's tasked with hunting down a rogue group of synthetic humans, known as replicants. The replicants are nearly indistinguishable from regular humans,...

Before "Blade Runner" was a film, there was Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The basis for what would become Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi masterpiece was only loosely related to the movie. Once "Blade Runner" co-writer Hampton Fancher got his hands on the book, he set about using what he saw as the most exciting (and bankable) elements to create the big-screen version. The result is something that hardly resembles Dick's novel at all. Even the name "Blade Runner" came from a William S. Boroughs book.

But that turned out to be a blessing of its own. Fancher had acted under contract at Warner Bros. in the 1960s and appeared in 10 movies before hanging up his performing hat in 1975. Thankfully, he was adept at all aspects of the movie-making business, having made his own 8mm and 16mm shorts as a youngster and learning the trade as he went.

They’re after you, and your wives and children! This Corman/VeSota/Ed Nelson shocker with the excellent poster is a Robert Heinlein knockoff that can’t quite sustain the paranoid pitch of other ‘parasitic possession’ sci-fi horror epics. One of the cheapest of the drive-in cheapies, it remains a must-see title just for the audacity of its ad campaign, and a random moment or two of spooky serendipity. Don’t get your hopes up if you’re coming to see Leonard Nimoy’s performance — unless his voice is enough to satisfy.

The Brain Eaters

Blu-ray

1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 61 min. / Street Date January, 2022

Starring: Ed Nelson, Alan Frost, Jack Hill, Joanna Lee, Jody Fair, David Hughes, Robert Ball, Greigh Phillips, Orville Sherman, Leonard Nemoy (Nimoy),, Doug Banks, Saul Bronson, Hampton Fancher.

Cinematography: Larry Raimond

Art Director: Burt Shonberg

Film Editor: Carlo Lodato

Written by Gordon Urquhart

Uncredited Executive Producer:...

The line between human and replicant blurs even more in the latest installment of the Blade Runner franchise, as Titan Comics’ Blade Runner 2019 series releases its second collection, Off-World — which takes the series even further than it’s ever gone before.

The series, which won the 2020 Scribe Award for best graphic novel, is an official sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic movie, and is co-written by Michael Green, who co-wrote 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 with Hampton Fancher. Mike Johnson, Green’s longtime collaborator, co-writes 2019, with Andres Guinaldo illustrating.

Off-World continues the story started in Blade Runner: Los Angeles, picking up five years later as Ash’s ...

The line between human and replicant blurs even more in the latest installment of the Blade Runner franchise, as Titan Comics’ Blade Runner 2019 series releases its second collection, Off-World — which takes the series even further than it’s ever gone before.

The series, which won the 2020 Scribe Award for best graphic novel, is an official sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic movie, and is co-written by Michael Green, who co-wrote 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 with Hampton Fancher. Mike Johnson, Green’s longtime collaborator, co-writes 2019, with Andres Guinaldo illustrating.

Off-World continues the story started in Blade Runner: Los Angeles, picking up five years later as Ash’s ...

“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, the little space which I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there; for there is no reason why here rather than there, why now rather than then. Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time been allotted to me?” —Blaise Pascal, PenséesA master without a masterwork: such, one might say, is the peculiar, paradoxical position of American filmmaker Michael Almereyda. Spanning over three decades, his career is vigorous, accomplished, and frequently inspired, intriguing not just for its eclectic breadth of focus, but also for its doggedly exploratory bent—ranging from sundry experiments with the Pixelvision camera, to a turn-of-the-millennium Hamlet adaptation,...

Have we enough evidence to name Michael Almereyda the American cinema’s greatest biographer? It’s a narrow range and hardly the highest bar to clear, yet his oeuvre yields both biopics (delightful whatsit Experimenter) and documentaries that show the largely unloved, oft-uncinematic concentration for everything it’s capable.

This week sees the addition of Tesla, Almereyda’s formally playful examination of Nikola Tesla’s life, work, legacy, and (because nothing is as it seems) vocal skills; he’s here reunited, some 20 years after their fantastic Hamlet, with Ethan Hawke in the title role and Kyle MacLachlan as Thomas Edison, while Eve Hewson, playing Anne Morgan, is our guide through this film’s puzzle. Praised since Sundance—where we said it marks “a testament to the independent spirit”—it arrives Friday via IFC.

Almereyda and I spoke over email about his decades-long quest to chronicle Tesla’s life.

The Film...

Actress Sue Lyon, best known for her role in Stanley Kubrick‘s adaptation of Lolita, has died, The New York Times reported. She was 73.

Lyon died on Thursday in Los Angeles, according to the newspaper. A longtime friend of the actress told the Times that she had been experiencing declining health for a while.

Lyon’s film and television career spanned 1959 to 1980, with her breakout role being the titular character in 1962’s Lolita. Based on the controversial novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the story follows a middle-aged professor who becomes sexually obsessed with Dolores Haze, a 12-year-old girl, whom he nicknames “Lolita.

Sue Lyon, who was cast in Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita” at the age of 14, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 73.

Lyon’s longtime friend Phil Syracopoulos told the New York Times she had been experiencing poor health for some time.

Lyon’s acting career lasted from 1959 to 1980, with her most significant role as the title character in the 1962 Kubrick film based on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel about a middle-aged man who becomes sexually obsessed with a young girl. Lyon earned the part over 800 girls that auditioned; Nabokov described her as “the perfect nymphet.”

While Nabokov’s 1955 novel was seen as scandalous, the film was less so due in part to the restrictive Motion Picture Production Code.

Lyon was born in Davenport, Iowa. Her mother moved the family to Dallas before relocating them to Los Angeles, where Lyon was able to pursue acting. She landed the role of Laurie in...

Sue Lyon, the actress who at age 14 starred as the title character in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of “Lolita,” died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 73.

Lyon had been in failing health for some time, her friend Phil Syracopoulos told The New York Times.

Born Suellyn Lyon in 1946 in Iowa, Lyon’s family moved to Los Angeles when she was a small child. As a teenager, she began acting in small television roles, including an appearance on “The Loretta Young Show” that brought her to Kubrick’s attention. She was subsequently cast in “Lolita” at 14 in part because the filmmakers aged the character up from 12, as in Vladimir Nabokov’s novel. Upon release, Lyon was catapulted to stardom, and she won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer — Female for her performance, which had her acting alongside James Mason, Shelley Winters, and Peter Sellers, some of the era’s biggest stars.

The passing of famed “Blade Runner” actor Rutger Hauer has prompted an outpouring of tributes from filmmakers, actors, and fans on Twitter, honoring a career highlighted by one of the most famous monologues in sci-fi history.

Director Guillermo Del Toro praised Hauer as “an intense, deep, genuine and magnetic actor that brought truth, power and beauty to his films.” “Law and Order: Svu” star Ice-t reflected on the time he worked with Hauer on the action film “Surviving the Game,” while Kiss frontman Gene Simmons posted a picture of a VHS copy of “Wanted Dead or Alive,” in which the rock star played a terrorist being hunted down by a CIA agent played by Hauer.

Hauer’s “Blade Runner” co-star Daryl Hannah said in a statement to Fox News Wednesday, “I have a profound love and respect for Rutger Hauer. I am heartbroken to learn he has left us. He was unpredictable,...

Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 screenwriter Hampton Fancher remembers Nicolas Roeg in his own way: "Even dead he's the same Roeg I always knew. He was his name." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

When I contacted the screenwriter of Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 for a remembrance of Nicolas Roeg, who died on Friday at the age of 90, Hampton Fancher sent the following beautiful poetic tribute.

"I didn't know him but I knew him. I knew him more than others I haven't known because of what they've done and they're gone and now Roeg is gone and what he's done is a part of me and it hurts to know he's not here anymore but what he's done is and it makes me glad. Even dead he's the same Roeg I always knew. He was his name." - Hampton Fancher...

Alcon Media Group and Titan Publishing are partnering on a new co-publishing venture initially focused on the “Blade Runner” universe.

Alcon Entertainment produced “Blade Runner 2049,” which was released in October and produced by Alcon co-CEOs Andrew Kosove and Broderick Johnson, along with Bud Yorkin and Cynthia Yorkin. The film earned $259.2 million worldwide.

Johnson, Kosove, and Titan’s co-founders, Nick Landau and Vivian Cheung, said the companies will develop and publish a variety of both fiction and non-fiction print media with comics and graphic novels that dive deeper into the “Blade Runner” world as well as a variety of publications focused on the visual and technical sides of the production process.

Editorial duties will be handled by Titan’s David Manley-Leach and Alcon’s director of publishing Jeff Conner.

Kosove and Johnson said, “In partnering with the exceptional Titan Comics and Titan Books, we’re confident that the world of...

Apa has promoted motion picture literary agents Debbie Deuble Hill and Sheryl Petersen to senior vp, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned.

The pair's clients — who include Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher, music video helmer Dave Meyers, fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, The Alienist author Caleb Carr, gemologist-turned-screenwriter Adam Bloom (Polly/Anna), screenwriters Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman (Harry's All-Night Hamburgers) and Halloween horror maestro John Carpenter — are authors, directors and scribes whose projects span film and television, including both live-action and animation.

"Debbie and Sheryl are two of the most talented, resourceful and passionate agents I've ever had the good fortune ...

Apa has promoted motion picture literary agents Debbie Deuble Hill and Sheryl Petersen to senior vp, The Hollywood Reporter has exclusively learned.

The pair's clients — who include Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher, music video helmer Dave Meyers, fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, The Alienist author Caleb Carr, gemologist-turned-screenwriter Adam Bloom (Polly/Anna), screenwriters Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman (Harry's All-Night Hamburgers) and Halloween horror maestro John Carpenter — are authors, directors and scribes whose projects span film and television, including both live-action and animation.

"Debbie and Sheryl are two of the most talented, resourceful and passionate agents I've ever had the good fortune ...

Representing everything from the haunted town of Derry to the place both "wonderful and strange" that is Twin Peaks, the 44th Saturn Award Nominations have officially been announced.

The winners for the 44th annual Saturn Award nominations will be selected in June. In the meantime, we have the full list of nominations below (including seven nominations for AMC's The Walking Dead, nine nods for Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water, and a leading 14 nominations for Black Panther), and you can learn more about the nominations and how to become a voting member at a special rate to support your favorite films and TV series on Saturn Awards' official website.

Press Release: Los Angeles – March 15, 2018 – Marvel’s “Black Panther” not only took the world by storm, but earned an impressive 14 nominations, including Best Comic-to-Film, Best Actor (Chadwick Boseman), Best Actress (Lupita Nyong’o), Best Supporting Actor (Michael B. Jordan...

Ryan Lambie Feb 5, 2018

"Within cells interlinked": Blade Runner 2049's disturbing Baseline Test scenes were originally very different, its director reveals...

Spoilers lie ahead for Blade Runner 2049

See related Inside No. 9 renewed for series 5 Inside No. 9 series 4 episode 5 review: And The Winner Is… Inside No. 9 series 4 episode 4 review: To Have And To Hold

It lasts little more than a minute, but it's arguably one of Blade Runner 2049's most arresting and unsettling scenes. Los Angeles replicant hunter K (Ryan Gosling) seated in a white, cramped room, undergoing some form of futuristic interrogation.

We don't see the person barking questions at K - we only hear his voice, as K answers impassively, each response interspersed with a seemingly meaningless string of words. Do they keep you in a cell? Cells. When you're not performing your duties, do they keep you in a little box? Cells. Interlinked. What's it...

Ryan Lambie Feb 7, 2018

With only mild spoilers, we look at the key way in which Blade Runner 2049 expands on Ridley Scott's 1982 classic...

Lieutenant Joshi: “You've been getting on fine without one.”

K: “What's that, ma'am?”

Lieutenant Joshi: “A soul.”

Bigger, louder, more violent: sequels almost seem duty-bound to one-up what came before. Unfortunately, history's also littered with film sequels that, for all their sound and fury, soon slip from memory. Even if they deliver on the higher bodycount or more over-the-top action, they often lose the character and storytelling of their predecessors. Jaws and RoboCop are examples of classic movies with less than stellar sequels. Blade Runner 2049, on the other hand, arguably ranks alongside Terminator 2, Aliens and Mad Max: Fury Road on the list of best sequels ever made.

Blade Runner 2049 succeeded, in no small part, because of the specific way it expanded on the 1982 original.

Ryan Lambie Feb 2, 2018

We chat to director Denis Villeneuve about the home release of Blade Runner 2049, how it was made, and much more...

It was among our absolute favourite films of 2017, and finally, it's due for release on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD in the UK next week. Blade Runner 2049 was a rare example of a sci-fi sequel that built on the themes and ideas of its predecessor rather than simply aping its best moments. With new protagonist K (Ryan Gosling) investigating the buried remains of a dead replicant - and the disappearance of a mysterious child - the film connects to the 1982 original in all kinds of smart and unexpected ways.

See related  Hard Sun episode 4 review Hard Sun episode 3 review Hard Sun episode 2 review

Blade Runner 2049 continues the spectacular run of form from director Denis Villeneuve, who previously brought us the intense and superbly-made Prisoners,...

The Shape Of Water has 13 nominations

The Shape Of Water came close to a record in today's Oscar nominatons, with 13 in total, while Dunkirk and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri also made a strong showing, with eight and seven nods respectively. Greta Gerwig became only the fifth woman ever to be nominated as Best Director, for Lady Bird, which is also among the Best Picture nominees. Roger Deakins got his 14th nomination in the Cinematography category, for Blade Runner 2049 - he has yet to win - while Rachel Morrison became the first woman ever nominated in that category, for Mudbound. Meryl Streep got her 17th Best Actress nomination (her 21st altogether) for The Post.

It was a particularly strong year for genre film, not just because of The Shape Of Water's success but because Blade Runner 2049 - whose screenwriter, Hampton Fancher, recently spoke with us about it - got an.

Sequels are always an iffy proposition. There was a time that a hot film spawned an almost mirror-image sequel as a fast cash grab. After it was clear that was not what audiences wanted, sequels grew smarter and more sophisticated. In many cases, though, the first question asked is, “Does this really merit a sequel?” Sometimes, the creators have more they want to say or, after time has passed, feel there is something new to explore.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner took Philip K. Dick’s prose work and envisioned a near future that was a darker reflection of 1982. We had gobs of atmosphere, some very restrained and impactful performances, and were left to wonder. While talk of a sequel has bopped up every few years, everyone held out until now. Director Denis Villeneuve’s sequel, Blade Runner 2049, recruited many of the original cast and crew to take use...

After 35 years Philip K. Dick’s brainstorm returns in a film sequel worthy of the original; Denis Villeneuve does right by the concept, but the show will be tough sledding for Add-plagued modern viewers. Ryan Gosling follows in Harrison Ford’s replicant footsteps, surrounded by an impressive group of supporting actors. It’s long, it’s moody, it’s not for babies — but it is rewarding.

Blade Runner 2049

Blu-ray

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

2017 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 164 min. / available through the WBshop / Street Date January 16, 2018 / 35.99

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, Carla Juri, Jared Leto, David Dastmalchian, Sylvia Hoeks, Mackenzie Davis, Sean Young, Hiam Abbass, Edward James Olmos, Dave Bautista.

Cinematography: Roger A. Deakins

Film Editor: Joe Walker

Original Music: Benjamin Wallfisch, Hans Zimmer

Written by Michael Green, Hampton Fancher, from his story, based on characters from Philip K. Dick

Produced by Cynthia Sikes Yorkin, Bud Yorkin...

*full disclosure: a Blu-ray copy of Blade Runner 2049 was provided by the film's publicity arm. Director: Denis Villeneuve. Writers: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green, Hampton Fancher and Philip K. Dick. Cast: Ryan Gosling, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright and Ana de Armas. This reviewer has been spoiled by films of the '80s, including Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). This follow-up to Scott's exploration of neo-noir and in what makes humans human takes place thirty years after the original. Now, replicants or artificial humans nearly dominate the landscape. Humans hardly exist in this sequel. In the film's story, a Blade Runner is still retiring obsolete replicants; he is also searching for the identity of a child and his own origins. The film asks a few existential question, on whether human simulations are more human than humans. Yet, its long run time and plodding pace stretch out this questioning for much too long.

Like death and taxes, sequels are an unavoidable fact of modern life. But unlike death and taxes, sequels aren’t always terrible. On the contrary, some of them are pretty great! The last 17 years have been so overrun by sequels, reboots, seboots, and requels that people have naturally continued to bemoan the film business’ lack of creativity, but a small handful of these movies have leveraged their franchises (and/or their pre-existing fanbases) to create something special.

Whether deepening a beloved character (“Spider-Man 2”), deconstructing a sacred saga (“The Last Jedi”), or breathing fiery new life into a dormant legend (“Mad Max: Fury Road”), these sequels proved that Hollywood isn’t out of new ideas, they’re just hiding them in plain sight.

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Here are the 20 best sequels of the 21st century.

20. “Blade Runner 2049...

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column (with a special year-end retrospective today) focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably.

It’s kind of crazy to see how far the poster industry has come in the past few years. Where we used to get excited for the latest Mondo sheet because of how rare and wholly original they were six years ago, it seems as though every IMAX release these days gets an illustrative “limited” print regardless of the title. Studios have embraced that aesthetic without sacrificing what they know, compromising so fans get the pretty designs and theaters get the fifty...

Few things are more sublime than finding back-to-back features that hit some specific thematic sweet spot. Drive-in theaters may not be the popular viewing spot they once were, but with the overwhelming accessibility we now have, one can program their own personal double bill. Today, we’ve run through the gamut of 2017 films to select the finest pairings and tried to sway from the most obvious (i.e. a combination of Dunkirk, Darkest Hour and The Finest Hour). Check out list the below, and we’d love to hear your own picks, which can be left in the comments.

Lady Bird and Princess Cyd

On paper, too easy a pairing: coming-of-age stories that are too intelligent to propose that this, here, is the end of a journey; characters (titular characters, no less) whose impulsiveness, close-mindedness, and selfishness are, of course, part of what makes them so empathetic; portraits in miniature...

“Lady Bird” won big at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards last night, taking home Best Picture, Best Actress (Saoirse Ronan), Best Supporting Actress (Laurie Metcalf), and Most Promising Filmmaker (Greta Gerwig) from the Windy City. “Call Me by Your Name” had a strong showing as well, picking up prizes for Best Actor (Timothée Chalamet, who also won Most Promising Performer) and Best Supporting Screenplay.

Christopher Dunkirk was named Best Director for his work on “Dunkirk,” with Willem Dafoe of “The Florida Project” winning yet another Best Supporting Actor laurel and Jordan Peele being honored with Best Original Screenplay for “Get Out.” Full list of winners below.

Read More:2017 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards: ‘Call Me by Your Name’ Wins Both Best Picture and Best Actor

Best Picture

Call Me By Your Name

Dunkirk

Lady Bird

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Director

Guillermo Del Toro...

Another joint entry for the UK and the Us in our movie countdown – Xan Brooks hails an ambitious sci-fi sequel that took the original’s tantalising loose ends and ran with them

• More on the best Us films of 2017

• More on the best UK films of 2017

• More on the best culture of 2017

Blade Runner 2049 was the sequel that dared to dream it might surpass its creator. It was the blockbuster that breathed, the film replicant made flesh. In returning to the source material of the original Blade Runner (itself adapted from Philip K Dick’s 1968 novel), director Denis Villeneuve could by rights have got away with ticking the appropriate boxes and contentedly riding a wave of shared nostalgia. Instead, he opted for full immersion, a deep dive into the subject matter, even at the risk of losing his bearings. I’ve rarely seen a film so dazzled and entranced by its own possibilities.

Chicago – The eclectic coming-of-age love story, “Call Me By Your Name” topped the nominations list with eight for the 2017 Chicago Film Critics Association (Cfca) Film Awards, to be announced on Wednesday, December 13th. Director Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of Andre Aciman’s novel garnered nods for Best Picture, Guadagnino for Best Director, and acting noms for Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg and Timothee Chalamet.

The rest of the field for Best Picture has a variety of genres and themes. Christopher Nolan’s epic “Dunkirk” shares the stage with Greta Gerwig’s intent autobiographical “Lady Bird,” Guillermo Del Toro’s magical “The Shape of Water” and the strange-but-heralded “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” The symbolic horror of “Get Out” got first time director Jordan Peele a nomination (joining first timer Greta Gerwig), the late Harry Dean Stanton was recognized for Best Actor in “Lucky,” and Willem Dafoe got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for “The Florida Project.

1. mother!Darren Aronofsky’s divisive nightmare boasted a number of very striking posters this year, including one that blatantly yet beautifully pastiched the iconic Gips/Frankfurt design for Rosemary’s Baby and another in which Jennifer Lawrence’s face is minutely cracked like a porcelain doll. But it is this first teaser poster for the film, by the extraordinary artist James Jean, that stands out for me not only as a surreally appropriate representation of Aronofsky’s uncompromising vision, but as the best movie poster of the year. Grotesque and gorgeous, and dotted with hidden clues, Jean’s looks more like a piece of devotional iconography than a poster for a horror movie. (There is also an accompanying poster by Jean which features Javier Bardem’s character.) Known for his covers for the DC comic book series Fables, Jean has been in high demand this year, creating the charcoal illustration...

Track my film passions of the past year and the result is this list. These are the films that wowed and moved me, that turned me into a rabid champion, that gave me hope that brilliant cinematic storytelling — and a rebel spirit — is alive and well. It turned out to be a strong year for women directors (five), romances (three), World War II dramas (two), Angelina Jolie movies (two), animation (one), and documentaries (one).

See More:The Best Movies of 2017, According to IndieWire Critic Eric Kohn 12. “The Breadwinner” (GKids)

Directed by Nora Twomey of Cartoon Saloon (“The Secret of Kells”) and executive produced by Angelina Jolie, Irish-Canadian “The Breadwinner” is based on Deborah Ellis’s Ya novel about 11-year-old Parvana (voiced by Canadian actress Saara Chaudry), a strong-willed Afghan girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to provide for her family and save her father under threat from the Taliban.

Jairus McLeary in the Soho House screening room on The Work: "It's very masculine. That's why Amy Foote, our editor, and Alice Henty, the producer, they were the first women to see this footage." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Rebecca Miller's Arthur Miller: Writer; Doug Nichol's California Typewriter; Andrew Rossi on Okwui Okpokwasili's Bronx Gothic; Elvira Lind's Bobbi Jene; Michael Almereyda's Escapes on Hampton Fancher; Brett Morgen's Jane on Jane Goodall; Ceyda Torun's KEDi; Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum's Letters From Baghdad with Tilda Swinton voicing Getrude Bell; Griffin Dunne's Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold; Agnès Varda and Jr's Faces Places; Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane's School Life; Ferne Pearlstein's The Last Laugh; Lara Stolman's Swim Team; Kirk Simon's The Pulitzer At 100, and Josh Koury and Myles Kane's Voyeur on Gay Talese...

Hampton Fancher: "You know, I wrote Blade Runner for Robert Mitchum. The first draft was for him. And Robert Mulligan was going to direct it." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Hampton Fancher, co-screenwriter of Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, told me that he had Robert Mitchum in mind, not Harrison Ford, while writing his first draft of the Blade Runner screenplay when Robert Mulligan (To Kill A Mockingbird) was going to direct the film.

In our conversation at Lincoln Center, Hampton also saw Sam Shepard and Mitchum similarities, that Harry Dean Stanton had a Mitchum-like attitude, and expressed what Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and a Wallace Stevens poem can do to him.

Hampton Fancher, subject of Michael Almereyda's recent documentary Escapes and director of The Minus Man (starring Owen Wilson as a serial killer) starts out with coming to grips with evil and beauty.

To be completely transparent, I purposely didn't read any reviews of Blade Runner 2049. I didn't want to be influenced by another critic's opinion.

Smart movies don't always catch fire; may not be box office blockbusters nor receive the universal critical acclaim they so deserve. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner sequel may not have caught the collective raves or boffo box office receipts that others movies can boast, but that doesn't diminish the fact that it is an incredible sequel and in some ways better than the original. In today's 90 minute "super hero" hyper-edited, 3D cinematic experience a movie like Blade Runner 2049 crawls along at a snail's pace, allowing the dystopian landscape to infect the movie audience's collective consciousness and to create a visual backdrop that affords the narrative its forward thrust.

Kudos to director Denis Villeneuve and his design team. The future is not so bright. It's rather bleak and depressing.