News

Have you ever used a dating app? Felt nervous about not knowing what to expect? Well, the protagonist of today’s movie is very nervous, especially when she starts receiving increasingly unsettling messages on her phone. Drop taps directly into this contemporary anxiety, transforming a fancy dinner date into a harrowing high-stakes hostage situation orchestrated entirely through the seemingly innocuous interface of a phone. The film presents a chillingly plausible nightmare where technology designed to connect people becomes a terrifying instrument of coercion and surveillance, forcing its protagonist into an impossible game where every notification could mean life or death.

Released with a PG-13 rating, Drop marks a return to the pure thriller genre for Christopher Landon, a filmmaker celebrated for skillfully blending horror and comedy in hits like Happy Death Day and Freaky. Leading the cast is Meghann Fahy, whose star rose rapidly after her Emmy-nominated role in The White Lotus,...

From a solitary photographer capturing desert rock formations to abandoned movie theaters housing unexpected evils, Joshua Erkman’s directorial debut “A Desert” is consistently preoccupied with images and the people who devote their lives to making them. A nightmarish road trip film that wears its Hitchcock influences on its sleeve, the film follows a once-acclaimed photographer (Kai Lennox) who tries to manufacture a spark of creativity by driving through the American Southwest without a cell phone to comb through the scenery that used to inspire him so much.

The film, which premiered at Tribeca in 2024 and opens in theaters this weekend, feels like the launch of a promising new genre filmmaker. Erkman’s road to his directorial debut was a long one, as he spent much of his previous career working on restorations of classic films. The director explained that this project was a direct result of a life that...

Martin Scorsese’s Favourite Alfred Hitchcock Film(Photo Credit –Wikimedia)

It’s no shock that Martin Scorsese holds deep admiration for Alfred Hitchcock, a classic example of one master of the craft recognizing another. But what’s curious isn’t the respect itself, it’s how seldom that admiration bleeds directly into Scorsese’s work. His cinematic universe isn’t exactly littered with overt Hitchcockian fingerprints.

Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese: Two Paths Through the Labyrinth

Alfred Hitchcock’s playground was a twisted hall of mirrors, full of psychological games and taut. His characters were often pawns in elaborate cat-and-mouse setups, where every step had weight and every glance carried secrets. That kind of mechanical precision and manipulation of tension isn’t something Scorsese regularly leaned into. His thrillers, as visceral and unforgettable as they are, don’t quite orbit the same planet as Hitchcock’s finely tuned fear factories.

Netflix might have just delivered a gift for cinema fans in the form of a Hitchcock collection, but it's also yet to make up for the horrible "The Electric State," its most expensive movie and the Russo brothers' worst. More in the way of Hitchcock compendiums might well help in that regard, but not if the streamer also keeps churning out things like the Indian heist thriller "Jewel Thief -- The Heist Begins."

Must-see actioner "Rrr" gained international attention in 2022, becoming a box office smash and even winning a Best Original Song Oscar. It then expanded its audience when it hit Netflix in the U.S., and ever since, there's been a steady stream of Indian actioners finding their way onto the streamer domestically. It should be noted that there's also been an array of decent offerings from the country. In 2023, for example, the Indian crime drama "Jaane Jaan" broke...

2025 marks the 100th anniversary of the release of director Alfred Hitchcock’s first feature film, the silent romantic drama The Pleasure Garden, so it’s nice to see “the Master of Suspense” in the news. Yesterday, we shared the news that Netflix is teaming up with the New York Film Critics Circle to launch a screening series called Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer at the Paris Theater and will be streaming a collection of Hitchcock films soon, and now it has been brought to our attention that characters from the Hitchcock films Rear Window and The Birds are getting Funko Pop! figures. Images of the figures can be seen at the bottom of this article.

Both Alfred Hitchcock himself and the Psycho character Norman Bates have had Funko Pop! figures before. (There’s also a black & white version of the Norman Bates figure.)

Directed by Hitchcock from a screenplay by...

Alfred Hitchcock himself is already a Pop! along with Psycho‘s Norman Bates, and now two more of the Master of Suspense’s iconic characters are getting Funko treatment.

The Birds‘ Melanie Daniels and Rear Window‘s Jeff Jefferies are set to join the Pop! line in June.

Tippi Hedren played Melanie in The Birds, making her film debut opposite Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, and Suzanne Pleshette.

In the 1963 film, a couple strikes up a relationship after a chance meeting at a pet store, but paranoia and hysteria ensue when all the birds they encounter afterward become violent.

Jimmy Stewart starred as Jeff in Rear Window, appearing alongside Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr.

In the 1964 film, a bored photographer recovering from a broken leg passes the time by watching his neighbors and begins to suspect one of them of murder.

Both classics are among the Hitchcock...

These days, it’s rare to hear something cool about programming on the Netflix streaming service that involves older films rather than the next batch of “Netflix Original Films” they have in the works – but here’s something very cool: Netflix has announced that they’re teaming up with the New York Film Critics Circle to launch a screening series called Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer at the Paris Theater, which is the longest-running arthouse cinema in New York City and is also Manhattan’s only remaining single-screen cinema, as well as the borough’s largest movie theater, with 535 seats. If you can’t make it to the Paris Theater for the screenings, you’ll be glad to hear that a collection of classic Hitchcock films will also be available to stream on Netflix as of June 1st.

Here’s the information that was provided by Netflix: Keep the lights...

Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon was supposed to be working on Scream 7 – but that project turned out to be so troubled, he had to activate his ejector seat and get out of there. While he has since been replaced on Scream 7 by Kevin Williamson, he has been busy lining up other genre projects, signing on to direct the werewolf thriller Big Bad and the “fast-paced thriller” Drop. Coming our way from Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes, the production company team that has previously brought us the Purge franchise, Drop moved forward first, reaching theatres on April 11th. Just over two weeks later, the movie got a digital release and is available on Prime Video at This Link. If you’re more interested in watching the movie on 4K Uhd, Blu-ray, or DVD than you are in checking out the digital version, you’ll be glad to...

Netflix is expanding its U.S. streaming library in June with a collection of films by Alfred Hitchcock, including The Birds, Vertigo, Rear Window, Family Plot, Frenzy, and The Man Who Knew Too Much. The lineup joins Psycho, which is already available on the service.

The platform will also present a six-week film series titled “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer” at the Paris Theater in New York City. The retrospective, running from May 16 through June 29, will include more than 50 films, 36 of which were directed by Hitchcock. Thirty-five of those titles will be screened in 35mm prints. The program is co-presented by the New York Film Critics Circle.

Screenings will include Rear Window, Vertigo, and North by Northwest, along with films that draw on Hitchcock’s style, such as François Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique. Also featured is Hitchcock, the 2012 biopic directed by Sacha Gervasi.

This news isn't for The Birds! Fans of stone-cold classic thrillers have a reason to rejoice, as a large collection of Alfred Hitchcock's seminal works will be coming to Netflix in June. The collection of films coming to Netflix includes Vertigo, Rear Window, Frenzy, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Family Plot, The Birds and others. In addition to Hitchcock's masterpieces, Netflix will also be including in the collection movies that were inspired by the legendary director's work, such as Us by Jordan Peele, and Barbarian by Zach Cregger.

The collection of films is also being released in conjunction with a program called, "Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer" Screening Series at the Paris Theater, May 16 through Jun. 29, which will be co-presented with the New York Film Critics Circle. The six-week series will include 50 films, of which 36 will be by the visionary director, while the others will be films...

Netflix will add seven Alfred Hitchcock classics to its U.S. streaming library beginning June 1. The catalog includes iconic suspense films such as Vertigo, Rear Window, and The Birds.

The Hitchcock catalog's streaming debut coincides with a major theatrical retrospective titled Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer at New York's Paris Theater, co-presented with the New York Film Critics Circle. The film revival will span six weeks, from May 16 to June 29 at the historic single-screen cinema adjacent to Central Park. Netflix acquired the revered theater in 2019 and turned it into a flagship theatrical venue in New York.

The Hitchcock and Netflix team-up has plenty for cinephiles to enjoy. The Paris Theater program complements the legendary director's works, presenting restored classics and 35mm screenings of films inspired by Hitchcock's techniques alongside his filmography. Movies getting the showcase include The Bride Wore Black by François Truffaut and Diabolique by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Even contemporary...

Some of the auteur’s most classic movies will debut on Netflix starting in June.

The Netflix library is already packed with an astounding number of TV shows and movies from all decades, but it’s about to add some true classics into the mix. Customers can already stream Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal work “Psycho” on the service, but as announced this week, Netflix will also be adding a selection of other top movies from the director in the coming weeks.

Key Details: Need a thrill?: Netflix is adding titles like “Vertigo” and “Rear Window” to its library. Spooky summer: The movies will begin streaming on Netflix on June 1. Cinema in the Big Apple: Netflix is also partnering with the Paris Theatre in New York to exhibit the films. Sign Up $7.99+ / month netflix.com

Netflix will welcome a series of the best-known Hitchcock titles to its library soon. Viewers...

Alfred Hitchcock enjoyed making his audiences suffer, and now that uneasy feeling is coming to Netflix in large doses. The streamer said today that it will add several of the horror-suspense master’s best loved films, including The Birds, Vertigo, Rear Window, his final film Family Plot and more.

They join the filmmaker’s beloved and dreaded masterpiece Psycho, which is streaming now on Netflix.

Also headed to the service are Frenzy, The Man Who Knew Too Much and others, along with Hitchcock, a narrative feature about the legend directed by Sacha Gervasi. The new online collection also features films inspired by Hitchcock’s mastery such as Us and Barbarian.

Also on the horizon is “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer,” a six-week screening series at the 90-year-old Paris Theatre in Manhattan featuring more than 50 films including three dozen by Hitchcock. Many will be shown in 35mm, including Hitchcock’s Rear Window,...

Get ready to scream: Netflix is bringing a collection of Alfred Hitchcock films to the streaming service this June — and, despite chief Ted Sarandos’ belief that the movie-theater biz is “outdated,” the company will showcase the legendary filmmaker’s work at its Paris Theater in New York City in a six-week series.

Starting June 1, a collection of classic Hitchcock films will be available to stream in the U.S. Those will include “Vertigo,” “Rear Window,” “Frenzy,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Family Plot” and “The Birds.” Currently, U.S. customers can stream Hitchcock’s genre-defining masterpiece “Psycho,” now available on Netflix in the country.

In addition, Netflix’s Hitchcock collection will include films inspired by the British-born director, such as Jordan Peele’s “Us” and Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian,” as well as narrative feature “Hitchcock” directed by Sacha Gervasi.

Meanwhile, Netflix’s Paris Theater will present “Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer,...

Good evening. We welcome you to Netflix and Chill with one of the all-time greats.

A collection of Alfred Hitchcock movies will be available for streaming on Netflix starting June 1, and Netflix is also staging a massive, six-week screening series at its Paris Theater in New York City that will cover many of the master of suspense’s classics.

Available for streaming on Netflix in the U.S. beginning on June 1 will be “Vertigo,” “Rear Window,” “Frenzy,” “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Family Plot,” “The Birds,” and more. “Psycho” is already available on the streamer, as is the biopic “Hitchcock” as directed by Sacha Gervasi. All the films will be presented in a row of titles on Netflix, and they’ll also be accompanied by some other films that were inspired by Hitchcock, such as “Us” and “Barbarian,” which Netflix has also licensed.

Netflix in association with the New...

One of the most salient shortcomings of Netflix as a streaming service is that its film library at any given moment is frustratingly devoid of movies made before 1980. In the streamer's defense, their focus since 2013 (when they hit binge-viewing paydirt with "House of Cards") has been on generating a raft of original programming in order to cut back their need to license classic television shows and films they do not own. Additionally, the success of streaming services like The Criterion Channel and Tubi, which cater to cinephiles with an array of pre-1980 movies, suggests that this market has already voted with its dollars. This is somewhat understandable, but it also does a huge disservice to young film fans who, for example, might fall so hard for Mike Flannagan's "The Haunting of Hill House" that they desperately need to see Robert Wise's much-lauded 1963 take on Shirley Jackson's horror novel.

Netflix, the streaming service famous for not streaming older movies and not bringing movies to the big screen, is – in a surprise twist – bringing a bunch of old movies to the big screen!

The Hollywood Reporter has announced this afternoon that the Netflix-owned Paris Theater in New York will be celebrating Alfred Hitchcock with screenings of 36 of his movies.

“The series — Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer — will run May 16 to June 29 at the Paris Theater, which Netflix purchased in 2019,” THR details. “The films range from Hitchcock’s early works such as Blackmail to enduring hits such as Psycho and The Birds.”

In addition to the big screen series, a collection of classic Alfred Hitchcock films will be available to stream on Netflix in the US featuring some of his most iconic works starting June 1.

Here’s everything you need to know, straight from the Paris Theater…

The Paris Theater is proud to present Hitch!

Netflix is making it the summer of Alfred Hitchcock in New York. The streaming giant will bring 36 Hitchcock films to its Paris Theater in New York, as well as a dozen more features connected to the director — from those he influenced (Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath) to those which influenced him (Fritz Lang’s M).

The series — Hitch! The Original Cinema Influencer — will run from May 16 to June 29 at the Paris Theater, which Netflix purchased in 2019. The films range from Hitchcock’s early works such as Blackmail to enduring hits such as Psycho and The Birds.

Thirty five of the films will play on 35 mm, including Birds, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North By Northwest, Rear Window and Vertigo. The New York Film Critics Circle is co-presenting the series.

The screening series coincides with Netflix bringing a collection Hitchcock titles to its service beginning June 1, including Vertigo, Rear Window,...

Did Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest set the scene for James Bond? (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Long before James Bond ever ordered a martini or shot down a henchman in Dr. No, Alfred Hitchcock had already stitched together the cinematic DNA of 007 in North by Northwest.

Hitchcock’s thriller, released in 1959, three years before Sean Connery donned the tux, was practically a James Bond prototype in everything but name. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill, a sharp-suited ad man mistaken for a spy, finds himself dodging bullets, seducing mysterious women, and leaping across iconic landmarks.

Well, it sounds familiar, right? It should as this was the stylish, danger-laced formula that would come to define Britain’s most famous secret agent.

Trending When Meryl Streep Rejected A ‘Slightly’ Insulting Offer For The Devil Wears Prada & Walked Away With $4 Million Instead!

When Dune Director Denis Villeneuve Opened Up About His Lifelong Wish Of...

Did Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca alter its unexpected ending?(Photo Credit –20th Century Fox)

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca dazzled audiences in 1940, sweeping up the Best Picture Oscar and earning a place among the cinematic greats. But if you’re a fan of Daphne du Maurier’s original novel, there’s a good chance you noticed something missing.

A crucial twine that would have landed like a thunderclap was stripped from the screen adaptation, not because Hitchcock didn’t want it, but because the times simply wouldn’t allow it.

The Murder That Never Made It to Screen

In du Maurier’s 1938 novel, Maxim de Winter isn’t just a haunted widower wrapped in brooding silence; he’s a killer. Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter, meets her end not through a convenient accident, but by Maxim’s hand. Her manipulations and cruelty, and her final attempt to destroy, succeeded in...

It would be hard to believe that “A Desert” is Joshua Erkman’s feature-length debut. The kind of masterful buildup the first act of his film manages to conjure up is no short of brilliant. Taking inspiration from Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” David Lynch’s “Lost Highway,” and Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” with an original visual language to accompany those subtle nods, Erkman’s slow-burn horror has a sense of mystery that keeps you engrossed. However, it also slides away so much from where it’s aiming that much of it gets diluted as the narrative progresses into anti-narrative territory.

It all begins with Alex Clark’s (Kai Lennox) off-road adventure. He is an old-time photographer whose weapon of choice is an antique camera—the ones we only see now in period films. We get little to no introduction to him. Still, his communication with wife Sam (Sarah Lind...

Freaky and Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon was supposed to be working on Scream 7 – but that project turned out to be so troubled, he had to activate his ejector seat and get out of there. While he has since been replaced on Scream 7 by Kevin Williamson, he has been busy lining up other genre projects, signing on to direct the werewolf thriller Big Bad and the “fast-paced thriller” Drop. Coming our way from Blumhouse and Platinum Dunes, the production company team that has previously brought us the Purge franchise, Drop moved forward first, reaching theatres on April 11th. Just over two weeks later, the movie is set to receive a digital release tomorrow, April 29th, and will be available on Prime Video at This Link.

Written by Jillian Jacobs and Chris Roach, a writing duo that has previously worked with Blumhouse on the horror projects Truth or Dare and Fantasy Island,...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Among James Bond fans, there is a well-established genre known as the non-Bond Bond movie. You might think that 26 official 007 films would be enough to satiate fans of England's greatest spy, but cinema's most enduring franchise has now been running for 65 full years, and evidently a film releasing on an average of every 2.5 years just simply isn't enough for 007 adherents.

Now that Amazon owns the James Bond IP that will surely change, with Bond spin-off ideas likely coagulating in the minds of Amazon execs as I type. While we await the onslaught of 007 media, however, there are several well-established non-Bond Bond movies that can act as solid substitutes for official 007 features. These movies include films that starred former 007 actors in roles that are, in all but name, essentially James Bond and there's even an entry...

Did You Know Alfred Hitchcock Set A Hilarious Hollywood Record With Psycho? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Long before Alfred Hitchcock became the reigning king of suspense in Hollywood, he had been crafting masterful films in England and sharpening the skills that would soon rattle the American movie industry.

When he finally crossed the Atlantic, he brought a sense of daring that would change cinema forever. Titles like Rear Window, Vertigo, The Birds, and North by Northwest only scratched the surface of his genius, but it was Psycho, yes, that eerie, nerve-shredding masterpiece that managed to carve out one of the strangest and funniest records in Hollywood history.

Psycho Pushing Boundaries… and Bathrooms

Psycho, based on Robert Bloch’s chilling 1959 novel, wasn’t just a horror film. It was an earthquake that shook the cinema industry worldwide. Besides unleashing a new standard for on-screen violence and s*xuality, he also accidentally became...

It’s easy to see shadows of David Cronenberg in his newest film, “The Shrouds,” now playing in theaters via Sideshow and Janus Films. Vincent Cassel stars as Karsh, a Canadian tech guru who creates a graveyard where you can watch your loved ones rot in their coffin in real-time via an app. Between Karsh’s styling — which looks very similar to Cronenberg’s signature shock of hair and minimalist chic wardrobe — and the fact that Cronenberg wrote this film after his wife’s passing in 2017, many critics took this to mean the work was largely autobiographical. Cronenberg’s rejection of the notion was just one of the first surprising musings from a discussion with Variety about his approach to art, including his consideration of the audience, embrace of technology and rejection of genre.

So many of your movies feel like they have personal elements. “The Shrouds” seems like one of your most personal works.

Opening title sequences are dying a slow death. Though they may have been replaced by the closing credits sequence (thanks Marvel), even those are a rare treat. Filmmakers simply don't deliver a 2.5-minute opening title sequence that often, perhaps suspecting today's viewers don't have the patience. Blame our micro-second attention spans, somewhere between fruit flies and goldfish. Or maybe -- considering every other movie is a 2.5-plus-hour epic -- filmmakers simply don't want to spend one second on scenes they didn't shoot. Whatever the reason, it's a darn shame, as great opening title sequences have often contributed greatly to cinematic masterpieces. So we're going to celebrate the best!

Firstly, we're saluting opening title sequences, not opening credits scenes. What's the distinction? While a title sequence is separate from the movie itself, whjile a scene occurs within the movie. Secondly, this is not a ranking. Honestly, we're not even sure how...

Alfred Hitchcock Suspicion Ending ( Photo Credit – Facebook )

Alfred Hitchcock has stood tall as one of cinema’s most revered creative forces for decades. The legendary director, who had mastered suspense like few ever could, crafted stories that sank into the audience’s bones and Suspicion was no exception.

However, not many know that Hitchcock has a bitter memory tangled within its legacy and it includes a last-minute change he despised and a lead actor he ultimately wished he had never chosen.

The Cary Grant Conundrum

The year was 1941 when Hitchcock first joined forces with Cary Grant, a collaboration that would later bloom into one of Hollywood’s most iconic partnerships. At the time, Grant was the darling of the silver screen, the epitome of charm and effortless wit, who dazzled audiences in films like Bringing Up Baby and The Philadelphia Story.

Trending Liam Neeson Still Grieving Natasha Richardson’s Death:...

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (Photo Credit – Prime Video)

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t just dip his toe into controversy in 1948, he swan-dived headfirst with Rope, a film that defied censors and delighted LGBTQ+ or queer-coded cinema devotees long before the industry knew what to make of either. Behind the curtain of this tightly wound thriller was a project laced with queerness, and a kind of narrative tension that burned through the glossy restrictions of the Hays Code like acid through celluloid.

Rope: A Story of Murder, Subtext, and Hidden Desires

Hitchcock’s first Technicolor film might have looked vibrant on the surface, but its real color came from what wasn’t being said. Beneath the elegant frames and champagne-drenched dialogue sat a story lifted from the bones of a real-life murder, with threads of queerness sewn in so tightly that even the censor boards couldn’t yank them loose.

Rope, inspired...

There’s always something magical about a classic movie that refuses to age. It feels like the filmmakers have found the fountain of youth while the rest of the world scrambles for anti-aging creams. These classics aren’t just “old” movies; they’re the truest cinematic time capsules that still feel fresh, exciting, and oddly relevant. Take Casablanca, does romance get any cooler than Humphrey Bogart’s effortless swagger? Or The Godfather, where every line could double as life advice.

And yes, of course, how can we forget Psycho, which is still making people second-guess their shower curtain choices decades later? Honestly, the beauty of these timeless classics lies in their ability to connect with every generation. We’ve got themes of love, fear, ambition, and triumph that never go out of style, and neither do unforgettable characters or sharp dialogue. Doesn’t watching Roman Holiday feel like a warm hug from an old friend,...

When the "Scream" franchise was successfully restarted in 2022 by the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, fans of 1990s slasher flicks immediately began clamoring for a third trip to the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" universe -- at which point they were reminded of the direct-to-dvd "I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer" from 2006, and realized this would actually be the fourth entry in the property.

If you're now scrambling to catch up with this third sequel that you either skipped or plain didn't know about prior to reading the last paragraph, a word of advice: don't bother. It's set in a different town and introduces a whole new group of characters who get stalked and offed by the hook-wielding Fisherman. Also, it's awful. Because of that, I sincerely doubt it will receive more than possibly a jokey reference in the forthcoming "I Know What You Did Last Summer,...

Following his standout turn in the forever controversial film It Ends with Us, Brandon Sklenar continues to rise in the ranks in Hollywood with recent hit projects on both the big and small screens. First, there was Taylor Sheridan's acclaimed Yellowstone spinoff series 1923, which just came to a tragic end in Season 2 last week and saw Sklenar's character Spencer Dutton go through the wringer. Now, there's the latest Blumhouse film Drop, hitting theaters this week and showcasing more of Sklenar's performance range — including a few surprises on the physical side. It is a thriller after all, with a climactic third act set atop a Chicago skyscraper...

Even before Sklenar showcased his talents in Drop, fans were already chatting online about how they could see him portraying a certain beloved superhero: Batman. MovieWeb recently caught up with the 34-year-old performer in Los Angeles while he was promoting Drop, and Sklenar...

A factory floor becomes a hunting ground in The Mill Killers, a taut and stylish thriller arriving on digital platforms from 21 April. The Welsh-made film, which had its premiere at FrightFest, marks the feature debut of writer-director Aled Owen and promises a tense meditation on guilt, friendship and buried truths – all soaked in Giallo-inspired suspense.

Set against the bleak backdrop of a rural Welsh mill, the film introduces four young women whose bond was forged through a terrible mistake. Years earlier, they broke into a local factory in search of easy money. The night ended in tragedy, with a worker dead and their stolen cash stashed away. Now, years later, the group reunites to recover the hidden money. But the mill holds more than their secret – someone else is waiting for them.

What begins as a simple retrieval spirals into paranoia and psychological dread as the women are stalked by a hooded figure.

Christopher Landon is a master at making audiences vacillate between gut-wrenching terror and gut-busting laughter. That’s certainly true of the director’s latest film, “Drop,” which stars “White Lotus” alum Meghann Fahy as a single mother who’s tormented by threatening AirDrop messages while on a first date.

“I loved this idea of making a modern Hitchcock movie where we take this very known type of technology, and we see how it gets turned against us. This item of convenience becomes something else. I think everyone can relate to the idea of being harassed and abused by someone you can’t see,” Landon tells Variety.

With such a heavy plot, the director knew he needed to use the signature comedy fans have grown to expect after films like “Happy Death Day” and “Freaky,” but in a very different way. It starts with the AirDrop messages themselves — at first they feel like teenage pranks,...

I was happy to see Christopher Walken back in Hollywood last year after his four-year-long hiatus from films. He is one of those actors who could easily slip into a character and make it his own. The villainous turn in Dune: Part Two was a walk in the park for Walken, who had played far more devious villains in his career.

To jog your memory, Walken played one of my favorite Bond villains. In Roger Moore’s final outing as Agent 007 in A View to a Kill, Walken played Max Zorin, the Nazi tech businessman who wants to monopolize the microchip market. He commits a lot of devious acts throughout the film, making everyone hate him to the core.

Christopher Walken as Max Zorin in A View to a Kill | Credits: Eon Productions

However, Walken could’ve played the scariest villain in the history of cinema. He was considered for the role of Norman Bates,...

Ah, at the start of Spring what’s more romantic than a first date? Well, at least there’s the possibility of romance. Yes, that initial meeting is often the start of a cinema love story, or often a comedy (including lotsa’ ‘rom-coms”). But that’s not the case with this week’s new release from the folks at Blumhouse (that should give you a huge hint). In this flick, the jitters of a dinner with a new “potential” turns into outright terror when the evening’s intimate meal is “cyber-hijacked” by an evil manipulator. The couple at the center of this thriller barely make it to the appetizer before the “meet cute” gives way to suspense when some deadly messages begin to Drop.

This story actually starts with a scene full of violence and terror, though it’s unclear about its “placement” in the tale. Is it a “flash-forward...

Quentin Tarantino is arguably one of the few filmmakers who has mastered the art of suspense, a trait that made Alfred Hitchcock so legendary and revered among cinema lovers. As a result, fans might be surprised to learn that Tarantino has an extremely hot take on one of Hitchcock’s best movies.

During an interview, Tarantino talked about Hitchcock’s filmmaking style. He also reflected on an iconic thriller directed by the filmmaker, which frequently ranks among some of the greatest movies ever made, arguing that it is simply mediocre.

Director Quentin Tarantino on the Club Random podcast (Credit: YouTube).

Given Tarantino’s stature in Hollywood and mastery of some of the same techniques introduced by Hitchcock, does the filmmaker have a point regarding the latter’s best movies? Here are all the takeaways from Tarantino’s controversial take on Hitchcock.

Quentin Tarantino revealed his gripe with Alfred Hitchcock’s...

The Apple TV+ comedy “The Studio” has been justly lauded for getting virtually every detail of how Hollywood’s movers and shakers live and work exactly right, but the show’s accuracy goes beyond behavior. One of the great pleasures of the series week after week is observing the sense of Hollywood history that seeps into every aspect of the visual design. Directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are avid movie enthusiasts, and it’s clear that the show’s props, locations, and decor are all carefully chosen to tell the story not only of the series’ particular characters but of an industry that’s now over 100 years old.

Nowhere is this attention to detail more felt than in the production design of the studio itself, which is intended to emulate great legacy companies like Paramount and Warner Bros., the latter of which stands in for the series’ fictional Continental Studios in exterior scenes.

Plot: A widowed mother (Meghann Fahy) goes on a date with a handsome stranger (Brandon Sklenar) she’s been chatting with on dating apps. While at dinner, she receives an escalating series of anonymous messages, with them soon revealing that they are holding her sister and son hostage and will kill them unless she poisons her date.

Review: Christopher Landon’s Drop is a slam-bang thriller that absolutely brought the house down at SXSW (which is where I first saw it). A contained thriller in the vein of Wes Craven’s underrated Red Eye, Landon’s film hits all the right notes, giving him a solid, Hitchcock-flavored romp in the vein of his own Disturbia, that should be a big hit from Blumhouse when it comes out next month.

Contained thrillers, where most of the action is limited to one locale, have become increasingly in vogue, but Landon’s...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Universal Pictures releases “Drop” in theaters Friday, April 11.

It’s a good thing director Christopher Landon‘s exit from the “Scream” franchise cleared his schedule: The punchy if risible single-location thriller “Drop” delivers a far more pleasurable jolt than any I.P. could have. Here, “The Bold Type” and “The White Lotus” TV comedy breakout Meghann Fahy proves herself a terrific (and Hitchcock-shade-of-blonde) genre actress as a traumatized widow on the worst first date of her life. Luckily, that first date is in the soothing, handsome presence of Brandon Sklenar as a press photographer with baggage of his own.

Running a cool 90 minutes, “Drop” takes place almost entirely in a top-of-the-world kind of high-rise restaurant in Chicago, where Violet (Fahy) is meeting Henry (Sklenar) off a Tinder-like app, and where this appears to be Violet...

The late Stanley Donen was born on April 13, 1924. The legendary filmmaker -- the last of the directors from Hollywood's golden age -- passed away on February 21, 2019, leaving behind a legacy of classic movies filled with color, song, and dance. Let's take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Donen got his start as a dancer. It was in the chorus line for George Abbott's production of "Pal Joey" that he met Gene Kelly. The two became quick friends, and Donen started working as Kelly's assistant, helping him choreograph his intensely acrobatic dance sequences.

The two turned to filmmaking with "On the Town" (1949), a lavish Technicolor musical about three sailors on a 24 hour shore leave in New York City. They teamed up again for perhaps the greatest movie musical of all time: "Singin' in the Rain" (1952). A satire of Hollywood's rocky transition from silent cinema to sound,...

Director Paul Feig admits that in making his latest film Another Simple Favor, the sequel to his 2018 hit comedy A Simple Favor starring Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, he found himself choosing to rethink his usual filmmaking methodologies – including his longstanding rule to avoid making sequels at all.

“I don’t do sequels,” Feig explained at a Deadline Contenders Television panel for the film, which bows on Amazon Prime Video on May 1, noting that he’s long resisted helming a sequel to his megahit Bridesmaids. “Sequels are hard…Audiences, I think, got burned by a lot of sequels. And so the big question for an audience is always, why do I need to see this? And so you’ve really got to be able to answer that question.”

But Feig said his enduring affection for the first Favor film’s characters fueled his interest in figuring out a fresh approach: in the follow-up,...

On Saturday April 5 2025, Travel broadcasts Jonathan Ross Haunted Homecoming!

Hitchcock & the Pool of Death Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Jonathan Ross Haunted Homecoming,” titled “Hitchcock & the Pool of Death,” promises to be a thrilling experience for fans of the supernatural. Set to air on Travel, this episode takes viewers on a journey into the eerie past of Jonathan Ross’s old home.

In this episode, Jonathan Ross will face his fears as he ventures into Epping Forest at night. Known for its dark woods and mysterious tales, Epping Forest adds an unsettling backdrop to the chilling story. Ross will explore the forest, where shadows and sounds may play tricks on the mind, capturing the essence of a true haunted adventure.

The episode centers around the infamous Hitchcock Hotel, a place that has a reputation for harboring a malign presence. Ross will delve into the history of the hotel, uncovering...

Alfred Hitchcock, the late “Master of Suspense,” and Jiří Menzel, the late Czech director who won the foreign-language film Oscar for 1966’s Closely Watched Trains, will get some screen love during the 15th edition of the Beijing International Film Festival.

The “Homage-Restoration” section of the fest will feature, among others, Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason, and late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s Meetings With Anna, starring Aurore Clément and Jean-Pierre Cassel, in new 4K restorations.

Anna is about an emotionally unavailable filmmaker who is traveling through Western Europe to promote her new film, meeting with strangers, friends, former lovers, and family members. North by Northwest is known as a tale of mistaken identity, featuring a man pursued by agents of a mysterious organization.

The Beijing festival organizers also unveiled that this year’s “Homage” section will put a...

In Paramount+’s Happy Face, all the murder happens in the past and off camera, but that doesn’t mean the people behind it aren’t trying to unnerve viewers with their relatively novel spin on true crime.

To be sure, it is true. The “Happy Face Killer” is real. Keith Hunter Jesperson (played by Dennis Quaid) is serving a life sentence for the murders of eight women and has confessed to the killing of many, many more. He also has a daughter, Melissa Moore (Annaleigh Ashford), whose devoted her life to working with the families of victims. But that, in many ways, is where the similarities between truth and TV began to part ways. The dramatization, which launched on March 20, leans as far away from serial killer tropes as possible, nixing reenactments of crimes and displays of violence for tense exchanges between a convict and his fraught daughter — introducing...

Remakes are often viewed with tremendous suspicion by moviegoers, especially when the film getting revisited is a bona-fide classic. This is because the rationale for most remakes is pure exploitation. The studio holds the rights to a property that once made it a gazillion dollars, and, because the money people have decided the original's laid fallow long enough, the time is right to splash a fresh coat of paint on it and see if a new generation of viewers will fork over cash to check out a gussied-up retread.

There have certainly been worthwhile remakes over the years, but those were made with tremendous care and purpose by people who had a passion for the material. For the most part, you wind up with lifeless dreck such as 2014's "RoboCop," 2005's "The Fog," and 2006's "The Omen".

Speaking of indistinguishable, what are we to make of 1998's "Psycho," the shot-for-shot...

Watching Hitchcock and Scully, the two laziest detectives on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, was undeniably hilarious. And I sometimes wonder what it would be like if we got a full-blown spin-off that dove into their glory days.

But here’s the thing: as much as I love the thought, I can’t shake the feeling that maybe some characters work best in small doses. However, I’d like to weigh in on both the possibilities, and perhaps then we might know if it’s a good idea or not.

A still from Brooklyn Nine-Nine | Universal Television Why a Hitchcock and Scully spinoff from Brooklyn Nine-Nine could be comedy gold

If there was one thing that Brooklyn Nine-Nine nailed like no other sitcom, it was balancing absurd humor with a lot of unexpected heart, and the duo of Hitchcock and Scully embodied it better than anybody. The flashback episode in season 2 revealed that before being overweight,...

Few cinematic tools are used as often — and as badly — as the oner. Also known as a long take or a one shot, a oner is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: One shot that goes on for several minutes, sometimes encompassing an entire scene or (in particularly showy films) multiple scenes. Even though it’s ostensibly the absence of trickery, long takes are difficult to pull off, and sometimes are done purely for the sake of being showy rather than them being particularly necessary. But when a long take is justified, and done well, it can be one of the most thrilling things to experience onscreen.

In the early days of cinema, very long takes were relatively rare, as most directors relied on the cinematic foundation of shot-reverse-shot editing to tell stories. One of the earliest examples comes from “The Stranger,” a 1946 thriller directed by Orson Welles. Welles...

The Replacement Official Poster! (Photo Credit – Prime Video)

Netflix has done it again. The popular streaming service has released another highly addictive thriller. According to the latest reports, the show is so gripping that it’s practically impossible to look away and has left audiences in the UK completely hooked.

The Replacement, a limited series that recently landed on the platform, has been making waves, swiftly securing its place among the most-watched shows. If you’re a fan of British drama heavyweights like Line of Duty or The Bay, this psychological rollercoaster is one you won’t want to miss.

A BBC One Hit Gets New Life on Streaming

The series, currently holding strong at number three in Netflix UK’s top 10, originally aired on BBC One in 2017. But there’s nothing to worry about for the US viewers as Amazon Prime has got them covered.

Trending Stephen Graham’s...

The Twilight Zone remains one of the most groundbreaking pieces of television ever made. Rod Serling's supernatural anthology series delivered dozens of classic episodes, cloaking moral lessons in clever twist endings, and ranging from the hilarious to the utterly terrifying. It lasted five seasons and was minted a masterpiece almost before it was off the air. In retrospect, it bowed out just in time, with its creative well running dry by Serling's own admission. It thus avoided jumping the shark, and several direct reboots have only fitfully found the magic that it delivered consistently from beginning to end.

The Twilight Zone famously received a little help from an outside source. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a supernatural anti-war movie which French filmmaker Robert Enrico shot in 1961, and appeared as an episode late in Season 5 as The Twilight Zone was wrapping up. It remains the only episode to come from an outside source,...

Since his feature debut in 2000, Bong Joon-ho has established himself as one of the finest filmmakers in the world, with a string of acclaimed international hits to his name. He's brought his inimitable style to everything from monster movies like 2006's The Hostto sci-fi action like 2013's Snowpiercer, and the Oscar-night dominance of 2019's Parasite, his most successful work yet. While pretty much every movie he's made has been rapturously received, some have gotten more attention than others, and one of his most overlooked films received its American premiere 15 years ago.

That would be Mother, Bong's twisty, darkly funny homage to Alfred Hitchcock, which premiered in the US in February 2010, after its Cannes premiere the previous year. While met with the usual critical acclaim upon release, it's not often mentioned alongside his most notable projects, but still bears most of the hallmarks of its brilliant director. With Bong's most recent film,...