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The world’s largest streaming service has a comfortingly consistent ad experience across its library.

In a lot of ways, Netflix still represents some of the most foundational promises of streaming. Those promises included a much cheaper price than cable or satellite plans, and the ability to stream the TV shows and movies you loved most without having to sit through commercials.

In 2025, most of those promises have sadly gone glimmering. Even Netflix has an ad-supported plan now, its Standard with Ads option priced at $7 per month. If you’re thinking about trying Netflix with ads, check out my thoughts on the streamer’s ad experience below.

How many ads do you see while watching Netflix?

What’s the ad experience on original series?

What’s the ad experience with licensed?

What’s the ad experience like on original movies?

What’s the ad experience like with licensed movies?

Were...

It’s been a tough year for Jennifer Lopez and Kevin Costner as they have faced divorce battles in 2024 with their respective ex-partners. Now that both of them are single, it is time for a new chapter in their lives to unfold, and since it’s a new year, they might as well take this chance at opening up their hearts once again for a possible romance.

Jennifer Lopez / Credits: ABC News

It seems like it won’t take long for both stars to move on from their past marriages as they have sparked dating rumors just recently. They have been spotted shopping together in Aspen during the Christmas holidays.

Friends of Jennifer Lopez reportedly agree with her dating Kevin Costner

Jennifer Lopez has expressed her love for Paramount’s Yellowstone, and as an avid fan, she was disappointed at Kevin Costner’s exit from the show. Somehow, this was a compliment for the actor,...

The Visual Effects Society has chimed in on the awards season conversation.

On Tuesday, the visual effects industry’s global honorary society announced nominees for the 23rd Annual Ves Awards — with top Best Visual Effects Oscar contenders Better Man, Dune: Part Two, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes among the films recognized.

Dune: Part Two led the way among photoreal features with seven nominations, including Best Feature. The Wild Robot led all animated films with five nominations; Shōgun and The Penguin earned four bids each on the TV side.

Wicked and Gladiator II, which are currently predicted to land among the Best Visual Effects Oscar nominees later this month, were both absent from the Best Feature lineup. Instead, the Ves Awards went with Mufasa: The Lion King and Twisters. Last year, just two of the five Best Visual Effects Oscar nominees were similarly nominated in the Ves Awards...

The Visual Effects Society (Ves) is the entertainment industry’s only official organization representing the extended global community of visual effects practitioners, including supervisors, artists, producers, technology developers, educators, and studio executives. The 5,000-member Ves body has now selected nominees for its 2025 awards honors in features, animation, television, commercials, games, and new media, as well as the VFX supervisors, VFX producers, and hands-on artists who bring their work to life.

“Dune: Part Two” leads the photoreal feature film field with seven nominations, although nominations include character work on “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” as well as “Better Man” and nominations for the virtuosic digital camerawork in Episode 4 of “House of the Dragon” Season 2, “The Red Dragon and the Gold.”

“The Wild Robot” is the top animated contender with five nominations. “Shōgun” and “The Penguin” each received four nominations in the episodic field, with “The Penguin” also nominated for...

The Visual Effects Society (Ves) announced its nominees for the 2025 Ves Awards, a celebration which annually “recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in features animation, television, commercials, games and new media.”

Dune: Part Two led the film nominations with seven nods, while Shogun and The Penguin tie in the episodic field with four each. The Wild Robot led the animation field with five.

“The artistry, ingenuity and passion of visual effects practitioners around the world have come together to create remarkable imagery,” says Kim Davidson, Ves Chair. “We are seeing best in class work that elevates the art of storytelling and exemplifies the spirit of innovation. The Ves Awards is the only venue that showcases and honors these outstanding artists across a wide range of disciplines, and we are extremely proud of our nominees.”

The nominees in 25 categories were selected by Ves members at 49 in-person and virtual panels around the world.

“Dune: Part Two” led all films in nominations for the 233 annual Ves Awards, the Visual Effects Society announced on Tuesday. Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic received seven nominations in the Ves Awards’ eight non-animated feature film categories, followed by “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” with six, “Better Man” with four and “Mufasa: The Lion King” with three.

In the Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature category, the category that corresponds most closely to Best Visual Effects at the Oscars, the nominees were “Better Man,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” “Mufasa: The Lion King” and “Twisters.”

All 10 of the films on the Oscars’ Best Visual Effects shortlist received Ves nominations. In addition to the five nominees in the Ves Outstanding Visual Effects category, “Civil War” and “Gladiator II” received two nominations and “Alien: Romulus,” “Deadpool & Wolverine” and “Wicked” each received one.

The...

“The Substance” (Mubi) and “Flow” (Janus/Sideshow), two very independent specialized releases, add to their theatrical and awards successes with strong interest on home viewing.

“Wicked” (Universal), expecting even greater recognition repeats as #1 at both iTunes (ranking by transactions) and Fandango (by revenue) in its second week out. The studio, which like others rarely announces home video returns, said its first week out had $70 million in rentals and sales. They get 80 percent of this after a small carriage fee deduction, a much higher return than in theaters. This buttresses the claim of how vital PVOD is, even if its often early streaming release seems to intrude on theatrical play.

Netflix, meanwhile, underwent a wholesale turnover this week, with only three films listed last week still on their top 10. “Ad Vitam,” an original French thriller in the Liam Neeson-mold that follows a lone avenger saving a family member in danger,...

Prior to 1985, Kevin Costner was probably best known in Hollywood, to the extent that he was known at all, as the corpse of Alex Marshall in Lawrence Kasdan's Baby Boomer drama "The Big Chill." Alex is the friend whose death occasions the gathering of the University of Michigan alums, and whose presence is felt rather than seen. This was not initially by design. Costner's Alex was supposed to appear in flashback, but was completely cut out of the movie by Kasdan when test audiences reacted poorly to meeting the character after ninety-odd minutes of build-up.

When 1985 rolled around, Costner had two films sitting on the shelf, a Canadian crime drama called "The Gunrunner" and Kevin Reynolds' college friendship comedy "Fandango." The former was lousy and would sit on the shelf until 1989, while the latter was a charming misfire that, because it had been disowned by producer Steven Spielberg, was dumped into U.

If you’re looking for another western to watch these days, “American Primeval” is here to try and fill that gap.

Now streaming on Netflix, the six-episode miniseries takes place in 1857, and is “a fictionalized dramatization and examination of the violent collision of culture, religion, and community as men and women fight and die for control of this world,” following them as they head west.

Starring Taylor Kitsch and Betty Gilpin, the series has quite a few familiar faces in it. Here’s who you need to know.

Netflix Isaac (Taylor Kitsch)

Taylor Kitsch leads “American Primeval” as Isaac, a man whose past trauma has led to a whole lot of long-term effects. You might know Kitsch for his role as Tim Riggins in “Friday Night Lights,” or from “The Terminal List” and “True Detective.”

Netflix Brigham Young (Kim Coates)

Brigham is the leader of the Mormon Church and his Mormon army,...

Plot: While exploring the American West, a small group travels across the plains, experiencing violent collisions with cults, religion, and men and women fighting for control of the new world.

Review: When most people think of the Western genre, they envision actors like Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, James Stewart, and Gary Cooper playing six-shooter superheroes with leathery skin, shiny spurs, and a devil-may-care attitude. As icons of an idealized American West, these men often shine as paragons of virtue, justice, and heroism. Still, history bends to the will of the storyteller, someone who can glorify the cowboy and make their actions appear pure and righteous. American Primeval offers no such quarter to its gun-slingers. Though the series presents a fictionalized and dramatized recount of 1857, its depiction of harsh living conditions, cutthroat politics, and relentless violence is all too honest. Saddle up, folks! We’re riding along one of Netflix’s...

Squid Game S2 Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun in Squid Game S2 Cr. No Ju-han/Netflix © 2024 It’s official: The world can’t get enough of Squid Game. For the second week in a row, Squid Game Season 2 has held the top spot on Netflix’s non-English TV list, racking up an impressive 58.2 million viewing hours. This dystopian drama isn’t just a hit – it’s a global phenomenon, reaching the Top 10 in 93 countries and claiming the No. 1 spot in 91. And the success doesn’t stop there. Season 2 has already broken Netflix records, amassing a staggering 126.2 million views in just 11 days! Netflix viewers have been busy! The action thriller Carry-On continues to climb the charts, landing at No. 5 on the Most Popular English films list with 149.4 million views. Meanwhile, Beyoncé’s NFL Christmas Gameday performance and special have been watched by nearly 50 million people worldwide. Fans of Harlan Coben have a new thriller to enjoy,...

I mention a lot in these video essays about remakes and how they sometimes work but often times don’t. One of the biggest issues I have is that many of the remakes we get are really not needed. I like them but did we really need an updated version of Friday the 13th, Halloween, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Of course not, these are classics for a reason. Those are just the ones that work too, there’s plenty like Jacob’s Ladder, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Poltergeist that run the gamut from boring as hell to offensively bad. Well, in 2024 I’m kind of getting my wish. While something like Fade to Black could get a wonderful update 44 years later and be able to say something new and different, I’m curious what a Street Trash remake will bring to the table. The original is one that was a...

Netflix continues to dominate the streaming sphere, and frankly it's not hard to see why. The streamer pumps out so much so-called "content" that I'm starting to wonder whether half of this stuff isn't already being generated by some god awful AI. Still, amid the onslaught of media, Netflix put out some pretty good films in 2024, most notably the killer action thriller "Rebel Ridge," which surely went a long way to helping star Aaron Pierre land the role of John Stewart in DC and James Gunn's burgeoning shared universe.

Netflix started 2025 strong, too, proving that streaming audiences still know a good film when they see one by delivering Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" to its servers and seeing it shoot to the top of the charts. No doubt the rest of the year will see more of the same quality filmmaking punctuating a sea of otherwise forgettable streaming slush. But...

Kevin Costner’s anticipated new Western film series kicked off with “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” which hit theaters last summer as the first of four parts and is now streaming on Netflix. And the movie boasts a pretty massive ensemble cast of characters.

The “Yellowstone” actor invested $38 million of his own money into the passion project, which charts the United States’ Western expansion pre- and post-Civil War over the course of 15 years.

The first film in the franchise establishes four storylines and sets the stage for the subsequent films. Below, TheWrap created a cheat sheet to help you keep track of each of the characters and their overlapping plot lines throughout this American saga.

“Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2” still doesn’t have a release date.

Kevin Costner as Hayes Ellison

Hayes is a lone-wolf cowboy. He certainly knows how to stick up for himself in the Wild West,...

Illustrations by Stephanie Lane Gage.When making my sound work, I always try to bend the material in front of me to find alternative possibilities of context or (re)context. Here, I was drawn to so many personal favorites, moods, and textures that these 70-odd minutes are more akin to a year-end work of catharsis. The result is as much a personal mix as a 2024 roundup.This was aided by a number of films with great music supervision, particularly four heavy hitters: Love Lies Bleeding (all films 2024), Civil War, Dahomey, and Janet Planet. Artists like Throbbing Gristle, Anna Domino, Silver Apples, Suicide, Dean Blunt, and Laurie Anderson offered a huge prop of character within these films. They could set each film in a specific time and place, or, in the case of Civil War, give a punk, psychedelic energy to a near-future world.Staying through the end credits is important...

Squid Game has quickly taken over Netflix since the release of Season 2.

In its first full week on the streamer, the second season racked up 58.2M views from December 30 to January 5, not only maintaining its position as most-watched title of the week, but soaring to the second most-watched non-English title of all time — behind only Season 1.

Add that to the 68M views it tallied in its first three days and Season 2 is now sitting at 126.2M views in 11 days. That makes it the fourth most-streamed series on the streamer, also behind Wednesday and Stranger Things 4.

At this rate, it would not be surprising to see Season 2 eventually surpass its predecessor as Netflix’s top title of all time. It’s got another 79 days to get 139M additional views in order to take that crown.

Speaking of Season 1, it was the No. 2 non-English title of the week with 13.6M views. Though...

In a shakeup to Netflix’s All-Time Top 10 list, “Carry-On,” the thriller starring Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman, is now the #5 most-watched English-language film in its first 91 days on the service.

In the process, “Carry-On” bumped fellow Netflix original film, Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Story,” from the Top 10. Johnson will get his chance to make things right with his third “Knives Out” installment, “Wake Up Dead Man,” arriving later this year.

“Carry-On,” which was produced by Amblin Partners, debuted on the all-time Top 10 with 149.4 million views, and it managed to do so in less than four weeks, so it still has a lot of time to keep climbing. For its fourth consecutive week, the film directed by Jauma Collet-Serra has topped the weekly film list, notching another 17.4 million views during the week of December 30.

It’s an impressive feat considering “Carry-On” is a Christmas movie, a...

It feels like Chris Hemsworth has been a full-fledged movie star for a long time, but he's a young pup compared to his "The Avengers" co-stars. While Hemsworth was well known in his native Australia after a series of television appearances in the 2000s, he didn't make his Hollywood feature debut until 2009 as the father of Captain James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek." So, he was only two whole years into his film acting career when he landed his thus far defining role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since then, he's worked with a couple of legendary auteurs ("Blackhat" with Michael Mann and "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" with George Miller), but for the most part he's clearly defined, perhaps even a tad typecast, as Thor.

Now that the MCU appears to be in a calling-all-cars brand conundrum in the wake of its post-"Avengers: Endgame...

With Horizon: An American Saga's future installments still uncertain, the first film’s successful launch on Netflix could mark an important step in the wider project’s resurgence.

2024 was a year where two veteran filmmakers backed themselves and their high-profile passion projects, staking the enduring nature of their status as a means of circumnavigating the lack of studio support for their projects.

One such filmmaker was Kevin Costner, whose Horizon: An American Saga released its first installment in cinemas in the summer of 2024. Despite the film boasting some thrilling set pieces and undoubted widescreen grandeur, it failed to tempt audiences into cinemas in the numbers that it needed to get the planned third and fourth installments of the saga off the ground.

Still, given his track record of triumphing against the odds, you’d have to be pretty foolhardy to bet against Costner ultimately finding a way to tell...

Netflix audiences keep surprising people with their viewing preferences. And the streamer itself, for all its promotion and advertising and celebration of its award wins, opts not to mention this on its home website.

PVOD consumers, digitally renting or buying recent releases, performed as expected with the release of “Wicked” (Universal) last week. It is #1 at both iTunes and Fandango, with last week’s #1 “Gladiator II” (Paramount) dropping to second.

After 21 days at #1 on their U.S. top 10 movie list, the Netflix original “Carry-On” dropped to #6, below five older theatrical releases. It almost certainly will be #1 on Netflix’s weekly chart for the third time — unheard of for any film, let alone homegrown — but as of Monday, it and Tyler Perry’s “The Six Triple Eight” (#10 currently) are the only two originals on the list.

January 1 saw a big infusion of added titles from Netflix’s deals with Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced on Monday the 207 feature films eligible for Best Picture consideration, two days before voting for the 2025 Oscar nominations begins.

There are 323 feature films eligible for the Academy Awards, but just 207 met the Best Picture competition eligibility requirements.

As stated by the Academy in a press release, “To be eligible for consideration in the general entry categories, under rules implemented for the 97th Academy Awards year, feature films must open in a commercial motion picture theater in at least one of six U.S. metropolitan areas: Los Angeles County; the City of New York; the Bay Area; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; and Atlanta, Georgia, between Jan. 1, 2024, and Dec. 31, 2024, and complete a minimum qualifying run of seven consecutive days in the same venue. Feature films must have a running time of more than 40 minutes.”

But Best Picture eligibility is different. Films under consideration...

In case you wanted to see the film that drew Kevin Costner away fromYellowstone but weren’t one of the (relatively few) moviegoers who saw it in theaters, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is now streaming on Netflix. The Western epic was a passion project for Costner, who produced, co-wrote, directed, and starred in the film — and who and spent $38 million of his own money to bankroll the production, per The Hollywood Reporter. And it was scheduling conflicts between Horizon and Yellowstone that reportedly led Costner to depart the latter project. How can I watch Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1? Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is now streaming on Netflix. The streaming service quietly added the film to its library on December 30, according to various reports. Meanwhile, the film is still streaming on Max, as it has been since August 24, 2024. What is the film about? Warner Bros. describes...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

The Childhood of a Leader (Brady Corbet)

While Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist slowly starts to expand its theater count, you may be looking to catch up on his directorial debut. Tommaso Tocci said out of its Venice premiere in 2015, ” Before you picture a regular tale of domestic discomfort, however, it should be mentioned that Corbet is aiming for something far sharper and gutsier. Tightly packed in its 35mm, 1.66:1 aspect ratio, every element of the film is dialed up to eleven, with the aforementioned soundtrack making the person next to me curl up in the seat with her ears covered by the film’s unhinged final scene, or Dp Lol Crawley’s dark setups making the most of the crumbling chateau’s creepy atmosphere.

Kevin Costner has built a long career both as an actor and director, earning two Oscars for his 1990 epic Dances with Wolves. He’s been part of major hits like Field of Dreams, The Bodyguard, and Bull Durham. Critics and audiences alike have praised his work, with films like Hidden Figures scoring 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.

But not everything he’s touched has turned to gold. Costner has had his share of failures, too. His 2002 movie Dragonfly sits at the bottom of his Rotten Tomatoes list with just 7%. Even The Postman, now considered a cult classic, was a disaster at the box office, grossing $17 million against an $80 million budget and scoring only 14% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The challenges continued with his 2024 film Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1. This Western, released in June, earned $38.2 million worldwide on a massive $100 million budget. Critics weren’t impressed either, giving it a 51% Tomatometer score.

These results...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

No matter what 2025 brings, 2024 in cinema felt like a year of unprecedented freedom and resistance in global and domestic affairs. In many ways, the anxieties expressed in 2024 reminded me of 1999. Culture can be a canary in the coal mine.

The year’s best and most essential films chose to fight back and comment on the “machine.” This year’s boldest films included sprawling epics, essential documentaries, personal stories, and a surprising number of unhinged works of fantasy. Call it the year of Yolo (full disclosure – one of the films I missed this year was Jia Ling’s Yolo), where on one end, films like Love Lies Bleeding, Aggro Dr1ft, Rumours, Megalopolis, Longlegs, Anora, Strange Darling, Armand, The Beast, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, Kinds of Kindness, The End,...

Not even the dynamic duos of Joy and Anxiety, Deadpool and Wolverine, Gru and his minions or Paul Atreides and those massive sandworms could push the 2024 box office to pre-pandemic heights.

Domestic ticket sales have wound up at $8.7 billion for the year, down than 3.3% from 2023 (when revenues hit $9.04 billion) and 23.5% from 2019 (when revenues reached $11.3 billion), the last normal year at the box office, according to Comscore. Admissions, expected to hit approximately 800 million, also declined from pre-covid heights of roughly 1.3 billion. It’s the first post-pandemic year that overall revenues didn’t improve upon the last, though box office prognosticators attribute the downturn to the lighter release schedule that resulted from 2023’s actors and writers strikes.

“The 2024 box office was healthy for six months, and unhealthy for the other half. During the summer and year-end, big franchise series worked and records were broken,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research.

To kick off 2025, Netflix has added a new slate of films to its streaming library, highlighted by Dune: Part Two. Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi blockbuster, which Consequence named the fourth best film of 2024, is streaming on the service as of January 1st.

Dune: Part Two, which stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and more, remains available to stream on Max. The first Dune movie can also be streamed on both Netflix and Max. Additionally, both films are available to purchase together in 4K Uhd.

Other new titles available to stream on Netflix as of January 1st include Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire; Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga; Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter 1; The Watchers; Inception; Meet the Parents and its sequels Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers; Apollo 13; Love Actually; Schindler’s List; the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy; Rush Hour franchise; and Bruce Almighty.

You are officially out of excuses to not see what Severance, Slow Horses, Shrinking or Silo — or any of Apple TV+’s shows that don’t start with the letter “S” — are all about.

The premium streamer has announced that anyone and everyone will be able to stream its original TV series and what not for free this weekend, Friday, Jan. 3 through Sunday, Jan. 5. (An Apple TV+ subscription usually fetches $9.99 month.)

More from TVLineSeverance Team Tease 'She's Alive!' Mystery, How Someone 'Pays a Big Price' in Season 2 - WATCHMiss Scarlet, Minus the Duke, Gets Full-Length Trailer Ahead of Season...

“Dances With Wolves” director Kevin Costner’s new multi- part movie series "Horizon: An American Saga", is rated 'R' for "violence, nudity and sexuality," chronicling a 15-year span of pre-and post-'Civil War' settlement of the ‘American Old West’, now streaming Chapter 1, on Netflix:

"A lot of times we measure ourselves against other generations," said Costner about his new film series.

"I think about what was at stake. How did people survive?

“There's a rawness and an unpredictability about it. I'm haunted by that."

Costner, in addition to directing, stars in "Horizon", alongside his son Hayes Costner, who plays the young Costner.

Cast also includes Sienna Miller…

…Sam Worthington, Jamie Campbell Bower, Luke Wilson, Thomas Haden Church, Michael Rooker, Jena Malone, Isabelle Fuhrman, Alejandro Edda...

...Tatanka Means, Tom Payne, Abbey Lee, Wasé Chief, Tim Guinee, Michael Angarano…

....Jon Beavers, Glynn Turman, Kathleen Quinlan, Giovanni Ribisi…

…Colin Cunningham, Scott Haze, Angus Macfadyen and Douglas Smith.

For whatever reason, folks in the film and TV industry seem inclined to hand Kevin Costner a ten-gallon hat and stick him on a horse. Okay, if we're being real, it's often the "Dances with Wolves" filmmaker who casts himself to play cowboy, as was also the case when he starred in his own feature-length directorial efforts "Open Range" and "Horizon: An American Saga -- Chapter 1." You can actually trace the "Yellowstone" veteran's association with the Western genre to the early days of his career when he starred in Lawrence Kasdan's Oscar-nominated 1985 oater "Silverado." The duo's reunion almost a decade later on "Wyatt Earp" didn't fare as well by comparison, although Costner has always defended the three-hour epic.

Funnily enough, Kasdan's 1994 feature isn't even Costner's longest sojourn into the Old West. That would be "Hatfields & McCoys," the three-part 2012 History Channel miniseries that reunited Costner with his "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves...

As we continue to explore the best in 2024, today we’re taking a look at the articles that you, our dear readers, enjoyed the most throughout the past twelve months. Spanning reviews, interviews, features, podcasts, news, and trailers, check out the highlights below and return for more year-end coverage.

Most-Read Reviews

1. The Goldfinger

2. From Darkness to Light

3. The Devil’s Bath

4. Only the River Flows

5. Longlegs

6. The Nature of Love

7. The 2024 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films, Reviewed

8. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2

9. Trap

10. Dune: Part Two

Most-Read Interviews

1. Richard Linklater on Sex, Murder, Hit Man, and the Infantilization of Culture

2. Will Menaker on the Year in Cinema: Oppenheimer, Scorsese, Friedkin & Beyond

3. Lee Daniels on The Deliverance, Shifting Culture, Douglas Sirk, and That Glenn Close Performance

4. “All Great DPs Become Alcoholics”: Rob Tregenza on Shooting Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies

5. In a Violent Nature Director Chris Nash on Creating a New Kind of Slasher,...

One of the biggest gambles of 2024 was, without a doubt, Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga. This is Costner’s passion project, with him having worked on the script since 1988. He even named his youngest son Hayes after the character he was gearing up to play in the films. But, westerns have never been the easiest movies to get financed. While Costner’s Dances With Wolves made hundreds of millions and won Costner a couple of Oscars, his follow-up western, Wyatt Earp, was an expensive misfire. However, Open Range made money, given that it was a relatively thrifty production. While 1997’s The Postman deeply impacted Costner’s career for many years, the mammoth success of Yellowstone put him back on top. Still eager to get the saga made, which would eventually grow to five chapters, he bet on himself and largely financed the first two Horizon movies himself.

Indeed,...

As one of Hollywood’s most successful and respected actors, fans would think Kevin Costner has it all – fame, wealth, and a perfect life – but not until a report claimed that he’s been pining over his rumored ex-girlfriend and drunk-calling to win her back.

Kevin Costner in Yellowstone / Credits: Paramount Network

The actor has addressed the rumors of his true relationship with singer Jewel, and while he claimed that they were just friends, it was evident that she has a special place in his heart. Now, it seems like she left him and Costner could not take the rejection.

Kevin Costner is reportedly not over his rumored ex-girlfriend Jewel

Kevin Costner and Jewel reportedly dated after the actor’s divorce from ex-wife Christine Baumgartner. The singer must have sparked hopes for the Yellowstone star that he would finally get his happy ending, but things seemingly did not work out for them.

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

As the decade crosses its halfway point, I can already sense the hastily assembled lists soon appearing, attempting to provide definitive word on the best in cinema over the last five years. I’d rather heed the wisdom of the great J. Rosenbaum and give some distance, but in the spirit of annual year-end extravaganza, I’ll join the crowd in looking back at least the last twelve months of releases. A peculiar year in I saw almost half the films on my list upon their festival premieres in 2023––and furthermore, my top three picks haven’t shifted since January. The eleven preceding months thankfully brought no shortage of illuminating experiences as detailed in my top 15 picks, including a few of the most noteworthy studio offerings failing...

After five buzzy, immensely popular seasons of television, Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" has finally galloped off into the sunset. Fans know this is far from the end of the franchise, though; the prequel series "1923," starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, will return for its second and final season in February 2025, while the spinoffs "1944," "The Madison" (with Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Fox), an untitled continuation of the Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) storyline, and probably "6666" are en route. "Yellowstone," for better or worse, is going nowhere.

One person who's unlikely to ever set foot on the ranch again is Kevin Costner, the star whose John Dutton III was the driving force of the original series. Costner and Sheridan's happy creative marriage hit the rocks hard when the duo couldn't work out how the former would be able to shoot his Western movie epic "Horizon: An American Saga...

Although cinema is an art form, first and foremost, it is also a business that requires financial support to be sustained. A healthy box office is necessary for the medium to remain a cornerstone of popular culture, as studios will only be willing to invest in future projects if it is proven that there is an audience that is willing to go out and see them. 2024 was a year in which there were tremendous box office highs, but the delays due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes did lead to some crushing lows.

Box office performances are a compelling way to examine where the industry is headed, but it is not necessarily an indication of quality. Although films like “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” and “Wicked: Part One” performed extraordinarily well this year, few publications that take themselves seriously...

You know how it goes: Christmas arrives and the day bursts forth in a festive explosion of food, crackers and hastily unwrapped gifts, leaving you delighted, exhausted and full of seasonal cheer. But then Boxing Day comes and we slide into that temporal no-man’s land between Christmas and New Year, where the whole world seems to come to a cosy standstill. Yes folks, it’s Twixmas, that most magical period of year where time has no meaning and anything is possible. What better way to spend this dreamlike span of days, then, than by catching up with some of the best movies to grace the silver screen over the past months? Join us as we whip up a hot chocolate, snuggle up under a fluffy blanket and delight ourselves with six cinematic treats as to usher in 2025.

Dune: Part 2

Denis Villeneuve blew all our minds with the glorious, transpirational...

Kevin Costner's "Yellowstone" exit ahead of season 5 part 2 is still a topic of conversation, even though many of the details surrounding it are still unclear. The rumors claim that he left following a behind-the-scenes fallout with creator Taylor Sheridan and a desire to focus on his "Horizon: An American Saga" project. Whatever the reason, though, Costner's departure resulted in a breakdown in communication with co-star Luke Grimes, who revealed his surprising reaction to the drama.

Grimes has discussed Costner's "Yellowstone" exit in the past, noting that he understands why the John Dutton actor left the series. While speaking to Esquire, however, Grimes revealed that Costner's absence from the set made season 5's final episodes easier to shoot:

"Hopefully everyone can see that it was time ... To be really honest, there was a part of Kevin being gone that meant some of the conflict was gone. Obviously, it didn't make...

Stories about survivors in a post-apocalyptic world continue to fascinate viewers in such streaming series as “Fallout” and “The Last of Us,” but “Homestead” likely marks the first time such a scenario has been used for a faith-based movie. And it definitely is the first time a theatrical film in that genre has been designed as the pilot for a TV series — a fact that, when it becomes clear in the movie’s final minutes, may strike many viewers as a bait-and-switch trick.

Indeed, the TV series gets what can only be described as emphatic promotion in those final minutes, complete with a kinda-sorta coming attraction trailer (not entirely unlike the one Kevin Costner employed at the end of “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1”). One of the lead actors appears on camera to directly address audiences about what lies ahead, along with an on-screen Qr code that the audience can...

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

The State of the Race

The Best Original Score expanded Oscar shortlist from December 17 includes “Alien: Romulus,” “Babygirl,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “Blink Twice,” “Blitz,” “The Brutalist,” “Challengers,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez,” “The Fire Inside,” “Gladiator II,” “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1,” “Inside Out 2,” “Nosferatu,” “The Room Next Door,” “Sing Sing,” “The Six Triple Eight,” “Wicked,” “The Wild Robot,” and “Young Woman and the Sea.”

“Blitz” (Apple TV+), from British director Steve McQueen, concerns Londoners during the Blitz of World War II in 1940. The harrowing drama focuses on a young bi-racial boy (Elliott Heffernan...

Stephanie Hsu’s Ruby is given a unique predicament in “Laid,” when a number of her ex-partners start dropping dead.

Working together with her best friend and roommate, Aj, played by “Girls” star Zosia Mamet, Ruby confronts a slew of her ex-lovers, played by everyone from Finneas O’Connell, Josh Segarra and Alexandra Shipp to deliver the woeful news.

For the full breakdown of all the characters in “Laid” — and where you’ve seen them before — keep on reading.

Stephanie Hsu as Ruby in “Laid” (James Dittiger/Peacock)

Stephanie Hsu as Ruby

Stephanie Hsu stars as Ruby, who gets the shock of her lifetime when she realizes multiple people she’s slept with has died from various causes. She, with her best friend, Aj, begins investigating the strange occurrence.

Hsu broke out in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and has had roles in “Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens,” “Shortcomings,” “Poker Face,...

The Oscar shortlists were released on December 17, the results of which are analyzed in Anne Thompson’s overview. Here, we’re covering the crafts of makeup and hairstyling, original score, sound, and visual effects.

“Wicked” was the big winner — appearing on all four lists. This was followed by three-listers “Emilia Pérez”, “Dune: Part Two”, “Gladiator II”, and “Alien: Romulus”.

Scoring two noms were “Nosferatu”, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, “Blitz”, “Deadpool & Wolverine”, and “The Wild Robot”.

The rest of the nominees were broken down by the following:

Muahs: “The Apprentice,” “A Different Man,” “Maria,” “The Substance,” and “Waltzing with Brando.”

Score: “Babygirl,” “Blink Twice,” “The Brutalist,” “Challengers,” “Conclave,” “The Fire Inside,” “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1,” “Inside Out 2,” “The Room Next Door,” “Sing Sing,” “The Six Triple Eight,” and “Young Woman and the Sea.”

Sound: “A Complete Unknown” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Visual Effects: “Better Man,” “Civil War,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today pulled back the curtain on the semi-finalists in 10 categories for the 2025 Oscars, revealing shortlists that found the Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez and the Broadway-born musical Wicked leading the way with six and four shortlist mentions, respectively. Both movies are considered Oscar frontrunners in several primary categories as well, including Best Picture.

The announced categories in which contenders were pared down to 15 contenders include Best International Feature, Best Documentary, Best Original Song, Best Documentary Short, Best Animated Short, and Best Live Action Short. Ten films, meanwhile, are moving forward in the Best Sound, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Visual Effects categories. Twenty films are advancing for Best Score.

SEE2025 Casting Society nominees include ‘Wicked,’ ‘A Complete Unknown,’ ‘Emilia Pérez’

The six total for Emilia Perez includes a pair for Best Song (“El Mal” and “Mi Camino”), Best International Feature, Best Score,...

After over a year hiatus, Yellowstone Season 5 Part 2 will land in November later this year.

Four and a half seasons of the Taylor Sheridan series have followed the Dutton Family, led by patriarch Kevin Costner’s John Dutton, who oversees the largest cattle ranch in the modern-day United States. The Dutton family faces constant challenges from those at its borders — the growing Bozeman, Montana, the fictional Indian reservation of Broken Rock and America’s first national park.

Related: Kevin Costner “Disappointed” In Handling Of ‘Yellowstone’ Exit Rumors: “Nobody On Their Side Ever Stepped Up To Defend What I Did For Them”

With several prequel series and a contemporary spinoff in the works, the original installment was originally set to conclude at the end of 2023, but the WGA and SAG strikes delayed production on the final episodes.

Read on for what we know about Yellowstone Season 5 Part II:

When will Yellowstone Season 5 Part II come out?...

Awards season is officially upon us. As the 2025 Oscars approaches, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its shortlists for nominees in several categories, including Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Of the 89 songs eligible in the category, 15 are moving forward as the race narrows for Best Original Song. Challengers composers — and our composers of the year — Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross appear on the shortlists for both score and original song (“Compress/Repress”).

Already a multi-nominated actress at the Oscars, Saoirse Ronan has the potential to earn her first nomination in the music category for her performance in Blitz. Other interesting names on the list include Kneecap, the Irish hip-hop trio who star as themselves in the film of the same name.

Two songs appear from Emilia Pérez, while other notable figures include Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Tell Me It’s You from” Mufasa: The Lion King...

Awards season is officially upon us. As the 2025 Oscars approaches, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its shortlists for nominees in several categories, including Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Of the 89 songs eligible in the category, 15 are moving forward as the race narrows for Best Original Song. Challengers composers — and our composers of the year — Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross appear on the shortlists for both score and original song (“Compress/Repress”).

Already a multi-nominated actress at the Oscars, Saoirse Ronan has the potential to earn her first nomination in the music category for her performance in Blitz. Other interesting names on the list include Kneecap, the Irish hip-hop trio who star as themselves in the film of the same name.

Two songs appear from Emilia Pérez, while other notable figures include Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Tell Me It’s You from” Mufasa: The Lion King...

And they’re off.

Awards season just got entirely official with the revealing of shortlists for the 97th Oscars in 10 categories today. See the lists from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences below.

Fifteen movies each are moving forward in the contests for International Feature Film, Documentary Feature, Original Song, Music Score and Documentary, Animated and Live Action Shorts. Ten films each also advanced in the categories of Sound, Visual Effects and Makeup & Hairstyling.

Celebrating the Oscar shortlists the most today undoubtedly is Emilia Pérez with a towering six mentions, missing only from the Visual Effects list of possible inclusion, though that would have been a longshot. This sets up a possible huge showing for Jacques Audiard’s film, which could also land two Best Song nominations, the only film to have a pair among the finalists.

Also having a good morning is Wicked with four mentions, the...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced the shortlists in 10 Oscar categories for the 97th Academy Awards.

The announcement included movies that are in consideration for the following categories: documentary feature film, documentary short film, international feature film, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score), music (original song), animated short film, live-action short film, sound and visual effects.

Emilia Pérez, The Apprentice, Dune: Part Two, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Nosferatu, Wicked, Challengers, The Wild Robot, Gladiator II and Blitz were among the films that were shortlisted in several categories.

Voting for the 97th Oscars begins at 9 am Pt on Jan. 8 and runs through 5 p.m. Pt on Jan. 12. The nominees will be unveiled Jan. 17. Final voting begins at 9 a.m. Pt on Feb. 11 and ends at 5 p.m. Pt on Feb. 18.

Conan O’Brien is set to host the 2025 Oscars ceremony, which will take place March 2. It will be televised...

We've been getting a clearer picture of what the Oscars race will look like given all the lead-up award show nominations (like the Golden Globes) that have come out so far. But now we have an even clearer picture with the release of shortlists for 10 categories from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Yellowstone, the perpetually snubbed by the Emmys frontier drama, aired its likely final episode on Monday night, to 11.4 million same-day viewers. The fifth and final season was split in two, and the big conclusion was a 4% increase over the last episode in season “5A.”

While these numbers are nothing compared to finale records of past generations—the 1983 conclusion of M*A*S*H had 106 million viewers in the United States alone—take a moment to consider that this means, in the age of streaming and apps and TikTok and whatnot, that 11.4 million television sets were tuned, at the same time, to Paramount Network or CMT.

The season 5B premiere in November, the first episode following the departure of Oscar and Emmy-winner Kevin Costner, carried a whopping 16.4 million viewers. That special event episode and its same-day encores aired on 8 cable networks plus CBS.

Paramount Global also boasted that the Costner-free Season...