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Reigning Emmy champs Baby Reindeer and Shōgun were among the winners at the 2025 Peabody Awards, announced on Thursday. This year's winners will be honored during a formal ceremony June 1 in Los Angeles, hosted by Roy Wood Jr.

The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors selected the prestigious honorees in the categories of arts, children's/youth, documentary, entertainment, interactive and immersive, news, public service, and radio/podcast. Baby Reindeer and Shōgun are among the seven entertainment winners, with the others being Fantasmas, Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Ripley, Say Nothing, and We Are Lady Parts.

The winners were chosen by a unanimous vote of 27 jurors from more than 1,000 total entries. Together, they "encompass a wide range of contemporary and historical issues, including the war in Gaza, rural healthcare, a focus on disabilities, authoritarianism, and sexual violence,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody. The eligibility period was the 2024 calendar year.

Here...

Apple TV+ is raising the bar for high-quality television, one release at a time. May is an exciting month for new releases on Apple TV+. Some global adventures, futuristic shows, emotional roller coasters, to inspiring true stories, May 2025 is packed with it all. Apple TV plus continues to showcase high-quality entertainment with new shows and movies being added often.

Let’s have a look at what it has in store for the upcoming month. Whether you’re a fan of family dramas, action, are comedies, there is something fresh and new waiting for you this month. Here is a detailed guide to the new shows and movies you can put on your watch list for May 2025.

New movies to look out for on Apple TV+ in May 2025 Fountain of Youth Releases on: 23rd May 2025

As Apple TV continues to explore the high-stakes blockbusters zone, Fountain of Youth is its latest...

Urška Djukić’s debut feature, Little Trouble Girls, emerges as a quietly daring exploration of adolescence. Its title—lifted from a 1995 Sonic Youth song that underscores the closing credits—hints at the tension between compliance and concealed impulses. The narrative centers on Lucia, a reserved sixteen‑year‑old who joins her Catholic school’s all‑girls choir, only to find that the ritual of song unlocks unspoken desires and unsettles inherited beliefs.

When the choir embarks on an intensive weekend retreat at a countryside convent, Lucia’s tentative world expands. She’s drawn into the orbit of Ana‑Maria, a poised senior whose playful provocations—applying forbidden lipstick, teasing secrets of womanhood—open doors to both camaraderie and subtle rivalry. As dusty hymns give way to whispered gossip beneath ancient stone walls, Lucia confronts her own curiosity: a stolen glance at a passing workman, a private fantasy in the moonlit woods.

Three Chinese films are in competition at the 15th Beijing International Film Festival’s flagship Tiantan Awards, each bringing unique perspectives on human connection, justice, and survival to the screen.

“Better Me, Better You”: A Song to Female Resilience

Mahua FunAge’s breakthrough female-focused drama “Better Me, Better You,” directed by Hao Ming and Li Peiran, represents a new direction for the hitherto comedy-focused group. The film stars Ma Li, who also serves as producer, portraying Bai Liping, a caregiver from Northeast China fleeing domestic violence.

“What initially attracted me was the touching relationship between the two female characters in the story,” Ma tells Variety. “Bai Liping, the nanny, and Tang Shuyin, the retired teacher, have completely different identities and backgrounds and would normally have no intersection.”

The story follows Bai’s journey to Beijing where she encounters Tang Shuyin (played by Zhao Shuzhen), a lonely elderly woman. Their...

Visions du Réel, one of Europe’s leading documentary film festivals, shines the spotlight on France this year, celebrating its deep-rooted documentary tradition powered by a robust public funding model, global co-production appeal, and a receptive local audience.

The country is a key presence at VdR again this year: among the 156 films selected are 32 French productions and co-productions, including 26 world premieres.

VdR is a major launchpad for auteur-driven documentaries with festival and theatrical ambitions, and France has plenty of those.

“The Attachment”

Eugénie Michel Villette, founder of boutique doc production outfit Les Films du Bilboquet, has four projects featured across Visions du Réel’s festival and industry sections – all international co-productions. “Anamocot” by Marie Voignier and “The Attachment” by Mamadou Khouma Gueye are vying for the festival’s top prize, while “I Eat With Two Hearts” by Natyvel Pontalier and “Alea Jacaranda” by Hassen Ferhandi are presented at the pitching and work-in-progress strands.

Juno Temple’s dance card is about to be very, very full.

The Ted Lasso star is set to meet The Husbands in Apple TV+’s comedic drama adapted from Holly Gramazio’s New York Times bestselling book of the same name.

More from TVLineCasting News: Deborah Norville Exits Inside Edition, Days of Our Lives Departure and MoreFountain of Youth: John Krasinski and Natalie Portman Seek Immortality in New Apple Movie Trailer - WatchThe Testaments Officially Ordered at Hulu - See First Photo of Handmaid's Tale Sequel Series Cast

Who are “the husbands”? Well, when Lauren (played by Temple...

Apple Original Films has just dropped the first trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth, and it looks like the director best known for gritty gangster flicks and slick spy thrillers is going full-on globe-trotting adventure mode instead of getting stabby in the streets of London — and bringing a stacked cast along for the ride. Starring John Krasinski and Natalie Portman as estranged siblings with a shared obsession for the impossible, Fountain of Youth follows them on an adventure to track down the legendary myth itself: the source of immortality. Would anyone really want to live forever in this hellscape? Eh.

Their journey kicks off as a globe-spanning heist, but quickly spirals into something far more epic — and potentially life-altering. Using their deep knowledge of history (and probably a few clever disguises), the duo must solve ancient clues, outrun rival treasure hunters, and, of course, dodge bullets along the way.

In the Greek poet Homer’s Mythological epic ‘The Odyssey’, Parthenope is one of the three alluring sirens Odysseus encounters, but unlike her fellow sirens, fails to seduce Odysseus’ crew and casts herself out into the sea for her failure. In Paolo Sorrentino’s newest film ‘Parthenope’ (2025), the titular character is metaphorically delivered from her mother’s womb in the water and taken out of the oceanic void that the mythological siren perished in. Parthenope is being taken out of the water and back into this new world that sees beauty far differently than in ancient Greek times. Beauty in all areas of life Parthenope is an exuberant young woman living in Naples who draws eyes from all around to her natural beauty. It is a set up for a character that has been seen in countless other movies, but ‘Parthenope’ turns it around and instead of having her remain an It girl,...

Sarajevo Film Festival is introducing theSpecial Youth Perspectives award with the Council of Eueopr for its 2025 edition to celebrate 30 years of peace inBosnia and Herzegovina and the end of the Balkan war in December 1995.

The award is aimed at highlighting “the perspectives and approaches of young people to meeting current challenges as well as the expectations of future generations”, according to the festival.

It will present a €7,500 prize, to one film from across the festival’s competitive sections that portrays the role of young people in shaping societies and democracies, as well as their experiences, aspirations, and the issues that matter most to them.

2025 is shaping up to be a significant year in the life of Berlin-based production company One Two Films, run by Sol Bondy and Fred Burle.

The pair produced Ido Fluk’s well-received jazz tale Köln 75, which world premiered over the weekend as a Berlinale Special.

Burle also co-produced Ira Sach’s Peter Hujar’s Day, starring Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall, which had its international premiere at the Berlinale following its debut at Sundance last month.

They followArmandfrom Norwegian filmmaker Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, which premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard last May winning the Camera d’Or for best debut feature,...

Day 3 at the Berlin Film Festival was chilly and very pretty in pink.

Timothée Chalamet fired up the Berlinale on Friday by donning a cotton candy-colored hoodie and matching tank top. The “A Complete Unknown” star thoroughly charmed festival attendees. Variety‘s Ramin Setoodeth writes about the Chalamet effect and what it means as film awards season heads into the final stretch. Where Chalamet goes, “the entire scene is electric, and it caps off one of the most gonzo best actor campaigns in Oscar history,” Setoodeh observes.

Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli writes about the poignant moment that the festival represents for Israeli director Tom Shoval. His documentary “A Letter to David” is his way of processing the fact that his friend David Cunio –- who starred in his first feature “Youth” –- is one of the more than 250 hostages who were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. As for why the...

Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval has returned to Berlin with a deeply personal documentary, “A Letter to David,” that pays tribute to his friend David Cunio—one of more than 250 hostages taken from the Nir Oz kibbutz by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The film, which weaves together behind-the-scenes footage from Shoval’s first feature, “Youth,” audition tapes, and contemporary interviews, offers a portrait of Cunio’s life before his abduction while capturing the ongoing trauma faced by his family.

Shoval, who recalls Cunio’s pivotal role in inspiring his early career, explained that the project grew out of a profound sense of helplessness in the days following the attack. “I wanted to share all these thoughts with David and send him some signals,” he said. “It became a cry for help and a cry for a dialogue.”

Shoval’s approach is marked by his decision to avoid the well-known news images of the October 7 violence.

Israeli director Tom Shoval is back in Berlin with “A Letter to David,” which is his way of processing the fact that his friend David Cunio – who starred in his first feature “Youth” – is one of the more than 250 hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nir Oz kibbutz.

David Cunio and his younger brother Ariel are among hostages yet to be freed.

In what turned out to be a tragic twist, “Youth” – which premiered in Berlin’s Panorama section in 2013 – starred Cunio and his brother Eitan as two brothers who kidnap a rich schoolgirl in a harebrained scheme to pay off family debts.

“A Letter to David” uses behind-the-scenes footage and audition tapes from “Youth” to create a multi-layered documentary that explores connections between life and cinema and looks at the human side of trauma created by acts of terror.

Variety speaks to Shoval and Nancy Spielberg, who is Steven Spielberg’s sister,...

Tom Shoval’s documentary A Letter To David, which is playing in Berlinale Special, marks a return to the festival for the Israeli filmmaker - but not in a circumstance he could have imagined when his first feature, Youth, played in Panorama back in 2013.

Shoval described A Letter To David as a “multi-layered cinematic letter” to his friend David Cunio, who was taken hostage by Hamas with his brother Ariel from the Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7, 2023.

David Cunio starred in Shoval’s Youth alongside his twin brother Eitan, which focused on the powerful bond between two brothers and, in a tragic irony,...

The Sonic Youth song that lends “Little Trouble Girls” its title plays out over the closing credits, its English-language lyrics neatly encapsulating the fidgety frustrations at play in Urška Djukić’s debut feature: “If you want me to/I will be the one/That is always good/And you’ll love me too/But you’ll never know/What I feel inside/That I’m really bad.” A shade too neatly, perhaps, since everything else in this sly, sensual coming-of-ager is so headily and tantalizingly allusive, as the film sharply evokes that adolescent age where worldly adult knowledge is just within view and just out of reach. Following a shy 16-year-old on a girls’ choir trip that exposes both her sexual naïveté and her deep, inchoate yearnings, this is a striking statement of intent from its Slovenian writer-director — there’s an airy delicacy here that invites comparisons to early Céline Sciamma,...

Circles of Perfection: Djukić Surveys the Compromises of Sexual Awakening

Taking its title from the 1995 Sonic Youth track Little Trouble Girls (Kaj ti je deklica), Slovenian director Urška Djukić’s narrative debut explores the familiar but astute sexual awakening of a young woman while navigating conflicting social reinforcements. As evidenced in her 2021 co-directed short “Granny’s Sexual Life,” based on Slovenian writer Milena Miklavcic’s publication Don’t Play with Fire, Ass and Snakes, which featured collected testimonials of women’s sexual experiences who were all in their eighties, Djukić is profoundly interested in capturing the tormented process of women’s sexual experiences, shaped by the restrictions imposed upon them by society, religion, and each other.…...

David Cunio and his twin brother Eitan were at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013 as the stars of Israeli director Tom Shoval’s first feature Youth which world premiered to acclaim in Panorama.

The pair, who hail from the Nir Oz Kibbutz in southern Israel, played brothers who kidnap a young woman using a military service-issued rifle in an ill-advised scheme to raise funds to pay off family debts.

The story was pure fiction but the fraternal bond on the big screen was real.

A decade later, David Cunio was kidnapped in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack with his wife Sharon Aloni Cunio and twin daughters from their home in Nir Oz, where around 180 of the some 400 residents were either killed or abducted that day.

His wife and children were released in November 2023, but close to 500 days later David Cunio has yet to be released, with the family clinging to the...

It seems nearly impossible to make a film about the events of October 7th, 2023, and isolate them from any greater geopolitical context. But this is more or less what happens in director Tom Shoval’s highly personal and harrowing documentary A Letter to David (Michtav Le’David), which revisits the massacre that occurred at the Nir Oz kibbutz through the story of twin brothers who, a decade earlier, became unlikely movie stars.

Viewers looking for a sharp analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or a deeper reading of the catastrophic war in Gaza and ongoing hostage crisis, may be disappointed by the movie’s insistence on focusing entirely on one single family’s tragic predicament. But A Letter to David still yields an innate emotional force: the constant cross-cutting between present and past, movie and reality, brother and brother, provides a chilling look at lives that have been both torn apart and captured on screen.

The victims and survivors of the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 are not forgotten, and filmmaker Tom Shoval wants to make sure it stays that way. In A Letter to David (Michtav Le’David), which counts Nancy Spielberg, sister of Steven Spielberg, among its producers and which gets its world premiere in the Berlinale Special program on Friday, he shares a personal cinematic note to David Cunio, who has been held hostage by Hamas since being taken from the Nir Oz kibbutz that day.

“Ten years ago, David and his twin brother Eitan starred in Shoval’s award-winning debut feature film Youth (Berlinale 2013), which focused on the powerful bond between brothers and, in a tragic and unimaginable twist of fate, revolved around a kidnapping,” explains a summary of the film that world premieres at the 75th edition of the Berlin Film Festival. “Through unedited behind-the-scenes footage and audition tapes from that film,...

A new manga series is on the way from Kei Hozumi and Mito. The two will collaborate on Seishun wa Sankakukei no Loop (Youth is a Triangular Loop), which will debut in Kadokawa’s Dragon Age magazine on March 7. The story will revolve around a love triangle involving three childhood friends. The announcement was made in the magazine’s March issue, sparking some excitement.

Both authors have been building a strong following with their distinct works. While Hozumi is known for blending fantasy and romance, Mito is recognized for her yuri-themed storytelling. The new project from both should attract readers of all types, especially those interested in stories involving complicated emotional dynamics between childhood friends.

This isn’t the first time Hozumi and Mito have worked on popular manga. Hozumi previously launched The Elf Sisters Can’t Wait for the Night in Dragon Age in September 2021. The sixth volume of...

The 75th Berlin International Film Festival will take place from 13 to 23 February. This year, the festival held in the capital of Germany since 1951 will present more than 200 films, of which 60 are produced or co-produced by Asian countries.

1001 Frames (2025) by Mehrnoush Alia (World Premiere)

Iran, USA, 87′

In the studio of a well-known director, female actors audition for the role of Scheherazade in “A Thousand and One Nights”. However, they gradually realise that the director has more in mind than just casting the leading role.

A Letter to David (2025) by Tom Shoval (World Premiere)

Israel, USA, 74′

In 2013, David Cunio starred in Tom Shoval’s debut feature “Youth”, which revolved around two brothers kidnapping a schoolmate. In 2023, Cunio was abducted and since then, he has been held hostage in Gaza. With this documentary, Shoval sends him a cinematic letter.

A Story about Fire (2025) by Li Wenyu (World Premiere)

China, 85′

The legend of Ran...

Indian director Payal Kapadia’s festival favouriteAll We Imagine As Light is one of the many films backed at an early stage by the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund (Hbf).

Underlining Hbf’s reach, Wei Liang Chiang and You Qiao Yin’s Cannes Camera d’Or winner Mongrel, Palestinian-Danish filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown, Trương Minh Quý’s Viet and Nam and Wang Bing’s Youth (Hard Times) and Youth (Homecoming) were other 2024 festival titles to receive development support from the fund.

At a time when industry finance is ever tighter, Hbf has received a welcome boost this year,...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. A24 releases “Parthenope” on Friday, February 7.

It’s no secret that Paolo Sorrentino is profoundly obsessed with the topics of youth and great beauty. Such preoccupations — and several more! — are self-evident in films like “Youth” and “The Great Beauty,” two unbridled displays of Italian maximalism that are every bit as subtle as their titles suggest.

Following 2021’s achingly personal “The Hand of God,” in which the Neapolitan director filtered the agony and the ecstasy of his formative years through the same veil of Fellini-esque sacrilege that he’d previously cast over movies about Silvio Berlusconi and the fading splendor of Roman history, Sorrentino is back on his proverbial bullshit with another sprawling flesh parade that’s more consumed with abstract ideals than it is with the stuff of life itself. Once again, he returns with a rapturously...

“Primavera,” a film about Antonio Vivaldi, the Italian Baroque composer and violinist who penned “The Four Seasons,” has been bought by a flurry of major distributors.

Represented by Memento International, the movie shot in Rome and Venice, and marks the feature debut of Damiano Michieletto, a leading opera director.

Warner Bros. will release the movie in Italy while Diaphana Distribution will release it in France. The pre-sales closed by Memento International are Benelux (Cineart), Germany and Austria (X Verleih), Spain (A Contracorriente Films), Switzerland (Frenetic) and Poland (M2 Films). Several other territories are in negotiations.

“Primavera” was penned by Ludovica Rampoldi, the award-winning screenwriter of movies such as “The Traitor” and “Gomorrah – the series,” among others. The script is loosely adapted from Tiziano Scarpa’s critically acclaimed novel “Stabat Mater.”

Set in 18th century Venice, “Primavera” follows Cecilia, a 20-year-old violin virtuoso who lives at the Pièta orphanage. Despite her talent,...

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,...

On Tuesday December 17 2024, aspireTV broadcasts Urban Indie Film Block!

Fading Youth Season 6 Episode 12 Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Urban Indie Film Block,” titled “Fading Youth,” promises to be a thought-provoking exploration of the impact of youth on personal identity. This episode will air on aspireTV and aims to delve into how the experiences and memories from one’s younger years shape who a person becomes, regardless of their current circumstances.

In “Fading Youth,” viewers will be taken on a journey through various stories that highlight the defining moments of youth. These narratives will showcase different characters from diverse backgrounds, illustrating how their past experiences influence their present lives. The episode will feature a mix of heartfelt moments and challenges, emphasizing that the events of youth often leave a lasting imprint.

The filmmakers behind this episode have crafted a compelling collection of short films that resonate with universal themes of nostalgia and growth.

Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino has set his next feature and will re-team with his longtime collaborator Toni Servillo who has signed on to star.

The film will be titled La Grazia. Fremantle confirmed news of the project with us this morning. There are currently no details about the film’s plot, but we understand it will feature a love story. Sorrentino has penned the screenplay. Shooting will begin next spring with Annamaria Morelli producing for The Apartment alongside Sorrentino’s Numero 10 outfit in association with PiperFilm. Piper will release the film in Italy.

Servillo is perhaps best known internationally for his collaborations with Sorrentino. The pair have made seven films together. Their joint credits include Loro, Il Divo, The Hand Of God, and The Great Beauty, which won the Best International Feature Oscar.

Sorrentino’s latest film Parthenope is currently on release in Italy via PiperFilm. The film debuted at...

Youth (Spring).In a crowded living room, a girl shoos her uncle away from in front of the television set, incidentally blocking the stage for what will be a pivotal scene of her life: Wang Bing’s camera thus gets a clear view of the family as they discuss the teenager’s prospects in tones of alternating anticipation and concern. She has lied about her age in order to obtain a work permit and will soon travel across the country, from Yunnan province in the southwest to Zhejiang in the east, and spend a season sewing children’s clothing in one of the thousands of workshops of Zhili, a district of Huzhou City. For the next two and half hours, Bitter Money (2016) will chart her journey and many others’: After days and nights on buses and trains, they arrive wide-eyed in an unfamiliar city, then acclimate uncertainly to cramped lodgings.

Ahead of their comeback residencies kicking off next week, TV on the Radio came together to perform “Staring at the Sun” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night.

Draped in orange light, the band delivered a vigorous performance of the 2004 cut from their debut album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. Throughout, the steady drive of the rhythm section and the washed-out wail of the electric guitar provide a foundation for vocalist Tunde Adebimpe, who leads the group to a climax with his belting refrain, “Your body’s over me.” Watch the video of the performance below.

Get TV on the Radio Tickets Here

TV on the Radio reissued Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes earlier this month, expanding the album with two previously-unreleased tracks. Pick it up on vinyl here.

Next week, the band will launch the first of three upcoming live residencies, performing at Webster Hall in New York on November 25th,...

A24 has dropped an eye-catching new trailer for Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” ahead of the February U.S. release of the Oscar-winning director’s lavish love letter to his native Naples.

The U.S. trailer focuses on the film’s titular character, a young woman born in Naples – Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans” – played by newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta. In his review, Variety critic Siddhant Adlakha praised Dalla Porta for delivering “a beguiling performance,” he said, as “a woman of such stunning beauty that people stop and stare.”

Adlakha called “Parthenope” as “an exquisite treatise on cinematic beauty.” But it is also, as Sorrentino put it in an interview with Variety, a film about “missed youth” that comes as a follow-up to his autobiographical “The Hand of God” and has elicited comparisons with his 2013 love letter to Rome, “The Great Beauty,” which won the Academy Award for best international feature film.

John Krasinski is a true talent! He made us laugh and proved he could be a comedic actor on The Office. Since then, he's been in more dramatic roles in both film and television. And he's just as good in those projects as well! There's an upcoming one we're excited about and that's Fountain of Youth starring the actor alongside Natalie Portman.

In the Apple Studios and Skydance movie, the two are set to play siblings onscreen. This is the pairing we never knew we needed! Per Deadline, the brother and sister are estranged but decide to work together on a "global heist to find the mythological Fountain of Youth." The two are knowledgable in history, which may give them an advantage in this adventure that will "change their lives - and possibly lead to immortality."

Fbl-Award-ballon D'Or-2024 | Franck Fife/GettyImages

Ooh, sounds so intriguing right!? I'm definitely ready...

Documentary filmmaking is a sometimes impossible task by definition. Just like Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the very act of filming a subject changes their nature. Much has been said about this, and filmmakers have experimented with all sorts of ways to escape the paradox (or embrace it). Chinese director Wang Bing has a tried and true tactic that changes the nature of his documentary work he has a radical approach to time that allows audiences to immerse themselves in the worlds he films. With his cinematic behemoth Youth, a trilogy of films about textile workers, he committed five years of his life to filming, and four years on and off to editing.

Bing embedded himself in Zhili, an industrial town 150km outside of Shanghai, from 2014 to 2019 in order to document the lives of migrant workers who come to the town seasonally and live in dorms while they work 12 or more hours a day.

Not every neighborhood, town, or city has an independent movie theater, the mecca of all cinephiles, providing a safe refuge from all the blockbusters du jour. Some of us aren't so lucky, and don't have a place to see the latest international and arthouse films, or retrospectives of obscure oldies or all-time classics. We don't all live in New York City, after all. But Metrograph At Home brings New York City to you, featuring many of the films screened at the actual Metrograph Theater at 7 Ludlow Street. It's an affordable, high-class streaming option to see the kinds of films you can only find at an independent theater in New York.

Highlights from the November slate of new arrivals to Metrograph At Home include the streaming premiere of Last Things, artist and experimental essayist Deborah Stratman's scintillating look at evolution and extinction from the perspective of the rocks and minerals that pre-date humanity.

Shawn Mendes is one of the celebrities who broke into the spotlight in the early age of the internet, and since then, there has been no looking back for the Canadian singer-songwriter. A household name since the past decade, he has gone on from being a Vine sensation to an international music icon with millions of fans worldwide.

Credits: Shawn Mendes via Entertainment Tonight | Credit: YouTube

While most adore his charming, down-to-earth personality, it is really his soulful, magnetic voice that has amassed him a global fanbase and earned him a place among his generation as one of the most prominent stars. With songs like Stitches, Treat You Better, and Monster, he has captivated millions and filled arenas but his influence and financial success go far beyond chart-topping singles.

From sold-out tours to lucrative endorsement deals and philanthropic ventures, the singer has cultivated an impressive portfolio as well as accumulated quite a bit of wealth.

Make the Best of Us: Bing’s ‘Youth’ Cycle Expands Into the Gloom

The middle part of Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy, Youth (Hard Times) perhaps more properly addresses the bleak realities of his observational endeavor, cobbled together into a cohesive structure from footage shot between 2014 and 2019. Following the Cannes premiered 2023 film Youth (Spring) (read review), which felt a rather cynical moniker for subjects tethered to Sisyphean work routines in their prime, his second installment, which appears to be more systematically edited into a time frame from 2015, suggests a more blatant, world weary scope. At a running time of nearly four hours, its immersive, repetitive structure, while inherently Bing’s signature, feels more punishing if only because there’s no real room for levity in its lengthy, often grueling discourse of late teens and twenty-somethings struggling to make ends meet in thankless textile shops.…...

Sailor Moons enduring popularity owes much to Dic Entertainment's English dub airing on Cartoon Network's Toonami block from 1998 to 2001. The dub is notorious for its censorship of death, queer content, Japanese names, and cultural elements like driving on the left. Many episodes were trimmed or edited with new animation to disguise objectionable scenes, while some were simply left undubbed and cut entirely. Episode #20, The Summer, the Beach, Youth, and Ghosts, is among the rare episodes banned from Toonamis lineup, but it's actually one of the series most charming side adventures.

Naoko Takeuchis Sailor Moon is intricately crafted, brimming with references to Greco-Roman mythology, astrology, haute couture, Japanese folklore, and even her own background in chemistry. In the series, Usagi Tsukino, the reincarnation of the Moon Princess, transforms into Sailor Moon alongside her friends, the Sailor Guardians, to protect Earth from evil. For young American audiences, Toonamis airing of...

Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia,” Carlos Marqués-Marcet “They Will be Dust” and Yeo Siew Hua’s “Stranger Eyes” all won big at Spain’s auteurist haven Valladolid Film Festival on Saturday, in a second edition under José Luis Cienfuegos whose prizes served as a vindication of the changes he has wrought at the festival as well as an indication of some ways European arthouse is going.

All three directors’ awards build on prior upbeat reception. Playing Cannes Premiere, “Misericordia,” which scooped Valladolid’s best picture Golden Spike and its screenplay trophy, was hailed by Variety as a “darkly comic backwoods fable of pansexual desire and small-town sociopathy” which marks a “welcome re-embrace of the streamlined murdery perversities of his terrific ‘Stranger by the Lake.'”

The Valladolid jury, made up of Greek director Sofia Exarchou, Spanish actress Aida Folch, critic and editor Devika Girish, German producer Ingmar Trost and Spanish director and writer Luis López Carrasco,...

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April head the nominations for the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), each securing nods in five categories.

Both will compete for best film, best director, best screenplay, best cinematography and best performance at the awards, which will be presented on November 30 at a ceremony on Australia’s Gold Coast.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

All We Imagine As Light, billed as an ode to nocturnal Mumbai, premiered in Competition at Cannes, where it won the festival’s grand prix. April, the story of a Georgian ob-gyn who faces accusations,...

While there’s a few more fall film festivals popping up in the next month, the major ones are behind us, which means we have a strong sense of the films to have on your radar in the coming months and even through 2025. We’ve asked our writers from across the globe to weigh in on their favorite world premieres from Locarno Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and BFI London Film Festival.

Our coverage will continue with a few more reviews this week, and far beyond as we provide updates on the journey of these selections, so continue to explore all of our festival coverage here. In the meantime, check out top picks from our writers below and return soon for our extensive year-end coverage.

Soham Gadre (@SohamGadre)

1. April (Dea Kulumbegashvili)

2 and 3. Youth (Homecoming and Hard Times) (Wang Bing...

Wang Bing’s Youth (Hard Times) picks up where its predecessor left off, deepening our understanding of lives dictated by backbreaking labor. Filmed over five years in garment factories throughout Zhili, China, this installment carries forward the documentary trilogy’s immersion in the rhythms of industrial toil. Through subtle shifts in focus, Hard Times subtly underscores both the passage of time and growing frustrations among its subjects – young migrant workers fighting for dignity amid dismal circumstances.

As with Spring, the film transports viewers into its world through lengthy, observant shots soaked in the din of sewing machines. This allows us to truly feel the numbing routine engulfing these factory workers, who labor as fast as minds and bodies allow. Yet Hard Times departs from its predecessor in documenting bolder organizing efforts against miserly bosses. It follows mounting disputes over paltry piecework pay and debates splitting the crowd.

While maintaining a fly-on-the-wall approach,...

The long-running New York Film Festival, now in its 62nd year – one of the longer film festivals, with a span of more than two weeks — is showcasing some of the longest documentaries on record.

My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, directed by Julia Loktev, measures almost 5.5 hours long. Taken together, Wang Bing’s Youth (Homecoming) and Youth (Hard Times), both playing at NYFF, run over 6 hours. That’s brief compared to exergue, the documentary directed by Dimitris Athyridis that clocks in at 14 hours.

Exergue, which premiered at the Berlinale in February before playing at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece, explores the 14th iteration of Documenta, the quinquennial event that is considered the most important contemporary art exhibition in the world.

“There’s something about the way that film really digs into this extremely fascinating process of making an art exhibition,” says Dennis Lim, artistic...

Antonio Vivaldi, the Italian Baroque composer and violinist who penned “The Four Seasons,” will be portrayed in “Primavera,” the feature debut of Damiano Michieletto, a leading opera director. Memento International has boarded the film which begins shooting this month in Rome and Venice.

“Primavera” was penned by Ludovica Rampoldi, the award-winning screenwriter of movies such as “The Traitor” and “Gomorrah – the series,” among others. The script is loosely adapted from Tiziano Scarpa’s critically acclaimed novel “Stabat Mater.”

Set in 18th century Venice, “Primavera” follows Cecilia, a 20-year-old violin virtuoso who lives at the Pièta orphanage. Despite her talent, Cecilia remains confined within the orphanage, knowing that marriage is the only way out. Yet, her life takes a turn after she meets Antonio Vivaldi, a brilliant and ambitious composer who becomes the new violin teacher. Guided by Vivaldi and his music, Cecilia “finds the strength to challenge the destiny that once seemed inevitable,...

John Hsu’s Taiwanese supernatural comedy Dead Talents Society has scored 11 nominations for the 61st Golden Horse Awards, followed by Tom Lin’s Yen And Ai-Lee and Geng Jun’s Bel Ami, with eight nods each.

Dead Talents Society and Bel Ami are among the five films competing in the best film category, along with Ray Yeung’s All Shall Be Well, Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes and Lou Ye’s An Unfinished Film. The same five films are also running in the best director category.

They reflect the overall representation at this year’s Golden Horse Awards, with the participation of Hong Kong,...

Wang Bing’s Youth trilogy of documentaries about Chinese garment workers could have just as easily been named Three Colors. Like the titles that comprise Krzysztof Kieślowski’s triptych, each of Wang’s films is informed by a different color, though it’s primarily used to tint the title cards and chyrons that indicate a given sequence’s setting and subjects. The first installment, last year’s Youth (Spring), appropriately uses a lush green, while the subsequent Youth (Hard Times) went with a punishing deep red. The concluding entry, Youth (Homecoming), opts for something that works in more ambiguous ways, using a light blue that, depending on the viewer, could signal calm, harmony, or even sadness.

Youth (Homecoming) operates as something of an expansion of the concluding sequences of its two forebears. Youth (Spring) and Youth (Hard Times), which both run a full hour longer than the fleet (by Wang...

Although Superboy Conner Kent is a clone of Superman, his powers haven't entirely aligned with the Man of Steel's. While missing some of Clarks signature abilities, like heat vision, Conner has unique powers, such as tactile-telekinesis, that even Superman lacks. However, when Superboy experienced his ultimate form, it altered his powerset, revealing that Conner has the potential to become just as powerful as Clarkif not more.

Superboy Sr. offers a glimpse of Conner Kents ultimate and most powerful form.

Karl Kesel, Rob Haynes, and David Selfs Young Justice: Sins of Youth - Superman Jr. & Superboy Sr. #1 is the Super-Family-focused issue of the Young Justice: Sins of Youth miniseries. In this series, Klarion the Witch Boy uses his chaos magic to swap the ages of DC's heroes, turning kids into adults and adults into kids.

In Superman Jr. & Superboy Sr., its Clark Kent and Conner Kent who switch ages, resulting...

by Cláudio Alves

Youth (Hard Times) won a special mention at Locarno, the Junior Jury and Fipresci prizes.

Last year, Wang Bing presented Youth (Spring) at TIFF after the film's world premiere in competition at Cannes. It was to be the first part of an epic trilogy, one of a magnitude that's impressive even for such a grand muralist as the director is known to be. His filmography is full of works documenting the Chinese dispossessed, often curious about the labor forces whose strenuous efforts make the national economy work its exploitative, feverishly expansionist dream. For Youth, he focused his camera on the greener workers, a new generation consigned to a life of unfair garment labor, struggling to survive within the putative economic boom of modern China. Wang shot it between 2014 and 2019, dividing his findings between three films that collectively amount to a nearly ten-hour-runtime.

At The Film Experience, we've already gone over Spring,...

Exclusive: Veteran British actress Adjoa Andoh (Bridgerton) and Jimmy Akingbola (Bel-Air) are among the names that have signed on to deliver keynote speeches at The Heritage and Cultural Society of Africa’s (Hacsa) Sankofa Summit set to run October 9 and 10 at Columbia University.

This year’s summit, the first held in New York, will host 10 panels and over 50 speakers. Alongside Andoh and Akingbola other speakers include Bell Ribeiro Addy MP, UK MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill, Hon. Dr. Rufus Ewing, former Premier of Turks and Caicos Islands, Google engineering VP Gavin Leo-Rhynie, and Togolese entrepreneur Claude Grunitzky. Unesco, Acosta Institute, Delta Airlines, and Kowri serve as official partners of the event.

The Sankofa Summit is the Hacsa’s flagship event. Organizers have said they mount the event to showcase “excellence in the African Diaspora” and celebrate “Africa’s rich history, heritage and culture.” The title theme of this year...

Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring), the first in the filmmaker’s trilogy of documentaries about garment workers in Zhejiang province in eastern China, eschewed incident to stress the numbing quality of the manual labor and economic stagnation of its young migrant workers. The second installment in the trilogy, Youth (Hard Times), similarly leans into durational extremes but eventually and sneakily reveals a broadened scope.

Wang again keys us to the perspective of the workers, subjecting us to the constant roar of sewing machines until the din of routine is understood as that and becomes barely noticeable. The oscillation between scenes of toil and moments of rest in which laborers are too tired to do much of anything other than scroll on their phones conveys just how easy it is to become numb in such an environment. Indeed, at first it seems that the biggest change from the first film is...

“Daring”: Victoria’s Secret’s New Fragrance That Awakens Nostalgia and the Freshness of Youth Xmag UK Xmag Editorial

Victoria’s Secret launches “Daring,” a fragrance that combines freshness and warmth, evoking the nostalgia of past moments and…

The post “Daring”: Victoria’s Secret’s New Fragrance That Awakens Nostalgia and the Freshness of Youth first appeared on Xmag UK.

Riker & Troi lost their son Thad to a rare disease, unable to cure him due to the Federation ban on synthetics. Ba'ku's regenerative properties could have saved Thad, but possible events may have changed its effectiveness. Riker and Troi likely had a valid reason for not taking Thad to Ba'ku, despite their willingness to do anything to save him.

As revealed in Star Trek: Picard, Captain William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Counselor Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) lost their son, Thaddeus, to a rare disease, but why didn't they take him to Star Trek: Insurrection's Baku? Picking up twenty years after the events of Nemesis in the Star Trek timeline, Picard season 1 checked in on Riker and Troi and their daughter, Kestra (Lulu Wilson). Riker and Troi had settled on the planet Nepenthe because of the planet's healing properties, in an attempt to heal their son, Thad.

Thad contracted a disease known as mendaxic neurosclerosis,...