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Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho is no stranger to Cannes, having debuted two previous films in Competition beginning with Aquarius in 2016 starring Sonia Braga, so effective as a woman determined not to lose her condo to a demolition, and then grabbing the Jury Prize in 2019 for the surreal western Bacurau (again with Braga), in which a whole village seemingly is disappeared from satellite maps and must fight for its existence. Both of those movies deal thematically with people threatened with losing their way of life, being displaced.

Now his third film in Competition and biggest production yet, The Secret Agent, also might fit into that theme as it centers on a man coming back to a small city in order to get closer to his young son after losing his wife to pneumonia. What he discovers in the film set in...

The opening credits to director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent” set the scene as Brazil, 1977, and then add, “a period of great mischief.” And that might be an appropriate capsule description of the film itself, a mischievous romp that includes secret identities, corrupt cops, intricate schemes, Carnaval frivolity, a severed leg inside a shark’s stomach, some very bloody and brutal action, a deliberately garish ’70s cinema style and a bit of thoughtfulness and emotion spread out over almost two and a half hours.

Does it all hold together? Nope. “The Secret Agent” is all over the place – not literally, since like almost all of Filho’s films, it takes place in the Brazilian city of Recife, his hometown – and cohesiveness or coherence are not high on its list of attributes. But its messiness is part of its charm and part of the point; a film that took...

Carnaval provides a convenient cover story for nearly 100 deaths and disappearances in “The Secret Agent,” Kleber Mendonça Filho’s robust sense-memory immersion into the sights, sounds and suffocating climate — both political and meteorological — the Brazilian director associates with 1977 Recife. It was a period of great “mischief,” per the super cinematic thriller’s opening titles, although that’s too light a word to describe the everyday corruption that permeates practically every aspect of this meaty 160-minute period piece. Mendonça remembers it well, demonstrating how even the worst of times can inspire a perverse sort of nostalgia.

The 56-year-old director was just 8 years old at the time the the film takes place — roughly the same age as Fernando, the son of his main character, a man of multiple identities played by “Narcos” star Wagner Moura — and it seems safe to assume that the boy’s all-consuming desire to see “Tubarão” (the Portuguese...

Buyers are finally wise to the fact that Cannes is driving the Oscar race and even the specialized box office. Everyone wants to find the next “Anora,” “The Substance,” “Emilia Perez,” or “Anatomy of a Fall.” And more buyers like Mubi, Metrograph, Sideshow, and other upstarts have emerged to take on the likes of Neon and A24, who come to Cannes armed with several titles already set to debut.

Below, we’ve identified 13 movies looking for homes that could be the next awards breakout, including new films from Lynne Ramsay and Richard Linklater and the debuts of Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson.

All titles presented alphabetically.

“The Chronology of Water” (Un Certain Regard)

Director: Kristen Stewart

Stars: Imogen Poots, Thora Birch, Jim Belushi, Tom Sturridge

Buzz: Even if it’s in a sidebar for a first-time director, Kristen Stewart’s debut should be a hot ticket with a lot of...

Before his big breakout, Jim Carrey was primarily known as James Carrey — the consistently hilarious performer on Fox’s comedy sketch show, In Living Color, from Keenan Ivory Wayans. However, 1994 saw Carrey instantly become a household name with not one, not two, but three hit movies that split the sides of audiences across the country, and soon, the world. That kind of output is just not seen, especially as a debut. According to Blu-ray.com, the movie that started it all, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, is now coming to 4K Blu-ray in a special 2-disc set from Shout Factory.

Tom Shadyac’s 1994 film, which also starred a slightly pre-Friends fame Courtney Cox, along with Sean Young and Udo Kier, is set to hit retailers on July 29. Ace Ventura was such a hit that he became one of those characters that people did impressions of. Reacher star Alan Ritchson even cited...

While the Sundance Film Festival mulls a big move for 2027, the 2025 program, its 41st edition, kicked off January 23 in Utah, and you can look below for all of Deadline’s reviews from the fest.

Sundance founder Robert Redford promised that audiences “can expect a 2025 program that showcases varied and vibrant filmmaking globally.” Running through February 2, the lineup includes more than 85 features and six episodic projects set to screen in Park City, Salt Lake City and online.

Below is a compilation of our reviews from the fest. Click on the movie’s title to read our full take.

Atropia ‘Atropia’

Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition

Director-screenwriter: Hailey Gates

Cast: Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Heidecker, Jane Levy

Deadline’s takeaway: Ripe with aughts nostalgia around the Og iPod, frosted lip gloss and Guy Fieri’s favorite flame-printed shirts, Atropia is ultimately a clever meditation on the atmosphere of war...

If you want to know the true meaning of love, find someone that looks at you the way Mamoudou Athie looks at a chair in Amanda Kramer’s surreal, stylish and militantly absurd comedy-drama By Design. Both specific in its intent and mischievously opaque in its execution, this willfully strange art project can switch from flip to serious in the blink of an eye, using a terrific cast to weave a trance-like state of oddness that somehow sustains to the finishing line. In Sundance terms, it fills a slot left open by Miranda July, America’s poet laureate of urban dysfunction, presumed missing in action since 2020’s Kajillionaire.

Like July, Kramer is concerned not so much with human beings as the space between them, opening on three women—Camille (Juliette Lewis), Lisa (Samantha Mathis) and Irene (Robin Tunney)—as they meet for their weekly lunch. Like an adult version of the Heathers of Heathers,...

Amanda Kramer made quite a splash with her last narrative film, Please Baby Please, and her latest movie, By Design, is an even more ambitious swing that landed it a spot in the Next competition at the Sundance Film Festival. By Design will hook viewers with its wacky concept, only to put them off with its dry tone, but its thematic richness will lend itself to intriguing analysis.

By Design Review

By Design tells the story of a woman who envies a chair so much that she endeavors to swap bodies with it. Although it may be billed as a “twist on the body swap genre,” don’t come into By Design expecting something akin to a quirkier version of Freaky Friday. It’s actually something much more intellectual and weird than you’d imagine it to be, even if you are a fan of Kramer’s past work.

For...

On the eve of Sundance Film Festival (January 23-Februrary 2) many filmmakers and executives had already descended upon Park City for the 2025 edition. As attendees sample the blend of work from established talents and the promise of discoveries, amid the customary mingling and business side of things there will be real stories of heartbreak.

Scroll down for list of acquisition titles

The devastating LA County wildfires are likely to have impacted many from the Los Angeles region who make the journey to the Utah mountains. The writer-director team of Meera Menon and husband Paul Gleason behind Midnight zombie selection Didn’t Die...

Vince Vaughn is known primarily as a comedic actor. Most recently, these humourous tendencies were exhibited in his performance in the Apple TV+ series Bad Monkey. Based on the book of the same name by Carl Hiaasen, the story saw Vaughn play a bumbling cop who is passionate about solving a high-profile case regarding a suspicious death. Bad Monkey was renewed for season 2, giving Vaughn another chance to play the role of the wisecracking, ungraceful but lovable Andrew Yancy.

In addition to Bad Monkey, Vaughn's comedy roles on screen have included parts in Dodgeball and Wedding Crashers. Comedy is not all Vaughn is capable of, however. While he is mostly known for the laugh-inducing genre, the actor has also been in several more dramatic roles. One such part was playing Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant's 1998 shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. While notoriously panned, this film showed off what Vaughn...

The following article contains discussions of mental health conditions, violence, and suicide.

While the entertainment industry is notorious for misrepresenting many illnesses, conditions, and disorders, there are many movie characters who accurately portray mental health. Cinema has had a dubious history of portraying mental health in an authentic or even sensitive light. The perceived dramatic nature of a mental illness has notoriously meant it's too often conveyed as a means to broadcast sentimentality or sensationalism. Additionally, "madness" has been used by horror films as a justification for all kinds of unspeakable acts. However, Hollywood also occasionally gets it right, and there are plenty of movie characters with mental disorders that aren't portrayed problematically.

The exploration of mental illness and mental health disorders in movies has improved dramatically over the last few decades, with an emphasis on authenticity and care towards humanization. Depictions that are seen as genuine across myriad genres,...

The stars were out for the 2025 Palm Springs International Film Awards on Friday night (January 3) at Palm Springs Convention Center in Palm Springs, Calif.

Timothee Chalamet, Selena Gomez and Colman Domingo were among the dozens of celebs who hit the red carpet at the event, where they were also honored with awards!

The awards ceremony are held each year during the annual Palm Springs International Film Festival and honor “the best and brightest performances of the year,” and tend to be a good gauge of who will be nominated and/or win the Oscar that year.

In 2024, five of the Palm Springs film awards winners went on to win Oscars!

Keep reading inside to see all of the celebrity attendees…

Timothee and Colman each received individual awards, while Selena‘s was a group honor for her film Emilia Perez.

Check out all of the honorees and the celebrities in attendance below…...

Christoph Schlingensief's The German Chainsaw Massacre has arrived on streaming for the very first time after languishing for decades as an infamous but obscure film. The imaginatively disgusting film frantically allegorizes the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall as a kind of grindhouse horror. Instead of fighting off a deranged group of redneck cannibals (as in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), The German Chainsaw Massacre follows an East German fugitive who, fleeing to the West after stabbing her husband, falls into the hands of a tribe of incestuous cannibals inhabiting a dilapidated factory. The streaming release announcement notes:

"Called 'one of the greatest artists who ever lived' by Austrian novelist and playwright Elfriede Jelinek, Schlingensief — who died in 2010 at age 49 — was a multi-hyphenate whirling dervish of chaotic creative energy and relentless provocation, the inheritor of the mantle of German cinema’s foremost enfant terrible left...

A longstanding and well respected Hollywood staple, Willem Dafoe is one of modern cinema's most prominent success stories. A frequent collaborator with acclaimed filmmakers like Wes Anderson, Robert Eggers, and Yorgos Lanthimos, Dafoe's best movies have earned him four Academy Award nominations to date across the course of a long and storied career, with the actor featuring across virtually every genre of film imaginable. However, while Dafoe's career may be thriving, the same cannot be said for many of his film characters.

Much like The Lord of the Rings' star Sean Bean, the actor's dramatic charges have an unfortunate habit of dying before the credits roll, often in comically brutal fashion. Dafoe is more than aware of the status quo when it comes to his characters' frequent movie deaths, admitting in an interview with Empire magazine that he loves watching his characters bite the dust onscreen. Accordingly, with a host of options to choose from,...

The 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will begin on January 30 and run until February 9. This year’s festival will feature various films emphasizing emerging talents and well-known artists worldwide.

Festival Director Vanja Kaludjercic expressed enthusiasm for this year’s topic, noting, “Since our first festival in 1972, IFFR has been a space for bold creativity, where the unexpected finds a home, and cinema in all of its splendor is celebrated.” The festival strives to offer a vibrant arena for new filmmaking, with three competitive divisions reflecting the experimental essence of modern cinema.

The Talks program is a prominent part of IFFR. Highlights include a unique conversation between Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and filmmaker Guy Maddin. The two will discuss their recent collaboration on “Rumours” and the importance of creative relationships and short films.

Additional speakers include renowned cinematographer Lol Crawley, who will receive the Robby Müller Award and share insights from his work.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam revealed the lineups of its Tiger, Big Screen and Tiger Short competition sections Tuesday, and the first tranche of speakers for the Talks program, who include Cate Blanchett and Guy Maddin.

Following their recent collaboration on “Rumours,” Blanchett and Maddin will come together for “an expansive dialogue about creative collaboration, the role of film festivals, and the enduring power of the short film form,” IFFR said.

IFFR will also welcome Robby Müller Award recipient Lol Crawley, in conversation with writer and film critic Peter Bradshaw to discuss his cinematography, including his work on “The Brutalist” and other highlights from his career.

Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry, known for Locarno’s “Listen Up Philip,” Toronto’s “Her Smell” and Sundance’s “Golden Exits,” will talk about his documentary “Videoheaven,” part of the Focus program “Hold Video in Your Hands,” celebrating the community spirit of VHS culture. Perry...

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) unveiled its 2025 Big Screen and Tiger Short competitive sections on Tuesday. Typical for Rotterdam, the selection is truly global, with films traversing from Montenegro to Malaysia, and from Congo to India.

The Big Screen Competition, which features films that bridge arthouse and popular cinema, features highlights including The Assistant from Polish directors Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal, whose It Looks Pretty from a Distance was in Rotterdam’s Tiger competition in 2012, Albert Oehlen’s Bad Painter starring Udo Kier, and the Japanese drama Yasuko, Songs of Days Past from director Negishi Kichitaro.

Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett and Canadian avant-garde filmmaker Guy Maddin will attend IFFR 2025 as part of the festival’s IFFR Talks lineup, to discuss their recent collaboration on Maddin’s Rumours. Other IFFR talks include a conversation with The Brutalist cinematographer Lol Crawley — winner of the IFFR’s Robby Müller lifetime achievement award — and...

There isn't a dearth of movies that redefined their genres; it's a considerably common phenomenon due to the cyclical nature of popular culture. The same set of tropes goes through the phases of being reclaimed from their past rejection, recontextualized for the current age, overused to exhaustion, and then rejected for the previous set of tropes to make a return. This is how we have movies that reinvigorated dying genres, either by subverting prevalent tropes at the time or by reintroducing tropes previously lost to overuse that feel refreshing at that point in time.

Of course, some movies can't be put into one genre because they're that different, but genre films particularly go through a reinvention every few years with the introduction of a new unique perspective. The switch in perspective can take the form of narrative structure, visual conventions, or even characterization. While the last is a rarer circumstance,...

Going to see a parody of classic science fiction and horror movies is always a dicey situation, especially if you’re already a fan of the films they target. Besides hoping that it’s actually funny, you’re also worried that they’ll just take a stance of sneering contempt towards their source material, as is all too often the case. Even a respectful homage is no guarantee of quality, either. An affectionate tribute can too easily become an exercise in virtue-signaling, a lackluster effort at trying to prove they’re part of the fan club, and an excuse to copy what’s already been done to death. I’ll be a happy man if I never see another reenactment of Psycho’s shower scene again.

What makes Michael Stasko’s “Vampire Zombies…From Space!” such a pleasant surprise is it’s not only the rare parody that’s actually...

On December 5, the IndieWire Honors Winter 2024 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year’s best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. We’re showcasing their work with new interviews leading up to the Los Angeles event.

Ever since “The Last Showgirl” premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, Pamela Anderson has said it over and over: This is the screenplay, the project, that she’s been waiting to make her whole life. However, what often goes unsaid it is it’s the movie we’ve hoped she’d make, too.

Everyone knows Pamela Anderson, pop icon: Playboy! Blonde! Red swimsuit! Sex tape! Marriages! Maybe you thought of her more deeply, maybe you didn’t, but what was clear to everyone is the image only...

The "Pitch Perfect" franchise is kind of a strange beast, and it's not just because of the acapella. Despite the fact that the movies follow the law of diminishing returns, with each entry being just a bit less aca-awesome than the last, the spin-off Peacock series, "Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin," is actually a lot of fun. With showrunner Megan Amram at the helm, "Bumper in Berlin" was a sweet, silly continuation of the "Pitch Perfect" movies that fully leaned into its main character, Bumper Allen. Played by Adam DeVine, Bumper was more of a villain in the first "Pitch Perfect" movie before eventually becoming a protagonist in his own right, and DeVine's annoying-little-brother-esque performance is, well, pitch perfect. Throw in Flula Borg reprising his role as Pieter Krämer from "Pitch Perfect 2," "Modern Family" star Sarah Hyland as his assistant and Bumper's love interest, "The Good Place" star...

Miles Levin’s drama “Under the Lights” received the coveted Polish Film Institute Award at the American Film Festival’s industry event U.S. in Progress, as well as $50,000 cash prize for post-production in Poland.

“It has been an incredibly rewarding and inspiring project to work on. Miles is a force of nature with a clear vision and relentless drive to bring this story to life,” said Natalie Metzger, VP of production and development at Vanishing Angle.

“I’m so honored to have produced it and for it to be part of U.S. in Progress. There’s nothing like this program in America, so we are very grateful it exists. It’s much needed for American indie filmmakers.”

Levin added: “This film has been a 10-year journey and to have the support of U.S. in Progress to help it shine has been very meaningful.”

Miles Levin and Natalie Metzger

In the film,...

Premiering at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson expanded their scale and scope with Rumours, an apocalyptic political satire that brings together the epic cast of Cate Blanchett, Alicia VikanderRoy Dupuis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Charles Dance, Takehiro Hira, Denis Ménochet, Rolando Ravello, and Zlatko Buric. Now set for a stop at New York Film Festival before opening in theaters on October 18, the first full-length red band trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “Ricocheting between comedy, apocalyptic horror, and swooning soap opera, Rumours follows the seven leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit, where they attempt to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis. With unexpected, uproarious performances from a brilliant ensemble cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, and Charles Dance, these so-called leaders become spectacles of incompetence, contending with increasingly surreal obstacles in the misty woods...

The upcoming game from Hideo Kojima in collaboration with the world renowned actor and filmmaker Jordan Peele fell victim to the most unjust criticism shared by one of the fans. The criticism was following the development of Kojima’s new game based on the people who are working on it behind the scenes.

Overdose is going to redefine the horror genre. Image Credit: Kojima Productions

The next game from Kojima productions titled Od (Overdose), is a horror game published by Xbox Game Studios. The game will be starring Sophia Lillis, Hunter Schafer, and Udo Kier. It has been written by Jordan Peele and Hideo Kojima.

Overdose Is Getting A Lot of Criticism For All The Wrong Reasons The game’s release date is yet to be announced. Image Credit: Kojima Productions

Recently, a Reddit user bashed the game by calling it a LGBTQ propaganda since it stars a transgender activist actor.

Is it possible that network television is so back? That's the immediate reaction to hearing CBS bought a new workplace comedy pilot starring Tim Meadows. Per Deadline, the sitcom is called Dmv, and Meadows "will play former high school English teacher Gregg, the examiner who likes to get through the driving tests,...

Juliette Lewis and Mamoudou Athie will lead the cast of the body swap film 'By Design'.The pair are on board to play the central roles in the indie flick that has been written and directed by Amanda Kramer.Other cast members in the movie – which has wrapped production in Los Angeles – including Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney, Clifton Collins Jr., Udo Kier and Betty Buckley.Plot details haven't been disclosed but the picture is described as a twist on the body swap genre.Miranda Bailey and Natalie Whalen are producing for Cold Iron Pictures along with Sarah Winshall, Jacob Agger and Kramer.Juliette began her film career in the late 1980s and feels lucky to have worked together with some of the most talented figures in the industry.The 51-year-old star told Entertainment Tonight: "I really got fortunate early on. And I didn't know this at the time because people...

Exclusive: Juliette Lewis (Yellowjackets) and Mamoudou Athie (Kinds of Kindness) lead the cast of By Design, a new indie feature written and directed by Amanda Kramer (Please Baby Please), which has wrapped production in Los Angeles.

Others in the cast include Samantha Mathis (The Exorcism), Robin Tunney (Dear Edward), Clifton Collins Jr. (Jockey), Udo Kier (Swan Song) and Betty Buckley (Eternity).

While plot details are being kept under wraps, the film has been described as a twist on the body swap genre.

Miranda Bailey and Natalie Whalen from Cold Iron Pictures produced alongside Sarah Winshall of Smudge Films (I Saw the TV Glow), Jacob Agger, and Amanda Kramer. Lauren Mann, Jason Beck, Madison McKinley, James Belfer, Karen Belfer, and Riccardo Maddalosso served as executive producers.

An Oscar nominee currently starring in Showtime’s hit drama Yellowjackets, which is heading into its third season,...

Live in this World

After spending August discussing Paul Morrissey’s Udo Kier-starring Blood for Dracula (listen), Julia Ducournau’s Raw follow-up Titane (listen), and Stephen Herek’s comfort classic Critters (listen), we wrapped up the month with a look at Tim Burton‘s 1988 classic, Beetlejuice!

In the film, Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) are perfectly content married nerds who enjoy staying at home and working on their house. When they die unceremoniously, they’re thrust into an afterlife with rules they don’t understand and horrible humans like Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones) who take over their house.

When a bio-exorcist named Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) offers his services to scare the living out of the house, Barbara and Adam take him up on his offer. Unfortunately, they quickly find the rambunctious spirit is completely out of control. With Betelgeuse determined to marry the Deetz’s daughter,...

Kill Krites.

After kicking off August with discussions of Paul Morrissey’s Udo Kier-starring vehicle Blood for Dracula (listen) and Julia Ducournau’s confronting Raw follow-up Titane (listen), we’re dialing things back a bit with a comfort watch of Stephen Herek‘s 1986 cult classic (and franchise originator) Critters!

Critters sees an fuzzy alien race known as the Krites flee a prison asteroid and land next to a farm in the small town of Grover’s Bend. Kansas. The farm belongs to the Brown family — Jay (Billy Green Bush), Helen (Dee Wallace), their daughter, April (Nadine Van Der Velde), and their son, Brad (Scott Grimes) — and they must fend off the malevolent little critters with the help of two alien bounty hunters with superhuman abilities.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio,...

If there’s one thing you can count on in the video game industry, it’s that Hideo Kojima is going to take a picture with an actor you recognize, whether you like it or not.

The most recent addition to Kojima’s never-ending collection is Nicolas Cage, who was involved in the recent movie, Longlegs. A picture of the enigmatic actor standing next to the famous creative director dropped on X/Twitter, and the internet can’t handle it.

Nicolas Cage and Kojima: Could There Be More to It?

Kojima is no stranger to teaming up with Hollywood’s finest. His previous work, Death Stranding, featured an ensemble cast including Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, and Léa Seydoux, who were added to the game.

Most recently, he was visited by Nicolas Cage at the building for his studio, Kojima Productions, in a spot you’ll recognize from Kojima’s pictures with other celebrities.

If you were waiting for The Crow film series reboot, then the wait is finally over. Directed by Rupert Sanders from a screenplay co-written by Zach Baylin and William Schneider, The Crow is based on a superhero comic book series created by James O’Barr, the gothic superhero film follows the story of Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster, and both are brutally murdered. Draven returns from the dead to seek revenge. The Crow stars Bill Skarsgård and FKA twigs in the lead roles with Danny Huston, Isabella Wei, Laura Birn, Jordan Bolger, Dukagjin Podrimaj, and Sami Bouajila starring in supporting roles. So, if you loved the brutal action, intense characters, and gothic vibes of The Crow, here are some similar movies you should check out next.

The Crow Credit – Dimension Films

The Crow is a gothic action horror superhero film directed by Alex Proyas from a screenplay co-written by David J. Schow and John Shirley.

Wirgin Worries.

After kicking off August with discussions of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s surrealist masterpiece Santa Sangre (listen) and the screenlife sequel Unfriended: Dark Web (listen), we’re returning to the world of Andy Warhol with a look at Paul Morrissey‘s Udo Kier-starring vehicle Blood for Dracula (1974).

In the film, the deathly ill Count Dracula (Udo Kier) and his slimy underling Anton (Arno Juerging) travel to Italy in search of a virgin’s blood (the only type of blood he can drink). They’re welcomed at the crumbling estate of indebted Marchese Di Fiore (Vittorio De Sica), who’s desperate to marry off his daughters to rich suitors. But there, instead of pure women, the count encounters siblings with impure (aka not virgin) blood and their Marxist manservant Mario (Joe D’Allesandro), who’s suspicious of the aristocratic Dracula.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday.

Mateo

After wrapping up July with a Jan de Bont double feature discussing the movie magic of Twister (listen) and the laundry list of problems with his 1999 remake of The Haunting (listen), we’re tackled our first Alejandro Jodorowsky film with Santa Sangre (listen).

Now we’re back on American soil for our first Screenlife horror film on the Main Feed: Stephen Susco‘s Unfriended sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web (2018).

In the movie, Matias (Colin Woodell) shows up for virtual game night with a new laptop. As his friends – conspiracy nut Aj (Connor Del Rio), British Damon (Andrew Lees), harangued Lexx (Savira Windyani), and lesbian couple Nari (Betty Gabriel) and Serena (Rebecca Rittenhouse) – play Cards Against Humanity, Matias discovers hidden video files on the stolen computer.

The realization leads him to Charon (Douglas Tait) and Erica Dunne (Alexa Mansour), a missing 17 year old as Matias, his deaf girlfriend Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras...

It has been over a dozen years in the making. We can confirm that Isabelle Huppert has indeed remained on board, so has Sophie Rois, and they will be surrounded by Birgit Minichmayr (of Everyone Else fame) and Huppert’s About Joan co-star in Lars Eidinger in Ulrike Ottinger’s long-gestating The Blood Countess. At eighty-two years young, the German filmmaker has been receiving some much needed pre-production coin support as of late and just landed another round of coin via German funding bodies Film und Medienstiftung Nrw, Fff Bayern and Hessen Film & Medien. Tilda Swinton, Udo Kier and Irm Hermann (who passed away in 2020) were once mentioned way back in 2010.…...

And for Jordan Peele's next trick... a Halloweeen treat! Following hot on the heels of producing Dev Patel's brilliantly bananas action epic Monkey Man, the Get Out and Us filmmaker took to Twitter/X yesterday to share an update on his next directorial outing. Originally set for a Christmas Day release this year before the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes put the stoppers on production, Peele has now revealed that his Nope follow-up for Universal will hit cinemas on 23 October, 2026. Check out the director's official confirmation of the new release date below;

A shroud of secrecy has surrounded Peele's latest project thus far, and as such, yesterday's announcement came with no further details on who'll be starring in the film, what it will be about, or even what it's set to be called. However, it wouldn't be a stretch to see that distinctly Halloween-y release date and surmise that...

When we say a filmmaker is in another league, we typically mean it in a good way––they’re a cut above the rest. But when we say it about Guy Maddin, it doesn’t imply quality one way or the other. There is simply no one doing what Guy Maddin is doing, whether you love it, hate it, or don’t care about it at all. Maddin’s work is so pioneer, so beguiling, so unrecognizable, so un-distributable that if you’re not doing your own film-history research you likely haven’t come across it. Look up a single image from any of his films and you’ll understand. Maddin films make Eraserhead look like Forrest Gump.

That said: he wants for nothing in reputation, an absolute legend in the avant-garde, experimental, and adjacent cinema scenes. Maddin is the Spielberg of pure art film, the wizard of 19th-century techniques...

Wesley Snipes played Blade for many years before Mahershala Ali's MCU debut in 2025. Snipes responded to rumors about a potential return with a cryptic tweet, sparking speculation about his potential comeback. Marvel fans are buzzing with excitement over the possibility of Snipes reprising his role as the vampire hunter.

Wesley Snipes responded to rumors that he is returning as Blade in the MCU, spawning speculation that the actor could reprise his role as the legendary vampire killer. Snipes first played Marvel's famous daywalker in 1998's Blade and returned as the character in 2002's Blade II and in 2004's Blade: Trinity. While Mahershala Ali is planned to debut as the McU's Blade in 2025, there is a possibility that Snipes could reprise the role before Ali's movie comes out, and the actor fueled the flames by responding to these rumors.

On X, Snipes shared a link to an article from Screengeek...

Comprising 1994’s The Kingdom, 1997’s The Kingdom II, and 2022’s much belated The Kingdom: Exodus, Lars von Trier’s television miniseries trilogy plays like the unholy love child of St. Elsewhere and Twin Peaks, the latter an acknowledged influence on the director. The trilogy works brilliantly as a blackly comic piss take on running a hospital, with all its attendant frustrations and absurdities, as well as a blast of surreal weirdness that seeks to expose the dark underbelly of its titular locale.

But the parallels between The Kingdom series and its forebears are even more specific. The final episode of Exodus dramatically hinges on a snow globe containing a miniature of the hospital, just as St. Elsewhere famously ended on a similar image. As with Twin Peaks: The Return, over two decades passed between the second and third season of The Kingdom, allowing for some intriguing narrative resets and retakes.

NewFest and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Bam) have announced the fourth annual lineup for their “Queering the Canon” retrospective film series, this year subtitled “Besties.”

This year’s lineup of films screening at Bam in downtown Brooklyn (April 11 – 15) includes a 4K restoration of Rose Troche’s lesbian classic “Go Fish,” the world premiere of the 4K restoration of Brian Sloan’s queer romantic comedy “I Think I Do,” 35mm screenings of Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho” and F. Gary Gray’s “Set It Off.” The “Go Fish” screening will be accompanied by a Q&a with Rose Troche in person along with star Guinevere Turner.

The repertory series was created by NewFest, co-curated by NewFest’s Nick McCarthy (director of programming) and Kim Garcia (technical director and programmer), and is presented in partnership with Bam.

The event will also include a panel discussion, “Best of the Besties,...

Max offers a diverse collection of documentaries from top studios. With themes ranging from music to true crime, there's something for everyone. Award-winning offerings set Max apart from other streaming services.

The best documentaries on Max come from many different origins. The streaming service has movies and series from HBO, Warner Bros, and Discovery Channel. It also brings in movies and shows from licensing deals. This results in one of the largest libraries of documentary movies and series on any streaming service. These also run the gamut of themes. Max has a series of music documentaries. Max also has plenty to choose from in true crime, one of the most popular forms of documentary.

That isn't where it stops though. Max also has plenty of documentaries based on movies and TV shows. There are also classic documentaries, with many from the Criterion Collection. The best documentaries on Max offer something...

In 1971, just six years after Frank Herbert published his groundbreaking science-fiction novel "Dune," Arthur P. Jacobs' Apjac International obtained the rights to the story for a film adaptation. The producer behind "Planet of the Apes" was ready to craft another world set in a distant future, but with the sequel film "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" on its way, "Dune" was delayed.

Jacobs went through a handful of different directors and screenwriters in early development, but he tragically passed away in 1973. David Lynch would eventually bring "Dune" to the big screen in 1984, but there were multiple failed attempts that paved the way for his film and a remake in his wake that led to Denis Villeneuve's recent adaptations. The messy histories of failed "Dune" adaptations could justify their own feature-length documentaries but allow this to be a crash course on the bizarre "Dune" movies that never came to be.

Exclusive: Harvey Keitel (The Irishman), Rita Moreno (80 for Brady), Roselyn Sanchez (Fantasy Island) and Udo Kier (Hunters) have been set to star in Theirs, an indie horror thriller going into production in Tulsa, Oklahoma this summer.

Written by Juan Pablo Reinoso and to be directed by Sonja O’Hara (Mid-Century), the film centers on a mother who, after a lifetime of grappling with abusive men and a bitter divorce, finds hope for herself and her teenage daughter in a new home, only to quickly find their newfound freedom tested by malicious secrets within its walls.

Keli Price (Bandit) will produce for his Price Productions, alongside Reinoso (Mad Props) for LookBook, and David Bond (Huesera) for Dark Elegy Films. Tom Biolchini will serve as the film’s executive producer.

An Oscar and Golden Globe nominee, Keitel has recently appeared in films like Lansky, The Irishman, The Painted Bird and Isle of Dogs,...

Stars: Terrence Howard, Valery M. Ortiz, Appy Pratt, Cuba Gooding Jr., Reno Reyes, Sally Kirkland, Udo Kier, Louis Mandylor | Written by Joshua A. Cohen, Terrence Howard | Directed by Asif Akbar

Skeletons in the Closet is the latest film from director Asif Akbar. After sitting through several abysmal films he’s directed, most recently Clown Motel as well as an even larger pile of duds he was a producer on, I knew enough not to have high expectations. Even that wasn’t enough preparation for what I was about to endure.

Mark and Valentina are dealing with financial problems. Those problems are about to get a lot worse, as instead of the raise he was expecting, Mark gets a pink slip. As if that wasn’t enough bad news, their daughter Jenny’s has brain cancer and the doctors are willing to let her die unless Mark and Valentina can come...

No one is doing it quite like video game auteur Hideo Kojima. Boasting massive budgets and even bigger ideas for interactive experiences we’ve never seen before, the famed game developer has more than just Death Stranding 2 on the docket. Here’s a quick breakdown of all the upcoming Kojima Productions titles for PlayStation and Xbox, including release dates and trailers where available!

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Sam Porter Bridges (Norman Reedus) reached the Beach at the end of Death Stranding and learned the truth not only about his Bb Lou but his own origin. Cutting ties with the Uca to live a life off the grid with Lou, Sam’s journey across post-apocalyptic America was over. But the rest of the world is still waiting to be reconnected, according to the trailers for the highly-anticipated sequel, and it’ll be up to Sam to make the long...

Jordan Peele's next movie has been pulled from Universal's 2024 release calendar due to the recently concluded SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes. Scheduling conflicts with big-name actors may have contributed to the delay of Peele's next movie as productions resume. Peele's involvement in a collaboration with Hideo Kojima on the game Od may also be a factor in the delay of his next movie.

Though anticipation is high for his return to the director's chair, Jordan Peele's next movie has been pulled from Universal's 2024 release calendar. Peele has enjoyed widespread acclaim since making his directorial debut with the 2017 horror-thriller Get Out, having brought home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. He's since continued his relationship with Universal for his subsequent directing projects, Us and Nope, with a fourth untitled movie initially set for a Christmas 2024 release.

Entertainment Weekly has now brought word, however, that Peele's untitled...

Prime Video produced a broad array of shows in 2023, including animated fantasy epics, high-concept sci-fi tales, and pulsating thrillers. Old favorites like Jack Ryan returned with new episodes, and there were also fresh new shows like Swarm, and I'm a Virgo. Although streaming faces something of an uncertain future, Prime Video has platformed a diverse roster of talent, and this will serve them well in the long run.

In 2023, Prime Video's best TV shows were a mixture of old and new. Some crowd-pleasing favorites made triumphant returns, including more than one which ended their series in style. Along with the streaming service's most popular shows, a batch of new gems made great first impressions, and some of them could easily last for multiple seasons. Prime Video produced everything from period comedies to animated sci-fi, and much more in between.

It remains unclear how the future landscape of TV will...

Hideo Kojima's new game, Od, may have similarities to his canceled Silent Hill project. A potential Silent Hill reference was found in the trailer for Od, with a series of letters spelling out "Atami," which could be related to Silent Hill. Od shares similarities with Kojima's Pt, including mysterious trailers, the involvement of Hollywood talent, and a genre-breaking approach to horror gaming.

Hideo Kojima and Jordan Peele's newly-announced game, Od, seems to have a lot in common with his canceled Silent Hill project. Announced at The Game Awards 2023, Od, like almost all Kojima's games before it, immediately attracted a lot of speculation. His reputation precedes him, but it's well deserved. Kojima is credited with the invention of the modern stealth game in 1987's Metal Gear, and all his other games since have attempted to break boundaries in a variety of different ways.

But for all the hype, there's...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

Leonardo as Creature from the Black Lagoon Figure from Neca

Leonardo as Creature from the Black Lagoon will join Neca’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X Universal Monsters toy line in January. Pre-order are up for $34.99.

Packed to the gills with accessories, the 7” scale action figure comes with six interchangeable hands, two harpoon katanas, attachable wrist bone blade, and turtle. It’s packaged in a window box with opening flap featuring art by Daniel Horne.

This is the line’s eighth release, following Raphael as Frankenstein, Leonardo as Ygor, Michelangelo as The Mummy, April as Bride of Frankenstein, Splinter as Van Helsing, Donatello as The Invisible Man, and Casey Jones as The Phantom.

The Boogens...

It was about a year ago that we learned that Hideo Kojima would be bringing his acclaimed game Death Stranding to the big screen, thanks to a partnership with Barbarian executive producer Alex Lebovici’s Hammerstone Studios. Now A24 is getting in on the act with the announcement that they’ll be partnered with Kojima’s Kojima Productions to help out with the adaptation of Death Stranding.

A24 made the announcement themselves via a post on X. They’ve even marked the occasion by unveiling a set of new shirts featuring the A24 logo done in a Death Stranding style.

Kojima responded to the announcement in a press release, saying: “A24 was born into this world about 10 years ago, their presence is singular within the industry, they are like no other. The films they are delivering to the world are high in quality and very innovative. I have been attracted...

Indie studio A24 is moving into the video game adaptation space, as Hideo Kojima’s “Death Stranding” will soon be on the big screen. A24 announced on Thursday that the game is now in development to become a live-action feature film.

“Death Stranding” the game stars Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, Guillermo del Toro, Elle Fanning, Shioli Kutsuna, and Margaret Qualley, with Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Winding Refn in supporting roles. The game debuted in 2019 on PlayStation 4 and has players take on the character of Sam Porter, who is tasked with “reuniting a splintered America” per the official logline. The game was played by over 16 million Porters across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. (A sequel is on the way for 2025.)

A24 is collaborating with Kojima Productions, now celebrating its eighth anniversary, to adapt the video game into a live-action feature film. The upcoming film will move beyond the gameplay...