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“A Normal Family” begins with the death of a family, but not the one you might expect. Before his film turns its attention to the family alluded to by its title, director Hur Jin-ho revs out the gate with a case of road rage that ends in murder. Or maybe not, if the lawyer defending the driver in question has his way.

A man is dead and his eight-year-old daughter is critically injured in the hospital, but self-interested criminal lawyer Jae-wan (“Kill Boksoon‘s” Sol Kyung-gu) is more concerned with saving the wealthy executive’s son who’s responsible for the killing. Meanwhile, the attorney’s younger brother, doctor Jae-gyu (“Arthdal Chronicles'” Jang Dong-gun), is working tirelessly to save the victim’s daughter at a nearby hospital.

The pair couldn’t be more different at first, a contrast that becomes sharper during meals they share with their wives and each...

While this summer has its fair share of sequels, leave it to Dag Johan Haugerud and Strand Releasing to roll out an entire trilogy of films across the season. Fresh off the Norwegian filmmaker’s Berlinale Golden Bear win for Dreams, the final entry in his Oslo Trilogy, all three features will begin their theatrical runs at NYC’s Film Forum across the first three months of the summer.

Love will open on May 16, followed by Sex on June 13 and Dreams on September 12 at Film Forum. The films each open on national rollouts following their respective opening dates in cities around North America. Ahead of the roll-out the first trailer for Love has arrived, along with posters for the trilogy.

Zhuo-Ning Su said in his review of the first entry, “It takes confidence to name your film––simply and so very unspecifically––Love. Michael Haneke could get away with it...

As the 15th Beijing International Film Festival (Bjiff) commences on April 18, the annual event is presenting an array of riches for cinephiles and industry professionals alike, marking a trifecta of milestones: the 130th anniversary of world cinema, the 120th anniversary of Chinese cinema, and the festival’s own 15th year.

Headlining this year’s Workshop & Masterclass series is a triumvirate of cinematic heavyweights. French acting legend Isabelle Huppert, who has appeared in over 100 films and earned multiple accolades including best actress at Cannes for “The Piano Teacher” and a Golden Globe for “Elle,” will explore “The Undercurrent Beneath the Ice” – an examination of her distinctive artistic approach that has made her a force in European cinema. The masterclass promises insights into her celebrated collaborations with directors like Claude Chabrol and Michael Haneke.

Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, whose works like “Still Life” and “Ash Is Purest White” have earned him acclaim at Cannes and Venice,...

There’s a certain formula that often defines the recipients of the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious top prize, the Palme d’Or. These films, especially in the last two decades, tend to have a sense of importance about them, frequently due to their sociopolitical awareness of the world (Laurent Cantet’s The Class), or of specific societal ills.

From time to time, the Palme d’Or goes to a bold, experimental, and divisive vision from a well-liked auteur, such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. But more often it’s awarded to a film in the lineup that the majority of the members on the Cannes jury can agree is good. That felt like the case for Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake, as well as Julia Ducournau’s Titane,...

Eighteen features and 10 short films will be in the lineup of the independent Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, organizers announced at a press conference on Tuesday morning.

The section will open with Robin Campillo’s “Enzo” and will also include German director Christian Petzold’s “Mirrors No. 3,” starring Paula Beer; the Ukrainian documentary “Militantropos,” from directors Yelizaveta Smith, Alina Gorlova and Simon Mozgovyi; “Dangerous Animals,” a horror film set at sea from Australian director Sean Byrne (“The Devil’s Candy”); the comedy “Peak Everything” from Canadian director Anne Émond; and the closing-night film, first-time director Eva Victor’s Sundance hit “Sorry, Baby,” which will be released by A24 in June.

The section does not convene a jury to choose the best of its films, but for the second consecutive year it will give out an audience award. Last year’s audience award, the first ever given out by any section at Cannes,...

In a back room of a Luxembourg Hotel, Tim Roth sips a coffee, leans back, and asks me what else I’ve got. We’ve only been talking for ten minutes, but something about the actor’s quick-fire London gab has caught me off guard. I quickly scour my notes, eyes landing on “Sepp Blatter,” the disgraced former FIFA president who Roth played in United Passions, a much-derided puff piece from 2014. “Oh, my God,” the actor responds. “Oh, that was terrible. But that meant getting the kids through college with no student loans. And it worked!”

When the time comes to take stock of Tim Roth’s remarkable career, Blatter’s name won’t trouble the opening paragraphs. Yet there is something strangely fitting about its place in the Roth oeuvre: as emblematic of the actor’s wild variety of choices as the willingness to take a check or two...

Looking for bold new work from first- and second-time feature filmmakers? Look no further than New Directors/New Films, the New York City festival that annually highlights them. Now in its 54th year, New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) returns to New York April 2 through 13, hailing from the Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center.

Sarah Friedland’s debut feature, “Familiar Touch,” will open the festival with its New York premiere. The drama centers on a dementia-suffering octogenarian Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), who has a surreal experience after relocating to an assisted-living facility. The film nearly swept the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition, winning Lion of the Future, Best Director, and Best Actress for Chalfant.

The festival closes with the post-Sundance New York debut of the stylish “Lurker,” directed by Emmy-winning “Beef” and “The Bear” writer and producer Alex Russell. Théodore Pellerin stars as a retail worker who becomes...

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Lee Chang-dong, Terence Davies, Shōhei Imamura, Bi Gan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villleneuve, Céline Sciamma, Guillermo del Toro, Kelly Reichardt, and RaMell Ross––those are just a few of the filmmakers introduced to New York audiences at New Directors/New Films over the last half-century.

Now returning for its 54th edition at Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art from April 2-13, this year’s lineup features 33 new films, presenting acclaimed titles from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Sundance, Rotterdam, and more. Ahead of the festival kicking off next week, we’ve gathered our recommended films to see, and one can explore the full lineup and schedule here.

Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)

Shot largely on location in Queens, Blue Sun Palace explores a hidden culture and milieu.

Bill Murray's pick for his career-best performance may surprise fans. The Hollywood legend recently singled out 2005's forgotten comedy Broken Flowersas the work he's most proud of.

Murray is frequently recognized as one of the greatest comedy stars of his era, with his performances as parapsychology professor Dr. Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters, jaded TV executive Frank Cross in Scrooged, and smooth-talking news reporter Phil Connors in Groundhog Day among his most notable roles. The actor's 2005 portrayal of an aging playboy in Broken Flowers earned praise from critics at the time of release, but flew under the radar for many.

Bill Murray Says Broken Flowers is His Best Movie Performance

During a recent appearance onHot Ones, Murray looked back on career highlights in between downing extremely spicy chicken wings without flinching. Host Sean Evans asked Murray if he'd even given a screen performance he knew he could never top.

"I thought the movie Broken Flowers,...

Cinema is a great medium for telling meaningful, relatable and entertaining stories that cover a range of tropes and themes, such as the hero's journey. From expansive franchises to cult classics, cinema has produced a range of compelling, dynamic, tenacious heroes. However, every great hero needs an equally formidable villain who represents the opposing qualities of what makes a hero. Though some films have morally complex and nuanced foes, others have unambiguously evil threats.

Movie villains serve as a way to create contrast for their heroes and can take them to the edge of their moral philosophies, showing that even in their darkest hour, they remain on the side of good. Some villains are much eviler than others, and some are practically the embodiment of an irredeemable, classically evil threat. These characters are among the best-received bad guys on film, and that only becomes truer as they embrace their love of pure,...

Filmmaking is a form of self-expression: “The most personal is the most creative”. Remember that? Well, that’s quite true most of the time. This generation of filmmakers, such as Gasper Noe, Lars von Trier, and Michael Haneke, do not hesitate to leave their imprint and personal style on their film, irrespective of how that makes the audience feel. They’ve developed a warning system to offset any unwilling takers and keep their films limited to ‘their’ audience. Beyond these names, there are many films etched in movie history that are similarly eerie in tone. We’ve tried to make a list of such unsettling movies (while deliberately missing out on a few). Let us know in the comments the ones you feel should’ve made the cut.

Honorable Mention: The Skin I Live In (2011)

A Pedro Almodovar film can never feel empty. Even if the performances don’t live up to your expectations,...

The Museum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center has announced the full lineup for the 54th edition of New Directors/New Films, unspooling at MoMA on April 2–13.

The event, presenting 24 features and nine short films — including 20 North American or U.S. premieres — will open with Sarah Friedland’s Venice award-winner Familiar Touch and close with Alex Russell’s Lurker from Sundance and Berlin. Both are New York premieres.

Familiar Touch, Friedland’s debut, won three top prizes in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition and showcases an astonishing performance by Kathleen Chalfant.

Russell’s feature debut Lurker, is a tense thriller about the darker side of pop-star worship.

Films in the Nd/Nf program probe a diverse array of themes, including community and co-existence, family histories, the lives of artists, global political issues, and the complexities of youth and coming of age. A number of works experiment with hybrid forms,...

After showcasing work from the likes of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Kelly Reichardt, Pedro Almodóvar, Souleymane Cissé, Jia Zhangke, Spike Lee, Lynne Ramsay, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar-wai, Agnieszka Holland, Denis Villeneuve, Luca Guadagnino, and more, New Directors/New Films is back for their 54th edition, taking place from April 2-13 at Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. The 2025 lineup has now been unveiled, including Sarah Friedland’s Opening Night selection Familiar Touch, Alex Russell’s Closing Night selection Lurker, as well as more acclaimed features such as Invention, Drowning Dry, Fiume o morte!, No Sleep Till, Two Times João Liberada, Timestamp, and more.

Dan Sullivan, 2025 Nd/Nf Co-Chair and Flc Programmer, says, “The lineup for this year’s edition of New Directors/New Films inevitably reflects the uncertainties and tragedies of our global situation in 2025, yet it also evinces the sheer resilience of cinema and the...

The 54th annual New Directors/New Films festival is almost here. IndieWire can unveil this year’s lineup of the beloved program from theMuseum of Modern Art and Film at Lincoln Center. The 2025 New Directors/New Films (Nd/Nf) will take place April 2 – April 13.

Sarah Friedland’s debut feature “Familiar Touch” will open the festival with its New York premiere. The drama centers on octogenarian Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant) who has a surreal experience after relocating to an assisted-living facility. The feature earned three awards in the 2024 Venice Film Festival Orizzonti Competition, including the Lion of the Future, Best Director, and Best Actress for Chalfant.

Nd/Nf will close with the New York premiere of buzzy Sundance 2025 film “Lurker,” directed by “Beef” and “The Bear” writer and supervising producer Alex Russell. Théodore Pellerin stars as a retail worker who becomes obsessed with an up-and-coming musician (Archie Madekwe). “Lurker” is Russell’s feature directorial debut.

Turns out you don’t have to be Irish to be lucky come March. That’s right, repertory cinemas from coast to coast will be raining down four-leaf clovers in the form of cinematic gems like “Matewan,” “The Watermelon Woman,” “The Cable Guy,” and many more. And we know what you’re thinking…you just got through slamming back Oscar film after Oscar film, maybe it’s time to take a little break from the movies. After all, spring’s around the corner — it might be nice to step outside for a bit, breathe in the fresh air.

Well, you’re wrong.

Fresh air is for people who can’t appreciate a random assortment of food scents and possibly carbon dioxide from a leaking soda machine tank. You’re of a different breed and as such, we know there’s no better place for you than the comfy cozy darkness of your local cinema.

Brady Corbet is proving himself to be one of the most popular voices in independent cinema. His new film, The Brutalist, has earned praise from critics and recognition from the Academy. The period drama showing a Hungarian architect in post-war America establishes Corbet as someone who takes financial risks to explore big themes.

With a rare career journey from acting in Thirteen and Mysterious Skin to the very unique directing debut on The Childhood of a Leader, Corbet’s vision has allowed him to receive various prestigious awards, like the Silver Lion of the Venice International Film Festival and Best Director Award at the Golden Globes, for The Brutalist.

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in The Brutalist | Credit: A24

However, Corbet’s situation landed him in the headlines again and also raised some talks about his financial situation within the industry as he surprisingly stated that he got nothing out of The Brutalist.

“From the Heart of Europe: Austria on Screen” promises to bring “an eclectic mix from hard-hitting drama to absurdist comedy” to the 2025 Glasgow Film Festival, which kicked off on Wednesday and runs through March 9.

Across 12 days, Scotland’s largest annual celebration of cinema will bring out such stars as James McAvoy, Ed Harris, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, George MacKay and Formula 1 star Damon Hill, and screen 92 world, U.K. and Scottish premieres from 39 countries, including the Austrian showcase as part of this year’s country’s focus that puts a spotlight on new cinematic voices as well as legendary filmmaker Michael Haneke.

“We have been noticing over the past years that Austrian films were really starting to make waves on the festival circuit,” Christopher Kumar, the Glasgow Film Festival’s program coordinator tells THR.

The Glasgow team worked with the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, the Roland Teichmann-led Austrian Film Insitute,...

A remake that took two years to make couldn’t entertain its audience fully for more than two hours and managed to stay on the right lane only for half its runtime. “Vidaamuyarchi” (meaning: Perseverance) is a Tamil road action film starring Ajith Kumar as Arjun, Trisha Krishnan as Kayal, Arjun Sarja as Rakshith, Regina Cassandra as Deepika, and a mix of some Indian and Azerbaijani actors. Directed by Magizh Thirumeni, the film attempts to deliver a gripping action thriller but ends up diluting its core by focusing on unnecessary emotional baggage.

Arjun, the protagonist, was a charming man in his early days but has grown bitter over time. Kayal, once drawn to his presence and personality in their youth, was deeply in love with him. That was twelve years ago. Now, the once-happy couple is struggling with their marriage, on the verge of separation. Before the divorce, an unexpected...

Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles and Filipino director Lav Diaz are among the five Masters invited to the 11th edition of the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra lab.

Hong Kong filmmaker Johnnie To, Mexican costume designer Anna Terrazas and Iranian-French cinematographer Darius Khondji round out the 2025 Masters.

The 11th edition of Qumra will run from April 4-9 in Doha, Qatar.

The Masters will give one-on-one mentorship to the Qumra lab participants, and will each give a masterclass about their careers.

Salles is nearing the end of an awards campaign for his 10th feature film I’m Still Here. The film debuted in competition at Venice last year,...

It's become a fun pub trivia act to be able to rattle off the legion of beloved performers who got their start on the big screen by acting in horror movies. It's less common, however, to learn about actors famous for their roles in horror films pivoting to directing and nabbing an Academy Award nomination for Best Director in the process. But that's precisely what happened with Brady Corbet, the director behind one of the frontrunners for Best Picture (at the time of writing) and a film that /Film's Chris Evangelista called "an overwhelming triumph" in his review, "The Brutalist."

Corbet, for those not familiar, made his feature directorial debut in 2015 with "The Childhood of a Leader." Loosely adapted from Jean-Paul Sartre's short story of the same name, the film centers on an American boy living in France with his authoritarian parents during the Treaty of Versailles and explores...

If there is a cinematic equivalent of the theatre of cruelty, it must be the reigning spirit of Austrian cinema. Films by Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, Veronika Franz and Jessica Hausner may be very different from each other, but are similarly unflinching as they roam threatening spaces, find the sinister in the everyday and delve into the darkness of human hearts. Johanna Moder’s previous films didn’t share that sensibility, but she shows her Austrian colors in Mother’s Baby, the most viscerally ghastly evocation of new parenthood we’ve seen since Eraserhead.

Not exactly a horror film, Mother’s Baby is nevertheless shot through with horror elements: a weird baby, an isolated woman being gaslit into thinking she’s crazy, a demonic doctor and his horde of witchy nurses working in a strangely unregulated institution straight out of David Cronenberg’s playbook. Over everything hovers the gruesome mystery of birth,...

Michel Franco is back in a pissed-off register about the world we live in with his crisply directed class critique “Dreams,” where the Mexican writer/director rails into the limousine liberal American one-percent identity with all the subtlety of a power drill. But the film’s quietly disturbing power lies in how Franco packages his U.S.-Mexico border metaphor — with rich philanthropist Jennifer (Jessica Chastain) and her young ballerina lover Fernando standing in for each — into an addictive and destructive love story as sharply wrought as the movie’s grander political concerns.

Chastain gives her riskiest performance in some time as a rich arts patron who encourages Fernando to cross the border illegally in order for her foundation to give an American showcase of his art. Many of Chastain’s recent movies, including her Oscar-winning “Eyes of Tammy Faye” and even Franco’s own bittersweet dementia romance “Memory,” have...

Gabriel Mascaro’s “The Blue Trail,” playing in competition in Berlin, marks another great milestone for Brazilian cinema in a year where the country got its first best picture Oscar nomination with Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.” Mascaro follows in the footsteps of Salles playing in competition in Venice and Karim Aïnouz playing in competition at Cannes with “Motel Destino,” three consecutive Brazilian films playing in the most prestigious strands of the three most important European film festivals.

“Each one of these films is so different from each other but has great strengths,” Mascaro tells Variety ahead of his Berlinale bow. “I feel very proud to be a part of it.”

“The Blue Trail” takes place in a near future Brazil where the government relocates the elderly to senior housing colonies so the younger generations can fully focus on productivity and growth. Tereza (Denise Weinberg), nearing 80, refuses to accept her fate,...

Paris-based sales company Alpha Violet has taken international sales on teen mental health drama “How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World,” a first feature by Austrian filmmaker Florian Pochlatko, ahead of its Berlin Film Festival bow.

The film, about a young woman’s search for sanity after leaving a psychiatric hospital, will premiere in the festival’s new Berlinale Perspectives section dedicated to first features.

In “How to Be Normal,” Pia – played by Austrian actor Luisa-Céline Gaffron (“And Tomorrow the Entire World”) – moves back in with her parents after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital. “Juggling jobs, heartbreak, meds, and stigma, she stumbles into a world that feels as unsteady as she does,” says the provided synopsis.

Alpha Violet co-founder Virginie Devesa in a statement praised “How to Be Normal” as “an inventive and energetic movie,” noting that “Florian Pochlatko‘s vision of the world we live in is so playful.

French cinema star Juliette Binoche will preside over the 78th Festival de Cannes, marking a remarkable full-circle moment in her celebrated career. The acclaimed actress has been selected as the international jury president for the 2025 festival, exactly 40 years after her breakthrough performance launched her to global stardom.

Binoche’s appointment carries deep personal significance. In 1985, she first climbed the festival’s famous steps in André Téchiné’s “Rendez-vous,” a film that catapulted her into the international spotlight. “I was born at the Festival de Cannes,” Binoche has often said, reflecting on that pivotal moment.

“In 1985, I walked up the steps for the first time with the enthusiasm and uncertainty of a young actress,” Binoche shared. “I never imagined I’d return 40 years later in the honorary role of Jury President.” She emphasized her appreciation for the responsibility, noting the need for humility in such a prestigious role.

The actress brings...

Juliette Binoche, the Oscar- and César-winning actress who’s a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, will serve as its jury president for the 2025 edition. The festival runs May 13 – 24 on the French Riviera, where Binoche will be responsible for overseeing the main competition jury, comprised of an international crop of actors and filmmakers.

The iconic Binoche has been a Cannes mainstay since André Téchiné’s “Rendez-vous” made her the belle of the festival in 1985. That’s exactly 40 years ago come this year’s Cannes. In other words, Binoche was born at Cannes. She’s taken many projects to the festival, including the films of Michael Haneke and Claire Denis, and she won Best Actress for Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” in 2010. Last year, she gave Meryl Streep (perhaps the equivalent of an actress of Binoche’s stature here in the United States) the Honorary Palme d’Or. In 2023, filmmaker Anh Hung Tran...

Quick LinksThe Story of A ProphetWhat Makes A Prophet Such a Beloved Film?An American Remake of A Prophet Was Nearly Made

When most people think of crime or gangster films, they might think of classic Hollywood portrayals like Goodfellas or Reservoir Dogs, but they rarely include any films from outside the realm of Hollywood as part of the conversation. If the Best Picture win for Bong Joon Ho's Parasite at the 2020 Oscars has served as any indication, it's that some of the most well-made films in the world happen to come from overseas. For any fans of the crime genre, the Academy Award-nominated French film, A Prophet (or Un prophète) is an absolute must-watch. Since its release, A Prophet has gone on to gain a reputation as being one of the best French films ever made. It's a film that has plenty of thought-provoking drama and thrills going for...

Stranger Eyes.“Some people aren’t meant to be parents.” It’s a phrase we’ll hear twice in Yeo Siew Hua’s Stranger Eyes (2024)—and it’s a sentiment we might come to share as we follow the family at the center of the film. Young parents Junyang (Wu Chien-ho) and Peiying (Anicca Panna) live with Junyang’s mother in a large apartment complex in Singapore, where Junyang works a shift job at an ice-skating rink and Peiying is a livestreamer. Their toddler daughter, Bo, has vanished from a playground three months prior to the events of the film. Since Bo’s disappearance, Peiying has spent hours rewatching family videos, hoping that she’ll notice some minor detail in her phone’s camera roll that will help her solve Bo’s kidnapping. When the family begins to receive DVDs sent by someone who has evidently been stalking them for months,...

The Glasgow Film Festival has unveiled the full lineup for its 21st edition this year and will host Glasgow-born Hollywood star James McAvoy to look back on his career during an “In Conversation” event.

“Across 12 packed days, Scotland’s largest annual celebration of cinema will showcase 92 world, U.K. and Scottish premieres from 39 countries,” including 12 world premieres, organizers said on Tuesday.

The gala world premiere of survival thriller Tornado, the sophomore feature from Scottish director John Maclean (Slow West), will open the fest on Feb. 26. “Set in the rugged landscape of 1790s Britain, Tornado (played by model-songwriter Kōki,) finds herself caught in a perilous situation when she and her father’s traveling puppet show crosses paths with a ruthless criminal gang led by Sugarman (Pulp Fiction star Tim Roth) and his ambitious son Little Sugar (Slow Horses’ Jack Lowden),” says a plot summary. “In an attempt to create a new life,...

Let the buzz begin as this year’s Glasgow Film Festival will open with Tornado and close with Martin Robertson’s Make it to Munich, in what is another world premiere.

Undoubtedly a highlight each year in the film calendar Gff kicks off on February 26th until March 9th and is bursting with variety. Some highlights include the UK premiere of Long Day’s Journey into Night starring Jessica Lange & Ed Harris, Argentinian crime-caper Kill the Jockey and On Falling from Scottish filmmaker Laura Carreira.

The festival will play host to a number of UK premieres including The Return, Bob Trevino Likes It as well as Luckiest Man in America starring Paul Walter Hauser to name but a few.

In Conversation With returns with a star-studded line-up of Jessica Lange and Glasgow’s own, James McAvoy, who will take a look back on their careers.

As with true Gff tradition is...

Before his days as a director of such acclaimed works as Vox Lux and The Brutalist, Brady Corbet was most known for his acting work, with one of his most notable roles being in Michael Haneke’s English-language remake of Funny Games. A shot-for-shot remake of Haneke’s original 1997 Dutch film, Funny Games is an extremely violent and malicious piece. The film follows an affluent family who are held captive and tortured by two young, sadistic criminals played by Corbet and Michael Pitt. Corbet is at the heart of the story as the villainous sidekick who brutally tortures the unfortunate Farber family. As a young man with an innocent-looking face, the stark contrast between his gruesome actions and innocuous facade makes his performance all the more effective. If anything, this disparity is why he was such a perfect casting choice for the role.

Although Sebastian Stan made his first onscreen appearance in Michael Haneke‘s 1994 drama 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, his acting career kicked into high gear in the 2000s with a recurring role on Gossip Girl. But it was the part of Bucky Barnes, a plucky WWII veteran turned brainwashed assassin in Marvel’s Captain America and its sequel, The Winter Soldier, that made him a star. Stan has played Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier, throughout eight films and counting, yet that’s far from the extent of his acting career.

Born in Romania in 1982, Stan gained prominence on television playing the Mad Hatter in the fantasy series Once Upon a Time and the openly gay son to the former U.S. first lady on Political Animals. He had his greatest small-screen success with the limited series Pam & Tommy, recounting the tumultuous relationship between Pamela Anderson (Lily James...

From tuning out critics to reading every review, from ridiculed first-day rituals to when it’s Ok not to collaborate with the crew, the directors of six of this year’s most daring movies each have their own strategies for managing their careers and their sets. On a Sunday afternoon in November, Edward Berger (Conclave), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance), RaMell Ross (Nickel Boys), Ridley Scott (Gladiator II) and Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two) convened for The Hollywood Reporter’s annual Director Roundtable. The filmmakers chopped it up over their wildly different working styles but agreed on at least one thing about cinema: “Time dilates if you do it right.”

Does anybody have a day-one ritual on set, a thing you do when you’re starting out to set the mood?

Brady Corbet Have a panic attack.

Ramell Ross I tested positive for Covid.

Denis Villeneuve It’s an embarrassing thing,...

The National Board of Review held its annual Awards Gala Tuesday, January 7 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City. This year 246 films were viewed by a select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals, academics, and students to celebrate the art of cinema from the last year.

Mikey Madison was honored with the Breakthrough Performance Award for her role in Sean Baker’s “Anora,” making her the most awarded actress of the current awards season thus far. Coming back to NYC from the Golden Globes on Sunday, Madison is still beaming with light as she makes her rounds on the awards circuit.

“I’ve met so many incredible women who I’ve admired for so long and have made wonderful friends, so I think that’s what I’ll take away from all of this,” she told IndieWire of what she takes away most from all of the circuit buzz and experiences.

Quentin Tarantino is known for his gritty dialogues, over-the-top characters, non-linear storytelling, and geeky cinema references that only an avid movie lover like Tarantino himself could think to infuse into his storytelling. As Tarantino’s reputation grows as a filmmaker, he is widely regarded as one of the key practitioners of postmodernism in cinema. Postmodernity advocates the rejection of the grand narrative and asserts a subjective truth. In the context of 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds,” Tarantino masterfully creates this subjective truth by altering the historical events of the Second World War, offending some fans and critics who viewed it as a sick joke or a form of Holocaust denial.

We all know the evil of the Nazis and the horrors of the Holocaust in the context of history. But Tarantino allows himself to dissect the grand narrative of events and crafts a new truth, presenting a cool “Jewish vengeance” story rather...

Tim Fehlbaum’s tense drama “September 5” is tightly focused on a group of real-life male American journalists responding to the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. But one of the most essential characters in the film is fictional. She’s a woman. She’s German. And she’s not a journalist.

Marianne Gebhardt, played by Leonie Benesch, is a translator in the ABC Sports office during the attack by the Palestinian militant organization Black September. Eleven members of the Israeli team were murdered by the terrorists or killed in a failed rescue attempt. As journalists Roone Arledge (Peter Sarsgaard), Geoffrey Mason (John Magaro), Peter Jennings (Benjamin Walker) and Jim McKay (in archival footage woven into the film) struggle to understand what is happening and to communicate it to the world, Gebhardt is an indispensable part of the team as the one person in the room who speaks German.

Mikey Madison may be having her star-making moment, with recognition from multiple critics groups for her performance in Sean Baker’s “Anora,” as well as a nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy at tonight’s Golden Globe Awards, but rather than revel, she’s taking time to pay homage to those who helped shape her own abilities. Taking a visit to New York’s Criterion Collection offices, Madison spent some time inside the Criterion Closet not only selecting goodies to take home, but acknowledging multiple performances that have stuck with her through the years, from Jackie Coogan in Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” to Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces.”

“I really think it’s my favorite Nicholson performance,” said Madison of Rafelson’s film. “There’s just something about how he approaches this character, such a morally gray character,...

How the team behind the Oscar contender managed to make a three-hour-plus film feel significantly shorter.

David Jancso is so close with filmmakers Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold that the editor has been by the couple’s side for several major milestones over the last decade, from cutting Corbet’s debut film The Childhood of a Leader and Fastvold’s 2020 feature The World to Come to witnessing the early days of Corbet and Fastvold’s daughter’s life in the pair’s Paris apartment.

“I understand what Brady wants, and his visionary approach to filmmaking is something that you just don’t forget,” Jancso tells Gold Derby.

Neither is The Brutalist, Corbet’s acclaimed new film and one of the season’s top awards contenders, with seven Golden Globe Awards nominations including Best Drama, Best Director for Corbet, and Best Screenplay for Corbet and Fastvold. Set in the aftermath of World War II,...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2024 Venice Film Festival. A24 releases “Babygirl” in theaters December 25.

The worst thing your partner could possibly say to you after sex, after you’ve said “I love you,” is the dreaded “love you.” No “I.” And that’s not the most demoralizing response Romy (Nicole Kidman) has for an amorous confession by her husband Jacob (Antonio Banderas) in “Babygirl,” writer/director Halina Reijn’s provocative erotic dramedy that begins and ends with an orgasm. One of them is faked, but in between, this perversely funny and absorbing new film explores the pleasure gap between men and women, and how our inability to talk about sex limits our ability to just do it.

And there’s lots of sex here, with Kidman going raw inside and out for one of her top performances in a career built on risk-taking. That’s...

In the early days, before movies became talkies, it was easy to show foreign films in the USA. Just insert new title cards in English, and film fans in St. Louis could watch and understand the latest offering from France or Germany. But then sound came and changed everything.

Of course, distributors in the United States could add subtitles or dub in new voices, but if they really wanted to sell the movie to an American audience, they could also just go ahead and make a new, English-language version.

Whether it is repurposing the Japanese classic Rashomon as The Outrage or taking Spain’s Abre los ojos and turning it into Vanilla Sky, producers in the USA are constantly scouring the globe for some hot property to acquire, rewrite, recast, and in so doing, capture a whole new audience.

Netflix viewers are running out of time to check out Cold Pursuit

Usually,...

Imagine you’re strolling down a darkly-lit, marble-walled corridor in the blandest, grayest hotel hallway you’ve ever seen. You open one of the doors, step through, and enter the most iconic and recognizable room in Europe: the Sistine Chapel.

This dream scenario actually did occur on the set of Edward Berger’s Vatican potboiler “Conclave,” which was filmed entirely at Rome’s famed Cinecittà Studios and in locations around the Italian capital.

Based on a novel by Robert Harris, Berger’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning “All Quiet on the Western Front” is a stunning achievement in design, costumes and photography. “But there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors used to create these worlds,” said Oscar nominated production designer Suzie Davies.

Using the biggest available lot at Cinecittà, Davies explained how the film’s massive sets needed to be geometrically wedged like Tetris blocks. The long corridor, part of...

Spanning 750 square kilometers, it would be unwise to commit a crime in Singapore. Not that it’s impossible to commit a crime in the city-state, but it sure is impossible to get away with it. The Southeast Asian nation is one of the most surveilled countries in the world with more than 100,00 cameras watching the moves of its 6 million strong population, which makes the central conflict of “Stranger Eyes” – a missing child – all the more elusive. But as the film progresses, writer-director Yeo Siew Hua intentionally shifts gears from a potential police procedural into a melancholic, existential study of how even in the age of mass surveillance, we seek our temptations and despite being watched by a camera, seldom do we feel seen in any meaningful way.

This narrative friction between seeing and being seen, being realized, and being wanted when there’s no chance of reciprocation is at the core of this taut thriller.

Brady Corbet, director of the upcoming A24 film The Brutalist, is already looking ahead to his next project. Following The Brutalist, centering around an architect (Adrien Brody) fleeing post-war Europe in 1947 and pursuing the American Dream, Corbet will do something completely different. He revealed in a New Yorker profile that his next film, a horror-Western also centering around immigration, will “shake viewers.” According to The New Yorker:

The new project, which is set in the nineteen-seventies and early eighties, will also deal with immigration, this time of the Chinese to California. Its style will be looser; genre-wise, it will draw on horror and Westerns.

Apparently, the seed of the idea came to the director when he hosted a Halloween watch party for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with his partner and collaborator, the filmmaker Mona Fastvold. Their 10-year-old daughter Ada and various friends were also in attendance.

Related The Brutalist Review:...

In a much-clipped moment from his Criterion Closet video, philosopher and cultural theorist Slavoj Žižek pulls a DVD copy of Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart from the shelf and remarks upon it warmly as “one of those nice gentle French movies where you have incest.” Žižek’s enigmatic comment springs to mind watching Endless Summer Syndrome, the feature-directing debut of Iranian director Kaveh Daneshmand––primarily because the film delights in upending every other word in that iconic sentence.

Lawyer Delphine (newcomer Sophie Colon) enjoys a pleasant country life with her husband Antoine (Matheo Capelli) and their two adopted children, Adia (Frédérika Milano) and Aslan. Aslan is preparing to leave to study in New York, and the family are spending a few final picturesque days at home together by the pool. Then the phone rings. A colleague of Antoine’s confides in Delphine that her husband spoke, in an end-of-work-party stupor,...

The hotly anticipated festival unveils its special screenings and also its Country Focus as part of the programme.

As in previous years the Special Event screenings are not to be missed where audiences can enjoy an immersive experience. Past highlights include a screening of The Blair Witch Project in the woods…

Running from February 26th to March 9th Gff takes over the Grand Ole Oprey for the 25th anniversary of Coyote Ugly. One of Glasgow’s most beloved venues, Cottiers, is set to play host for the screening of teen horror The Craft and Muriel’s Wedding.

The festival will once again mark the return of its Country Focus in From The Heart of Europe: Austria. It is set to be an eclectic programme featuring mockumentary Piggy Bank, drama Peacock and two of Michael Haneke’s classics The Piano Teacher and Hidden Caché.

This peek at next year’s festival builds...

Bernhard Wenger’sPeacockwill screen as part of a special focus on Austria taking place at the Glasgow Film Festival (Gff), running from February 26 to March 9, 2025 in Scotland.

It will be the final edition for festival director Allison Gardner after 30 years with the organisation.

Peacock,which screened first at the Venice Film Festival, is Wenger’s debut feature. It starsAll Quiet On The Western Frontactor Albrecht Schuch as a man working at a friend-for-hire scheme who grows to realise he can pretend to be anyone but himself.

Gff’s ’From The Heart of Europe: Austria on Screen’ programme will also showcase...

The death penalty will forever be a hot-button issue in the U.S. and overseas. Dating back three decades, Ukraine joined other European nations in banning the ultimate penalty, but what about the years leading up to the small country's monumental decision? Kyiv-native filmmaker Philip Sotnychenko chose to base his new feature in the months leading up Ukraine's official declaration, a key factor in his disjointed narrative involving a complex and ultimately despondent murder investigation. Just as some authors are deemed a "writer's writer," La Palisiada is indeed cinema for cinephiles, a challenging but ultimately rewarding film that proves the country's talent behind the lens.

The 2025 Oscars are panning out to be another tight competition, of course, with the International Feature category ever a hot contender. If Academy members are up for challenging work, then perhaps Ukraine's latest entry into the race might just hold a candle to the top-five list.

Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, two of the greatest global actors of their generation or any, stage an “English Patient” reunion with Uberto Pasolini’s stately and somber “The Return.” The epic film, shot in Greece and Italy last year, retells Homer’s classic and oft-recycled epic “Odyssey” through a stripped-down lens that frames the story of Odysseus (Fiennes), Penelope (Binoche), and their son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) as a tale without gods and monsters and instead more of a dysfunctional family narrative. What’s lost is the heat and swashbuckling adventure of the original tale, a humanist turn that finds Odysseus at the end of his mortal coil, Fiennes at first haggard, awash naked on the shores of Ithaca after a shipwreck has left him unmoored and divorced from his former kingdom. The actors are prime, but the movie is a solemn affair that could use more grandeur.

When Odysseus...

Warning: Spoilers ahead for all the movies mentioned in this article.The horror genre continues to terrify audiences with great sequels like Smile 2, and new, original movies such as the Hugh Grant thriller Heretic. It's a genre that has consistently provided audiences with moments of pure terror, by either introducing new characters like Art the Clown in the Terrifier series, or with wildly inventive body horror films like Coralie Fargaet's The Substance. However, many horror movies are iconic because of their shocking endings.

The Substance's ending is a great example of a modern film with a sick, gruesome final act that lingers long in the memory. What's so great about it, is that it isn't just done for shock value. The scene is a great culmination of the protagonist's journey, and is a great way to close the movie's narrative. The movie joins a long list in the horror genre,...

In April, Nicole Kidman delivered a killer speech when accepting the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award that included a list of directors who “took a bet” on her throughout her prolific career. The lineup included the likes of Susanne Bier, Stanley Kubrick, Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Gus Van Sant, and more.

In an interview with Vanity Fair published Wednesday, the Oscar-winning actress was asked if there was anyone she hasn’t worked with yet and would want to. “I’ve always said I want to work with [Martin] Scorsese,” replied Kidman, before adding,...