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Hannibal is a consistently inconsistent character. Four actors have played the character over the years, and all have brought different kinds of versions for the public to assess. Although Anthony Hopkins’ Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs stands as the most widely known, fans believe that Mads Mikkelsen’s version is the best.

While fans of any other version may title this a bold claim, considering he is the most recent to play the character, there are many reasons why his Lecter worked in a way that others didn’t. In an interview, Mikkelsen revealed that he consciously decided to keep an iconic part of the character out of his version, and it showcases exactly why he was perfect.

Mads Mikkelsen refused to do a certain tongue action

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mads Mikkelsen was asked if he tried to incorporate parts of Anthony Hopkins’ performance when...

Better Call Saul and The Mandalorian star Giancarlo Esposito is known for playing villainous roles to perfection, but he still has yet to reach the "deepest, darkest" part of himself to play a character. One role that would allow him to go to that level is Hannibal Lecter, the fictional cannibal portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs.

In a new interview with Empire, Esposito was asked about previous comments he'd made in 2019 about how he'd "fight to the death to play Hannibal Lecter." It's a feeling that still holds true for Esposito, who has since gotten to meet Hopkins personally. While the two didn't speak about the Hannibal character, Esposito feels that Hopkins would approve of him taking on that role. It may not be a project that's actually in the works, though Esposito clarified he's up for it it he were to get the opportunity.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter has been part of our pop-culture consciousness since 1981 when author Thomas Harris invented him in the pages of his psychological horror novel, Red Dragon. Since then, Dr. Lecter's appearances have crisscrossed different mediums, including film and television, turning this serial killer with a taste for human flesh into one of the most memorable villains of the modern-day era.

Most general audiences will know Hannibal Lecter best, thanks to the Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs. Anthony Hopkins took home the Oscar for his incredible performance in that film as the deranged sociopath toying with the young FBI trainee Clarice Starling under the pretense of helping her catch the equally menacing Buffalo Bill. As good as that film unquestionably is, the unique nature of Hannibal Lecter's depravity has led to other successful adaptations.

Updated on February 25, 2025, by Robert Vaux: The possibility of a fourth season for the...

Hannibal Lecter, pop culture's most popular cannibal, may soon be heading back to the big screen. It's been reported that a new feature film featuring the iconic character is in the works,

According to film industry insider Daniel Richtman, Universal is "developing a new Hannibal Lecter movie." However, it's currently unclear if Anthony Hopkins will return to reprise the role. No additional details about the project were shared, so it's also not known if the film is intended to be a reboot or a new sequel to the previous Universal films about the character. No filmmakers or cast members were noted to be attached to the project as of this time, and Universal has not yet offered an official comment.

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The...

Everyone loves a good villain. Without scenery-chewing, dastardly antagonists for our heroes to fight, things just aren't much fun. Sometimes villains become cultural icons in their own right, like Michael Meyers from the "Halloween" movies or even Jeremy Irons as Scar in "The Lion King." Of course, one of the greatest villains of them all is Hannibal Lecter. Created by author Thomas Harris, "Hannibal the Cannibal" was the baddie in the novels "Red Dragon" in 1981, "The Silence of the Lambs" in 1988, "Hannibal" in 1999, and "Hannibal Rising" in 2006, and his well-mannered eccentricity and fierce bloodlust makes him as alluring as he is terrifying. These books have since been adapted into several Hannibal Lecter movies and an NBC television series, with four different actors having portrayed the aristocratic Lithuanian serial killer, each with their own unique spin. 

But who did it best? No one person cast as the clever cannibal was ever truly bad in the role,...

Peacock subscribers will soon be able to witness Anthony Hopkins' final turn as Hannibal Lecter. Red Dragon, based on the 1981 novel of the same name by Thomas Harris, is heading to the streaming service this January.

Directed by Brett Ratner, Red Dragon is a prequel to 1991's The Silence of the Lambs and features the final performance of Hopkins as cannibal serial killer Hannibal Lecter. The movie will become available to stream on Peacock beginning Jan. 1. Released in 2002, the psychological thriller sees FBI agent Will Graham (played by Edward Norton) enlisting the help of serial killer Hannibal Lecter to catch another killer, Francis Dolarhyde (Ralph Fiennes). Although not as critically acclaimed as The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon — which was penned by Silence screenwriter Ted Tally — was seen as an improvement over 2001's Hannibal. The prequel was also a box office success, grossing $209 million worldwide against a $78 million budget.

French actress Karin Viard’s stay as guest of honor at the Les Arcs Film Festival in the French Alps got off to a dramatic start over the weekend after she fell while skiing and banged her head.

The star, who is a best known internationally for her roles in films La Famille Bélier (which was remade as the Oscar-winning Coda) and Perfect Nanny, fell just minutes after taking to the slopes on Sunday.

She later posted footage on her Instagram account showing her being treated by medics as she lay on a toboggan stretcher ahead of being evacuated off the slopes.

“There you go, a head trauma after a minute of ski. That’s what you call talent,” wrote the actress.

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Earlier in the day, she had been snapped at the unveiling of her...

Moon Knight received largely positive reviews when the series premiered on Disney+ in 2022. However, in the years that followed, the Marvel character's future has been uncertain.

Although there have been no official talks about what comes next, director Mohamed Diab says he hopes to get another opportunity to work on a follow-up to the series. "You never know. With Marvel, nothing is called finished," he told Deadline. "There could be a film, or he could go into another universe. Right now, nothing is in talks, but definitely with Moon Knight, I would love to be involved in anything else, and it could happen for sure. I have a great relationship with them," he added.

Related Marvels Blood Hunt is About to Unleash Moon Knight's Patron God

One of the strongest gods in the entire Marvel Universe is at the center of an Asgardian jailbreak, and his return could be a serious problem.

Within the pantheon of legendary cinematic villains, few are as towering as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, who originated as a character in a series of novels written by Thomas Harris. The first film Lecter featured in was an adaptation of the first novel he appeared in: 1986s Manhunter, which was adapted from the 1981 novel Red Dragon. Brian Cox was the first actor to play Lecter (though he was named Lecktor in that film), but it was ultimately Anthony Hopkins who became most well-associated with the role, initially playing Lecter in 1991 and doing so two more times once for a prequel, and once for a sequel in the early 2000s. Since then, Mads Mikkelsen also put his spin on the character during the Hannibal TV series, and Gaspard Ulliel played a younger version of Lecter in 2007s Hannibal Rising.

Bloody Disgusting has teamed up with Lionsgate to release seven modern horror favorites on Blu-ray + Digital in limited edition SteelBook packaging, available exclusively at Walmart today.

The line includes Wolf Creek, Hannibal Rising, I Spit on Your Grave, You’re Next, Sinister, Texas Chainsaw, and Leatherface.

Priced at $22.96, each title features brand new artwork by Bond.

Wolf Creek is written and directed by Greg McLean. John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, and Kestie Morassi star.

In the 2005 film, a trio of stranded backpackers in remote Australia fall prey to a psychopathic local, who takes them captive and tortures them.

Wolf Creek special features:

Unrated Cut of the Film Audio Commentary by Director Greg McLean, Executive Producer Matt Hearn, and Actors Cassandra Magrath and Kestie Morassi The Making Of Wolf Creek Deleted Scene Theatrical Trailer

Hannibal Rising is directed by Peter Webber and written by Thomas Harris, based on his own novel.

We have a good-news-bad-news situation for diehard horror fans and physical media collectors. The good news is that Bloody Disgusting is releasing an awesome line of SteelBooks for seven popular Lionsgate movies this summer. The bad news is that my wallet will be hurting because I need these so badly.

The collection is a Walmart exclusive and will feature the films Wolf Creek, Sinister, Texas Chainsaw (2013), I Spit On Your Grave (2010), You're Next, Leatherface, and Hannibal Rising. Each SteelBook includes the Blu-ray version of the film plus a digital copy.

All the new Steelbooks feature a new look and artwork by the artist Bond, designed as specially commissioned collectibles. They will be sold individually exclusively at Walmart beginning on August 20, retailing for $24.99 each.

More information about each of the titles below:

Wolf Creek (2005) - An Australian horror film about a trio of backpackers taken hostage by a psychopathic serial killer in the outback.

Bertrand Bonello is a director who is rather hard to put into any category, such is the eclectic nature of his work. His latest follows on that trend, with his first deviation into the science-fiction genre, based on Henry James’s novella The Beast in the Jungle. We had the pleasure in speaking to the talented auteur in Paris earlier this year, as part of a small roundtable.

Bonello spoke in great detail about the themes of the movie, and his fears – and hopes – for AI. He also talks about replacing Gaspard Ulliel in the leading role, and why he feels George MacKay was such a special talent to work with. He also discusses the wonderful Léa Seydoux and her approach to the project, while he speaks about his career and the industry as a whole, and why he has never quite been able to fit in.

To note, while...

Bertrand Bonello on Henry James' The Beast: 'The novella is a masterpiece of melodrama and James is a master of looking at the human soul' Photo: UniFrance There was no easy route for Bertrand Bonello to make what must be his most ambitious and convoluted film to date: The Beast. It unfurls over three time periods: 1910, 1914 and 2044. And the production was delayed twice: first by the tragic death in a ski-ing accident of actor Gaspard Ulliel, who was replaced by British actor George MacKay, and then for a year by scheduling conflicts with one of his favoured collaborators Léa Seydoux.

In the interim his producer suggested he might want to make a short: instead Bonello, never one to shirk a challenge, decided to film another feature Coma, which dealt with a teenage girl in lockdown amid a global health crisis and was the last film Ulliel worked on before the accident.

Bertrand Bonello with Anne-Katrin Titze on Romy Schneider’s face in Coma, the camera test by Henri-Georges Clouzot for his unfinished film L’enfer (Inferno): “I was trying to find an image that you could dream of when you’re a young girl.”

Bertrand Bonello’s prophetic Coma (with a haunting score by the director/screenwriter), starring Louise Labèque (of Zombi Child) as the adolescent and Julia Faure as the title character Patricia Coma, was filmed in France during the Covid pandemic lockdown. We hear the voices of Gaspard Ulliel (Yves Saint Laurent in Bonello’s Saint Laurent), Anaïs Demoustier, Laetitia Casta, Louis Garrel, and Vincent Lacoste as the dollhouse figures. We see Romy Schneider’s face in a camera test for Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished Inferno (L’Enfer) and meet a woman in the forest portrayed by Bonnie Banane.

Young girl (Louise Labèque) with Sharon doll in Coma

Theorists Gilles Deleuze,...

It was only a matter of time before Martin Scorsese and Timothée Chalamet worked together. But unfortunately, it’s not for a big screen project; instead, it’s for a Chanel ad. This might not be the project we were all hoping for but it’s still a compelling commercial and hopefully the start of a genuine working relationship.

The Scorsese and Chalamet Chanel ad briefly opens with an almost Who’s That Knocking at My Door? rawness, with Chalamet waking too late for an appointment and being rushed into a waiting car, where he’ll be taken to a late night talk show appearance. Complete with a nearly constantly moving camera and a charismatic turn from Chalamet, it’s actually a pretty snazzy ad for a product most of us will never buy.

As described by Chanel, the commercial offers “an invitation to discover the many facets of a...

Coma follows a young girl in lockdown as her anxiety over the future leads to surreal fever dreams. Bertrand Bonello's film from 2022 is now getting distribution, and feels like a modern period piece echoing the emotional turmoil of past events. Coma mixes animation styles with live-action filmmaking to create a vibrant sensory treat that's simultaneously nightmarish and hopeful.

There's arguably no director working today like the French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello, who somehow manages to have one finger on the pulse of the real world, yet also approaches current affairs with a decidedly surrealist sensibility. Indeed, his filmography feels simultaneously familiar and esoteric, immediately recognizable in the human problems his movies seek to explore, but also, because of his propensity for dream-like imagery and reliance on feeling rather than logic, sometimes difficult to digest or access. Not that this is a bad thing, of course. Bonello's newest release, Coma, benefits...

Martin Scorsese’s latest directorial effort and first collaboration with Timothée Chalamet is upon us––it just happens to clock at 1/206th Killers of the Flower Moon‘s length and point us towards a product. But this Bleu de Chanel ad features nearly as many shots as his recent feature and has more fun with the whole trying-to-sell-you-something routine than these things really should. Mixing color with tinting and black-and-white, interspersing multiple formats (or doing a great job making one look like another), and maybe boasting one or two King of Comedy nods, it pairs nicely (because I will take an auteurist stance) with his 2010 Chanel ad starring Gaspard Ulliel: the thrill and exhaustion of celebrity, the lure of a beautiful woman, and rock ‘n’ roll tunes. I learned nothing just as I ask that perfume commercials grant nothing in return.

Watch below:

The post Watch Martin Scorsese’s...

French director Bertrand Bonello is rightly back in the imaginations of U.S. cinephiles, as his new film “The Beast” is now playing stateside. The time-hopping sci-fi romantic drama starring Léa Seydoux and George MacKay as would-be lovers across centuries had the biggest opening weekend yet for distributor Sideshow/Janus Films earlier this month. Now, Bertrand Bonello’s previously undistributed 2022 film “Coma” is finally joining “The Beast” at theaters beginning in May from Film Movement. Watch the trailer for “Coma,” an IndieWire exclusive, below.

Combining live-action and animation, “Coma” centers on a teenage girl in lockdown amid a global health crisis (cough cough) who develops a disturbing relationship with a YouTuber. The cast features Louise Labèque, Julia Faure, Gaspard Ulliel, Laetitia Casta, Vincent Lacoste, Louis Garrel, and Anaïs Demoustier. This was the last film Ulliel worked on before he died in January 2022 after a skiing accident. Ulliel was meant to...

There’s little precedent for what George MacKay does in The Beast, a multilingual production that required the English star to learn French for extended sequences. It’s one thing if this were a buttoned-up, altogether bland drama that is never seen on North American screens after its obligatory TIFF premiere; it’s quite another to be the new film by Bertrand Bonello which also requires he play, in the film’s central section, a take on the murderous progenitor of modern incel culture. One imagines many offers since ten-time Oscar nominee 1917 were more commercial.

Thus I wanted to get insight into MacKay’s process. As my interviews with Bertrand Bonello and Léa Seydoux cover, respectively, the film’s creation and its star’s personal philosophy, MacKay and I discussed certain of the practical decision-making that went into his appearing here, some newfound possibilities of French-language productions, and The Beast‘s dark paths.

“The present came to a halt,” Bertrand Bonello writes in an ode to his teen daughter in his experimental feature Coma, “leaving us with the past and the future.” Much of this subtitled text refers to the specific circumstances of the film’s creation during the pandemic. Yet the French filmmaker’s follow-up, The Beast, which was developed before Coma but shot afterward, feels like a natural extension of his fascination with the scrambled perception of time in a digital era. In Bonello’s time-warping adaptation of Henry James’s 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, the present day is the Paris of 2044, where landscape and character have been warped by advances in artificial intelligence.

What’s evergreen, as a repeated aural motif so often reminds, is the twisted relationship of fear and love between Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) and Louis (George MacKay). Bonello gives us a glance at two of...

It’s too bright, the sunshine is monotonous, it’s very isolating. Those were the reasons why Chloë Sevigny, in a recent viral interview, said she will never live in Los Angeles. Anyone who’s lived there can relate to the loneliness that blankets the fragmented city, a collection of neighborhoods strung together by cars in traffic, where nobody walks or talks to each other. And why does everyone flake on plans? What are we afraid of?

That’s much like the central dilemma in Bertrand Bonello’s “The Beast,” a time-hopping sci-fi epic about the existential terrors of unrequited love, green-screen-acting, incel killers, artificial intelligence, and, oh, yes, Los Angeles. Léa Seydoux and George MacKay play reincarnated almost-lovers across time who can never make it work: first, in fin-de-siècle Paris (she’s married); then, in 2014 Los Angeles (he’s a sociopathic virgin inspired by 2014 Isla Vista shooter Elliot Rodger...

Léa Seydoux was originally meant to star opposite Gaspard Ulliel in Bertrand Bonello’s audacious sci-fi love story “The Beast.” But the beloved César-winning French actor died at age 37 in January 2022 after a skiing accident while the film was still in pre-production, and he was posthumously replaced by George MacKay.

Seydoux previously starred alongside Ulliel, revered for roles in movies including Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “A Very Long Engagement” and Bonello’s own “Saint Laurent,” in Xavier Dolan’s 2016 Cannes winner “It’s Only the End of the World.” Seydoux, who recently spoke with IndieWire about her multiple roles in “The Beast” as a woman confronted across centuries by a devastating impossible romance, did not get the chance to talk to Ulliel about “The Beast” before filming. He did, however, leave her a WhatsApp voice message praising her turn in Bruno Dumont’s media satire “France,” a box office hit in France...

Marvel Studios may be developing Moon Knight season 2 after the "Complete First Season's" physical release. Moon Knight season 2's perfect villain may have been set up during a flashback sequence in the first season. Introducing Shadow Knight in Moon Knight season 2 would debut the perfect dark opposite of Marc Spector, creating a grounded story.

The perfect villain for Marvel Studios' potential Moon Knight season 2 in the MCU may have already been set up in the series' first season. Moon Knight premiered on Disney+ in March 2022, and introduced audiences to Oscar Isaac's Marc Spector, a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder, who also happens to be the host of the Egyptian God of the Moon, Khonshu. Khonshu grants Spector impressive abilities as the vigilante Moon Knight, and these helped Spector take on Ethan Hawke's Arthur Harrow during Phase 4's Moon Knight, but the series left the future of Marc Spector and his alters uncertain.

Marvel releasing Moon Knight's first season on Blu-ray hints at Moon Knight season 2 potentially being in development. Moon Knight season 2 has the potential to answer many unsolved mysteries from the first season in the McU's Phase 4. The fate of Arthur Harrow, details about Jake Lockley, teases towards Kang the Conqueror variants and potential villain hints could be addressed in Moon Knight season 2.

Recent speculation suggests that Marvel Studios may be developing Moon Knight season 2, and the series' continuation could answer unsolved mysteries from Phase 4 of the MCU. Marvel Studios' Moon Knight premiered on Disney+ on March 30, 2022, and ran for six episodes, exploring the story of Oscar Isaac's Marc Spector, a mercenary with dissociative identity disorder who is also the avatar of Egyptian God Khonshu. Khonshu forges Spector into the vigilante Moon Knight, who comes into conflict with Ethan Hawke's Arthur Harrow. Despite being one of the Multiverse Saga's most popular additions,...

Bertrand Bonello’s “Coma,” which won a prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2022, has been acquired by Film Movement for North American distribution.

The film follows a teenager who is stuck at home during once of France’s strict early-pandemic lockdowns. Cut off from the outside world, she begins to go back and forth between dreams and reality, guided by a disturbing and mysterious youtuber, Patricia Coma. Represented internationally by Best Friend Forever, the movie weaves genre, animation and live action to explore online behavior and content consumption.

“Coma” stars Louise Labeque (“Zombi Child”) and Julia Faure (“Camille Rewinds”), with voice acting from beloved late actor Gaspard Ulliel as well as Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Anaïs Demoustier and Vincent Lacoste.

Along with winning the Fipresci prize at Berlin, the movie won best picture and best production design at the International Cinephile Society Awards. Film Movement previously worked with Bonello...

It just had its NYFF splash and while it was shut out from any of the Golden Lion prizing in Venice, the critic elites (including our site) hail this latest Bertrand Bonello film as his career-defining masterwork. Deadline reports that the Sideshow and Janus Films tandem have landed some definite art house cinema in The Beast. The film (starring Léa Seydoux and George MacKay), was rejected by Cannes and was dedicated to the memory of Gaspard Ulliel who was involved in the project until his untimely death. We don’t have a firm release date yet but we expect this to land sometime early next year.…...

A wacky film based on a stage show by comedians Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp, Dicks: The Musical – a riff on The Parent Trap with two adult men as the starring twins — opens in seven theaters in NY, LA and San Francisco on a crowded specialty weekend as theatrical releases of fall film festival titles accelerates.

Dicks, from A24, developed by Chernin Entertainment, is, according to press notes, a first “adult musical comedy” for both. (It’s Chernin’s second musical after hit The Greatest Showman.) Directed by Larry Charles, it stars the two creators Jackson and Sharp as self-obsessed businessmen who discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric divorced parents. They’re joined by an A-list roster of Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Bowen Yang and Megan Thee Stallion.

A SAG-AFTRA interim agreement allowed the talent to promote the film at TIFF,...

When the Body Speaks: Krieps & Ulliel Fight for the Right Balance in Atef’s Final Voyage Drama

A too young to die portrait that sees a neutralized Vicky Krieps travel northwards to find her pathway…inwards, Emily Atef’s latest is a non-postcard, straight-forward account of reconnecting with self — not at the most opportune moment, but when it matters most. Made more noteworthy due to it being Gaspard Ulliel’s final screen performance – he fastens his supportive boyfriend character with various degrees of cerebral rage displaying a splintered soul being asked to let go in more ways than one. A melodrama without deep chills, Plus que jamais (More Than Ever) sees Atef make some bolder narrative moves in the film’s second half, ultimately once the film steps foot in Scandi-territory we get some unexpected turns, punches, nips, tucks and forward momentum that makes this a worthy essay on a...

Hélène Mouchet (Vicky Krieps) is probably dying. She has been diagnosed with an idiopathic fibrosis of the lungs, meaning none of her doctors really has much idea of how to treat her condition. They do know that it will eventually result in suffocation, unless she is able to undergo a lung transplant — which is far from certain to work. In “More Than Ever,” a thoughtful, well-acted drama from writer-director Emily Atef (changing the pace from her work on TV’s “Killing Eve”), this setup is the basis for an exploration, through the lens of one woman’s experience, of how serious disease might be faced, both medically and socially. Strand Releasing is bringing the film to U.S. audiences more than a year after its Un Certain Regard premiere in Cannes.

Hélène finds the awkward response of her social circle unendurable; people mean well, but are terrified of saying the wrong thing.

“The great rooms caused so much poetry and history to press upon him that he needed some straying apart to feel in a proper relation with them,” wrote Henry James early in his 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle, the loose inspiration for writer-director Bertrand Bonello’s disquieting and spectacular The Beast. James is describing the house in which his protagonist, John Marcher, crosses paths with the woman, May Bertram, who will prove not to be the love of his life, mainly because of Marcher’s unwillingness to take a risk on intimacy. This is due to his fear of a “beast” that he feels could pounce at any moment.

That beast isn’t anything concrete or corporeal, but rather a metaphorical unease—a dread of all the terrible things that life could mete out. And as Marcher discovers at the end of James’s novella, the beast has struck without him ever realizing it.

Editor’s Note: This interview originally ran during the 2023 Venice Film Festival. “The Beast” opens in U.S. theaters on April 5, 2024.

Fans of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” and its mystical loop through hell and horror that ends with a scream, charged by Tulpas and body-swapping and timelines that swallow each other up, might find their itch for the heartsick uncanny scratched by Bertrand Bonello’s “The Beast.”

It’s the most formally daring, willing-to-alienate of any films to premiere out of the Venice Film Festival competition so far, shape-shifting from Belle Époque Paris in 1910 to a recognizable 2014 Los Angeles, and, finally, a sterile post-pandemic future somewhere in 2044. Léa Seydoux plays a woman named Gabrielle in all three periods — first, a miserably married fin-de-siècle pianist, then an aspiring actress in Los Angeles in the present day, and then a woman electing to have the leftover emotions from her...

Where to begin with Bertrand Bonello’s wonderful The Beast? It’s been so gratifying to see the initial reaction to the French filmmaker’s tenth feature, after several decades of increasingly remarkable work––the majority of it dark, beautiful, and sleazy. In fact, for what a discomforting and despairing experience much of The Beast is, when I’ve thought back to it, its moments of real, uncomplicated cinematic pleasure, its verve and sense of joyousness, are what mark my memories. It’s romantic, without a capital-r.

Rather than Romanticism, its source derives from the bleeding edge of literary modernism, or literary modernism as it sometimes arose: from stuffy-seeming upper-class drawing rooms. The Beast is the coincidental second French adaptation this calendar year of Henry James’ 1903 novella The Beast in the Jungle. It centers on two haute-bourgeoisie singletons of leisure, John Marcher and May Bartram, whose lives cross paths at...

Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi drama “The Beast,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday, follows a star-crossed duo, trying — and failing — to make love work across three timelines. Moving between 1910, 2014 and 2044, the film mixes period drama, speculative sci-fi and bouts of genuinely chilling horror — particularly in a middle section set in contemporary Los Angeles.

There, aspiring actress Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) catches the attention of Louis (George MacKay), a self-described incel with a violent hatred for women. Bonello based the character on Elliot Rodger, a 2014 mass killer who uploaded a misogynist manifesto to YouTube before claiming seven lives. The filmmaker also re-created scenes from Rodger’s infamous video verbatim in the film.

Why did you choose to cite Elliot Rodger?

When I learned of the story back in 2014, I was shocked by the atrocious attack, of course, but I was also shocked by his words, so much so that...

Strand Releasing has bought all North American rights to Emily Atef’s last two movies, “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” which competed at the Berlin Film Festival, as well as her Cannes entry “More Than Ever.” Both films are represented in international markets by The Match Factory.

Based on Daniela Krien’s novel, the film is set in the summer of 1990, shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall, in the countryside of former East Germany. Marlene Burow plays Maria, who is about to turn 19, lives with her boyfriend at his parents’ farm. She engages into a passionate and lustful affair with Henner (Felix Kramer), a reclusive neighbor who is twice her age.

“More Than Ever,” meanwhile, premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard. It stars Vicky Krieps and late French actor Gaspard Ulliel as a couple whose bond is tested when one...

Anyone who has spent much time on Film Twitter recently might know that there are two recurring subjects sure to instigate discourse wars between certain moralistic Zoomers and their befuddled elders: on-screen relationships marked by significant age gaps, and on-screen sex scenes between partners of any age, largely condemned by youthful detractors as gratuitous narrative roadblocks. That demographic won’t be seeking out Emily Atef’s film “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” a brazenly sensual May-December romance between a teenage ingenue and a middle-aged social outcast, though beyond the festival circuit, this pretty but somewhat dreary mood piece is unlikely to end up on many people’s radars at all.

Indeed, what’s most interesting about German-born filmmaker Atef’s return to her home turf — after a directing stint on TV’s “Killing Eve” and last year’s predominantly French romance “More Than Ever,” with Vicky Krieps and the...

Emily Atef, who is presenting her latest film, “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, just moved to Paris to direct “La Maison,” a series depicting a fictional family-owned French luxury fashion empire.

While discussing “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” ahead of its world premiere, Atef told Variety that “La Maison” will be filled with a lot of drama and tragicomedy. “It’s very Shakespearean. There’s so much beauty and luxury with old mansions in Brittany, Parisian ‘hotel particuliers,’ and then behind all that there’s so much human poverty, and you see them ripping each other appart for power,” said Atef, who will direct the pilot and three more episodes.

The series was created and penned by Jose Caltagirone (“Les Combattantes”) and Valentine Milville (“The Bureau”), and will star a high-profile French ensemble cast, including Lambert Wilson (“Benedetta”), Carole Bouquet (“En Therapie...

The trailer for “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” French-Iranian filmmaker Emily Atef’s tale of forbidden love, which premieres in Berlinale Competition, has debuted (below). The Match Factory is looking after the film’s international sales, and Pandora Film is handling German distribution.

The film, based on Daniela Krien’s novel, is set in the summer of 1990 in the countryside around Thuringia, in former East Germany.

Maria, who is about to turn 19, lives with her boyfriend Johannes on his parents’ farm and would rather lose herself in books than focus on graduating. There is a sense of a new era dawning with the reunification of Germany.

When she bumps into Henner, the farmer living next door, one touch is all it takes to ignite an all-consuming passion between Maria and the headstrong, charismatic man twice her age. In an atmosphere buzzing with possibilities, love is born: a secret passion...

Gaspard Ulliel and Vicky Krieps in More Than Ever Photo: Courtesy of London Film Festival

Never in her wildest imaginings could director Emily Atef have predicted her film More Than Ever (Plus Que Jamais in French) would have such a close connection with the end of life.

One of her two lead actors, Gaspard Ulliel (who plays Matthieu) died in a skiing accident, aged 37, last January, in the mountains of the Savoie in France - just as she was working on the post-production with her editor Sandie Bonnard in Berlin where she lives.

Emily Atef Photo: Peter Harwig

“The news came as such a shock,” said Atef, who had been watching scenes with Ulliel and co-star Vicky Krieps and knew their every facial movement and expression. The film was shot during Covid in Norway which took a long time to open up again. “I was only allowed to take seven of the technical team,...

Also out this weekend: ’Holy Spider’, ’Alice, Darling’ and ’Dreaming Walls’.

Damien Chazelle’s Babylon is the widest new release at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, playing at 631 sites for Paramount, and hoping to make a dent on Avatar: The Way Of Water’s box office dominance, after five weeks atop the chart for Disney.

It is Chazelle’s widest release in the territory – beating his Oscar-winning musical La La Land, which opened at 606 sites in 2017 for Lionsgate, and took £5.6m at the box office in its opening weekend, plus £943,751 in previews.

Chazelle’s latest paints a hedonistic portrait of 1920s and 1930s Hollywood,...

Director Emily Atef and producer Xénia Maingot paid tribute to late French actor Gaspard Ulliel on the first of anniversary of his death at a screening in London of his last feature More Than Ever on Thursday evening.

The title was the last feature film production Ulliel worked on before he died in a skiing accident in the French Alps on January 19, 2022 at the age of 37 years old.

The drama stars Vicky Krieps as a woman who retreats to the Norwegian fjords as she comes to terms with a life-threatening respiratory illness. Ulliel co-starred as her devoted husband who struggles to come to terms with her decision to strike off on her own.

“Today is a special screening. To be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to do this event in France today because Gaspard was so immensely loved in France,” Atef told the audience at the French Institute’s Lumière Cinema.

Krieps and the late Gaspard Ulliel bring great conviction and intelligence to this unlikely tale of a woman’s last adventure

Here is a painful, intimate, impeccably acted if not entirely plausible drama of terminal illness with an extra-textual layer of sadness and irony. The estimable Vicky Krieps plays Hélène, who is dying of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (a rare lung disease) and her partner is becoming her carer: this is Matthieu, played by Gaspard Ulliel – who died in a skiing accident shortly after this film was completed. Director Emily Atef dedicates the movie to him in the closing credits.

The agonising, debilitating nature of the disease takes its toll on the couple and their friends and family who have no way of talking about it or coming to terms with it. Hélène is also oppressed by the way she is supposed to be joyful and grateful at being on a...

“Avatar: The Way of Water” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £4.1 million (5.1 million) in its fifth weekend for a running total of £63.5 million, according to numbers from Comscore.

Universal’s “M3gan” and Disney’s “Empire of Light” opened strongly in second and third places with £2.3 million and £1.7 million respectively.

In fourth position, in its third weekend, Sony’s “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” continued its impressive box office run with £1.1 million and now has a total of £8.2 million. Another Sony title, “Matilda the Musical,” collected £857,293 in its fifth weekend for a total of £25 million, in fifth place.

There were three more debuts in the top 10. Ahimsa’s Tamil-language “Varisu,” starring Vijay, took £648,230 in seventh place; Universal’s awards season favorite “Tár,” starring Cate Blanchett, collected £394,649 in eighth position; and Dg tech’s Tamil-language “Thunivu,” starring Ajith Kumar, £273,277 in ninth.

There is a mid-week release this week,...

La bête dans la jungle

Austrian Patric Chiha reunited with Béatrice Dalle and returned to fiction form almost a decade later back in November of ’21. After a year in post … The Beast in the Jungle will be surely hitting a fest soon enough. Chiha shares co-writing creds with Axelle Ropert and Jihane Chouaib for the adaptation Henry James’ 1903 eponymous short story. Shot in Brussels, Vicky Krieps and Gaspard Ulliel were originally attached to the project, but this sees Anaïs Demoustier and Tom Mercier topline instead. Aurora Films’ Charlotte Vincent and Katia Khazak produce. Chiha was last in Berlin with the Teddy Award winning docu Si c’était de l’amour (2020).…...

Cannes 2022: My Favorite FilmsMy favorite films this year were small, female-centered and female-directed movies. I have never been partial to female oriented or directed films before, so perhaps the year of Covid has transformed my own understandings and/ or it has altered the directing choices women make. Or maybe they were just better than the male-made pictures this year, though only three out of 18 films competing are directed by women, four years after the festival pledged to improve gender representation. Five films directed by women — out of 15 films total — will be shown as official selections in the festival’s Un Certain Regard. Selections for the festival are chosen by the selection committee. Maybe it, like the new French Oscar Selection Committee needs to be overhauled.Mia Hansen-Løve, Alice Winocur, Emily Atef

Moreover, Cannes messed up on its online ordering system and changes in the ticketing protocols, and so I among many missed several films we wanted to see, e.g., Corsage, for which Vicky Krieps won Best Acting Award. Marie Kreutzer’s period piece in which Krieps plays Empress Sisi of Austria, one of Europe’s first celebrity royals was a coproduction of Austria, France, Germany, and Luxembourg. MK2 sold it to IFC for US and Canada. Other rights went to Austria-Panda Lichtspiele; Benelux-The Searchers; France-Ad Vitam; Hungary-Cirko; Ireland, UK-Picturehouse; Italy-Bim; Spain-Adso Films; Poland-M2; Czech Republic-Aerofilm; Ex-Yugoslavia-Demiurg. I will see it in the Berlin cinema where Alamode is releasing it. You can see it along with these favorite films of mine in Toronto!

Vicky Krieps plays Empress SIsi in ‘Corsage’. She also stars in ‘More Than Ever’

Paris Memories, One Fine Day, and More Than Ever were all about women finding their own unique path for their own unique well-being which could only be discovered by their listening to their own (rather than society’s) inner promptings.

Alice Winocur wrote and directed Revoir Paris after her brother had been in Bataclan, the night spot in Paris shot to bits by a mass murderer. However, her story is not at Bataclan or about Bataclan. A young tv reporter goes into an upscale brasserie to get out of a rain storm and the shooting occurs. The story starts as she returns to Paris after recovering for three months at her mother’s country home and notices the restaurant. It proceeds as she goes on a quest to recover her lost memory of what exactly happened to her that night. One sees Paris in a new way and the kindness of strangers creates bonds beyond the every day conventional ones we hold dear.

The second, One Fine Day, starring Lea Seydoux, is a simple story of a young widow who falls in love again. Simple, clean, quiet and beautifully depicted, it is a perfect film for Seydoux. Mia Hansen-Løve has created a jewel of a study of a woman recovering from grief and finding a way to love again. Among Seydoux’ 51 films in 18 years of acting are Inglorious Basterds, Farewell, My Queen, last year’s Cannes entry The Story of my Wife whose poor editing doomed it, and the most visible, Blue is the Warmest Color which won 2013 Cannes Palme d’Or as well as Best Actress for both her and her co-star Adele Exarchopoulos and the Fipresci Prize. One Fine Day may well be the film for which she will be most remembered by her fans.

The third, More Than Ever, by Berlin director Emily Atef (3 Days in Quiberonabout the last interview of Romy Schneider) captures the pathos of a young woman with a fatal disease and how even her beloved is unable to help. A tear-jerker but not at all melodramatic, one might say this is Krieps’ best role since Phantom Thread. (However, I have yet to see her in Corsage!) She finds her way toward peace which, in the end, is the most precious gift.

The back story of this movie is as dramatic as the film, perhaps more so because in real life, the costar died. Her costar Gaspard Ulliel had a son with his former partner, model and singer Gaëlle Piétri, born in January 2016. They split up in 2020. Filming went from 14 April 2021to 4 June 2021. Gaspard died on 19 January, 2022, in La Tronche, Isère, France, after a skiing accident. Vicky Krieps, who was Gaspard Ulliel’s last companion — a version called into question by Gaëlle Pietri, got a drubbing originally from the popular French press and populace for this dating of events in which she was judged a home breaker.

Speaking to paper jam about More than ever, “Krieps said, ‘I hope that More Than Ever won’t just be anticipated because it’s Gaspard Ulliel’s last film. Above all, it is a very beautiful film (…) The projection can only be a nice moment, since, during this film, Gaspard will be alive on screen. To be present at Cannes, in a last feature film which thus speaks of the love of a couple, and of how this love can survive death, is a beautiful analogy. Strong and deep. I hope we manage to convey some of this truth to the public…’, she confided to paper jam, not without emotion.”

After the Cannes standing ovation for Corsage, the public has forgiven Vicky for her perceived real-life position. We look forward to her next movies now in post: Bachmann & Frisch; The Three Musketeers: Milady and The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan in which she plays Anne d’Autriche, and

The Wall in which she plays a committed and zealous border patrol agent who loses control and kills a harmless migrant in front of three witnesses.

The three films I loved most in Cannes touched my innermost emotional core. They validate my own choices and strengthen my convictions. I am sure they will encourage others to recognize and follow their own promptings as they find new pathways in our quickly changing world.

The 35th European Film Awards took place amid the uncanny beauty of Iceland’s capital city, Reykjavik. While it was possible to take a boat from the marina to gaze up at the aurora borealis dancing across the sky, the northern light on Saturday, December 10 came from Sweden and was named Ruben Östlund. The EFAs have a habit of decorating the same film across all major categories, so when his broad eat-the-rich satire “Triangle of Sadness” picked up an early award for Best European Director, it was clear which way the weather was going.

Östlund barely flinched when his name was announced as the winner in this early category — perhaps two Palme d’Ors in five years does that to a man. He first thanked the actress Sunnyi Melles (who was present) for her “great vomiting performance” and then had the grace to pay respects to Charlbi Dean, the South...

"I want to make this trip. Even if you disagree." Modern Films in the UK has revealed an official UK trailer for a French indie drama titled More Than Ever, originally known as Plus Que Jamais in French. This heartfelt, honest film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. It's about a woman with a terminal illness who decides to explore her own mortality and encroaching end of life by going to Norway to meet with another terminally ill man who lives peacefully in a house located in a beautiful fjord. Hélène and Mathieu have been happy together for many years. Their bond is deep. When faced with an existential decision, Hélène travels alone to Norway to seek peace and meet a blogger from the internet. Vicky Krieps co-stars with Bjørn Floberg, with Gaspard Ulliel as her partner. I caught this in Cannes and it's a good film,...

Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller has spoken out against claims that the series was queerbaiting. The story of the sophisticated cannibal killer Hannibal Lecter, which originated in a series of novels by Thomas Harris, has been adapted to the large and small screens multiple times over the years, beginning with the 1986 film Manhunter, where the character was played by Succession's Brian Cox. Hannibal was later portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs and its follow-ups Hannibal and Red Dragon, whereupon the role was taken over by Moon Knight's Gaspard Ulliel for 2006's prequel Hannibal Rising.

The most recent adaptation of the Hannibal Lecter story (not counting the 13-episode CBS series Clarice that aired in 2021 and was not allowed to mention the character) was the three-season series Hannibal, which aired on NBC between 2013 and 2015. In the series, Mads Mikkelsen played Hannibal opposite Hugh Dancy as Will Graham,...

As filmmakers attempt to grapple with the ongoing pandemic, leave it to one of the great purveyors of modern society to deliver one of the best films about our collective experience of solitude. Nocturama director Bertrand Bonello’s Coma, which premiered earlier this year at Berlinale and finally arrived stateside at the New York Film Festival—but still needs U.S. distribution—is an ode to his teenage daughter’s lockdown experience, though much more peculiar than that simple logline may suggest.

Ahead of a French release, the first international trailer has now arrived for the film, which features a mix of live-action and animation with a cast including Louise Labèque, Julia Faure, Laetitia Casta, Vincent Lacoste, Louis Garrel, Anaïs Demoustier, and the late Gaspard Ulliel.

David Katz said in his review, “Like the best films on this topic, Coma is anything but a navel-gazing work, and more one of imaginative empathy.

Producers of this Monday’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony have some difficult decisions to make about who to honor during the emotional In Memoriam segment. John Legend will perform “Pieces,” a new song he has written for the tribute. Kenan Thompson will host the 2022 Emmys for NBC at 8 p.m. Et; 5 p.m. Pt.

Our list below includes almost 100 people who made a strong contribution to television and have died since mid-September of 2021 following the previous Emmys ceremony. Only about 40-45 of these people will probably be in the video segment. Certain to be featured will be TV Academy Hall of Fame members actress Betty White and director Jay Sandrich.Other prominent names almost certainly chosen are: Mary Alice (acting winner), Louie Anderson (acting winner), James Caan (acting nominee), Anne Heche (acting winner), Howard Hesseman (acting nominee), William Hurt (acting nominee), Gregory Itzin (acting nominee), Ray Liotta (acting winner), Burt Metcalfe...

The films will play in the Laugh and Love strands respectively.

Modern Films has acquired UK-Ireland distribution rights on two films that will play in next month’s BFI London Film Festival.

From Memento Films, It has picked up Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick Of Myself, which will debut in the Laugh strand. Produced by The Worst Person In The World producers Dyveke Bjorkly Graver and Andrea Berentsen Ottmar, the film follows a couple in an unhealthy competitive relationship that takes a turn when one of them breaks through as a contemporary artist.

It debuted in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May,...