Movies

Empire's list of the 50 greatest science fiction movies of all time, from 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Matrix to Blade Runner.

Starring Frank Sinatra as a heroin addicted drummer, fresh out of prison and dealing with gangsters Watch the trailer for the theme tune alone!

In 1999, Jamie (Qualley) and Marian (Viswanathan) take a “drive-away” rental car job from Philadelphia to Tallahassee — and get mixed up with some dodgy characters.

Drive-Away Dolls was originally called ‘Drive-Away Dykes’ — a far better, funnier, and frankly more accurate title than the marketing- friendly one eventually settled on. (That original title is even cheekily acknowledged in the closing credits.) Because this film is, to use the technical parlance, hella lesbian: from the comedy-cunnilingus found in the opening five minutes to the “very committed lesbians” of a college soccer team, Dolls wears its sapphic colours loud and proud.

That’s notable, given that this is a Coen brother film, singular. Directed by Ethan Coen (his first without bigger brother Joel, if you don’t count his 2022 Jerry Lee Lewis documentary), and co-written by Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke, who is queer, there is a unique energy here which can’t be found in any of the previous 18 films from the brothers. It has a specificity, in subject matter and period, that feels refreshing, a rare example of the Coen-canon that centres female, gay characters...

It was the most watchable Oscars in years where Brits and Godzilla triumphed – but Louis Vuitton zippers and a certain ex-president didn’t

Caught this on tv last night, couldn't turn away. Spolier - this clip is one of the final scenes of the film so will give the general ending away, but it just needs sharing for Daveed Diggs' amazing performance if nothing else (but much more), so do with it as you will but by all means, do watch the movie first if you don't want it spoiled, it is definitely worth it.

CW for racism, police violence. It's marketed as "Comedy, Crime, Drama", and while it has some good jokes, don't go in expecting a funny movie.

The director behind Oscar-nominated sci-fi film The Creator says he adopted a "guerrilla" approach.

Timothée Chalamet first revealed in September 2022 that his “Don’t Look Up” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio once gave him brief but essential career advice: “No hard drugs and no superhero movies.” DiCaprio has never gone down the comic book movie route, and it’s a path Chalamet has also avoided so far despite the majority of his contemporaries signing up for Marvel and DC films in recent years.

Is Chalamet still committed to DiCaprio’s advice? In a recent interview with The New York Times while on the press tour for “Dune: Part Two,” Chalamet said the door on starring in comic book movies is not completely shut the way it might be for DiCaprio.

“Well, Leonardo DiCaprio said to me, ‘No superhero movies, no hard drugs.’ Which I thought was very good,” Chalamet said. “I follow them both! But the movie that made me want to act is a superhero movie, ‘The Dark Knight.’ If the script was great, if the director was great, I’d have to consider it.”

Never underestimate the power of Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” clearly. Chalamet has long been outspoken about his love for the landmark 2008 comic book tentpole. Accepting the best actor prize for “Call Me by Your Name” at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards back in 2018, Chalamet spoke about “The Dark Knight” changing his life.

“When I was 12 years old, after attending one of my sister Pauline’s [ballet] performances, I petitioned my Mom and grandma to see Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ with me,” Chalamet said. “We went to AMC Empire 25 in Times Square for a 7:30 screening. I left that theater a changed man, and I’m serious about that. Heath Ledger‘s performance in that film was visceral and viral to me, and I now had the acting bug.”

Chalamet would get his chance to work with Nolan on “Interstellar,” in which the actor had a small supporting role as Matthew McConaughey’s son. It wasn’t until 2021’s “Dune” that Chalamet got the chance to headline his own major studio tentpole, and now he’s back for the upcoming sequel “Dune: Part Two.” Throw in last year’s holiday hit “Wonka” (which has surpassed $600 million at the worldwide box office), and Chalamet has emerged as a leading man with real star power sans any comic book movies to his name so far.

Jury selection for the case, stemming from the shooting on the Rust movie set, will start on 9 July and the trial the next day

I just love Sandler in this register. It’s no longer a surprise when he pulls a well-defined and memorable dramatic performance. Now, 189 days into his mission, Jakub Prochazka (Adam Sandler), the forlorn cosmonaut protagonist of “Spaceman,” is hurtling toward Jupiter to study the mysterious Chopra cloud. He is nearing his breaking point. Short on sleep in a malfunctioning spacecraft that has seen better days, what’s really occupying his mind isn’t the mission at hand — it’s the radio silence by his pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan). Despite efforts by his physician Peter (Kunal Nayyar) and Commissioner Tuma (an under-used Isabella Rossellini) at Mission Control to calm his fears, Jakub knows something is wrong. When a giant primordial spider named Hanus (voiced by Paul Dano) appears in his spacecraft, Jakub doesn’t know if the arachnid is real or a figment of a tired, desperate imagination. With the spider’s help, Jakub may just learn the secrets of the universe and of himself.

The YNaija Nollywood 100 in collaboration with EbonyLife, is pleased to present our definitive list of the brightest talents in Nigeria’s film Industry. To gain this list, we worked with film critics, stakeholders and writer Iniabasi Jeffrey who have all contributed extensively to the film industry while remaining apart from it to guide us through the process of choosing the people who made our list and helping us understand their continued impact on the industry. Our list is not exhaustive but it is comprehensive and we are confident that it provides a useful tool to understanding the industry and its current trajectory.

200 million dollar budgets are usually reserved for Marvel or DC blockbusters. $300 million dollar budgets are typically reserved for “Avengers”-level movies. But Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator 2” sequel apparently has a budget that has ballooned up to $310 million, according to a new report in The Hollywood Reporter.

Initially budgeted at $165 million, Paramount insiders insist to THR the net cost of the 49-day shoot was under $250 million. The original “Gladiator” budget was $103 million in 2000; adjusted for inflation, that would be $188 million today.

One source told the trade about the production. “It’s a runaway. It’s not being managed.”

The strikes apparently account for some of that money; the production shutdowns starting in July reportedly cost $600,000 a week, or a total of about $10 million, until Scott resumed shooting in December. THR alleges that Scott “kept cameras rolling during the work stoppages, shooting extras at crowd scenes in Malta, where he built a Coliseum set.”

“Gladiator 2” has been plagued with issues since it began. A stunt accident in July sent four crewmembers to the hospital with non-life-threatening burn injuries, and the same month, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) alleged that the production of “Gladiator 2” engaged in the mistreatment of animals during its shoot.

The Ethan Coen crime farce is good, but would it have been better with both siblings? Can filmmakers ever really claim to have solo projects? There are well-established dynamics to a musician splitting off from a group to make an album of their own, even when it requires a new set of supporting musicians. But while there are certain would-be purists who will insist that, say, Wes Anderson’s movies have never been the same since he stopped co-writing them with Owen Wilson, the particularly collaborative nature of filmmaking makes that line of thought sound more like conspiracy-mongering. Wilson may not have written a movie with Anderson since The Royal Tenenbaums, but he was sure on set for a lot of The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, and Anderson has worked with so many other co-writers, recurring actors and other steady collaborators it would be difficult to describe even his most singularly Anderson-voiced movies (which is to say, all of them) as more “solo” than others.

There is an exception, though, that doubles as one of the hottest trends of the 2020s: filmmaking siblings splitting up their dual act. Josh and Benny Safie (Uncut Gems) are pursuing their own, separate projects, with Josh planning to reteam with Adam Sandler while Benny (who also acts) planning to direct another movie starring Dwayne Johnson. Lana Wachowski directed The Matrix Resurrections on her own, and her sister Lily recently announced her own debut as a solo filmmaker. The sibling duo furthest along on their divergent paths, however, are Joel and Ethan Coen. They haven’t made a movie together since 2018’s The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; Joel’s The Tragedy of Macbeth came out in 2021, and now Ethan’s Drive-Away Dolls, the first of at least two projects written with his wife Tricia Cooke, is hitting theaters. The divisions between the two films are fascinating and, at times, almost suspiciously neat...

The new Salem's Lot movie finished filming at the end of 2021: but there remains no sign of a release. If you’re keeping score, then it’s currently two films that Warner Bros has made in the last few years, that it’s elected to deleted and take the tax write-off. The fate of a third is surely about to be determined too. And now there’s a fourth film that seems stuck in limbo as well.

The movie is a fresh big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Salem’s Lot, that was originally going to be released in the spring of 2022. Filming wrapped up at the end of 2021, and it’s suffered a few release date bumps since then.

Gary Dauberman – who last directed Annabelle Comes Home – has seemingly completed his cut of the movie, and it’s a case of Warner Bros deciding what to do with it. It’s had a couple of theatrical release dates so far, and there were rumours that it might go straight to Warner Bros’ Max streaming service.

The website JoBlo has gone digging into the current state of things here, and it’s a good summation of an odd situation...

Via @UKFilmNerd

Adam Sandler is a lonely astronaut whose strained marriage is helped by an alien spider, voiced by Paul Dano. The occasionally spotty quality of his filmography means it’s easy to forget that Adam Sandler is one of the most talented actors of his generation. Though there have been some dramatic turns over the years, Sandler is first and foremost a comedian, the mind behind some genuinely hilarious comic classics. There’s none of that signature humour in his latest project, which sees the Sandman morph into the Spaceman, the titular Czech cosmonaut of Chernobyl director Johan Renck’s sci-fi drama. It’s a tale about love, loneliness and connection that is by turns weird, introspective, and beautiful...

Every prize at the British Academy Film awards from the Royal Festival Hall in London

In American Dreamer, Dinklage's character is based on the true story of Phil Loder, as heard in an episode of This American Life.

The Berlinale opens with a film starring Cillian Murphy, amid a competition featuring more diversity — and a jury led by Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o. Taking place from February 15-25, the 74th Berlinale kicks off on Thursday with the world premiere of "Small Things Like These," an Irish-Belgian production directed by Tim Mielants and starring Cillian Murphy, Eileen Walsh, Michelle Fairley and Emily Watson...

Twenty films are competing this year for the Golden and Silver Bears, the festival's top awards.

The international jury, in charge of selecting the winning works, is led by Mexican-Kenyan Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o. She will be accompanied by six co-jurors: actor and director Brady Corbet (USA), director Ann Hui (Hong Kong, China), director Christian Petzold (Germany), director Albert Serra (Spain), actor and director Jasmine Trinca (Italy) and writer Oksana Zabuzhko (Ukraine).

From Double Indemnity to Blade Runner, LA's Bradbury Building forms the quintessential film noir backdrop. There used to be a sign on the blank wall neighbouring Los Angeles' Bradbury Building that read "CANADA". When it appeared in Blade Runner in 1981, the CA had been removed leaving the word NADA. Very dark. Very noir. Very existential.

The Bradbury Building has become the home of a certain kind of doomed detective, the amateur up against it, against time. "What seems to be the problem?" asks corporate megalomaniac Tyrell in Blade Ranner. "Death" answers Batty, Rutger Hauer's deranged killer cyborg...

Lilly Wachowski, one of the directors of "The Matrix" and "Speed Racer," has set her new film, "Trash Mountain," with comedian Caleb Hearon to star. The film follows a young gay man living in Chicago who returns to his hometown in Missouri following the death of his hoarder father.

Along with starring in the feature, Hearon also co-wrote the script with Ruby Caster. Colin Trevorrow, who directed Hearon in “Jurassic World Dominion,” is producing the feature with his banner Metronome Film Co., alongside Eddie Vaisman and Julia Lebedev for Sight Unseen.

“Trash Mountain” will mark the first solo directorial feature effort for Wachowski, who is best known for writing and helming the original “Matrix” trilogy with her sister, Lana Wachowski. The duo’s other projects include the lesbian crime thriller “Bound” and the colorful manga adaptation “Speed Racer.”

At 81, the great film director suddenly has a second career as a social media star. He talks about working with his daughter, the Oscar-nominated Killers of the Flower Moon and his journey from the mean streets of 1940s New York

Sean Mathias has reimagined his 2021 production of Shakespeare’s tragedy as a movie, inventively using Windsor’s Theatre Royal and capturing McKellen’s subtle performance

Recent political events, such as the “Title 42” expulsions, have led to growing prominence in United States-Mexico border discourses. The Trump Administration used the law during the COVID-19 pandemic to remove migrants from the Mexican border, resulting in family separations and the denial of protection to asylum seekers. More recently, the Biden Administration implemented a policy in May 2023 that prohibited people from gaining asylum in the United States (US) if they had not already applied for asylum in a country they had travelled through in their journey to the border. In line with this, media and political rhetoric frequently present the idea of a permeable border as a threat to the US. 

Two films that engage in ideas of the permeability of the US-Mexico border are Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015) and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005). This article will explore how these films either reimpose or dismantle the border. To construct these arguments, an analysis of cinematic techniques will be undertaken for each film, with a focus on mise-en-scène. It will be argued that the negative depiction of Mexico in Sicario reimposes border ideology. Subsequently, the article will assert that The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada instead dismantles the border division. In both texts, however, there are challenges and nuances to these arguments, as will be explored. These include border permeability in instances that are beneficial to the hegemony of the US in Sicario, and some aspects of Mexico’s romanticised portrayal that reinforce a divide in The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. 

(More at link)

Nicki Micheaux's directorial debut Summer of Silence, which was also written and produced by Micheaux has been selected to screen at the 31st Pan African Film Festival 2024.

'The Godfather' director is ready to release his passion project—which is now 40 years in the making. Francis Ford Coppola is finally ready to cut the ribbon on Megalopolis. The Godfather director has been working on his passion project sporadically since the '80s, but now he seems ready to release the film later this year. The sci-fi drama reportedly follows an architect who seeks to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a major disaster.

Megalopolis boasts an all-star cast of Adam Driver, Aubrey Plaza, Giancarlo Esposito, Laurence Fishburne, Forest Whitaker, Dustin Hoffman, Chloe Fineman, Shia LaBeouf, Talia Shire, Nathalie Emmanuel, Jason Schwartzman, and Jon Voight. Filming wrapped just this past March, after Coppola reportedly financed the project himself. In a 2007 interview with Ain't It Cool News, Coppola revealed that he directed Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Jack (1996), and The Rainmaker (1997) simply to "save money up" so that he "could keep that money separate and use it to make Megalopolis."

There are not that many British films from the 1930s and 1940s about ghosts and haunted houses and the ones that do stand out are primarily comedies like The Ghost Goes West (1935), The Ghost Train (1941), Blithe Spirit (1945) and Things Happen at Night (1948). Still, there have been a few U.K. features that took a more serious approach to the genre and A Place of One’s Own (1945) is a good example, even though it is largely overlooked and forgotten today.

Based on the novel by Sir Osbert Sitwell, brother of renowned author Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell, A Place of One’s Own (1945) is an atmospheric ghost story set in the Edwardian era that marked the directorial debut of Bernard Knowles and reunited the stars of The Man in Grey (1943) – James Mason and Margaret Lockwood. The latter title, a gothic melodrama, had been a hit for Gainsborough Pictures, so the studio surmised that Sitwell’s supernatural chiller would have a similar popular appeal. The casting, however, was much more offbeat with the young James Mason, a matinee idol at the time, playing Mr. Smedhurst, a middle age businessman settling into retirement. He hires Annette (Margaret Lockwood) as a female companion for his wife Emilie (Barbara Mullen) at their newly purchased country home but shortly after her arrival there, Annette begins hearing strange voices and noticing odd occurrences.