Movies

Film Movement has landed North American rights to “Stranger Eyes,” the surveillance-themed thriller from Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua that competed for Venice’s Golden Lion in 2024. The psychological thriller stars Taiwanese cinema icon Lee Kang-sheng (“Days”) alongside Chien-Ho Wu and Anicca Panna. The story centers on a young Singaporean couple whose world is shattered

Eye Haïdara (“C’est la vie!”) and Mélanie Laurent (“Inglorious Basterds”) are starring in “Mata,” a high voltage spy thriller directed by Rachel Lang, whose previous film “Our Men” played at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight. “Mata” has been boarded by Paris-based Indie Sales which will introduce the project to buyers at the European Film Market in Berlin.

For many of us, periods of intense grieving don’t leave clear, linear memories. Time stretches, compresses and fragments, words and faces and gestures emerge irregularly from an overwhelmed blur, and often it’s everyday banalities — what we ate, bought or wore — that stick faster than more consequential events. Occasionally, the mind constructs or distorts

In “Kinda Pregnant,” Amy Schumer has her comic fury back, and it looks great on her. So does the prosthetic baby bump that her character, a needy high-school English teacher named Lainy Newton, wears for much of the movie — though on occasion, when she runs into someone she has fooled into thinking she’s pregnant,

Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu will be the special guest at the 56th edition of documentary festival Visions du Réel, which runs April 4 – 13 in Nyon, Switzerland. There will be a retrospective of all Porumboiu’s feature films, and he will deliver a masterclass. “Imbued with dark humor, Corneliu Porumboiu’s films play with the absurdity

ABS-CBN‘s Star Cinema is betting big on romantic comedy again, setting a March 28 theatrical release for “My Love Will Make You Disappear” across the U.S. and Canada. The film marks the first big-screen team-up of Filipino stars Kim Chiu and Paulo Avelino, whose combined social media following tops 40 million. Directed by Chad Vidanes

So much of the American cowboy mythos — the way they talk, the silhouette they cut, the clothes they wear — has been codified, if not invented wholesale, by Hollywood. From first shot to last, Kate Beecroft’s “East of Wall” expands our perception of those iconic horse wranglers to consider the women so often overlooked.

Welcome to Horror Explorer, a curated column showcasing the month’s best movies, series, books and everything else spooky worth checking out. I’m William Earl, the editor of Variety.com and the publication’s resident horror enthusiast. Please drop me a line at wearl@variety.com if there’s something I should check out for next month’s missive.  Marquee Madness Image

Zoe Saldaña is speaking out about the controversy surrounding her “Emilia Pérez” co-star Karla Sofía Gascón, whose past social media posts have resurfaced, drawing criticism for their offensive and Islamophobic rhetoric. The backlash has overshadowed the film’s historic Oscar recognition, including Saldaña’s first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. In an interview for an

Will Ferrell recently appeared on “The Late Show” and humorously roasted the Oscars for snubbing “Will & Harper” in the best documentary category. The movie, which got picked up by Netflix after an acclaimed premiere at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, centers on a road trip Ferrell took with Harper Steele after she came out

When it was announced that Jon M. Chu would be developing a Britney Spears biopic at Universal after the studio acquried rights to her memoir, fans immediately flooded social media with their top picks to play the pop princess. Among the hopefuls is Olivia Holt. Like Britney, Holt, 27, is a former Disney star. She’s

Bob Gale wrote and produced all three “Back to the Future” movies with franchise co-creator Robert Zemeckis, but he’s not interested in reviving the time travel franchise for a fourth go-around. Gale appeared backstage at the Saturn Awards after receiving the George Pal Memorial Award (via Yahoo Entertainment) and was asked if “Back to the

Ben Affleck is set to star in his upcoming Netflix thriller “Animals,” which he’s also directing. His longtime friend Matt Damon was originally slated to lead the film but had to depart due to scheduling conflicts with Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic “The Odyssey.” “Animals” is aiming to begin production in Los Angeles this April, according

Sienna Miller and her actor-model boyfriend Oli Green star in the new ad campaign for Frame, making them the first celebrity couple to model for the fashion company. The two wear pieces from the brand’s spring 2025 collection. The sexy photo – both are wearing jeans with Miller in a white tanktop and Green showing

Mary Beth McAndrews is determined to make art that wakes people up. “There’s always been strong women in horror, incredible female characters,” she says. “I think what’s shifting in the horror of the last decade is more and more women are being given budgets by people to make movies that are much more of a

International rights to Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ thriller “Diamond Shitter,” which stars Raffey Cassidy, Eva Green, Ben Whishaw and Alessandro Nivola, have been picked up by Beta Cinema. The sales company will launch pre-sales at the European Film Market, with UTA Independent Film Group repping North American rights. The film’s story unfolds against the backdrop of the

The owner of a crisis mitigation firm who was accused of launching a “digital army” against Blake Lively has sued the actor for defamation. Jed Wallace, owner of Street Relations, filed a multi-million dollar suit against Lively on Tuesday in federal court in Texas. Wallace was accused in Lively’s lawsuit and civil rights complaint of

Ahead of her highly-anticipated visit to “The White Lotus,” Parker Posey has signed on to star in Martin McDonagh‘s next film, “Wild Horse Nine.” Posey joins previously announced star Sam Rockwell, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his most recent collaboration with McDonagh, 2017’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” John Malkovich and

The SAG-AFTRA Foundation kicked off Black History Month by launching the fourth season of its Legacy Collection, a series of more than 200 never-before-seen career retrospective interviews. This season focuses on trailblazing Black film and TV actors — beginning with the late Bill Walker, whose career spanned nearly 50 years and more than 100 films

Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi is set to star in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!,” the third feature film from writer-director Josef Kubota Wladyka. Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, You and Yo Yoshida round out the international cast of the project, which is filming in Japan. Plot details are currently being kept under wraps, but the film is

Last year’s Oscar winners Emma Stone, Cillian Murphy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Robert Downey Jr. are set to return to the 2025 ceremony as presenters. Stone won best actress for playing Bella Baxter in “Poor Things” by Yorgos Lanthimos; Murphy was best actor for his role as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”; Randolph

The board of ASIFA-Hollywood, the organization behind the 52nd annual Annie Awards, pondered, like many other organizers behind events on the awards season calendar, whether the show should be postponed or scaled back because of the devastating fires that ravaged Los Angeles in early January. Many members of the animation community are among those who’ve

“Erratics,” featuring Denis Lavant, was awarded at IFFR’s co-production market CineMart. Directed by Thomas Woodroffe it tells the story of a ghost of a filmmaker, Lucien Castelnau, who, after a long time trapped in the glaciers of Patagonia, finally breaks free. The film – produced by Bloques Erráticos and co-produced by La Belle Affaire Productions

A drama featuring Sylvester Stallone and France’s minister for gender equality, Aurore Bergé, is becoming a catalyst for a battle pitting Europe’s thriving dubbing industry against the existential threat of AI. For 50 years, Bergé’s father, Alain Dorval, was known as the “Voix de Stallone.” From the 1970’s onwards French audiences identified Dorval’s baritone with

Thirteen years after “Mummy Is Coming,” American filmmaker Cheryl Dunye (“The Watermelon Woman”) is gearing up to produce a new feature film with “Black Is Blue” through her production company Jingletown Films. The film, loosely based on her eponymous 2014 short, is one of the projects selected at this year’s CineMart, the co-production market of

“Dog Man” is expected to lead the box office pack as two newcomers, Universal’s action comedy “Love Hurts” and Sony’s gory slasher “Heart Eyes,” join the fray. In what’s expected to be another chilly winter weekend for cinemas, “Love Hurts” and Heart Eyes” are each targeting single-digit debuts of $7 million to $8 million. That

A24 has signed a deal with Nordic studio and distributor Nordisk Film to release its films across Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The first titles covered by the non-exclusive agreement are Josh Safdie’s comedy “Marty Supreme” with Timothée Chalamet, Benny Safdie’s sports drama “The Smashing Machine” with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, Mark Anthony Gordon’s

Universal has unveiled the trailer for “Jurassic World Rebirth.” This feature will mark the seventh film in the 31-year-old cinematic franchise. The official synopsis for “Jurassic World Rebirth” reads: “Five years post-‘Jurassic World Dominion,’ an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough.” Scarlett Johansson plays

Gaëtan Bruel, the former director of the French Cultural Services in the U.S., has been appointed president of France’s National Film Board (CNC), the country’s most powerful film institution. The 36-year-old joins the CNC from France’s Ministry of Culture, where he’s worked as chief of staff since January 2024. Prior to that, he spearheaded the

Animated blockbuster “Moana 2” put wind into Disney‘s sales for the last three months of 2024. The sequel’s strong showing at the box office, along with another profitable quarter for Disney+ and Hulu, helped the Mouse House beat Wall Street forecasts for revenue and earnings. Disney’s entertainment streaming business, comprising Disney+ and Hulu, delivered its