Movies

Martin Scorsese participated in a career-spanning video interview for GQ magazine (watch below) and lamented over how many people today resemble his “Taxi Driver” main character, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). The lonely and violent Travis is a Vietnam War veteran who befriends a child prostitute as his mental health deteriorates. Some film writers have

Italy’s Coccinelle Film Sales has acquired world rights to German director Veit Helmer’s poetic love story “Gondola,” which will world premiere at the upcoming Tokyo International Film Festival. Helmer is well known on the international festival circuit for funny, fable-like films with little or no dialogue such as “Tuvalu”; the Azerbaijan-set “Absurdistan,” which went to

Kilian Riedhof’s “Stella. A Life.,” which has its world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival, tells the tragic, fact-based story of Stella Goldschlag, a young Jewish woman in Berlin who, in order to survive, cooperates with the Gestapo to betray other Jews. The film stars Paula Beer, who won the awards for best actress at

Italy’s Roberto Stabile, head of special projects, Directorate General for Cinema and Audiovisual-Ministry of Culture at Cinecittà, breezed through the San Sebastian Film Festival on Tuesday to tout Italy’s drive to amp up the distribution of Italian movies around the world. In a brief presentation at the city’s Museo de San Telmo, he held forth about

Michael Gambon, the Irish-English actor best known for his role as Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the “Harry Potter” movies, has died, Variety has confirmed. He was 82. “We are devastated to announce the loss of Sir Michael Gambon,” his family said in a statement. “Beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in

In 2017, Movistar Plus, Spain’s biggest SVOD-pay TV player, rocked the San Sebastian Festival, the highest-profile movie event in Spain and Latin America region, with “The Plague,” the biggest series ever made in Spain. Movistar Plus, owned by Telefónica, looks set to make waves again at this week’s San Sebastian by world premiering another big,

Underscoring its historical importance, a further production marking the 50th death anniversary of Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende could well be in the works. The historical drama, provisionally titled “The Meeting,” details a historical encounter between the doomed president, whose downfall heralded the rise of the infamous military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in 1973.  Producers

Agora, the industry section of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, has selected 10 films from seven countries for its works in progress strand. The strand selects projects in post-production stage, which have a link to the Mediterranean region and Southeastern Europe, and presents them to sales agents, distributors, producers, streaming platforms and festival programmers with

James Cameron appeared Wednesday at Los Angeles genre festival Beyond Fest for a Q&A about “The Abyss” after a screening of the film’s seldom-seen two-hour and 51-minute Special Edition. Unbeknownst to attendees (but later confirmed by festival programmers), the DCP presentation turned out to be the 4K transfer Cameron announced last year, physical and streaming

The Zurich Film Festival boasts a strong lineup of international films, among them Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” and Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn,” and high-profile guests that include Jessica Chastain, Diane Kruger, Ethan Hawke, Todd Haynes and Wim Wenders. The ZFF this year screens a record number of world and European premieres — 52

The “Saw” films have always been rightfully tagged as torture porn, but they come on as flesh-ripping morality plays. Each victim, strapped into his or her loopy-ingenious electro-medieval Rube Goldberg slicer-dicer-chopper-gouger, is being put through the agonies of the damned only because of some sin that he or she committed in the real world. The

Lead negotiators for SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will head back to the table on Monday, Oct. 2, after a bitter concurrent strike led by the Writes Guild of America was resolved on Tuesday. “SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will resume negotiations for a new TV/Theatrical contract on Monday, Oct. 2.

After premiering at the Venice Film Festival, Netflix’s awards season pony “Maestro,” the Leonard Bernstein biopic from sophomore director Bradley Cooper, in which he also stars, is gearing up for its next major stop at the New York Film Festival on Monday. Ahead of its New York bow, the streamer invited a small group of

Ken Caldwell, a nearly 40-year veteran of Disney, is retiring from the company at the end of the year. He most recently served as executive vice president and general sales manager of North American theatrical sales and reported to Tony Chambers, the executive VP of theatrical distribution. In his role, Caldwell oversaw domestic distribution encompassing

On the heels of the record-breaking performance of “Barbie,” veteran film executive Robbie Brenner has been elevated to president of Mattel Films. Brenner moves up from her role as executive producer at Mattel, the longstanding toy company that’s spent years switching focus to original content based on its intellectual property under CEO Ynon Kreiz. She’s

Serial-killer movies are a dime a dozen these days, with the true-crime industrial complex exploiting the ill-deeds sprees of increasingly obscure murderers to keep up with audience demand. Anyone wary of the genre might balk at the idea of “Strange Darling,” a cat-and-mouse drama about the tail end of a murder spree, but to do

Kerry Washington explains in her new memoir, “Thicker Than Water,” that she actively rejected playing the “white girl’s best friend” after starring in “Against the Ropes,” the 2004 boxing drama headlined by Meg Ryan and Omar Epps. The film starred Ryan as Jackie Kallen, the first woman to achieve success as a boxing manager. Washington

Pencils ready.  Now that the writers strike is over, Hollywood studios are gearing up to get production rolling again — once the other half of this year’s dual strike, the ongoing SAG-AFTRA walkout, is finally settled. From “Star Trek” to “Superman: Legacy” to “Abbott Elementary” to “Wednesday,” every studio, network and streamer has priority film and TV

Allen Media Group CEO/founder/chairman Byron Allen reaffirmed his interest Wednesday in bidding $10 billion for TV brands from Disney, citing his experience with similar assets in his own portfolio. “I think broadcast television and linear channels, I think is a great business,” he said in a Q&A at the Code conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

“Sound of Music” fans prepare: “Something Good” is coming your way. A new version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” soundtrack, featuring more than 40 previously unreleased tracks and unheard vocals by Christopher Plummer, will debut on Dec. 1. Released by Craft Recordings, this Super Deluxe Edition — one of many remixed and remastered

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. You can soon hear the “Sound of Freedom” from home. The film, which made its theatrical debut in July, will get digital and physical releases throughout October and November. Angel Studios, the Angel investor-backed

Netflix’s upcoming disaster movie “Leave the World Behind,” based on the 2020 novel of the same name by Rumaan Alam, marks the first fictional movie from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions company. Barack included the novel on his 2021 summer reading list and was personally invested in perfecting the film adaptation, so much

The negotiations of adult sexual relationships, as well as the demands forced upon single women in society, are recurring fascinations in the work of Spanish writer-director Isabel Coixet, albeit to erratic effect: In recent years, particularly in such English-language efforts as “It Snows in Benidorm” and “The Bookshop,” her voice has felt unconfident, even a

David Goodman, Chris Keyser and Meredith Stiehm have spent this year in warrior mode on behalf of their fellow 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America. Goodman and Keyser, both past presidents of the WGA West, were co-chairs of the WGA’s 25-member negotiating committee. Stiehm was re-elected earlier this month to her second two-year

The Newport Beach Film Festival has announced its 2023 Festival Honors. Among this year’s honorees are William Shatner, Patricia Clarkson, Eugenio Derbez, Todd Haynes, Glenn Howerton, Jack Huston, Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Jesse Williams. The festival will be held in person from Oct. 12-19, and the artists will be honored throughout the week. Clarkson

Kevin Bacon’s star-making role in 1984’s “” put him on a path that clashed with his original aspirations as a performer, the actor recently said on the “Podcrushed” podcast (via Insider). Bacon had no idea he was auditioning for a “dance movie” when he tested for the role of Ren McCormack. “When I did the

Jordan, which thanks to its spectacular locations has long been attracting international productions – most recently “Dune: Part Two” – is launching its first full-fledged studio complex called Olivewood Film Studios.  Located just 15 minutes from the center of the capital, Amman, Olivewood has two state-of-the-art soundstages, each measuring more than 16,000 square ft, and

U.S. actor and comedian Steve Martin and the state government of Australia’s Northern Territory have thrown their weight behind “Honey Ant Dreamers,” a feature film about the Indigenous art industry. The film will portray the story behind the birth of the ‘Western Desert Art Movement’ told for the first time, through a First Nations lens.

As it plays in competition at San Sebastian’s Works In Progress Latam strand, Buenos Aires-based sales agency Meikincine has swooped on international sales rights for mother-daughter relationship drama “Maybe It’s True What They Say About Us” (“Quizás Es Cierto Lo Que Dicen De Nosotras”).  Produced by Storyboard Media (“Santiago, Italia” “El pacto de Fuga”), the

Rezo Gigineishvili’s “Patient #1” is the 2023 winner of the annual Werner Herzog Film Award. Set at the end of the Soviet era, the film focuses on the decline in power of Konstantin Chernenko, a Russian leader with failing health who is surrounded by a large medical team. He is old and frail, but has a