Movies

At the Venice Film Festival press conference for his hotly anticipated “Poor Things,” director Yorgos Lanthimos said he really wished Emma Stone could be on the Lido to talk about, among other things, the fact that Bella Baxter, the character she plays, has plenty of sex scenes in the film. “It’s a shame that Emma

Stage 32, the entertainment industry social network and educational platform, and Catalyst Studios, a U.S. production company supporting female-fronted projects, are partnering to launch a screenwriting contest for feature films with a focus on social impact, the companies announced Friday at the Venice Film Festival. Hosted on the Stage 32 platform, the contest is open

With fashion-themed films and series building momentum on the festival circuit, Kevin Macdonald’s “High & Low — John Galliano” has been sold by Newen Connect in major territories ahead of its premiere at Telluride. “High & Low — John Galliano,” a documentary portrait of the controversial fashion designer, is produced by Chloe Mamelok and Macdonald

Africa-based filmmaker development organization Realness Institute has unveiled its next wave of initiatives as part of MIP Africa and FAME (Film, Arts, Media and Entertainment) Week. As part of the event, which is now in its second year in Cape Town, South Africa, alumni of six Realness Institute programs will pitch their films and television

France’s UFO Distribution has acquired French rights to Venice Horizons entry “An Endless Sunday” by first-time Italian director Alain Parroni from Fandango Sales. The film will segue from Venice to Toronto where it screens in the fest’s Discovery section. Set on the outskirts of contemporary Rome, this coming-of-age drama – which is based on the

We’ve all seen our share of stories about inspirational teachers. “The Holdovers” is dedicated to the opposite sort: a hard-ass named Paul Hunham whom everyone hates. The feeling is mutual, as Mr. Hunham considers most of the kids enrolled at Barton Academy to be entitled little monsters, and the administration to be even more corrupt.

It’s the moment of truth for Emerald Fennell, whose “Promising Young Woman” established the actor-turned-auteur (last seen playing pregnant doll Midge in “Barbie”) as a formidable new filmmaking talent. Building on the barbed sensibility she established with “Killing Eve,” the writer-director’s zeitgeist-throttling feature debut lured audiences like a bright red candy apple, leaving them with

The bipolar nature of Hungary’s politics and the country’s education system are the targets of Gábor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” which world premieres in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons strand. The film is Reisz’s third feature after the acclaimed “Some Inexplicable Reason” (2014) and “Bad Poems” (2018). Set in summer in Budapest, “Explanation for Everything” follows

The best scene of “Call Me by Your Name” has nothing to do with fruit, but a frank father-son conversation. Brittle to the point of breaking, Timothée Chalamet sits on the couch, arms crossed, resenting his dad for acknowledging the source of his anguish. “You’re too smart not to know how rare, how special, what

Ten Korean independent films will have their world premiere in the Busan International Film Festival’s Korean Cinema Today section. Selectors said on Friday that this year’s crop are films that “delve into profound themes of life, agony, family affection, and personal introspection, inviting audiences to contemplate their meaning.” They add that, “the imaginative depiction of

If the summer belonged to Cillian Murphy from “Oppenheimer,” then the upcoming fall season will belong to Colman Domingo in “Rustin.” The Emmy-winning actor of HBO’s “Euphoria” throws down the gauntlet with his portrayal of the gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin in George C. Wolfe’s biopic, which just premiered at the Telluride Film Festival,

Jeff Nichols brings pure Americana to the Telluride Film Festival with his luscious period drama “The Bikeriders,” which feels like the distant older cousin of “The Outsiders.” It stands as his single best directorial outing, and in tow are a trio of invigorating performances from Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy, all putting their

Did the Algonquin round table somehow spiritually relocate itself in the early 1970s to Key West, Florida? The idea that the small, remote island city was a hotbed for one of the last great counterculture arts scenes — particularly for prose writers, but also with some music mixed in — is the focus of a

“The Terminator” producer Gale Anne Hurd revealed on X/Twitter that James Cameron removed a crucial scene from the 1984 action movie after financiers forced him to use their friends in it. The scene in question provided important context about how Cyberdyne Systems, the tech corporation responsible for the creation of Skynet, came into possession of

In his latest documentary, “American Symphony,” Oscar-nominated director Matthew Heineman delivers a portrait of two artists — Grammy winner and former “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” bandleader Jon Batiste and his wife, author Suleika Jaouad. Heineman is known for putting his life on the line to make documentaries about the Mexican drug wars (“Cartel Land”),

“Dogman” director Luc Besson might be a newcomer to Venice, but following his film’s warm reception on Thursday, he’s likely to come back. Though Besson’s Golden Lion contender polarized critics, with Variety’s Jessica Kiang sparing few words by calling it a “numbskulled nonsense movie,” audience members at the film’s gala premiere opted to spread the

In a sign of Hollywood’s escalating internal tensions, a prominent Directors Guild of America member openly advocated against the election of 10 writer-directors to the guild’s board earlier this month on the grounds that they were “primarily writers” and hailed from “fringe groups.” In a leaked email that has been shared widely in the creative

Well, “Exorswitft” was a short-lived phenomenon; the nickname for the dual release of “The Exorcist: Believer” and Taylor Swift’s concert film is no more. That’s because Universal and Blumhouse’s spooky sequel “The Exorcist: Believer” has moved up its release date — losing its deliberately timed debut on Friday the 13 (of October) to instead land

Among all working U.S. filmmakers, few have built as faithful and fervent a following of critics and cinephiles as Michael Mann. Mann’s acolytes have secured such sleekly hard-boiled genre works as “Thief” and “Heat” a permanent place in the American canon, while staunchly advocating for the merits of more divisive titles like “Blackhat” and “Miami

There’s a ply problem — at least, Canadian filmmaker Michael Zelniker believes so. In his latest eco-doc endeavor “The Issue With Tissue – A Boreal Love Story,” Zelniker explores the effects of toilet paper manufacturing on Canada’s boreal forest region, which is chopped down yearly to supply the disposable yet highly relied-upon product. The feature

Check under most any post relating to the recently released trailer for Luc Besson’s “Dogman,” and you’ll find one, if not several responses riffing, to various degrees of enthusiasm, on the theme of “OMG, what if ‘Joker’ but with dogs?” That rhetorical question can now be answered, following this numbskulled nonsense movie’s inexplicable Venice Competition

Oscar voters, start your engines. On Thursday night at the Venice Film Festival, Adam Driver and Michael Mann officially kicked off awards season with the world premiere of their racing drama “Ferrari,” which debuted in competition. The packed house at the Sala Grande Theatre showered Drive and Mann with a six-minute-standing ovation. Driver fought back

Barcelona-based Filmax has swooped on international sales rights to “El amor de Andrea” (“Andrea’s Love”), the new feature by leading Spanish auteur Manuel Martín Cuenca, whose “The Motive” snagged a Fipresci Grand Prize at Toronto Film Festival, and was his third film selected for the festival.    “Andrea’s Love” is backed by Lazona, producers of

Gwyneth Paltrow redirected one Marvel fan to studio executives after she was asked about no longer appearing as Pepper Potts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Paltrow debuted as the character in 2008’s “Iron Man,” the very first MCU movie. She had sizable roles in “Iron Man 2” and “Iron Man 3,” and she also appeared

In Michael Mann’s heady, intricately dark, raptly absorbing “Ferrari,” there’s a quiet scene that takes place the night before the Mille Miglia, the spectacular 1,500-kilometer motorsport endurance race. Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), the Italian sports-car magnate who needs to win the race (the survival of the company that bears his name depends on it), has

Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy “Barbie” has overtaken “Avengers: Endgame” as the best-selling movie of all time at Alamo Drafthouse, the popular cinema chain known for in-theater dining. Alamo didn’t specify the ticket sales for either film. At the box office, “Barbie” has generated a massive $596 million in North America and $1.343 billion globally. It’s

Mexican novelist, screenwriter and occasional director Guillermo Arriaga made his name in the film realm penning multi-threaded dramas about the ripple effects of tragic incidents. “Amores Perros” and “Babel” stand out among them. Now the scribe’s cinematic legacy turns into a family affair with his children Mariana and Santiago Arriaga making their feature directorial debut

Back in 2018 with “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” Netflix introduced interactive features as a way for viewers to take charge of a movie, using a controller to select diverse story paths. The filmmakers offered choices branching off from pivotal points within the narrative that led to a range of conclusions that either worked, eventually triggering the

Caleb Landry Jones, the Texas-born actor, debuted a convincing Scottish accent at the Venice Film Festival press conference for Luc Besson’s “Dogman,” which is world premiering in competition at the fest. Landry Jones was introduced by Besson, who warned journalists in attendance that the actor was speaking with a Scottish accent because he’s “in character.”

The first thing you might recall upon emerging from Ibrahim Nash’at’s mesmerically disturbing “Hollywoodgate” – once you’ve chipped away the ice forming over your heart – is just how little beauty it contains. This is not an idle aesthetic observation. From the large-scale industrial brutalism of the eponymous abandoned US airbase in Kabul, to a