Movies

This year, society almost got back to normal, with some caveats, and we all went back to film festivals and theaters, thankful for the myriad features from some of the best filmmakers around. In the following 19 essays, directors offer praise and insight into their favorite films — the movies that moved them the most

The Motion Picture Association, the trade organization repping Hollywood studios, has appointed Pamela Corante as VP of global communications. In her new role, Corante will liaise for the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, a group that seeks to protect the legal ecosystem for creative content, as well as the Trusted Partner Network, the MPA’s industry-wide

Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen embark on the Italian bachelorette party of your dreams in the first trailer for “Book Club: The Next Chapter.” The sequel, in which the gals appear to be reading “The Alchemist,” take their book club to Europe after Fonda’s character Vivian reveals she’s getting married. Cue

The Producers Guild of America announced Monday that “Till” will receive the Stanley Kramer Award at its upcoming awards. Producers Keith Beauchamp, Barbara Broccoli, Whoopi Goldberg, Thomas Levine, Michael Reilly and Fredrick Zollo will share the honor at the ceremony, which will take place Feb. 25 at the Beverly Hilton. The Stanley Kramer Award annually

Director James Cameron has been clear about the stakes for his long-delayed sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The science-fiction epic is so expensive, he says, it represents “the worst business case in movie history,” meaning it needs to become one of the three or four top-grossing movies of all time just to break even.

Iranian filmmakers are secretly filming dual versions of scenes from their movies in anticipation of a regime change after months of protests against hard-line Islamic rule in their country. The hijab-free scenes – where actresses are portrayed without the head covering that is mandatory for women in the country – are part of a widespread

Tom Cruise is choosing to accept a new high-stakes mission in some wild behind-the-scenes footage from “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One.” The featurette shows the action star and his team preparing for a stunt years in the making, where he will jump a motorcycle off a cliff and turn it into a BASE

Amber Heard and Johnny Depp have avoided yet another court appearance after settling their latest round of litigation. Depp originally filed a defamation claim against Heard in March 2019 after Heard published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which she described herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The couple had been married

Danish production outfit Snowglobe and sales agent TrustNordisk have released the international trailer (below) for Martin Skovbjerg’s “Copenhagen Does Not Exist,” ahead of its world premiere in International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Big Screen Competition next month. The psychological drama, based on the novel “Sander” by Terje Holtet Larsen, is penned by Eskil Vogt, who was

New York-based Juno Films has acquired all North American distribution rights to “Munch,” the upcoming Rotterdam Film Festival opening night film which is backed by Viaplay, Scandinavia’s leading streamer, and directed by Norway’s Henrik M. Dahlsbakken’s (“The Outlaws”).  “Munch” is produced by The Film Company. The deal was negotiated between Vondah Elizabeth Sheldon on behalf

Beta Cinema has picked up sales rights to director Lukas Nathrath’s first feature film “One Last Evening,” a tragicomedy that competed in Locarno’s First Look selection and won the main prize. Produced on a micro-budget, “One Last Evening” will world premiere in International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Tiger Competition and subsequently at the Max Ophüls Preis

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will open on Jan. 25 with “Munch,” Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken’s take on the Norwegian artist behind “The Scream.” “Bringing to life the inner world of such a complex character has been a very rewarding experience. We are thrilled to show audiences what inspired [Edvard] Munch and what kept his inner

Middle East distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment has boarded Saudi wrestling comedy “Sattar.” The film is set for a wide release in Saudi on Dec. 29 via Front Row Arabia, its joint-venture with local exhibitor Muvi Cinemas. Directed by Kuwaiti’s Abdullah Al Arak, the film, which launched positively from the recent Red Sea Film Festival, is

Street casting — the process of plucking non-professional actors from their everyday lives to play prominent screen roles, often as observationally scripted versions of themselves — is a process that has yielded rich rewards for many a French film in recent years. Titles from Laurent Cantet’s “The Class” to Frédéric Baillif’s “La Mif” have thrived

“Avatar: The Way of Water” made a smaller splash in its debut at the mainland China box office than might have been expected just a few weeks ago. But under the fast-changing circumstances in the country, that was probably as good as could have been hoped for. The film earned $51.3 million between Friday and

The trailer for Christopher Nolan’s latest film, “Oppenheimer” has been released by Universal Pictures. “Oppenheimer” documents the life and ethically questionable accolades of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is credited with inventing the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer was one of the primary contributors to the Manhattan Project, a government research effort centered around the creation of

Tom Cruise has once again jumped out of a plane — this time to deliver another thank you to fans of “Top Gun: Maverick” while hurtling through the troposphere. “Hey everyone, here we are over stunning South Africa, and we’re filming ‘Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” parts one and two,” Cruise yells to a camera

International Film Festival Rotterdam has unveiled its selection of 20 feature film projects and five immersive projects for the 40th edition of CineMart, the festival’s co-production market, which runs from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1. Following two online editions, the market is hosted in-person for the first time since 2020. Filmmakers from Indonesia, Paraguay, the

Unless you want to bury your head in an underwater sand dune, it’s clear that “Avatar: The Way of Water” underperformed at the box office this weekend — a fact that shouldn’t change anyone’s experience of the movie. The critics, or at least a whole lot of them, were rapturous (though not this one; I

Brian Tyree Henry and Paul Dano started in theater —— which will come as no surprise to anyone who sees them in their latest films, playing characters with carefully crafted backstories. In Lila Neugebauer’s “Causeway,” Henry portrays James, a New Orleans mechanic and amputee who bonds with Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence), an injured soldier desperate to return to combat. And Dano has

In 1955, Moses Wright stood by helplessly as white men abducted his nephew, Emmett Till, threatening to kill Wright and his family if they interfered. When those men were brought to trial, Wright testified against them with quiet dignity, despite knowing that white men were unlikely to be convicted in Mississippi and that he and

Louis Armstrong, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Selena Gomez, Sinead O’Connor and Tanya Tucker are the subjects of six separate 2022 music documentaries. But if you ask the directors behind each project whether or not they made a music doc, the answer is resounding no. Instead, the music created by each legendary artist is used to

No more PowerPoint presentations for Oscar nominations – the big screens with pictures of the actors, directors and movies are back to celebrate the best of 2022.    The Academy announced that it will return to an in-person live event from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Jan. 24.   While the ungodly early hour between

Kate Hudson has opened up about her insistence on casting Matthew McConaughey in “How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days.” The actor reflected on her life and career during a Life In Pictures talk at BAFTA in London on Friday. Hudson, who acknowledged her strength in rom-coms during the 2000s, revealed that she and

The 13-year wait is finally over. James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” is now playing in theaters, and with it comes a question moviegoers will probably be asking themselves once the credits roll: What does the cast actually look like? In the original “Avatar,” actors such as Sam Worthington, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver, Michelle

Guillermo del Toro echoed the words of Hayao Miyazaki when recently asked by Decider about animation created from artificial intelligence sources and machines: “It’s an insult to life itself.” Del Toro has been making the press rounds in support of his Netflix film “Pinocchio,” a hand-crafted stop-motion movie that stands in direct opposition to machine-generated

Tony Hale will appear in Anna Kendrick’s feature directorial debut, “The Dating Game.” Details of the “Veep” alum’s character remain under wraps. He joins previously announced cast members Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Nicolette Robinson, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelley Jakle and Autumn Best. While character descriptions for most of the cast have been kept quiet, Variety has learned

The Museum of the Moving Image and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced 2022 award recipients from the Sloan Film Program on Friday. A pilot script titled “Until Then We Keep Breathing” by UCLA student Samantha Sewell and a feature script called “Woodside” by Florida State University student Gerard Shaka were among the projects recognized.

Any fan of James Cameron’s “Titanic” has surely debated many times whether or not Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) had to die. Many viewers claim there was enough room for both Jack and Rose (Kate Winslet) on the floating door turned makeshift raft, but Cameron himself is here to prove everyone wrong. Speaking to The Toronto Sun

Donald Glover is set to join Sony Pictures’ universe of Marvel characters, as the star and producer of a movie based on the Spider-Man villain the Hypno-Hustler. The project is in its earliest stages, with no script or director, but Myles Murphy (the son of Eddie Murphy) is attached to write the screenplay. The Hypno-Hustler,