Movies

Director Peter Nicks just wants people to listen to kids. “Homeroom,” Nicks’ Hulu documentary about Oakland High School’s senior class of 2020 and their fight to disband the school police department, sets out to do just that. It’s the third in a trilogy about the city’s social institutions, after 2012’s “The Waiting Room” about Highland

In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Disney announced that the number of Disney Plus paid subscribers swelled to 116 million as of July 3. Wall Street noticed, as one headline from a financial publication shouted, “Disney Stock Leaps After Earnings Blowout.” Since the introduction of Disney Plus on Nov. 12, 2019, Disney shares price

Unlike most of the kids in his class, 16-year-old Jamie New knows what he wants to be when he grows up: a drag queen. And unlike most of the fabulous aspiring female impersonators who’ve strutted on-screen before him, he has surprisingly few obstacles in his way. Jamie has an understanding mom, a supportive best friend

Sony Pictures and Joel Silver are teaming up for the feature film “The Dryland,” from screenwriter David Rothley. The spec, an action thriller, follows a kidnapping and ransom negotiator tasked with finding a nine-year-old boy who went missing on an Indian Reservation in South Dakota. After finding the boy, she must fight to keep them

A day after Ed Asner died at the age of 91, his lawsuit against the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan was allowed to live on. U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder indicated at a hearing that she would deny a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Asner joined nine other actors in suing the health plan last December over

Dennis Rodman’s infamous 48-hour bender in Las Vegas during the 1998 NBA Finals is set to become a feature film from Lionsgate and Lord Miller. Rodman, then a star player for the Chicago Bulls, asked his coach Phil Jackson if he could take a 48-hour vacation in Las Vegas in the middle of the NBA

Judith Light has joined the packed cast of Searchlight Pictures’ dark comedy “.” The two-time Tony winner will star alongside the previously announced Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes in the film, as well as Hong Chau (“Downsizing”), Nicholas Hoult (“The Favourite”), John Leguizamo (“Ghetto Klown”) and Janet McTeer (“Ozark”). “Succession” and “Entourage” helmer Mark Mylod

Those who have to bite their tongues to keep from rebuking the indulgent parents of misbehaving children in supermarkets may find blood trickling from their mouths during Erika Hníková’s “Every Single Minute,” a Czech documentary following a few months in the lives of Michal and Lenka Hanuliak and their son Miško. Not that Lenka and

Apple Studios is backing “Raymond and Ray,” a new feature film that unites Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke in the story of two half-brothers who reunite at the funeral of their father. The look at filial bonds was written and directed by Rodrigo García, who previously oversaw “Albert Nobbs” and “In Treatment.” McGregor will play

In the first trailer for his documentary on the Velvet Underground,” director Todd Haynes takes viewers on a lightning-fast overview of the film, the era, the band and why it was so vastly influential. The doc chronicles the 1960s group, which was once managed by Andy Warhol and considered the house band of his Factory,

“Candyman,” the updated take on Clive Barker’s terrifying urban legend, continues a positive pandemic-era box office trend: It’s the latest theatrical-only offering to beat expectations amid a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. “Candyman” opened to $22.37 million from 3,569 theaters, a result that bested pre-release tracking, which projected a debut around $15 million. In a notable

Munich-based sales agency The Playmaker has picked up international distribution rights to “And Tomorrow We Will Be Dead,” which is based on the true story of the abduction of a Swiss couple by the Taliban in Pakistan. Variety has been given access to the international trailer for the film, which opens the Zurich Film Festival.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the first footage to be released from Slovak director Peter Kerekes’ “107 Mothers,” which world premieres in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival. Films Boutique is handling world sales on the film. [embedded content] “107 Mothers” features mostly real-life female prisoners and prison guards in an

Controversial fact-based Australian drama “Nitram” won the first prize this weekend at the CinefestOz film festival in West Australia. Worth A$100,000 ($73,000) the award is one of the richest in cinema. The film documents the build-up to a mass murder in Tasmania and its production was opposed by some community groups. But the finished avoids

L.A.-based Outsider Pictures has snapped up world sales rights to Rodrigo Plá and Laura Santullo’s family drama “The Other Tom,” ahead of its Venice Film Festival world premiere and its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “I had read the script of ‘The Other Tom’ three years ago and always liked the story,”

“Hostage: Missing Celebrity” held on to top spot at the South Korean box office as new release “Guimoon: The Lightless Door” gave local films the top four chart places over the weekend. But business is being held back by new health measures in the Greater Seoul area that were reintroduced last week. “Hostage,” starring Hwang

If a story about a reformed killer returning to his murderous ways to hunt down and slaughter Russian mobsters sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the synopsis for “John Wick.” It’s also, however, the premise of “Clean,” director Paul Solet’s thriller — co-written by leading man Adrien Brody — about a hit man getting back in

“Mark, Mary & Some Other People” opens with one of the strangest meet cutes in recent memory: Slacker dog-walker Mark (Ben Rosenfield) and brash singer Mary (Hayley Law) reconnect for the first time since college at a convenience store, where the former joins the latter in the bathroom — eventually singing loudly and crazily to

You have to feel for Léa Seydoux, the star who was slated to be the all-but-official face of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with four vehicles in the official selection. COVID intervened, preventing her representing any of them in person (as it turned out, none was the greatest of showcases for Seydoux’s talents anyway). But

There have been plenty of horror films set in the Old West and the Old South, as well as eras of religious inquisition in the Old World. “The Last Thing Mary Saw” goes where relatively few have gone before, however, by taking place in the still-new United States’ “civilized” rural East, where an industrial age

When we first meet Alma (Déborah Lukumuena) and Margot (Souheila Yacoub), they are at each other’s throats. They are onstage, two of a gang of young hopefuls trying out for a plum role in a semi-experimental Parisian theatre piece, but the fight is not part of their audition. It is real, and yet at the

With “Candyman” debuting at the top of the box office, earning $22 million in its opening weekend, star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is just getting started with his Hollywood takeover. After top-lining the “spiritual sequel” to the 1992 horror classic, directed by Nia DaCosta, Abdul-Mateen has a string of high-profile roles in the pipeline, including a

With a touch on the pedal so light you don’t even feel the woosh, Panah Panahi, son of Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, goes instantaneously from zero to 60 with his debut feature, “Hit the Road.” Doubly surprising, he does it repeatedly within the film too, from scene to scene — and within scenes, from moment

Without Wendy Chinchilla Araya, the dancer and first-time film actress playing the title role, “Clara Sola” would be a finely wrought tale of a later-life coming-of-age, in which mysticism, marginalization and sudden sexual jealousy collide on the fringes of a teeming Costa Rican forest. With her, and her feral movements and her keen but wary

The term “forced assimilation” has a violence encoded into it that brutalizes the bleak heart of Vladimir Munkuev’s “Nuuccha,” a meticulously re-created if unevenly dramatized portrait of the hardships and humiliations suffered by the indigenous peoples of Eastern Siberia’s Yakutia region in the waning years of the Russian Empire. Based on a short story by

Does life, once you’ve lived it for a little while, always have to get in the way of love? The simple question posed by German director Lisa Bierwith’s sedate but absorbing class- and culture-clash mid-life romance “Le Prince,” is one that can’t be answered simply, in grand declaratives or sweeping generalizations. So it feels right

When news broke Sunday that Ed Asner died at 91, Hollywood took to social media to pay tribute to the legendary actor, activist and philanthropist. The former president of the Screen Actors Guild, Asner is best known for playing Lou Grant in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its spinoff series “Lou Grant.” He also

Everyone keeps asking average German 30-somethings Michael and Dina when they’re going to get married, long after they’ve moved in together, and still after they have a child. Their non-answer is always the same: They’ve been thinking about it; they’ll get around to it; there just hasn’t been time. It’s not as if anyone’s really

SignUp, a new Google Chrome extension, overlays ASL captions on three Disney Plus movies — “Moana,” “Zootopia” and “The Incredibles.” Founded by Mariella Satow, the free tool was created because many members of the deaf community find that written captions lack vibrancy or aren’t descriptive enough, or are absent from media sites entirely. According to

“Candyman” was summoned to the top of domestic box office charts, collecting an impressive $22.37 million in its first three days of release. The R-rated slasher film, written by Jordan Peele and directed by “Captain Marvel 2” filmmaker Nia DaCosta, surpassed industry expectations despite fears the delta variant would keep people from going to the