Movies

To accompany the new Tom McCarthy-Matt Damon movie “Stillwater” — recently lauded at the Cannes Film Festival, and set to be released in theaters Friday — Focus Features and L.A. Times studios have partnered to produce a new podcast miniseries called “Convicted: Across Borders,” hosted by attorney and author Marcia Clark. The first episode has

EXHIBITION Trafalgar Releasing are set to adapt London’s V&A museum’s blockbuster Alice in Wonderland exhibition for theatrical release. “Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser,” which explores the cultural impact of Lewis Carroll’s iconic protagonist on figures from Salvador Dali to Tim Burton, is to be made into a “special cinema event,” the museum has revealed, with a

Steven Spielberg has added a new generation to the fictional family at the center of his semi-autobiographical film, which has the working title of “The Fabelmans.” Oscar nominees Judd Hirsch (“Ordinary People,” “Independence Day”) and Jeannie Berlin (“The Heartbreak Kid,” “Succession”), and veteran stage and screen actors Robin Bartlett (“Mad About You,” “American Horror Story”)

Willie Nelson is participating in a docuseries about his life, “Willie Nelson and Family,” with production said to be already “well underway” on the project from Blackbird Presents and Sight Unseen Pictures. The co-directors of the “definitive” multi-part series are Thom Zimny, best known as Bruce Springsteen’s regular filmic collaborator, and Emmy winner and Oscar

Longtime Marvel collaborators The Third Floor, a London-based visualization studio, have tapped Marcus Alexander as their executive director. Alexander, who has a background in visual effects supervision and post-production management, will work alongside U.K. managing director Tim Keene. Alexander previously worked as head of production at Deluxe Digital London and head of DI at Deluxe/EFILM

The worldwide trailer for Holocaust revenge film “Plan A” has been revealed, with Variety given an exclusive first look. The English-language drama, based on a true story, stars August Diehl (“A Hidden Life,” “Inglourious Basterds”), Sylvia Hoeks (“Blade Runner 2049,” “The Girl in the Spider’s Web”), Nikolai Kinski (“The Barbarians”) and Michael Aloni (“Shitsel”). The

Hong Kong-based international boutique sales company Asian Shadows has acquired Locarno selection “Shankar’s Fairies” by Indian filmmaker Irfana Majumdar. The film will world premiere on Aug. 13 in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente section of the Locarno Film Festival. Set in 1962, in a recently independent India, which is class-bound and exploitative, “Shankar’s Fairies” follows

Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera seems pretty relaxed after announcing what, on paper, looks like one of the strongest Lido lineups in recent memory. There is of course an underlying fear that the Delta variant could spoil the party, but he doesn’t seem too worried. Barbera spoke to Variety about the lower number

Brussels-based company Best Friend Forever has acquired Bolivian director Kiro Russo’s “El Gran Movimiento” which will world premiere at Venice in the Horizons section. “El Gran Movimiento” marks Russo’s follow up to his 2016 feature debut “Dark Skull” which won a prize at Locarno and played at San Sebastian, among other festivals. “Dark Skull” went

Interactive game series “Isklander” is set for an on-screen adaptation. Gaumont U.K. has optioned the film and TV rights to the alternate reality trilogy from London-based immersive entertainment company Swamp Motel. The three-part interactive game series — which comprises “Plymouth Point,” “The Mermaid’s Tongue” and “The Kindling Hour” — invites players to unleash their inner online

Splicing the dark heart of a folk-horror movie into the fluffy body of a rural Icelandic relationship drama yields unexpectedly fertile and darkly comic effects in Valdimir Jóhannsson’s creepy-funny-weird-sad “Lamb,” a film that proves just how far disbelief can be suspended if you’re in the hands of a director — and a cast, and an

In the movies as in real life, genuine chemistry can’t be faked — two people either have it or they don’t. Joshua Leonard and Jess Weixler fall into the former category, sharing a rapport that’s so natural and easygoing that it carries their winning “Fully Realized Humans” (a 2020 Tribeca Film Festival selection) through its

HBO is pressing play on “Music Box,” a documentary feature showcase series from Bill Simmons that examines historic and pivotal moments in music.  The movies in the series began airing this past weekend with the debut of “Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage.” Each of the films are helmed by a different director and will

Movie theater owners had hoped that shots in the arms and declining COVID rates would lead to a box office revival this summer. Those dreams may be deferred, at least for a few more months. Instead, the movie theater industry is spending the second half of popcorn season, the term for the escapist fare that

Jack Whitehall says he didn’t know that his character McGregor in “Jungle Cruise” was gay when he originally auditioned for the film. “When I first read the script, there was only a like a couple of sides,” the British actor told me at the movie’s premiere at Disneyland. “So yeah, there wasn’t any indication of

Ava DuVernay’s arts and social impact collective ARRAY announced “Liberated Territory: A Masterclass with Haile Gerima,” a five-day storytelling workshop taking place at the Array Creative Campus in Los Angeles this September. Gerima is an Ethiopian filmmaker and Howard University professor best known for his Golden Bear-winning 1993 film “Sankofa,” and is also set to

The Producers Guild of America has announced the key dates and timeline for the org’s 2022 Producers Guild of America Awards. Celebrating its 33rd awards ceremony, the PGA Awards will return to an in-person event at the Century Plaza Hotel — newly renovated and reopened as the Fairmont Century Plaza — on Saturday, Feb. 26,

Universal is shelling out an eye-popping $400 million to buy a new “Exorcist” trilogy with plans to screen some of the films on Peacock, its new streaming service. In a coup, Ellen Burstyn, the Oscar-winning actress who first did battle with the devil in the 1973 original, will reprise her role as Chris MacNeil. David

“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah is no stranger to unpacking big political and cultural stories with his nightly monologue and news satire program. It’s no easy task finding the funny in the dumpster fire of news. So it makes sense that Noah’s next projects won’t suffer from a lack of ambition. Time Studios, Noah’s

It’s tempting to think of the first “Star Wars” movie as ground zero for the new era of popular culture. (You might say that the 21st century began, in spirit, the day “Star Wars” opened.) But part of the primal power of George Lucas’s sci-fi landmark is that it represented a kind of dawn-of-the-digital-age, joystick-happy

WestEnd Films is launching worldwide sales on crime drama “Rhino” from Ukrainian director Oleh Sentsov (“Numbers,” “Gamer”), which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section. Produced by Denis Ivanov (“The Tribe,” “Donbas”) and Sentsov, the film centers on a young man nicknamed “Rhino,” who starts out as a petty thief before

Venice Film Festival organizers are closely monitoring the possible impact of the spread of the Delta variant, but sounded an upbeat note on Monday with artistic director Alberto Barbera saying he was confident “the situation will be much less complicated than Cannes.” Venice is organizing free COVID tests on site in a number of different

Pedro Almodóvar has dropped the first official trailer for “Madres paralelas,” which is set to open this year’s Venice Film Festival. “Madres paralelas” is led by long-time Almodóvar favorite Penélope Cruz who is joined by key cast members Aitana Sánchez-Gijón (“Boca a Boca”) and Milena Smit (“Cross the Line”), “Veneno” duo Israel Elejalde and Daniela

Ahead of the film’s world premiere at Locarno Film Festival, Variety has been given exclusive access to the debut trailer for “Hinterland,” the crime thriller from Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky, who won the Foreign Language Film Oscar with “The Counterfeiters.” The film is a center-piece of the festival with a prestigious first weekend primetime premiere

The Venice Film Festival is unveiling the lineup of its 78th edition, which is expected to be a star-studded affair that launches a substantial number of prospective awards season contenders and, more generally, a rich roster of hotly-anticipated new works by global auteurs, alongside some potential discoveries. Previously announced titles include Pedro Almodóvar’s “Parallel Mothers,”

Like a scene of the 1969 moon landing seen on a prison TV late in “Great Freedom” — “I thought it would be more exciting,” muses one inmate — seismic change seems less spectacular when charted against the everyday grind of life behind bars in this gripping, tender-hearted prison drama from Austrian director Sebastian Meise.

There are two types of people in this world, apparently: Those who would find a staff-led singalong of “Let My People Go” in a hospital cancer ward comforting, even inspiring, and those for whom it would only exacerbate the agony. Emmanuelle Bercot’s heart-on-sleeve medical drama “Peaceful” is populated largely by the former group, and duly

Before the zombified events of Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead,” there was an “Army of Thieves,” led by the mysterious Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) and safecracking genius Ludwig Dieter (Matthias Schweighöfer). In the first teaser for the prequel film, also directed by Schweighöfer, viewers are introduced to the crew of opportunistic bandits, including Rolph (Guz

At the box office, “Snake Eyes” is ringing true to its moniker. The latest “G.I. Joe” installment, an origin story starring Henry Golding of “Crazy Rich Asians” fame, fell short of expectations, collecting a paltry $13.3 million in its first three days in North American theaters. Those ticket sales put “Snake Eyes” in second place

Hong Sangsoo characters have a habit of — you might even say a genius for — diffidence in the face of profundity. In that way, they’re very like the films in which they appear: outwardly casual, slight, polite, holding pain and truth and existential observation in check with an airy gesture, a sad smile or,