Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” dominated at the BAFTA Film Awards, where the Frances McDormand-led road movie picked up four prizes, including best film. The Searchlight-produced movie also won for lead actress, cinematography and director, putting it well ahead of all other films. Hosted by Edith Bowman and Dermot O’Leary, the second night of the BAFTAs awarded
Movies
“Godzilla vs. Kong,” the new special effects extravaganza that imagines a battle royale between two of cinema’s most famous monsters, has surpassed $350 million at the global box office. The Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures release is the first true blockbuster of the pandemic era. Domestically, “Godzilla vs. Kong’s” box office total stands at
“Godzilla vs. Kong” stormed to the top of the domestic box office, picking up $13.4 million in its second weekend of release. That brings the monster mashup’s stateside haul to $69.5 million, an impressive gross considering it comes in the midst of a global pandemic. The Legendary and Warner Bros. release’s robust commercial performance has
Mainland China youth drama “The Day is Over” was named the best Chinese-language film in the Firebird Young Cinema competition at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. The already celebrated Iranian film “The Wasteland,” directed by Ahmad Bahrami won the equivalent award in the overseas section. The 45th edition of the festival kicked off on
Director Chloé Zhao won the top prize at the 73rd annual Directors Guild of America Awards for “Nomadland,” certifying the elegiac exploration of the lives of itinerant workers in the American West as the film to beat at the Academy Awards. Zhao is only the second woman, and the first woman of color, to earn
The opening night of the 2021 BAFTA Film Awards is under way with nine winners looking to find some space for a golden mask on their mantelpieces. Night 1, hosted virtually by radio and TV presenter Clara Amfo, is a mostly craft-centered affair with categories such as casting, costume design and sound on the schedule.
World War II adventure “Greyhound,” now streaming on Apple TV Plus, takes place on a battleship in the chill of a North Atlantic winter. Tom Hanks wrote the screenplay and stars in the film about a captain whose ship comes under attack by German U-boats as it crosses what is known as the black pit
David Fincher’s “Mank” looks to be the frontrunner in the production design Oscar race. Production designer Donald Graham Burt and set designer Jan Pascale have each scored one previous nomination in this category. Burt won for 2008’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” However, “Mank” goes up against Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” for which production designer
Prince William has dropped out of this weekend’s BAFTA Awards, following the death of his grandfather Prince Philip, Variety has confirmed. “In light of The Duke of Edinburgh’s passing, The Duke of Cambridge will no longer be part of BAFTA programming this weekend,” said BAFTA in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the Royal Family,
Variety took home 20 top honors at Friday’s National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards, including the wins for best entertainment website, podcast host for Marc Malkin, best headline and music criticism for Jem Aswad. The virtual ceremony was hosted by comedian Alonzo Bodden. This year’s Veritas Award for film from the Los Angeles Press Club
“It was a big little lie, but in the end, I feel like the film really represented the topic in a way that allowed us to enter and shoot for months,” says Maite Alberdi, the Oscar-nominated documentary director of “The Mole Agent.” That little lie was the entire premise of her film which tells the
China’s influential Douban review and culture online platform has wiped the 2021 Oscars from its site, the latest indication that this year’s Academy Awards have become a political flashpoint in the world’s largest film market. Douban is a trend-setting social networking site home to a vibrant message board community and a platform for user reviews
A surprise to Oscar watchers on nomination morning was “Love and Monsters” landing a visual effects nomination. It was the first nomination for Mr. X, the company behind the effects of the film. The monster movie was a mix of special and visual effects. In all, more than 550 VFX shots used. Genevieve Camilleri, VFX
Only “The Trial of the Chicago 7’s” Phedon Papamichael has been in this race before — for 2013’s “Nebraska.” But watch this award closely, as whoever wins here could signal the director win. The cinematography Oscar has matched director six times in recent years, the last time when Alfonso Cuarón won for 2018’s “Roma.” Still
If “Io Sì (Seen)” wins the song Oscar on April 25, it will mark only the fourth time in Oscar history that a foreign-language lyric has taken the prize. Diane Warren’s song for “The Life Ahead,” which co-lyricist Laura Pausini sings in Italian, is the 10th song not in the English language to be nominated.
There’s a two-in-five chance that an African American will walk away with the Academy Award for original score on April 25, and if so, it will be only the second time a Black composer has won in that category. That’s because two films with Black composers were nominated this year: Terence Blanchard for “Da 5
Paramount has delayed the release dates for several major films, including “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Mission: Impossible 7,” “Dungeons & Dragons” and more. In total, 10 films had their release dates shuffled, with three of them starring Tom Cruise. “Top Gun: Maverick” is flying to November 19, 2021, from its previous date of July 2, 2021.
Jessie Henderson has joined Apple Studios as a feature film executive, the tech giant announced Friday. Based in Los Angeles, Henderson will report to Apple Original Film’s head of features Matt Dentler. Henderson most recently served as executive vice president of original feature films at HBO Max, focusing on development. She departed the WarnerMedia-owned service
“Fleabag” creator and Emmy winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge is joining the cast of “Indiana Jones 5,” Lucasfilm announced Friday in a press release. She will co-star with “Indiana Jones” franchise lead Harrison Ford in the untitled fifth film. James Mangold is taking over directing duties from Steven Spielberg, who helmed the first four “Indiana Jones” pics.
The Directors Guild of America Awards have long been closely watched by awards junkies, giving as they do a strikingly reliable set of clues to where Oscar voting might lead a few weeks down the road. And this year, the DGA Awards look to once again play a role in the award season narrative, with
Global distribution-production company Rmvistar has acquired global rights to the multi-award-winning animated short “Anacronte,” produced by leading Argentine animation house Mr. Bug Studio in collaboration with the film’s co-director Raúl Koler. At the same time, Rmvistar has also confirmed that it will be partnering with the folks at Mr. Bug on a new high-concept science
Italy’s Iervolino Entertainment, the film and television production company founded by producer Andrea Iervolino and co-owned with Monika Bacardi, is planning to invest €100 million ($118.6 million) in the production of animated content along with an additional €8.5 million ($10.1 million) in its new production subsidiary in Serbia. The new Iervolino Studios, which comprises two
The “Airplane!” school of chock-full-of-jokes conceptual parody, with its fourth-wall-smashing stupido-smart goofiness, had a pretty impressive run. It ruled for several decades, spawning everything from the “Airplane!” creators’ own “Naked Gun” franchise — to me, the media-age Marx Brothers-worthy masterpiece of the form — to the Wayans brothers’ “Scary Movie” franchise to several dozen comedies,
New York-based boutique distributor Juno Films has acquired North American rights to the intimate and compelling Norwegian documentary “Seyran Ates: Sex, Revolution and Islam,” featuring Turkish-German feminist lawyer and one of the first female imams in Europe. The deal was brokered by DR Sales ahead of the film’s world premiere at the San Francisco Intl.
Told he’s been cursed and will die within a week, a Kathmandu man desperately seeks the elusive spirit that might save him in “Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache.” Though playing upon Tibetan Buddhist concepts, this latest film from Bhutan-born writer-director Khyentse Norbu (“The Cup,” “Travellers and Magicians”) doesn’t use traditional religious
For “Mank” star Amanda Seyfried, she keeps her phone on silent and turns off all her notifications, so when she received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress as Marion Davies in the David Fincher film, her publicist called her mother and woke her up with the good news. “It’s nice to talk about something
“Judas and the Black Messiah” has been nominated for six Academy Awards and actor Daniel Kaluuya has already won Golden Globe and SAG Awards for his portrayal of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton. Kaluuya describes the role as a tall order. “It was like a big mountain,” Kaluuya said. “When you get to the bottom
A new U.K. campaign is calling for urgent action to support the families of film and TV workers by allocating budget lines for childcare. Led by childcare facility and mobile nursery The WonderWorks, the ‘Keeping Families in Film’ campaign has garnered support in the form of an open letter, signed by major figures such as
Neil Burger’s sci-fi thriller “Voyagers” follows a team of hormonal, interplanetary teenage explorers as they slowly shed their civilized veneers and take a walk on the primal side. The film unfolds almost entirely on a shuttle barreling through the deepest recesses of space, with its young crew tasked with a multi-generational mission to colonize a
Zhang Yimou’s historical spy thriller “Cliff Walkers” will hit North American cinemas on April 30, day-and-date with its China release. “Cliff Walkers” was previously title “Impasse” in English. Its Chinese title translates to “On the Cliff.” It will be distributed abroad by CMC Pictures. The film marks Zhang’s first foray into the spy genre. Based