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The snow-covered Park City feels a world away from Tunis, where Amel Guellaty shot her feature debut “Where the Wind Comes From,” playing Sundance as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition strand. This real-life journey somewhat echoes that of the film’s main characters, Alyssa (Eya Bellagha) and Mehdi (Slim Baccar), who embark on an

If “To Catch a Predator” taught us anything, it was about the hollow authority asserted by a man in a well-cut suit. Between 2004 and 2007, NBC’s pedophile-baiting “Dateline” spinoff captured the imagination of the American public, announcing itself as not just reality-based entertainment but a protective public service — largely on the strength of

Benedict Cumberbatch was the toast of the town at Sundance during the Variety Cover Party presented by United Airlines. The actor, who graced the cover of Variety‘s 2025 Sundance issue, was honored at the event for his dramatic turn as a grieving father in “The Thing With the Feathers.” The party was held shortly before

“Flight Risk,” an action thriller directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mark Wahlberg as a balding, unhinged pilot, landed in first place with $12 million from 3,161 North American theaters in its opening weekend. It’s the second consecutive Lionsgate release, following “Den of Thieves 2: Pantera,” to debut at No. 1 as the studio takes

Variety & Audible’s Cocktails and Conversations panel at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival brought together journalist Ronan Farrow, Audible’s chief content officer Rachel Ghiazza and actors Juliette Lewis, André Holland and Mamoudou Athie to discuss storytelling for modern audiences. The panel discussion was moderated by Variety Executive Editor Brent Lang. Farrow, who signed a deal

The story around Isaiah Saxon’s feature debut, “The Legend of Ochi,” took a drastic turn, as so many Hollywood stories did, with this month’s Los Angeles fires. Saxon lost his home in the blaze, and the film’s theatrical release was pushed back. However, having spent years developing and working on the fantasy feature, Saxon is

In “The Thing with Feathers,” Benedict Cumberbatch plays a London creator of graphic novels who, quite suddenly, finds himself a widower (his beloved wife collapsed on the kitchen floor and died). In an early scene, we see him try and sustain an atmosphere of everyday normality as he puts breakfast together for his two young

What is it with 30-something Quebecoise filmmakers and their interest in exploring the tired porn trope of unsatisfied wives finding their sexual needs met by hot handymen? In 2023, Monia Chokri’s OK dramedy “The Nature of Love” was selected for Cannes and even won a César for best foreign film. Now, helmer Chloé Robichaud (“Sara

If you don’t know a great deal about bunnies apart from their cuteness, a piece of rabbit-centric trivia you will learn in writer-director Katarina Zhu’s debut feature “Bunnylovr” might just break your heart. Turns out, when bunnies experience a considerable amount of stress or a sudden burst of fear, they might go into a state

The Bob Dylan song choices Timothée Chalamet picked for his “Saturday Night Live” musical appearance were… well, completely unknown to most of the viewing audience. The actor’s dip into more obscure choices delighted many Dylanologists who tuned in, even as his picks defied expectations that he would recreate songs he performed as Dylan in “A

In her feature film work, Palestinian-American writer-director-actor Cherien Dabis has been telling intimately specific familial stories since “Amreeka” (2009). That was the filmmaker’s elegant, modestly scaled and altogether brilliant debut about a Palestinian mother and son, moving from the occupied West Bank to Chicago upon winning a green card lottery. Dabis wasn’t able to seize

After “Blknws: Terms & Conditions” was pulled from this year’s Sundance Film Festival lineup, at the behest of its financiers at Participant Media, the independent movie has a new backer — and will light up snowy Park City with its world premiere after all. James Shani’s Rich Spirit has acquired “Blknws,” buying Participant Media out

In “Bunnylovr,” a slice-of-life dramedy from first-time director Katarina Zhu, a 20-something-year-old New Yorker named Rebecca moonlights as a cam girl after hours of her day job as a personal assistant. But when one of her clients sends her a gift — a fluffy, white bunny — their dynamic takes a toxic turn. Without getting

American writer David Vann’s 2008 book “Legend of a Suicide” is a striking, classification-averse work — not quite fiction or memoir, novel or short story collection — that ultimately amounts to an exercise in potent literary catharsis for its author: Vann veils, rewrites or sometimes fabricates events from his own family history in order to

Benedict Cumberbatch touched down at the Variety Studio presented by Audible at Sundance ahead of the world premiere of his new drama film, “The Thing With the Feathers.” Written and directed by Dylan Southern from the book “Grief Is the Thing with Feathers” by Max Porter, the movie casts Cumberbatch as a grieving father struggling

Filmmaker Rashad Frett is making movies with a mission. “I’m here to make films that bring in humanity,” Frett tells Variety. “Everything I do, I want to not only entertain our audience but inform them on what’s going on. Give them food for thought. To bring the audience a visceral perspective from a situation they’ve

“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” is the tale of a mother (Rose Byrne) feeling increasingly underwater from all the stresses of daily life. In the movie, Byrne interacts with a few characters played by unconventional actors, including Conan O’Brien as her dead-serious therapist, and A$AP Rocky as a new friend she meets during

In the observational “Folktales,” Oscar-nominated docmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (“Jesus Camp”) once again consider education and social context, a concept that marked their first collaboration, “The Boys of Baraka” in 2005. They follow a trio of teenagers taking a “gap year” at a Norwegian Folk High School in Pasvik, located 300 miles north

Josh O’Connor joined the Variety Studio presented by Audible at Sundance to discuss his new movie “Rebuilding.” He was joined by writer-director Max Walker-Silverman and his co-stars Meghann Fahy, Lily LaTorre and Kali Reis. The drama stars the “Challengers” favorite as a cowboy relocated to a FEMA camp after a wildfire burns down his Colorado

Waving signs that read “Zionism is a death machine” and “the media buries the truth,” a group of pro-Palestinian protestors gathered on Main Street in Park City on Saturday. Roughly 75 people turned out amid snowfall and temperatures in the 20s to express their frustration with “media complicity in genocide” against the backdrop of the

With the snappy casualness of a “day in the life” vlog, Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a charismatic Russian teacher who serves as planner and videographer for all of his school’s events, introduces his peculiar small town: Karabash. Known as the most toxic place on Earth due to a copper smelting plant, here the average life expectancy

James Mangold misses the era when movies weren’t embarrassed to make audiences feel something. The director of the Bob Dylan musical biopic “A Complete Unknown” and comic book adaptation “Logan” believes there’s a growing hostility to films that wear “their hearts on their sleeve.” “Most of my generation, my peers, have been generally fascinated by

It didn’t take much for Russell Tovey to connect with “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbird’ star Tom Blyth. The actors first met on Zoom before filming writer-director Carmen Emmi’s gay indie drama “Plainclothes.” “Instantly I was just like, ‘This guy’s the real deal,’” Tovey says on this week’s “Just for Variety” podcast. “He’s

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses the plot and ending of “Presence,” now playing in theaters. As with many ghost stories, the presence in “Presence” has a good reason to haunt its house. After watching on as the Payne family turns against one another, the Presence that drifts around their newly purchased, bougie abode makes a