Tron: Ares is spinning toward its streaming debut.

Disney announced Tuesday that director Joachim Rønning’s sci-fi feature is set to begin streaming Jan. 7 on Disney+. The latest installment in the Tron franchise hit theaters Oct. 10 and stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee, Evan Peters, Jodie Turner-Smith, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, Gillian Anderson and Jeff Bridges.

Tron: Ares centers on an advanced program known as Ares (Leto) getting sent from the digital Grid into the real world, marking mankind’s first interaction with AI.

The film is the latest offering on the streaming service to be available in IMAX Enhanced, featuring the expanded aspect ratio associated with IMAX programming.

Bridges originated his role as software engineer Kevin Flynn in filmmaker Steven Lisberger’s original 1982 movie Tron and reprised it in director Joseph Kosinski’s 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy that also starred Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde. Both previous movies are currently streaming...

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” “Sinners,” “Weapons,” “Frankenstein and “Wicked: For Good” led the 13th annual Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild Award nominations.

The films all three landed nominations apiece.

The makeup and hair team behind “One Battle After Another” was nominated in contemporary makeup and special makeup prosthetics. Arjen Tuiten, who was nominated in the latter category, used prosthetic pieces, contact lenses and dentures for Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw in the film’s third act after he survives a horrific car crash.

For “Frankenstein,” Mike Hill, the film’s prosthetics artist, steered clear of the classic zombie, and used 42 prosthetic pieces to transform Jacob Elordi in Guillermo del Toro’s Creature.

Francis Hannon had her work cut out for her on “Wicked: For Good.” Aside from keeping Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba green, she had to work with Mark Coulier to transform Jonathan Bailey into the...

Ryan Coogler appeared on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast amid his ongoing awards season press tour for “Sinners” and revealed the original story plans for “Black Panther 2.” The director was well into development on the sequel to his Oscar-winning 2018 blockbuster when lead actor Chadwick Boseman died in August 2020 from colon cancer. Boseman’s tragic passing forced Coogler to completely overhaul the sequel into what would become 2022’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

Marvel fans wondering what Coogler originally planned for Boseman’s return finally have an answer as Coogler told “Happy Sad Confused” podcast host Josh Horowitz that his original “Black Panther 2” script focused on an adventure between Boseman’s T’Challa and the character’s 8-year-old son. Namor, played by Tenoch Huerta in “Wakanda Forever,” was still the main villain.

“The big thing with the script was a thing called the Ritual of 8 where a prince is 8 years old,...

It seemed back in 2018 that Tom Hiddleston’s time with Marvel had come to an end when Thanos killed Loki at the start of “Avengers: Infinity War.” But that was swiftly undone with “Avengers: Endgame” a year later thanks to the film’s time-traveling shenanigans.

Now 15 years since first making his Marvel debut in “Thor,” Hiddleston is still playing the Asgardian trickster, having reprised the role in the two-season Disney+ series “Loki” and again in the upcoming blockbuster “Avengers: Doomsday,” due out next December.

In a career-spanning interview with GQ, Hiddleston said his affinity for Loki stems from his love of redemption stories from his childhood. As a teen, he...

"The Simpsons" is an institution, a show that's redefined not only animation but television itself. It's a show full of memorable characters who populate the town of Springfield and make it come to life. These side characters are so unique and distinct that an episode dedicated to telling side stories with them ranks as one of the all-time greatest "Simpsons" episodes (according to us).

That being said, "The Simpsons" has not been free of controversy. Like many other animated projects, the show keeps some costs down by giving actors multiple roles, including giving white voice actors several characters of color — some of which are little more than ugly stereotypes. This,...

The “Avengers: Doomsday” marketing campaign continued with a Thor-centric teaser that delighted many Marvel fans by standing in stark contrast to the divisively silly “Thor: Love and Thunder,” the 2022 tentpole that marked Chris Hemsworth’s last outing as the God of Thunder. The teary-eyed Thor who appears in the “Doomsday” teaser praying before battle is miles away from the wise-cracking goofball Thor became in the MCU.

“Father, all my life I’ve answered every call, to honor, duty, to war. Now fate has given me something I never sought. A child, a life untouched by the storm,” Thor says in the “Doomsday” theater in an ultra-serious tone. “Grant me the strength of the old fathers, so that I may fight once more, defeat one more enemy, and return home to her. Not as a warrior, but as warmth, to teach her not battle, but stillness, the kind I never knew.

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The Apple TV show "Foundation," based on the seminal sci-fi novels by Isaac Asimov, takes a long view of history. The first season of "Foundation" is set in the year 12,067 E.I. (Era Imperial), i.e. 12,067 years after the foundation of a wide-spanning galactic empire. Thanks to some careful research, fans have noted that the empire didn't even come to be until over 18,000 years from the present day. The "Foundation" book series also notoriously features massive, centuries-long time skips in between installations and provides glimpses of a future so distant — maybe 100 billion years on — that the mind can hardly handle it.

A Disney World Hollywood Studios employee was struck by a prop boulder during a showing of the “Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!” stage show after the 400-pound rubber sphere became displaced from its track.

In a video of the accident shared on social media, the boulder bounces off its designated path and onto the stage. A staff member rushes in to stop the boulder before it makes contact with the audience, but the impact of the prop is too strong, and it knocks him over. Another cast member quickly rushes in to help before the video cuts off.

New: During Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! at Disney’s Hollywood Studios today, a 400-pound boulder prop dislodged from its track. A Cast Member was injured stopping it before it reached the audience. Disney says the Cast Member received immediate care and is recovering. pic.twitter.com/TxbWYV25OX

— Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin...

“Zootopia 2” is going down in the Disney record books.

The animated sequel is now Walt Disney Animation’s highest-grossing movie in history with $1.46 billion at the global box office. It beat the previous record holder, “Frozen 2,” which made $1.45 billion in 2019.

“Zootopia 2” has made $333 million domestically and a whopping $1.13 billion overseas. Over the Christmas holiday weekend, it surged at the box office in its fifth week of release, adding $87.9 million to its already impressive tally.

The film hit the coveted $1 billion milestone after just 17 days of release, and it was the fastest PG-rated movie in history to do so. It’s been a particularly huge success in China, where many Hollywood movies have floundered in recent years. At just the Chinese box office, “Zootopia 2” has already zoomed past $500 million, the highest total for a U.S. movie by far. The only other film coming close is Disney...

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe's current downfall, the mega-franchise ruled the superhero film game with the Infinity Saga. The slow introduction of the Avengers and the build-up to the threat of Thanos (Josh Brolin) across numerous MCU movies culminated in the dual impact of "Avengers: Infinity War" in 2018 and "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019, each of which feature massive "snap" sequences that change the tide of the entire film. Both Thanos' "Infinity War" snap and Iron Man's (Robert Downey Jr.) "Endgame" one are major pop culture moments — and what better way to welcome the year 2026 than one of them?

If your sense of humor leans toward the more somber side, you can...

Look at the biggest recent mergers and acquisitions in the worlds of entertainment, media and sports, from the record-setting $55 billion buyout of Elec­tronic Arts to the Skydance-Paramount merger and the dueling offers for Warner Bros. Discovery, and you’ll notice the same handful of names showing up again and again, often together in the same deal. They’re investment firms with names like RedBird Capital Partners, the Raine Group, LionTree Advisors and Silver Lake. Most provide financing for these huge transac­tions, while others, like Moelis & Company, are pure advisors who help structure and execute capital raises.

If you don’t work in or near the gilded trenches of high finance, you might be ask­ing yourself, “What the hell is going on?”

“When you’re dealing with artists and film and music, it is as relationship-driven as I’ve ever seen,” explains Angelo Rufino, who, as...

Action comedies are a tricky thing to pull off properly, requiring deftly balanced tones while delivering on both engaging set pieces and hilarious jokes. 2022's "Bullet Train" is a slick, entertaining, and relatively recent flick that successfully lives up to this expectation. The movie also has plenty of style to spare, populating its action-packed story with characters that are too cool for school. That storytelling confidence and visually striking sensibility helps elevate "Bullet Train" above many of its contemporaries.

Of course, "Bullet Train" is far from the only movie that brings that kind of swagger to the action comedy genre, and it certainly won't be the last. There are plenty...

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Susan Harris' 1977 sitcom "Soap" was, as the title implies, constructed as a straight satire of daytime soap operas. It featured melodramatic acting, corny music, wildly over-the-top-stories, and a long-running serialization format where one episode ran directly into the next. It had the usual soap opera plots involving love affairs, murder, amnesia, and crime, but it also hilariously involved Satanic cults, alien abduction, and a full-blown Communist revolution. The series starred many up-and-coming (and established) comedy stars, most notably a young Billy Crystal, who played the character of Jodie Dallas. At the time, Crystal wasn't well known, as he was still...

Editor’s Note: The following story contains spoilers for Season 1 of “Pluribus.”

The first season of Apple TV’s acclaimed sci-fi drama “Pluribus” just wrapped on Christmas Eve, but audiences are already pining for news of the next chapter.

The nine-episode series from “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” creator Vince Gilligan seemingly came out of nowhere in November, creating a frenzy at the tail end of 2025, which was a largely uneventful year for original drama television. Set primarily in Gilligan’s go-to destination of Albuquerque, New Mexico, “Pluribus” kicks off with all but 12 people on Earth being infected with an alien virus that joins them into a mysterious hive mind. While the virus’ global effects are seemingly positive — creating a communal society full of smiling faces and absent of violence, bigotry, and class systems — on a person-to-person level, the results are less comforting. Individuals aren’t “I” but “we,...

The percentage of women directors of the top films at the North American box office fell to a seven-year low in 2025 and dropped nearly 40% year-on-year, according to the latest study from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

The report, ‘Inclusion In The Director’s Chair’, examines director gender and race/ethnicity related to the 100 highest-grossing films of the year as of December 29, 2025, and incorporates findings on directors of the 1,900 top-grossing films going back to 2007 when the study began.

Out of 111 directors behind the top films in 2025, the percentage of women fell to 8.1% or nine individuals compared to...

The percentage of women directors of the top films at the North American box office fell to a seven-year low in 2025 and dropped nearly 40% year-on-year, according to the latest study from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

The report, ‘Inclusion In The Director’s Chair’, examines director gender and race/ethnicity related to the 100 highest-grossing films of the year as of December 29, 2025, and incorporates findings on directors of the 1,900 top-grossing films spanning 2007 to 2025.

Out of 111 directors behind the top films in 2025, the percentage of women fell to 8.1% or nine individuals compared to 13.4% in 2024. This is the lowest...

Nickelodeon's "Hey Arnold!" is a surprisingly mature show about living in the big city. Thanks to its exaggerated animation style, it's easy for viewers to immerse themselves in the series' animated setting, so much so that they may forget about the real-life voice actors behind the show's characters. Adding to the immersion is the fact that "Hey Arnold!" was never too hung up on locking in a specific voice for its main character. After all, Arnold Shortman has been voiced by several different voice actors spanning multiple projects at this stage.

This doesn't apply to every major character, though. In particular, the tomboyish Helga G. Pataki has retained the...

A new study describes 2025 as a “Great Recession” for women directors, with just nine women directors attached to the 100 top-grossing films at the U.S. box office.

According to the latest report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, of the 111 directors who helmed those films, nine of them were women: Nisha Ganatra (“Freakier Friday”), Emma Tammi (“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”), Domee Shi (“Elio”), Madeline Sharafian (“Elio”), Celine Song (“Materialists”), Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (“I Know What You Did Last Summer”), Maggie Kang (“KPop Demon Hunters”), Hikari (“Rental Family”) and previous best director Oscar winner Chloé Zhao (“Hamnet”).

The 2025 figure represents a steep drop from 2024, when the percentage of women directors on the 100 top-grossing films was 13.4% (15 directors), when the U.S. was in the throes of the financial Great Recession.

“The 2025 data reveals that progress for women directors has been fleeting,” stated Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the study’s author and...

Spoilers ahead for "The Simpsons" season 37 episode "¡The Fall Guy-Yi-Yi!"

"The Simpsons" is a cultural institution, one of the best and most influential TV shows of all time, and one big key to the show's success is its large ensemble of characters. As charming and beloved as the titular Simpsons family is, it is the dozens upon dozens of quirky, memorable, distinct people that populate the town of Springfield who make the show special. These are characters that could easily lead their own episodes, and often do — one of the all-time best episodes of the show being a collection of shorts about side characters.

But as beloved as the side characters of "The Simpsons" are,...

This year marked a quarter into the 21st century, and to celebrate the occasion, some of the biggest names in cinema offered their picks for the top films of the past 25 years.

With just a few days left in 2025, the newspaper El Dario asked 56 Spanish directors — including Oliver Laxe (“Sirāt”), Carla Simón (“Romería”), and Alejandro Amenábar (“The Others”) — to list films from the past two and a half decades that influenced them the most. The resulting 25-film compilation, which was roundaboutly inspired by the New York Times’ somewhat controversial summer list, is bookended by Michael Haneke’s 2009 Palm d’Or-winning “The White Ribbon,” taking up the rear, and David Lynch’s 2001 Los Angeles-set fever dream “Mulholland Drive” at #1. Also named in the roll call of masterpieces are Wong Kar Wai’s “In the Mood for Love,” Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and “Petite Maman,” Jonathan Glazer...

December 31 Update:Disney’sAvatar: Fire And Ash has crossed $7850m at the worldwide box office heading into its third weekend.

Latest figures released by studio executives on Wednesday (December 31) put the sci-fi tentpole on $851.6m, comprising $609.5m from international markets and $242.1m from North America.

China has produced $104.1m, France $63.9m, Germany $50.6m, South Korea $34.2m, and the UK $33.0m.

The third entry in James Cameron’s 16-year-old blockbuster franchise was on course to overtake Disney’s Lilo & Stitch on $614m onWednesday to rank as the second-highest Hollywood release of 2025 internationally.

OnWednesday it will also overhaul the $869m final gross of...

This doesn't happen much anymore, but there was a time when studios would spend a considerable amount of money on a prestige picture in the hopes that the film's A-list pedigree would pay off in Oscars and box office glory. These movies weren't made to be blockbusters (though they could reach such commercial heights on occasion); they were intended to be respected library titles that reflected favorably on the impeccable taste of the executives who greenlit them. Bring together top talent for a project with a buzzy screenplay, and you were well ahead of the game.

These movies don't always pan out. For every "The Silence of the Lambs" or "The English Patient,...

The end of "Stranger Things" is here, and it's been a long, long, long time coming. Over the years, it's become clear that "Stranger Things" might be overstaying its welcome. Season 4 was a great music video and helped catapult at least one moderate '80s hit to new levels of success, but it's hard to say if it provided a whole lot more.

Now, in its final season, "Stranger Things" is doing what every big Hollywood franchise eventually does — cross-media storytelling. As much as Netflix and the Duffer Brothers have talked about expanding the world of "Stranger Things" through spin-offs, the show simply hasn't really become the cinematic universe that Netflix perhaps wants.

As a judge puts a security hold on Rob and Michele Reiner’s cases and Joe Rogan criticises Donald Trump’s comments about Reiner’s death, collaborators continue to pay tribute

More than two weeks after the deaths of the film director Rob Reiner and his photographer wife, Michele, friends and colleagues continue to pay tribute to the couple.

Writing on Instagram, Cary Elwes, who starred in Reiner’s 1987 classic The Princess Bride, said he only now felt able to post publicly about his loss.

On the 1982 "Mork & Mindy" episode "Mork, Mindy, and Mearth Meet M.I.L.T.," Mork (as played by Robin Williams) uses some old Orkan computer parts to construct an artificially intelligent home computer, hoping to help his friend Mearth (Jonathan Winters) enter a science contest. He names the computer M.I.L.T. (which is short for Modular Integrated Laser Transformer), and it speaks with the voice of actor John Houseman. As one might predict, M.I.L.T. eventually develops a will of its own, turns evil, and takes Mork, Mearth, and Mindy (Pam Dawber) hostage, planting cameras around the apartment and spying on their every move.

The...

Archive material shows Chase’s abilities but the times have changed around the self-aggrandising actor and comedian – and not always to his benefit

Feature films and documentaries can sometimes struggle to fasten down viewers’ attention if the central character isn’t sympathetic but maybe we’re a tad more forgiving of anti-heroes in nonfiction as we accept warts and all in real life. But this film about actor and comic Chevy Chase faces an uphill battle given that not only does it report on what an “asshole” – to quote the epithet most often applied to him – he has been in the past, we also witness some assholery first-hand. In the opening minutes,...

Over four hours, cinema-verite demigod Wiseman takes a gastronomic tour through the minutiae of running a triple-starred Michelin restaurant

American cinema-verite demigod Frederick Wiseman’s latest is a 6,000-course tasting menu of a documentary, like one of those supercuts with all the delicious food on offer in Studio Ghibli films. Most of the 95-year-old’s career has been dedicated to chronicling US institutions, but here he returns to the strain of Francophile work he has dipped into since the mid-90s (he lives in the country part-time). In this case, he infiltrates the Michelin triple-starred Le Bois sans Feuilles restaurant in Ouches in the Loire, and serves up four hours of hardcore gastronomy.

For those not going out to celebrate, you can still party with Harry and Sally, play cards with Jack Lemmon and make merry hell at the Overlook Hotel

At the end of any especially troublesome year it’s always good to revisit The Apartment, Billy Wilder’s brilliantly bleak comedy of office politics and festive bad cheer. It memorably ends on the stroke of midnight as heartsick Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) abandons a drunken new year’s party to be with hapless, jobless Cc Baxter (Jack Lemmon) instead. Is The Apartment suggesting that Kubelik and Baxter then live happily ever after? Probably not, because I’ve never been convinced that...

The team behind Yash’s highly anticipated “Toxic – A Fairytale for Grown-Ups” has revealed the first look at Nayanthara as Ganga, presenting the actress in a role that combines visual intensity with a commanding presence.

The poster positions Nayanthara in front of an ornate casino entrance, weapon in hand, projecting controlled power within a high-stakes luxury environment. The image marks a departure for the actor, suggesting a character defined by calculated authority rather than conventional heroism.

Nayanthara has established herself as one of India’s most acclaimed actor over a two-decade career spanning more than 75 films across Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada-language cinema. Her filmography includes women-centric successes like “Aramm,” “Kolamaavu Kokila” and “Netrikann,” alongside Shah Rukh Khan’s blockbuster “Jawan.”

Yash, the Kannada-language film industry actor who rose to pan-Indian stardom with the “K.G.F” franchise, has become one of the most sought-after stars in Indian cinema. Known for his...

Disney’s “Avatar: Fire And Ash” held the No. 1 position at the U.K. and Ireland box office for a second weekend, adding £6.1 million ($8.2 million) and lifting its total to £20.8 million ($28 million), according to Comscore. The threequel comfortably dominated the Christmas corridor, outperforming a packed slate of holiday newcomers.

Lionsgate U.K.’s erotic thriller “The Housemaid,” starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, debuted in second place with $6 million, marking one of the strongest adult-skewing openings of the Christmas corridor. Paramount’s “The Spongebob Movie: Search For Squarepants” followed in third, launching with $4.1 million.

Disney’s “Zootopia 2” moved to No. 4 in its fifth weekend, earning $2.1 million for a cumulative $30.4 million, while Entertainment Film Distributors’ newcomer “Marty Supreme” opened at No. 5 on $1.9 million.

Sony’s “Anaconda” arrived in sixth place with $1.7 million, edging ahead of Universal’s “Wicked: For Good,” which placed seventh. The musical added $1.1 million to bring its total to $60.3 million,...

The board of Warner Bros. Discovery is poised to reject the amended takeover offer fielded by Paramount Skydance last week as David Ellison keeps up his pursuit of the assets he sees as crucial to building a 21st century Hollywood heavyweight.

Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that the Wbd board was expected to reject the amended offer that was made with fanfare by Paramount Skydance on Dec. 22. Wbd has already struck an agreement to merge with Netflix in a deal valued at more than $80 billion.

But Paramount Skydance hasn’t given up and is making a tender offer to Wbd shareholders. As this tug-of-war has played out in press releases and conference calls and Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Wbd shares have soared more than 170% this year, albeit shares were at a low ebb, having traded under $10 for most of 2024. Bloomberg reported the Wbd board will meet next week to formally...

After George Clooney said he felt that newly-named editor-in-chief Bari Weiss was “dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Weiss has responded by inviting him to visit the CBS newsroom.

“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours. This is an open invitation to visit The CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5,” Weiss said in a statement shared by Paramount Skydance. The “bonjour” was presumably a reference to Clooney, his wife Amal and their twins becoming French citizens this week.

In a wide-ranging interview with Brent Lang about his career and his latest film “Jay Kelly,” Clooney also touched on the upheaval at CBS News, politics and his activism.

“Am I worried about film studios? Sure. It’s my business, but my primary loyalty is to my country.

Sometimes, a movie is a victim of its production and the time in which it was made, and few movies fit that bill as well as "The 13th Warrior." John McTiernan's critically-derided film was a box office flop back when it premiered back in 1999 despite being based on a book by "Jurassic Park" author Michael Crichton and starring heartthrob Antonio Banderas. There are a whole bunch of reasons why the film didn't work, from its inflated budget to the general lack of interest in historical epics near the turn of the millennium, but "The 13th Warrior" isn't a bad movie, per se. It's just a film in perfect shape for a remake.

Eywa has no dominion here ... but spoilers do. Read no further if you haven't yet watched "Avatar: Fire & Ash."

"Avatar: Fire and Ash" is a fascinating movie. This is James Cameron's first proper sequel, and it suffers because of it. As the second and third "Avatar" movies were famously once meant to be a single movie before Cameron decided to split them up, there is a lot of overlap between "The Way of Water" and this film. That being said, to just say "Fire and Ash" is a rehash of themes and plot points completely misses the point of what Cameron does in this film.

This is the...

Meyer Gottlieb, who headed Samuel Goldwyn Films and produced films including “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 86.

Tom Rothman, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, said in a statement, “Meyer was a gentleman of the old school. I was fortunate to work for him when he ran the Samuel Goldwyn Company, in the heyday of independent film. I learned an enormous amount from him — most importantly, that it is possible to make a life in Hollywood without sacrificing integrity and honesty, both of which he embodied entirely, along with smarts, wisdom, and kindness. I send my sincere condolences to his loving family during this difficult time.”

Born in Poland just before the Germans invaded, Gottlieb was a Holocaust survivor who lived in Ukraine labor camps during the war and then in a displaced person’s camp in Germany.

Spike Lee has paid tribute to his longtime collaborator Isiah Whitlock Jr., who died on Tuesday in New York at age 71.

Lee shared a photo of himself with Whitlock on Instagram on Tuesday, writing, “Today I Learned Of The Passing Of My Dear Beloved Brother Isiah Whitlock. God Bless.”

Whitlock played small roles in several of Lee’s films, including “Red Hook Summer,” “Chi-Raq,” “She Hate Me” and “25th Hour.” His two major roles in Lee’s filmography came with “Da Five Bloods,” in which he plays Vietnam veteran Melvin alongside Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters and Norm Lewis, and “BlackKkKlansman,” in which he starred as police officer Mr. Turrentine alongside Alec Baldwin, John David Washington and Robert John Burke.

Brian Liebman, Whitlock’s manager, shared the news of his death in an Instagram post. He wrote, “It is with tremendous sadness that I share the passing of my...

The entertainment industry has numerous notable figures in 2025. Hollywood was in shock after the death of director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife, with figures across entertainment and politics paying their respects to the “Princess Bride” filmmaker.

The film world was also shaken by the death of “Blue Velvet” and “Twin Peaks” director David Lynch, with tributes to the visionary filmmaker continuing for weeks. Two-time Oscar winner Gene Hackman was found dead with his wife in late February in Santa Fe, N.M., while “Harriet the Spy” star Michelle Trachtenberg died in New York on Feb. 26. “The Doors” and “Top Gun” star Val Kilmer died April 1. The fall brought the major news of the deaths of both Diane Keaton and Robert Redford.

In music, Garth Hudson, the last remaining member of The Band, died in January, while Peter, Paul and Mary lost Peter Yarrow. “Killing Me Softly” singer Roberta Flack died in February,...

Frank Herbert published his seminal sci-fi novel "Dune" in 1965, creating a vast and detailed socio-political sci-fi mythology so complex that it required a glossary. For many years, "Dune" attracted a subset of very attentive readers, happy to get lost in Herbert's massive space opera. "Dune" was set many tens of thousands of years in the future, where various galactic sects and royal families wrestled for control of a rare spice only located on the planet Arrakis. The spice was a hallucinogen that was also necessary for space travel. The plot and characters of "Dune" are legion, and the entire multi-book political/religious saga is too complex to get into here.

YA fantasy and science fiction books have been wildly successful for decades, but the genre went supernova with the publication of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" in 1997. Suddenly, authors of youth-skewing novels began cranking out their own series about specially gifted kids going on epic adventures of self-discovery. When these books became runaway bestsellers, Hollywood came calling, and we've been awash in YA movie adaptations ever since.

It goes without saying that many of these film series weren't exactly classics. While the Harry Potter franchise proved to be a $7.7 billion rainmaker for Warner Bros., "The Divergent Series," based on the dystopian sci-fi novels by Veronica Roth,...

Isiah Whitlock Jr., an actor best known for playing the corrupt state senator Clay Davis on “The Wire,” died on Tuesday in New York, Variety has confirmed. He was 71.

His manager, Brian Liebman, shared the news on Instagram, writing: “It is with tremendous sadness that I share the passing of my dear friend and client Isiah Whitlock Jr. If you knew him — you loved him. A brilliant actor and even better person. May his memory forever be a blessing. Our hearts are so broken. He will be very, very missed.”

Indiana-born Whitlock was a prolific character actor who was a frequent collaborator of Spike Lee, appearing in his films “BlacKkKlansman,” “Da 5 Bloods,” “She Hate Me,” “25th Hour,” “Red Hook Summer” and “Chi-Raq.”

Across many of his projects, he developed the catchphrase “sheeeeee-it,” an elongated pronunciation of the word “shit.” It started in “She Hate Me” and “25th Hour,” and...

When Joss Whedon's "The Avengers" was first announced, I was skeptical it would ever get made. The Avengers, I felt, weren't nearly as popular as other comic book superheroes like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, or the X-Men. Hence, those making the movie would realize this, and the project would fall apart in pre-production. Then, when the film was actually made, I still felt it wouldn't succeed. Were the likes of Thor and Captain America really beloved enough to draw in huge crowds?

I was wrong again. "The Avengers" was a blockbuster hit in 2012, becoming a fulcrum for all pop culture thereafter. In terms of quality, the film is slick as they come,...

Simu Liu said in a new interview with Collider that Robert Downey Jr. had a “convoy of trailers” on the set of “Avengers: Doomsday,” which the film’s cast and crew hilariously named “Downey Land.” Liu returns to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Shang-Chi in the 2026 tentpole opposite Downey as the villainous Doctor Doom. Downey’s return to Marvel as a villain and not in his iconic Iron Man role is fueling the majority of interest in “Doomsday.” It appears the studio pulled out all the stops on set for the Oscar winner’s grand return.

“Downey famously has this convoy of trailers and this whole area in base camp that we affectionately called Downey Land,” Liu said. “And I remember getting invited to Downey Land for the first time and just showing up in this tent, and it’s all this beautiful Andy Warhol-esque artwork, except all the characters are Downey.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- there are a few places where it feels like whatever you're watching is being broadcast directly from an alternate universe: roadside motel televisions, public access channels from towns you've never been to, and Adult Swim after midnight. While the early evening hours of the Adult Swim programming block on Cartoon Network are dominated by syndicated favorites like "Family Guy," "Bob's Burgers," and the smash breakout original "Rick & Morty," it's the wee hours of the night where Adult Swim possesses the power to bewitch viewers into a hypnotic void beyond any of our wildest imaginations.

Adult Swim continues to be...

When it comes to filmmaking collaborations, one doesn’t typically think of the composer working closely with the production designer, or of the costume designer hashing things out in a room with visual effects artists. But then, the “Avatar” films are not your typical movies.

“It’s basically everything, everywhere, all at once,” director James Cameron told IndieWire of the collaborative process on “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” which saw all of the department heads in constant communication from pre-production through post. “There’s very little that’s linear about the process,” added visual effects supervisor Richard Baneham. “It’s a cyclical collaboration. You get to touch base with all the other disciplines and you’re informed by everybody else’s skill sets all the time.”

That meant that people whose work is traditionally thought of as the final part of the process — like composer Simon Franglen — were in the room...

You cannot live like this, baby, in spoilers! Read no further if you haven't watched "Avatar: Fire & Ash" yet.

For the past 16 years, James Cameron has been deeply focused on bringing to life one of the most fully-realized, fleshed-out sci-fi worlds in recent memory with the "Avatar" movies. This is a universe so unique and beautifully brought to life that it's given audiences depression because they can't visit Pandora in real life.

Three films in, we've now seen the first two acts of the "Avatar" saga, with Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) having lit a spark in Pandora's residents, leading them to realize that pacifism is useless when facing an...

Over a decade after its release in 2014, "Whiplash" remains one of the defining stories of artistic obsession told in the 21st century. Written and directed by future "La La Land" filmmaker Damien Chazelle, it captivated viewers by exploring the dark side of determination through the eyes of young Andrew Neiman, an aspiring jazz drummer played by Miles Teller. A breakout role for the young actor, he was paired with an unbelievably effective and imposing J.K. Simmons, who commanded each scene — and earned himself an Academy Award — for playing the ferocious instructor who intends to terrorize Andrew into becoming one of the greats.

With its relentless tempo, visceral stakes, electrifying use...

This post contains spoilers for "Stargate Sg-1." 

Vala Mal Doran (Claudia Black) was never supposed to be a series regular in "Stargate Sg-1." Introduced in season 8 of the show, Vala displayed antagonistic motivations in "Prometheus Unbound," where she kept Dr. Daniel Jackson (Michael Shanks) as a prisoner. This was supposed to be a one-and-done appearance, but the enigmatic character returned as a recurring presence from season 9 onward, where she proves her worth as an Sg-1 crew member time and again. While the showrunners intended to greatly expand upon Vala, the show was regrettably canceled after 10 fantastic seasons, putting a stop to these plans. 

That said, ideas for a Vala-focused spin-off...

There remains one group we’ve yet to hear from when it comes to the best films of 2025: the directors who made them.

IndieWire reached out to our favorite filmmakers to celebrate the year in motion pictures. We gave them freedom to reflect on the year in cinema however they chose, and what follows ranges from traditional top 10 lists to personal reflections, with participants singling out their favorite performances, plays, and arthouse porn from the past.

The entries are as eclectic as the directors themselves. Not surprisingly, filmmakers loved many of the same movies that have dominated critics’ top 10 Lists: “One Battle After Another,” “Sinners,” and “Sentimental Value” being the most frequently mentioned titles.

But what remains the most eye-opening aspect of this exercise is their insights into the yet-to-be-discovered gems, titles from around the globe that didn’t get U.S. distribution, and genre titles that didn’t get the respect they warranted.

This article contains spoilers for "Marty Supreme."

Josh Safdie's "Marty Supreme" is sorta, kinda, party inspired by the real-life table tennis champion Marty Reisman. Really, Safdie just took the outsized personality of Reisman and translated it into a very similar character, then invented a new life and new adventures for him. In real life, Reisman was a notoriously good table tennis player at a time when it wasn't widely recognized by the athletic community. He was also famous for his incessant hustling, often faking low skill levels only to make big bets and skunk any takers. He was also a showman, performing crazy ping pong stunts as an opener for the Harlem Globetrotters.

For those involved in the movie business, there was an unofficial mantra floating around all throughout 2024: "Survive until 2025." The thinking was that after the pandemic closed movie theaters all around the world in 2020, leading to a slow recovery, only to be interrupted by dual Hollywood strikes in 2023, that the box office would finally normalize this year. Instead, 2025 is sadly going to finish as a pretty major disappointment for the box office and the industry at large.

It appears the domestic box office will fail to cross the $9 billion mark for the second year in a row, per Variety. Many industry analysts had previously predicted that 2025 would at least hit $9 billion heading into the year.