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...

James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” remained the dominant force at the China box office over the Dec. 26–28 frame, adding RMB166.4 million ($23.4 million) to lift its local cumulative total to RMB700 million ($98.6 million), according to Artisan Gateway.

Disney’s “Zootopia 2” held steady in second place, grossing $15.2 million in its fifth weekend. The animated sequel has now amassed $558.3 million in China, cementing its position as one of the market’s highest-grossing releases of the year.

Maoyan Movie’s new release “The Fire Raven” opened in third place with $2.8 million. Directed and written by Sam Quah, the crime thriller centers on a cold case involving the murder of a student in Duma City, with a witness and a police officer drawn into a wider web of corruption and retribution. The film stars Peng Yuchang, Alan Aruna and Chang Ning.

Romantic drama “Love Is Hard,” from Ncm Television, was at No.

Actor, singer, sex symbol and style icon Brigitte Bardot, who retired from acting and became controversial for her right-wing politics in her later years, has died. She was 91.

Bardot died Sunday at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals, who confirmed the news to The Associated Press. No cause of death was provided, and arrangements for funeral or memorial services have not yet been announced. She had been hospitalized last month.

In the 1950s Bardot ignited an international zeal for boldly sexual European movies, often directed by her first husband, Roger Vadim, such as “And God Created Woman.”

Though Bardot’s reign as a major box office draw was relatively brief, and she retired from films in the early ’70s, her influence was far-reaching: She made youthful, pouty, nubile blondes a staple in cinema, particularly in American movies,...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year at the box office, and the sleigh full of Christmas Day releases continued to deliver on Friday. However, it was James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” that led the pack for the second weekend in a row.

Disney’s third “Avatar” installment earned $22.6 million domestically on Friday, a roughly 39% decline from last week’s opening day. The film has grossed $46.6 million since Christmas and looks to add a total of $75 million to $80 million domestically by Sunday. North American earnings should reach $176 million by the end of the week.

Rounding out the top five were two holiday newcomers, including Jack Black and Paul Rudd’s “Anaconda” and Timothée Chalamet’s “Marty Supreme,” as well as holdovers like Disney’s “Zootopia 2” and Paul Feig’s “The Housemaid.”

A24’s “Marty Supreme” took second on Friday with $6.73 million domestically from 2,668 locations. 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,...

“Song Sung Blue” stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as real-life Milwaukee couple Mike and Claire Sardina, who made a local name for themselves with their Neil Diamond tribute act Lightning & Thunder. Licensing the use of Diamond’s music would typically be job number one for Emmy-winning music supervisor Trygge Toven (“Fallout”), but in this case, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder improbably paved the way.

“It’s crazy, but I believe Eddie initially helped get Neil on board with the documentary side to get the rights,” said Toven, referring to the 2008 Lightning & Thunder documentary, also titled “Song Sung Blue,” that inspired writer/director Craig Brewer to remake the story as a song-packed feature film.

For the scripted version, producer John Davis secured the licensing rights by calling in a big favor — from his mom. “The story I’ve been told is that John’s mother knew Neil Diamond, so he...

Holly Wheeler looks a little bit different in "Stranger Things" season 5. That's because the character was recast, with Nell Fisher stepping in to replace twins Anniston and Tinsley Price, who portrayed her in the first four seasons of the show. With that in mind, why did creators Matt and Ross Duffer choose to bring in someone new instead of sticking with the original actors?

Netflix's sci-fi horror series debuted when its younger cast members were all kids, but most of them are grown up now. This forced the Duffers and their team to de-age certain "Stranger Things" actors for season 5, but they also felt it was important to work with legitimate child performers again.

Familial dysfunction, a neurotic protagonist, and a commitment to showcasing a realistic low-income family on primetime made "Malcolm in the Middle" a defining sitcom of the 2000s. The characters fought and bickered, but somehow, they found ways to make things work while having plenty of great jokes along the way. It's hard to narrow down the best episodes of "Malcolm in the Middle," but if you're planning a rewatch, get ready for some ... unpleasantness.

Look, there's no two ways around it: "Malcolm in the Middle," like any other sitcom of its era, is a product of its time. Every so often, you'll watch an episode, and a character will casually...

Let's just say, hypothetically, that you've been watching the final season of a massive streaming series about a small town plagued by fantastical terrors. Let's also posit that maybe that show is exciting and frustrating in equal measure (and may or may not be titled "Stranger Things"), but you like the fantastical aspect and you're looking for something you can watch next. Might I suggest "From," a truly engrossing and even terrifying supernatural drama produced by none other than the Russo Brothers? Just ask Rotten Tomatoes, where it holds a near-perfect 96% score.

Anthony and Joe Russo, best known for helming huge Marvel tentpoles like "Captain America: Civil War" and the...

For anyone who still believes people don't care about "Avatar," the numbers tell you otherwise. James Cameron's original 2009 "Avatar" remains the biggest movie of all time, with more than $2.9 billion to its name. Now? Cameron gets to claim the only $6 billion movie trilogy ever as "Avatar: Fire and Ash" continued to crush it over the Christmas holiday, coming in above industry expectations.

"Fire and Ash" pulled in an estimated $64 million over its second weekend domestically, representing a mere 28% drop compared to its $89 million debut ahead of the holiday frame. Over the full, long Christmas holiday, it added $88 million to its total in North America. More importantly, it added a...

​Global luxury group Kering will screen “Hamnet” and “The Testament of Ann Lee” at the Palm Springs International Film Festival as part of its Talking Pictures program on Saturday.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of its Women In Motion initiative, the two screenings will be followed by Q&As with “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao and Amanda Seyfried and Mona Fastvold from “The Testament of Ann Lee.” Variety‘s Angelique Jackson will moderate.

​Women In Motion, which was launched by Kering in 2015 at the Cannes Film Festival, honors women in cinema and across the arts, both in front of and behind the camera. The program recognizes influential figures while supporting emerging talent and fostering meaningful dialogue around representation in culture.

​Kering is also the presenting sponsor of the Palm Springs International Film Awards, which will be held on the same day. Honorees include Rose Byrne (Breakthrough Performance Award), Timothée Chalamet, Leonardo DiCaprio,...

“One Battle After Another” is a film littered with great moments, from the captivating prologue that Teyana Taylor dominates to the poignant “American Girl” needle drop that closes the epic out. But there’s one sequence the film that critics and audiences have singled out as a standout: the stomach-churning, incredibly suspenseful road chase along a winding desert highway path that serves as the film’s tense climax.

“The road, man,” Luke Lynch, editor of “Blknws: Terms & Conditions,” told “One Battle” editor Andy Jurgensen during IndieWire’s Editors craft roundtables. “I mean, it’s just a road, but it’s playing with lenses and movement and timing and the suspense that you’re building.”

Jurgensen and Lynch spoke about their respective films at IndieWire’s Editing Craft Roundtable, hosted by IndieWire features writer Jim Hemphill. Also in attendance were the editors behind “Hamnet,” “Dead Man’s Wire,” “A House of Dynamite,...

Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” now in theaters, is made up of three very different segments, each with a notable cast discussing the nature of their family relationships. One thing they have in common is a specific color: A deep red, the color of a jammy merlot, is a throughline that appears in each character’s contemporary clothing.

Set in New York state, Dublin and Paris, the three segments each revolve around an adult sibling pair. While in the first two, the siblings have somewhat uncomfortable interactions with their parents, in the third Paris section, the twin brother and sister have only memories of their late parents to excavate.

The clothes worn by cast members including Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett and Charlotte Rampling appear to be everyday items, but costume designer Catherine George explains that all the pieces seen onscreen — even Tom Waits’ very mundane hoodie — were made...

John Payson's 1996 comedy "Joe's Apartment" was the first theatrical feature put out by MTV Studios, which seems like a miscalculation. Surely MTV, still a giant in popular culture at the time, would want to put out a concert film, or something more closely related to the network's musical content. Instead, they made a feature film about a poor sap who has to share his dingy New York apartment with millions of singing, dancing cockroaches. It was based on Payon's 1992 short film that played on MTV in between music videos.

"Joe's Apartment" is plenty gross. Joe (Jerry O'Connell), a fresh-faced hayseed, moved to New York, instantly weaseling his way into a rent-controlled apartment.

A funny thing happened when Netflix put the “Stranger Things” finale in theaters: Fans bought tickets. A lot of tickets.

The AMC Kips Bay in New York City listed 11 screenings as “almost full” on New Year’s Eve alone. The 34th Street theater filled up nine screenings, and Lincoln Square had five showings nearing capacity. The same demand was seen on the opposite coast in Los Angeles, where The Grove packed the house for seven screenings, the Century City AMC had eight, and Universal CityWalk turned out 11. Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and more cities where the finale is playing saw similar demand, and all of these sales took place days before showtime. By New Year’s Eve, Netflix’s latest “event” screenings should be even busier.

Now, this may not be surprising to some of you — “Stranger Things” is one of the most-watched properties on Netflix and has been for nearly...

Imagine a world where every day is Christmas Day. Sounds pretty jolly, right? Well, what if it's also the place where Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto), an ancient vampiric being, feeds on the souls of kids so he can stay young forever? That situation would suck for the children in question. However, it's also the horrifyingly brilliant premise of "NOS4A2," which is currently available to stream on Netflix.

Based on Joe Hill's novel of the same name, creator Jami O'Brien's "NOS4A2" follows Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings), a teenage girl who discovers that she has special abilities that enable her to find things, which she uses to hunt down the aforementioned vamp.

The Ghostbusters and New York. Philip Marlowe and Los Angeles. Paddington Bear and London. Some beloved fictional characters are so synonymous with the cities they call home that it seems unimaginable that they could live anywhere else. One such connection is Rocky between Balboa and Philadelphia, although the Italian Stallion's creator originally hails from Hell's Kitchen in New York. So why did Sylvester Stallone choose the City of Brotherly Love for his underdog boxing saga?

We've been rooting for the loveable slugger for almost 50 years since he got his first shot at the title in John G. Avildsen's "Rocky," which pulled off an unlikely victory of its own by beating the likes of "Taxi Driver,...

Writer and director Quentin Tarantino has made a name for himself delivering violent, dialogue-heavy dramas that draw heavily from exploitation cinema. His two-part ode to revenge movies, "Kill Bill," is likewise part kung fu epic, part Spaghetti Western, and part samurai film, with some other exploitation genre references sprinkled throughout. However, the biggest inspiration for the film is probably none other than actor Meiko Kaji. 

Kaji is a Japanese action star best known for playing the title character in the 1973 samurai revenge thriller "Lady Snowblood," though she appeared in more than 100 film and television roles across her career, helping to shape 1970s Japanese exploitation cinema along the way. Those movies,...

Some comeback!

The past 12 months were supposed to turn things around for struggling cinemas. But instead of heralding a dramatic return to moviegoing, 2025 is running neck-and-neck with the middling 2024 box office, and will fall far short of the $9 billion in domestic ticket sales that most analysts expected the theatrical movie business to easily eclipse. Prior to the pandemic, North American revenues would regularly hit between $10 billion to $11 billion. The 2025 results are a massive disappointment that no amount of spin can change. (Already there’s talk of how much better 2026 will be.)

“There’s an unfortunate trend, which that we just can’t get the industry to $9 billion at the domestic box office,” says Mike Sherrill, the chief operating officer of dine-in cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse. “It looks like it’s going to be two years in a row that the industry flatlined.”

More worrisome is the reality that many of...

The western genre (for lack of a better word) is an American creation, but a handful of other countries dabbled in the genre over the years as well. The most notable, of course, is Italy, which produced hundreds of so-called "spaghetti westerns" through the 1960s and 1970s. But what exactly is a spaghetti western?

The long explanation can be found here, but the shorter answer is that while American westerns tend to mythologize "the west" and the cowboys who called it home, Spaghetti westerns are more prone to tearing down those archetypes and dissolving the line between good guys and bad guys. They're westerns made by Italians, frequently shot in Spain,...

The way of water has no beginning and no end — just like spoilers. This article discusses major plot details from "Avatar: Fire & Ash."

"Avatar: Fire and Ash" closes the second act of James Cameron's "Avatar" saga, essentially telling the second part of the story started in "The Way of Water." Despite criticisms to the contrary, the movie does a lot more than just repeat certain ideas from the previous film. This is the movie where James Cameron most overtly argues against pacifism, a movie that forever changes Na'vi and even Tulkun culture in regards to violence. "Fire and Ash" introduces an antagonistic clan with quite bloody aspirations, forever...

In 1986, James Cameron was a young filmmaker under immense pressure as the writer and director of “Aliens,” a big-budget follow-up to Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi classic. Although tensions were high, he formed several alliances on that movie that would serve him well for decades to come — star Sigourney Weaver, for example, became a key collaborator on later films, up to and including Cameron’s latest, “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

Even more pivotal was Cameron’s partnership with special effects artist Stan Winston, who had previously joined forces with the director on “The Terminator” but brought the collaboration to new artistic heights (and an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects) with his designs for “Aliens.” Winston and Cameron reteamed in 1991 for “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (a dual Oscar-winner for Winston in the categories of makeup and visual effects), and it was not long after that film that Cameron and Winston had a fateful conversation.

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Opinions vary, but it's generally accepted that 2017's "Thor: Ragnarok" is one of the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to date. Thanks to the refreshing, funny direction by Taika Waititi, it made for a welcome rebound from "Thor: The Dark World," which helped set a low bar for the MCU. And though she was largely a one-and-done villain, the movie also benefited from Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett's presence as Hela, the Goddess of Death and a villain whose appearance was actually inspired by the McU's fans themselves.

In a 2017 interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Blanchett explained how she and her collaborators...

"The Testament of Ann Lee," directed by Mona Fastvold — partner of fellow director Brady Corbet, with whom she worked on "The Brutalist" and who co-wrote this historical musical epic with her — depicts the founder of the Shaker movement, portrayed by Amanda Seyfried. As Fastvold and some of her colleagues (including Seyfried) discussed over a variety of interviews before the film's wide release on Christmas, the director and her composer, Daniel Blumberg, detailed how they ensured that real Shaker hymns were a part of the film.

Speaking to IndieWire, Blumberg — who won an Oscar for his score for "The Brutalist" — said that he found himself fascinated by "the early formation of the Shakers,...

Editor’s Note: This review originally ran during the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival. “The Dutchman” opens in select theaters on Friday, January 2, 2026.

André Holland continues his streak as one of the sharpest dramatic actors working today — and I’m not just talking about “Moonlight,” have you seen TV’s “The Knick”? — as a New York businessman in marital freefall in Andre Gaines’ “The Dutchman.” Gaines and co-writer Qasim Basir lift Amiri Baraka’s classic 1964 play out of its midcentury Civil Rights Movement context and transplant the text to present-day Manhattan, where Clay (Holland) is going mad over his wife Kaya’s (Zazie Beetz) recent admission of an infidelity.

So launches a dark night of the soul through the city that echoes “Eyes Wide Shut” — in which mysterious women also tempt a spiraling Tom Cruise over an evening after Nicole Kidman confesses to extramarital thoughts — and even “After Hours” with...

The Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild (Muahs) has announced the nominations for the 13th annual Muahs Guild Awards. On the film side, nominees are led by the usual suspects of the 2025-2026 film awards season: “Frankenstein” and for its prosthetic work by Mike Hill and Megan Many, plus “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Wicked: For Good,” and “Weapons” — all in three categories.

Television series were also nominated for the awards, with a voting tie in the Best Contemporary Make-up in a limited series or made-for-tv movie, resulting in six nominees. See the full list below. Other films nominated throughout the categories included “Bugonia,” “Eddington,” “The Smashing Machine,” “Marty Supreme,” “Superman,” “The Naked Gun,” and more.

Winners will be honored at the Valentine’s Day awards gala on Saturday, February 14, 2026, at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. The announcement was made by Julie Socash, President of Muahs, IATSE Local 706.

Feature-length...

When you ask who the most powerful superhero is, the go-to answer for most would be Superman. He's the most famous superhero there is and across his almost century-long existence he's been depicted with practically every power you can think of. It helps that Superman's most obvious power is his strength and invulnerability. Short of some green kryptonite, little slows Superman down, and in some stories he's even powerful enough to move whole planets.

But might there be a DC Comics superhero even more powerful than Superman? A leading contender is Aquaman. Arthur Curry's powers have historically been reduced to breathing underwater and talking to fish. But his strength and endurance is,...

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" franchise hasn't always hit home runs, but Tobe Hooper's original 1974 cannibalistic nightmare is widely regarded as one of the best horror films of all time. For many fans, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is a gritty, realistic, unrelenting exercise in pure terror — and that's what it makes it awesome. However, naysayers like influential critic Roger Ebert argue that Hooper's sweat-drenched slaughterfest lacks any real vision or merit in terms of storytelling. As Ebert wrote in his review:

"The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" is as violent and gruesome and blood-soaked as the title promises — a real Grand Guignol of a movie. It's also without any apparent purpose,...

Beyzaie, who has died aged 87, wove myth, folklore and classical Persian literature into stories that defend against a regime which sought to obliterate them

One of the last messages I sent to the great Iranian stage and screen writer-director Bahram Beyzaie was a recent photograph, taken by a friend, of the interior ruins of Tehran’s oldest cinema, Cinema Iran. There, on one of the walls, hung posters of Beyzaie’s 1988 film Maybe Some Other Time, positioned above and below the torn portraits of the supreme leaders of the theocratic regime.

The symbolism – the ideological ruin; cinema and the future – was too striking for something so accidental, particularly given that...

Say what you want about the "Indiana Jones" franchise, but it has produced a string of big, bold, well-received movies. Despite things like the alien antics and general Shia Labeouf-ness of 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" or 1984's "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" getting banned in India for obvious reasons, the silver screen adventures of Henry Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford) have consistently received reviews that have ranged from good to great. The video game leg of the property has also yielded some well-received titles, including the sweet 1992 LucasArts adventure "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" and the stellar 2024 game "Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

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Kevin Smith has always been a beacon for aspiring indie filmmakers to look toward. His feature debut, "Clerks," became the little indie darling that could, kicking off his career in impressive fashion. All eyes were on Smith and what he would do next. He leaned into his comic book nerd sensibilities and made "Mallrats," a buddy comedy that takes place, well, at a mall. Though the movie was a big disappointment in its day, it has since become a fan favorite. More than that, it also gave Smith the rights to Jay and Silent Bob, which greatly influenced his career from that point on.

Primetime television had a brief superhero moment in the 1970s when shows like "Wonder Woman," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Bionic Woman," "The Incredible Hulk" and "The Amazing Spider-Man" became hugely popular with young viewers. Their special effects were primitive (limited mostly to miniatures), but what they lacked in high-tech pizazz they more than made up for with practical stunts. They look positively quaint 50 years later, but, as someone who grew up watching them, they were must-watch television. Miss an episode, and everyone in your elementary school peer group would freeze you out.

Seeking to, er, ride the wave of small-screen superhero success, NBC introduced Patrick Duffy, one year...

In documentary I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the actor and his family revealed that doctors told them to ‘prepare yourselves for the worst’

Chevy Chase suffered “near fatal” heart failure which led to him being placed in an induced coma during the pandemic in 2021, according to a new film about the American actor and comedian.

As documented in I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not, the star of films such as Caddyshack and the National Lampoon movies, who hosted the Oscars twice, spent a total of five weeks in hospital.

The character of Elim Garak (Andrew Robinson) first appeared on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" in the episode "Past Prologue", only the second episode of the series. Garak, as Trekkies can tell you, was the only Cardassian left on Deep Space Nine after the Cardassian military occupation of Bajor had ended. Despite lingering prejudices against him, Garak remained on the station as a tailor, but his demeanor implied that he was up to something beyond mere sewing. Garak was always a suspicious character, grinning like he had just found out something intensely personal about you. He would often talk about how there was no such thing as objective truth, inspiring...

Worldwide box office: December 26-28 RankFilm (distributor)3-day (world)Cume (world)3-day (int’l)Cume (int’l)Territories 1 Avatar: Fire And Ash (Disney) $245.2m $760.3m $181.2m $542.7m 52 2 Zootopia 2 (Disney) $87.9m $1.4bn $67.9m $1.09bn 53 3 Anaconda (Sony) $34.5m $43.6m $20m $20m 59 4 The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants (Paramount) $33.3m $60.2m $22.1m $22.1m 51 5 The Housemaid (Lionsgate) $29.2m $60.5m $13.8m $14.1m 22 6 Buen Camino (various) $29.2m $29.7m $29.2m $29.2m 1 7 Marty Supreme (A24) $19.2m $30m $1.7m $1.7m 3 8 David (Angel) $12.8m $50m $0.1m $0.2m 9 9 Dhurandhar (various) $11.3m $120.6m $9.6m $103.8m 21 10 Wicked: For Good (universal) $9.5m $503.9m $4.2m $172.3m 82

Credit: Comscore. All figures are estimates.

‘Avatar: Fire And Ash...

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their most rewatched comfort films is an ode to the charming 80s-set comedy

While casting his knockout quasi-biopic The Social Network, film-maker David Fincher must’ve really dug how eventual Mark Zuckerberg portrayer Jesse Eisenberg handled being dumped on screen. A year before the award-lassoing Facebook drama, which led to an Oscar nomination for Eisenberg, the actor agonised through the dreamy foreground of Adventureland as reluctant carny James Brennan.

The parallels between Fincher’s and Greg Mottola’s movies begin and end with their opening unceremonious separations, yet an admittedly romantic logic does allow me to soak in the notion that the...

Cliche-ridden, excessively sentimental and lacking in historical rigour, this film is an act of nationalist self-soothing

Nothing says happy Hanukah like a Holocaust-themed movie, especially if it ends on a feelgood note of survival and reunion after a run of tragic deaths and lashings of suffering. But this Israeli-Belarusian co-production is so excessively sentimental, cliche-riddled and arguably hypocritical considering its provenance, it’s not easy to forbear.

It opens in contemporary Tel Aviv with an elderly man named Ilya receiving news he can barely believe is true: someone dear to him from his childhood is alive. This prompts Ilya to tell his grandsons for the first time about what happened...

Jérémie Battaglia’s captivating documentary follows two north African raseteurs battling bulls and systemic racism in southern France

In southern France, the ancient and controversial tradition of Camargue bullfighting remains to this day. In contrast to more lethal forms of the sport, participants – or raseteurs – win points by snatching various ribbons attached to the bulls, each of which comes with a cash prize up to thousands of euros. Following a group of athletes of north African descent, Jérémie Battaglia’s documentary paints a captivating portrait of multicultural France.

For Jawad Bakloul and Belkacem Benhammou, the two young men at the centre of the film, the hardships multiply. Because of their ethnic background,...

James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” continued to dominate the Korean box office over the Dec. 26–28 frame, grossing $8.6 million from more than 1 million admissions, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. The film has now amassed $32.5 million.

“Zootopia 2” remained a powerful No. 2, adding $3 million for the weekend and lifting its cumulative total to $50.3 million. The sequel has now crossed 7.4 million admissions, cementing its status as one of 2025’s top-performing imported animated releases.

Opening in third place was the South Korean romantic drama “Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight,” which debuted with $1.2 million. Directed by Kim Hye-young and based on the novel by Ichijo Misaki, the film stars Choo Young-woo and Shin Si-ah in a bittersweet high-school romance centered on a girl with anterograde amnesia whose memories reset each morning. The film has earned $2.5 million in its first five days.

Japanese...

M. Night Shyamalan made his directorial debut in 1992 with the semi-autobiographical "Playing with Anger," a film that — despite the director's eventual fame and success — remains obscure. He made it by borrowing money from his family and his friends, so it was a very personal affair. Shyamalan asked his parents to serve as associate producers on his next film, "Wide Awake," which ended up getting a sweet distribution deal from Miramax Films. In 1999, Shyamalan wrote and directed "The Sixth Sense," a $40 million film that earned an unexpected $672 million at the box office. It was also animated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

And that was...

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Gary Oldman had decades worth of moviemaking under his belt, with dozens of memorable roles during that stretch. Many love his Jim Gordon in Christopher Nolan's beloved "The Dark Knight" trilogy to his Oscar-winning performance as Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour," but for a great many viewers, his role as the villainous Zorg from 1997's sci-fi classic "The Fifth Element" stands out more than just about anything else he's ever done.

Directed by Luc Besson and featuring Bruce Willis in the lead role as Korben Dallas, the movie takes place in the far future of 2257. It centers on a...

It has always been easy to trivialize Brigitte Bardot. In 1956, starring in the movie that made her a global sensation, “And God Created Woman,” what she did was not widely regarded as accomplished screen acting — or, in a certain way, as acting at all. The movie treated her as a ripe object of erotic fixation, and that’s just what she was called upon to play. She is introduced with shots of her bare feet arched just so, her body lying naked, face down on the ground. “Sex kitten.” “Baby doll.” “Teenage temptress.” At the time, she was branded all those things. Was the movie a sober French drama or soft-core porn? It was marketed as something in between.

Yet there was more at stake. And part of it is that Bardot, who died Sunday at 91, made no less a figure than Marilyn Monroe seem a sex symbol from an entirely different era.

The movie business grew up in the pages of Variety.

There is no more comprehensive chronicle of film history than Variety – hands down, no contest, case closed. This gallery backs up that bold statement by offering an array of amazing movie and movie-related advertisements drawn from Variety’s 120 years of covering entertainment and Hollywood.

Truly, the pages presented here only scratch the surface of the jewels and historical artifacts in our voluminous archives. This is definitely not an exhaustively researched selection. These are but some of the fantastic finds that we came across while working this year on the 120th anniversary issue, published Dec. 10 in print and online.

Some of these ads are for long-forgotten obscure titles, some are for classics like “King Kong,” “Casablanca,” “Sunset Boulevard,” “Dr. Strangelove,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,” “Chinatown,” “Star Wars,” “Platoon,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Rushmore,...

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Some might consider it one of the worst Marvel movies to date, but "Thor: The Dark World" is not without its moments, particularly one added at the last minute that contributed to the growing cohesion in the franchise that was being built like a Russian nesting doll. One scene in the hammer-wielding hero's second movie saw him being taunted by Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who, in an attempt to push his adopted brother's buttons, briefly transformed into Captain America (played by Chris Evans), fully star-spangled (albeit in one of Cap's worst costumes), before switching back. According to "The Story of Marvel Studios...

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There is still some debate among Trekkies as to which of the "Star Trek" feature films is the best. Common wisdom dictates that Nicholas Meyer's 1982 movie "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is the best, and some of the films that followed are essentially "Wrath of Khan" retreads. Other Trekkies, however, might prefer Robert Wise's ambitious "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" from 1979. That film is about a massive, massive cloud-like space entity — an ineffably powerful machine intelligence — that threatens to swallow Earth if its mysteries aren't solved in time. "The Motion Picture" is certainly the kind of...

Timothée Chalamet is officially the king of the Christmas box office.

It’s the third consecutive holiday season where the A-list star has thrived at the box office, a reign that began with 2023’s family-friendly musical “Wonka” and continued with 2024’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” This year’s ping pong adventure, “Marty Supreme,” extended the trend, serving up a stellar $27 million over the four-day frame. And Chalamet’s domination around the merriest of holidays should endure with 2026’s “Dune: Part III,” set for Dec. 18.

“Seemingly every year, Timothée has a major hit during the important holiday moviegoing corridor,” notes Comscore’s head of marketplace trends, Paul Dergarabedian. “No matter the genre, whether it’s a musical, biopic, sci-fi or comedy, his choice in the material and collaborators has made him not only a bona fide movie star, but a box-office draw.”

“Marty Supreme” confirms Chalamet’s status as...

Tony Scott's "Top Gun" was a huge commercial hit in 1986 and has maintained a glowing legacy ever since. More than three decades later, Joseph Kosinski gave us "Top Gun: Maverick," the critically acclaimed sequel that understands the inner workings of a thrill-inducing blockbuster. Kosinski leans hard into Tom Cruise's commitment to showmanship, and Maverick is still as gutsy and unpredictable as in Scott's original — which is precisely the source of conflict in the blockbuster sequel. Part of the film's appeal lies in the specialized planes that the characters (mostly Maverick) fly, where every design detail and prop plays a seminal role in selling us the fantasy of "the fastest man alive.

One of Laura Dern's more high-profile roles was playing Dr. Ellie Sattler in Steven Spielberg's 1993 adventure film "Jurassic Park." Dr. Sattler was a paleobotanist who had been invited by the Burl Ives-like John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to visit his soon-to-open zoo on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica. Hammond had, thanks to some genetic tinkering, found a way to clone and resurrect long-extinct dinosaurs, and hoped to display them in a Disneyland-like Jurassic Park. Sattler was there to give her approval on the endeavor, but, to Hammond's dismay, rejected the idea. It seemed that a Jurassic Park is inviting chaos.

And, of course, when the...

There's an obvious reason techno-thriller movies continually resonate within an ever-evolving society: they directly speak to that very notion of change. The type of sci-fi and cyberpunk movies that become enduring objects, however, further associate that change with an internal endeavor toward growth and self-actualization — you may notice how many films on this list feature bodily transformation, or otherwise act as allegories for the transition of identity.

These movies typically literalize these ideas through plot mechanics that manifest in ambitious, heady story components and impressive makeup effects work. You can be certain that all the movies on this list endure from multiple perspectives: that of tangible filmmaking and artistic craft,...

"The Big Lebowski" is a Coen Brothers classic that's full of amazing quotable moments and centers on one of the most lovable and coolest characters in cinema history: Jeff Bridges as The Dude. It's easy to watch, absolutely hilarious, and has stood the test of time. Unfortunately, the opposite can be said for its bizarre sequel, "The Jesus Rolls," which came out more than 20 years after "The Big Lebowski" and absolutely tanked with audiences and critics alike.

"The Jesus Rolls" was a strange follow-up because it's also a remake of the 1974 French film "Going Places," and it only exists because writer, director, and star John Turturro begged the Coens to...