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Few actors have a career as celebrated as that of Marlon Brando. The actor's natural talent made him a breakout star a few years after he started acting, with A Streetcar Named Desire propelling him to international acclaim. Then came a decades-long career that saw him make some of the best movies of all time. In Last Tango in Paris, Brando collaborates with Italian director and scriptwriter Bernardo Bertolucci. The film was positively received, earning an 81% fresh rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. It would later find itself in the middle of a damning controversy when Brando's costar, Maria Schneider, shared her experience on set. Last Tango in Paris...

In September, Prime Video will be the home of big movie premieres, new seasons of television and the return of the popular streaming franchise “The Boys.”

The second season of “Gen V” will premiere Sept. 17 on the streaming service, a college-set spin-off of Erik Kripke’s explicit superhero adaptation, “The Boys.” The new episodes will see the supes of Godolkin University return in the wake of the first season’s shocking finale — and the world-altering events at the end of “The Boys” Season 4.

“Gen V” isn’t the only series streaming on Prime in September. “The Runarounds,” a new series from the creators of “Outer Banks,” will launch on the first of the month.

Joe Caroff, perhaps best known for designing the James Bond gun logo in 1962, passed away Sunday, August 17, at the age of 103. Throughout his career, Caroff designed hundreds of film posters, including several adaptations of Broadway shows. In 1961, Caroff created the poster design for the big-screen adaptation of West Side Story directed by Robert Wise. He would go on to design other Broadway-related poster titles, including Bob Fosse's Cabaret featuring Liza Minnelli, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Death of a Salesman, and more. He also frequently worked on designs for Woody Allen films, including Manhattan, Stardust, and Zelig. Other notable projects include The Last Temptation of Christ, A Hard Day's Night, Rollerball, Last Tango in Paris, An Unmarried Woman, and Gandhi. In...

The artist, whose work can be also seen in posters from West Side Story to Cabaret, Manhattan and A Hard Day’s Night, worked on more than 300 campaigns, often uncredited

The graphic designer responsible for the 007 gun logo as well as countless classic film posters has died, aged 103.

Joe Caroff, whose work can be seen on the posters for films including West Side Story, A Hard Day’s Night, Last Tango in Paris, Cabaret, Manhattan and The Last Temptation of Christ, died on Sunday.

Joe Caroff, the legendary graphic artist who designed the famous 007 logo and several movie posters and title sequences for the likes of Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci and Woody Allen, has died. He was 103.

Joe Caroff’s name might not have the heft as some other notable poster and title card designers, but that’s because he rarely took credit. With that, he could never receive residuals, something that no doubt would have earned him a lot more money – and fame. For his James Bond design, he earned just $300. As far as how he came up with the James Bond logo, Caroff once said, “I knew [Bond’s] designation was 007, and when I wrote the stem of the seven, I thought, ‘That looks like the handle of a gun to me.’ It was very spontaneous, no effort, it was an instant piece of creativity.”

And while Joe Caroff’s contributions to original James...

Joe Caroff, the graphic designer whose work defined the look of some of Hollywood’s most famous films, has died at the age of 103. His sons, Peter and Michael Caroff, told The New York Times that he passed away Sunday at his Manhattan home, where he had been in hospice care. He died just one day before his 104th birthday.

Caroff may not have been a household name, but his art became a part of movie history. In 1962, when the first James Bond movie was being launched, he came up with the 007 logo that used a gun as part of the numbers. That design became one of the most recognizable images in cinema and is still used in the Bond franchise today.

His career began much earlier. At just 27, working under the name Joseph Karov, he designed the book jacket for Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead.

Joe Caroff, the artist who quietly shaped the look of some of the most famous movies in Hollywood history, has died. He was 103. His sons, Peter and Michael Caroff, told The New York Times that he passed away on Sunday at his home in Manhattan while in hospice care. He died just one day before what would have been his 104th birthday.

Caroff was never a household name, but his designs became unforgettable. In 1962, he created the 007 logo with the pistol forming part of the number, giving James Bond its now legendary brand identity. That design is still being used today, more than sixty years later.

Years before Bond, at the age of 27, he had already started making his mark. Under the name Joseph Karov, he designed the book jacket for Norman Mailer’s debut novel, The Naked and the Dead. The work was shown in exhibitions, including one at...

Marlon Brando was the most consequential actor of the 20th century and, when he could resist his desire to dominate a production to its detriment, arguably the best. When he brought his method-acting brilliance to the big screen, he changed the way people taught and thought about acting. Obviously, not all directors and teachers bought into the Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler-championed process, but just about every aspiring performer in the 1950s and 1960s wanted to connect with theatergoers and moviegoers as ecstatically as Brando. Thanks to a string of legendary films that included "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Wild One," and "On the Waterfront," he was a silver screen rock star.

And yet Brando was so frustratingly mercurial and unpredictable in his choice of film projects that, as the 1960s wore on, he was more exhausting than he was exciting. This changed in 1972 when he turned in two...

In 2018, political journalist and writer Vanessa Schneider released Tu t’appelais Maria Schneider (My Cousin Maria Schneider), a deeply personal memoir exploring the turbulent life and career of her late cousin, actress Maria Schneider. Offering a window into the darker, somewhat socially accepted side of the film industry, the small tome looked at Maria’s struggles with fame, exploitation, and personal demons. Far from a straightforward rise to stardom, her story is one of resilience and shattered dreams—a poignant reflection on the cost of art and ambition. Fast-forward to the 2024 Cannes Film Festival (Cannes Premiere section), French filmmaker Jessica Palud revisits what the before, during and after consequences of the “Last Tango in Paris,” with Being Maria (the film was released by Kino Lorber in March).…...

From the moment “Being Maria” opens on a sun-dappled Paris street, you feel the pull of an unwritten destiny. Maria Schneider (Anamaria Vartolomei) isn’t just a young woman chasing stardom—she’s a vessel for something far more volatile: the collision of art and personal integrity.

Director Jessica Palud and co-writer Laurette Polmanss adapt Vanessa Schneider’s memoir with a keen eye for how fleeting moments on camera can haunt an entire lifetime. At 19, Maria’s leap from obscurity into Bernardo Bertolucci’s world-altering “Last Tango in Paris” sets the stage for a narrative that asks: when “truth” on film comes at the cost of a performer’s agency, who truly benefits?

Palud’s rhythm shifts from hushed, intimate sequences—Maria practicing lines, stealing a shy smile from her estranged father—to jolting recreations of on-set betrayal. The film’s tone vacillates between warm nostalgia for a restless teen...

Jessica Palud’s “Being Maria” (2024) takes a hard, unflinching look at one of film history’s most hotly debated scenes, the infamous ‘butter’ moment in Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris.” The film has some of the most polarised reception ever, with most attention fixated on one scene when Marlon Brando’s character forces himself on Maria Schneider’s. The actress went on to call out the scene as being entirely improvised and being utterly abased by the moment, of which she had no foreknowledge.

Palud’s film, co-written with Laurette Polmanss, reckons with the impact of that particular scene, its earlier iterations in the life and larger career of the actress. Adapting loosely from the actress’ cousin’s memoir, this is by no measure a piercing, acute portrait of an artist in emotional duress but stays afloat somewhat on the commitment of its lead, Anamaria Vartolomei, who broke out...

Magazine Dreams starring Jonathan Majors is eyeing an estimated $700k weekend in 815 theaters, solid in NY, LA and a handful of urban markets but below the $1 million Deadline hears the distributor had initially been hoping for given strong engagement online with the film, which has a 91% verified audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (81% with critics).

The opening weekend miss for what was a very buzzy Sundance title back in 2023 about a troubled but ambitious bodybuilder follows controversy around its star and comes at a tough time for indie films in general. In the months after the film premiered in Park City, Majors was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of assault and harassment against an ex-girlfriend.

Briarcliff’s documentary October 8 is an upside surprise with a projected $250k weekend at 113 theaters — up 7% from last weekend’s opening at 14 few theaters. AMC Lincoln Square and Century City are top grossers for the...

Magazine Dreams, which premiered at Sundance in 2023, had a long road to the big screen but arrived this weekend, along with Sami Raimi-produced Locked, sci-fi horror Ash, SXSW 2024 Audience and Grand Jury Award-winner Bob Trevino Likes It and Being Maria, a biopic of Last Tango In Paris actress Maria Schneider.

We’ll see. Last weekend was a box office dud and this one looks quiet too as audiences seems to have forgotten they really liked going to movies last fall.

Magazine Dreams, by writer-director Elijah Bynum, after months in the wilderness found a home with Briarcliff Entertainment, which is opening the film at 815 theaters. This will test the Jonathan Majors bodybuilding psychodrama that debuted at Sundance in 2023 but was derailed by abuse accusations against its star after winning the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision and a distribution deal with Searchlight Pictures, which dropped it. The actor...

Toward the end of Jessica Palud’s “Being Maria,” an uneven but poignantly restorative portrait of “Last Tango in Paris” star Maria Schneider (played here by “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei), the actress sits for an interview in which she reflects on her recent experience shooting Jacques Rivette’s self-disowned “Merry-Go-Round.”

With a warm smile on her face, Schneider describes the serendipity of the film’s premise, which revolves around a boy and a girl who cross paths in Paris after being summoned there by someone neither of them can find: “It’s about two people who meet because the person they were supposed to meet doesn’t show up.”

The production of Rivette’s creatively unmoored film was not a happy one, but you’d never know that from the way it’s discussed in “Being Maria.” So far as Palud is concerned, there’s more value — more truth — to...

Editor's Note: The following contains the topic of sexual assault.When it was released in 1972, Last Tango in Paris stirred controversy for its graphic depiction of an anonymous sexual relationship between a middle-aged American ex-pat (Marlon Brando) and a younger French woman (Maria Schneider). 53 years after its release, the film remains controversial not just for its subject matter, but for how director Bernardo Bertolucci went about depicting it on set. Conflicting stories have abounded for decades about Schneider's treatment during the shooting of one notorious sequence, although any version of events would have you conclude that a professional line was crossed. For many modern audiences, this has made the film unwatchable. Yet setting the infamy of its production aside, Last Tango in Paris remains a powerful study of erotic entanglement, and the dangers that arise from removing intimacy from sex.

"I told you I wanted it intense." Kino Lorber has unveiled the US trailer for Being Maria, a French indie film about actress Maria Schneider and her experiences on set. This first premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival last year, and it already opened in French cinemas last summer. The film is finally opening in the US in art house theaters starting later this month. The film is an examination of how the idea of a young actress performing might seem exciting to viewers, but it might also be horrifying to the actress playing the role. This profiles Schneider's rise to fame after Last Tango in Paris and its controversial production's impact on her life and career. Based on the behind-the-scenes true story of the making of Last Tango in Paris (director Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial 1972 film originally given the X rating by the MPAA and even banned in...

The Being Maria trailer reveals a new biopic dramatizing the filming of Marlon Brando's most controversial movie. Written and directed by Jessica Palud, the upcoming French film follows actress Maria Schneider's experiences filming the 1972 erotic drama Last Tango in Paris, her subsequent rise to fame, and the impact the controversial production had on her life and career. Being Maria stars Anamaria Vartolomei in the titular role and Matt Dillion as Brando alongside Céleste Brunnquell, Giuseppe Maggio, Yvan Attal, Marie Gillain, and Jonathan Couzinié.

Now, Kino Lorber has released the first official trailer for Being Maria, finding Schneider as a promising young actress who receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to star in a film from an acclaimed Italian director, Bernardo Bertolucci (Giuseppe Maggio), and starring a beloved American actor, Brando. They get along great initially, but everything changes when the two men secretly plan an unscripted sexual assault scene without her consent.

Now, it’s time for late actress Maria Schneider’s story to be fully shared onscreen.

Schneider, who famously starred in controversial “Last Tango in Paris” at age 19 alongside Marlon Brando, is portrayed by “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei in biopic “Being Maria.” Originally titled “Maria,” the film is adapted from the memoir “My Cousin Maria” by Vanessa Schneider. Molly Ringwald wrote the English translation for the book, which detailed Schneider’s life after filming an exploitative simulated rape scene for “Last Tango in Paris” in 1973. Per the memoir, “Last Tango in Paris” director Bernardo Bertolucci did not tell Schneider the full extent of the film’s plot until right before production.

Matt Dillon portrays Schneider’s “Last Tango in Paris” co-star Brando, with Giuseppe Maggio as Bertolucci. Yvan Attal, Marie Gillain, Stanislas Merhar, Céleste Brunnquell, Jonathan Couzinié, and Alexis Corso co-star. The film, which debuted at Cannes and will make...

A classic Marlon Brando movie that generated both critical acclaim and intense controversy is now available for a new generation of viewers to discover. Last Tango in Paris is streaming on Prime Video.

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris stars The Godfather's Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. The drama follows a grieving American widower who enters a passionate but emotionally complex relationship with a young Parisian woman. The film pushed boundaries with its unfiltered depiction of intimacy, earning both critical acclaim and outrage upon its release.

RelatedMarlon Brando Starred in This 99% Fresh Gangster Movie 18 Years Before The Godfather (& It's Practically Flawless)

18 years before he led The Godfather, the legendary actor Marlon Brando starred in a gangster movie that maintains a 99% Tomatometer score.

Over the years, it has been re-evaluated through a modern lens, with many questioning whether its artistic merits outweigh the ethical concerns surrounding its production. Although...

During this year's Variety's Actors on Actors series, Academy Award-nominee Mikey Madison confessed to "The Last Showgirl" star Pamela Anderson (a woman with a history of having been exploited by the fame machine) that she had declined to use an intimacy coordinator for "Anora," despite the explicit nature of the film and her character. This situation kicked up a flurry of discourse, with multiple intimacy coordinators speaking with Variety to weigh in on the situation. To be clear, Madison said that the "sex shots" in "Anora" were "a very positive experience" for her. However, the water-cooler conversations that followed showed that the general public still doesn't fully understand what it is that an intimacy coordinator does.

In the wake of Hollywood mega-producer Harvey Weinstein's long overdue reckoning for his history of sexually harassing, abusing, and intimidating women, there was an upswing in conversations about the systemic issue of on-set safety.

The 30th annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema festival, hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and Unifrance, is celebrating the work of acclaimed actor Vincent Lindon.

While the 2025 festival is not entirely honoring Lindon himself, the actor appears in a whopping trio of featured films and also will be onsite for Q&As and introductions. Lindon stars in Quentin Dupieux’s meta-comedy “The Second Act,” which opened the 77th Cannes Film Festival, as well as Gilles Bourdos’ dramatic thriller “Cross Away” and Delphine Coulin and Muriel Coulin’s “The Quiet Son” (Lindon won Best Actor at the 81st Venice Film Festival for that drama).

And Lindon isn’t the only beloved French star to join this year’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema: Actors Isabelle Huppert and Édgar Ramírez, plus auteurs Olivier Assayas and Bertrand Bonello are among those who will have features screening. Bonello, while known as a director, lent his composing skills to “Planet B.

The board of Paris’ French Cinematheque has apologised for failing to contextualise a screening of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film Last Tango In Paris in December, which was ultimately cancelled.

Filmmaker Costa-Gavras, who is the Cinematheque’s president, joined other members of the directorial board to face a French National Assembly commission on sexual violence yesterday (January 16).

The Cinematheque had programmed a screening of the film, which includes a rape scene shot without the consent of actress Maria Schneider, as part of a retrospective of Marlon Brando’s career on December 15.

The programming decision was harshly criticised by film figures and feminist organisations,...

I’ve been seeing variations on the question above on comment boards and social media, and the answer is inevitably a resounding “No. Fucking. Way.” But let’s be clear about what the question really is, since it’s actually two questions at once. The fundamental thing that’s being asked is: Could “Babygirl,” an enthralling high-kink corporate drama, in which Nicole Kidman plays a girlboss who secretly yearns to be dominated and debased, and plays this all out with one of her young male interns…could a male director have gotten away with making that movie today? The answer everyone seems to agree on, with an underlying note of look-how-far-we’ve-come cultural pride, is no. I don’t necessarily disagree — though actually, in a way, I sort of do.

“Babygirl,” written and directed by the volcanically talented Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn, is a gripping movie about a woman who...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of the Moving Image

See It Big! Let It Snow brings 35mm prints of All That Heaven Allows, Doctor Zhivago, and Meet Me In St. Louis.

Museum of Modern Art

A dual celebration of Marcello and Chiara Mastroianni continues, this weekend bringing films by Raúl Ruiz and Marco Bellocchio.

Anthology Film Archives

A look at Robert Frank and his influences continues, including Chantal Akerman’s Toute une nuit and Blue Velvet on 35mm, while Scenes from the Streets begins.

Roxy Cinema

The New World and The Magnificent Ambersons shows on 35mm; Hardcore plays Friday and Saturday, the latter day bringing a Paul Schrader Q&a; Eastern Promises and Paul Verhoeven’s Elle also screen.

Metrograph

Lost In Translation, 2046, Phantom Thread, and Brokeback Mountain play on 35mm; The Holidays at Metrograph, It Looks Pretty from a Distance, and This...

The Oscar shortlists were released on December 17, the results of which are analyzed in Anne Thompson’s overview. Here, we’re covering the crafts of makeup and hairstyling, original score, sound, and visual effects.

“Wicked” was the big winner — appearing on all four lists. This was followed by three-listers “Emilia Pérez”, “Dune: Part Two”, “Gladiator II”, and “Alien: Romulus”.

Scoring two noms were “Nosferatu”, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, “Blitz”, “Deadpool & Wolverine”, and “The Wild Robot”.

The rest of the nominees were broken down by the following:

Muahs: “The Apprentice,” “A Different Man,” “Maria,” “The Substance,” and “Waltzing with Brando.”

Score: “Babygirl,” “Blink Twice,” “The Brutalist,” “Challengers,” “Conclave,” “The Fire Inside,” “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1,” “Inside Out 2,” “The Room Next Door,” “Sing Sing,” “The Six Triple Eight,” and “Young Woman and the Sea.”

Sound: “A Complete Unknown” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Visual Effects: “Better Man,” “Civil War,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,...

Larry Auerbach, a top agent at William Morris Agency for nearly 50 years who also served 25 years at USC School of Cinematic Arts, died Nov. 23 at his home in Beverly Hills. He was 95.

Auerbach represented a wide range of talent during his 47 years with William Morris, including Alan Alda, Bea Arthur, Marlo Thomas, Robert Wagner, Aaron Spelling, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Harry Belafonte and such prestige-movie directors as Norman Jewison and Bernardo Bertolucci. Auerbach worked his way up to a leadership role at the agency after starting there in New York at age 15, working part-time while in high school sweeping floors and doing other less-than-glamorous duties during World War II.

After ending his Wma career in 1992, Auerbach segued to USC film school, where he used his matchmaking skills to create the Office of Industry Relations. He retired from USC as associate dean and head of student-industry relations in...

Josh Brolin is detailing a very nepo Hollywood moment with iconic film stars.

Brolin, whose stepmother is Barbra Streisand after she wed his father and fellow actor James Brolin, recalled attending one of Streisand’s star-studded dinner parties. At one of these events, Marlon Brando was part of a Scientology exercise led by John Travolta, who offered to “heal” Brando‘s injured leg.

“It should have been a joke, but it turned out to be this amazing collective experience that I got to witness from afar,” Brolin told Variety. “At the time, I was like, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ Now I look back on it and go, ‘That was such a sweet moment.’”

He continued, “Scientology has nothing to do with it. I got to see somebody take care of somebody else in this thoughtful way. It’s funny how your perspective can change.”

Streisand wed James Brolin...

Angelina Jolie is set to attend Italy’s Torino Film Festival for the international premiere of “Without Blood,” her fifth film as a director, which is based on Italian author Alessandro Baricco’s short novel by the same title.

The drama about war, revenge, memory and healing stars Salma Hayek Pinault and Demián Bichir and world premiered in September at Toronto Film Festival.

The story revolves around Nina (Hayek Pinault), who witnesses as a young girl the carnage inflicted by her father’s enemies on her father and brother. She escapes by hiding under the family’s farmhouse floor, and although one of the murderers — a man named Tito (Bichir) — spots her, he decides to keep quiet. Many years later, they meet again.

“Without Blood,” which was shot at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, will screen on Nov. 24 at Torino’s Cinema Ideal with Jolie and Baricco present. Torino’s 42nd edition is being held Nov.

What's your favorite romantic movie, the one that moves you to tears, be they of happiness or sorrow? Perhaps it's Leo McCarey's four-hankie 1939 weeper "Love Affair" starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, or maybe it's McCarey's own remake "An Affair to Remember" lead by the insanely photogenic likes of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. And then there's Nora Ephron's rom-com riff on those films, "Sleepless in Seattle" toplined by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Prefer a good ugly cry? Arthur Hiller's "Love Story" and that Francis Lai score will mug it out of you as Ryan O'Neal loses the love of his life in Ali MacGraw. In the mood for a good emotional scalding? Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" will leave you stunned and in the mood for anything but love.

For fans of the "Love Story" flavor, John Crowley's "We Live in Time" did...

Actors transforming into famous figures for biopics isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. In recent years, we’ve seen Marisa Abela’s Amy Winehouse in Back To Black, Kingsley Ben-Adir’s Bob Marley in One Love, Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, and Sebastian Stan’s Donald J. Trump in The Apprentice. But just when the market for such movies may have been running the risk of getting overcrowded, along comes Waltzing With Brando to make us an offer we can’t refuse. That offer? Titanic actor Billy Zane going absolutely all-in to play Marlon Brando in a comedy about The Godfather legend’s efforts to create a sustainable pocket of paradise on a tiny Tahitian island. If it sounds barmy, then that's nothing compared to how it looks — just check out the extraordinary trailer for Bill Fishman’s film below:

If, like us, you started watching this trailer and thought,...

Yes, that’s Billy Zane beneath those prosthetics.

The “Titanic” alum is unrecognizable as late star Marlon Brando in the first trailer for biopic “Waltzing for Brando.” The feature, written and directed by Bill Fishman, is based on a memoir by Bernard Judge.

The film takes place between 1969 and 1974, with Brando readying to shoot “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.” During that time, the actor purchased an uninhabitable island in Tahiti and recruited Los Angeles architect Judge, portrayed by Jon Heder, to build the world’s first ecologically friendly retreat.

Richard Dreyfuss, “Emily in Paris” star Camille Razat, Alaina Huffman, Tia Carrere, and James Jagger co-star in the film, which is now seeking a buyer.

The film will close the Torino Film Festival and play the Tahoe Film Festival. Prior to its world premiere, “Waltzing for Brando” was picked up by Vmi Worldwide for foreign sales.

Billed as a comedy,...

Billy Zane transforms into Marlon Brando in the first trailer for Waltzing with Brando. Vmi Worldwide has released the first trailer for the upcoming biopic ahead of its debut at several film festivals, including the Torino Film Festival, the Tahoe Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Waltzing with Brando follows Marlon Brando as he recruits a Los Angeles architect to build the world's first ecologically perfect retreat on a small, uninhabited island in Tahiti. The biopic, which was written and directed by Bill Fishman, is based on a memoir by Bernard Judge which takes place between 1969 and 1974 while Brando was preparing to film The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris. Check out the trailer below.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

Besides Zane, the movie stars Jon Heder, Richard Dreyfuss, Camille Razat, Alaina Huffman, Tia Carrere, and James Jagger.

Waltzing With Brando is expected to...

The first trailer has been revealed showing Billy Zane as Marlon Brando at the peak of his powers in upcoming biopic “Waltzing With Brando.”

The feature, which also stars Jon Heder, has been picked up by Vmi Worldwide for foreign sales.

Written and directed by Bill Fishman, the film is based on a memoir by Bernard Judge which takes place between 1969 and 1974 while Brando was preparing to film “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.” Alongside Zane and Heder, additional castmembers include the Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss, as well as Camille Razat (“Emily in Paris”), Alaina Huffman, Tia Carrera (“Waynes World”) and Mick Jagger’s son James Jagger.

“Waltzing With Brando” follows Brando (Zane) — then the most famous actor in the world — as he filmed “Mutiny on the Bounty” and bought a tiny and uninhabitable island in Tahiti. His intent was to escape his hectic Hollywood lifestyle and show the world the path to sustainability.

Actors are often lauded for their striking performances or contributions to the industry, but some become immortalized due to their works. Marlon Brando is one such name who is considered to have revolutionized acting and the entertainment industry.

The Godfather actor was as phenomenal onscreen as he was controversial off it. Matt Dillon got the golden opportunity to step into the shoes of his senior but soon came to regret his choice. However, the American Dreamer star didn’t shy away from the role due to the actor’s tricky past. Rather, it was his legacy that made things challenging.

The reason behind the hesitation: Not the past

Marlon Brando created waves in Hollywood, charming the audience with his god-like looks and moving performances. The A Streetcar Named Desire actor had innumerable hits, but his personal life was embroiled in controversies.

Marlon Brando in The Godfather | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Jessica Palud...

Traveling to Greece for the Thessaloniki Film Festival has not stopped Matt Dillon from voting in the upcoming U.S. election. “I voted before I came because I had to vote,” he told journalists at a press conference. “When I agreed to come to Thessaloniki, I didn’t realize it was going to be in the middle of it. But, of course, I voted, and I will just say I voted for Kamala Harris. I feel strongly that she is the best candidate for me.”

Dillon, who is the recipient of Thessaloniki’s Golden Alexander award, is also at the festival with Jessica Palud’s “Being Maria,” in which he plays Marlon Brando during the shooting of Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris.” The chance of playing one of his acting heroes was something the Oscar-nominated actor “could not resist.”

“Brando is very influential not just on me, but all actors.

Marlon Brando is an icon of cinema. Whether you like him or not, he is undoubtedly one of the greatest and most talented actors we’ve ever seen. He had the pathos; he had the ability to take on the most complex of roles, and that earned him the status of a proper icon.

Well, that and his amazing roles, which include films such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, On the Waterfront, Last Tango in Paris, and many more.

But Brando’s private life was as dynamic as his career. The actor was known as a problematic person with a difficult personality, which made it hard to work with him on more than one occasion. All of this got even more difficult as Brando got older, and by the time he reached old age, more people wanted to avoid him than work with him.

And while Brando’s life deserves a whole series,...

Kino Lorber has acquired North American distribution rights to “Being Maria,” a French movie revolving around the controversial production of Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris.”

Directed by Jessica Palud, the movie stars “Happening” breakout Anamaria Vartolomei as Maria Schneider and Matt Dillon as Marlon Brando.

“Being Maria” had its world premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it was the only female-directed film selected for the Premieres section. It’s now playing at the American French Film Festival at the DGA. where Kino Lorber’s boss Richard Lorber will be receiving an honorary tribute over the weekend.

The movie charts the turbulent life and career of the late French actress Maria Schneider, who was a promising young actress struggling to break into film when she was cast by Bertolucci, then still rising as a face of Italian cinema, to star in “Last Tango in Paris” alongside an American superstar,...

Despite blue skies over Greece’s second city ahead of the opening ceremony, the 65th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicks off Oct. 31 under clouds of uncertainty, with the war in Ukraine raging toward its three-year anniversary and the year-old Israel-Hamas conflict spilling into neighboring countries and threatening to engulf the entire Middle East. The U.S., meanwhile, heads to the polls next week for an election that’s been framed as a referendum on the fate of American democracy itself — with the eyes of the world watching.

For Thessaloniki festival director Orestis Andreadakis, a veteran film critic who’s been at the helm of the festival since 2016, global events have only brought a renewed sense of urgency “to find movies that matter,” he tells Variety on the eve of opening night. “Movies that say something about our lives, our situation in the world, with so many changes, so many dangers — wars,...

2-time Oscar winner Marlon Brando had a historic run 70 years ago that has yet to be matched or replicated. Some of Marlon Brando's best movies came out of Hollywood's Golden Age, which took place from the late 1910s until the early 1960s. Although many of Brando's most prolific roles would arise in the 1970s in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, his performances as a leading man were just as impressive at the start of his acting career during the early 1950s.

Brando remains one of the few actors in Oscars history to win the Academy Award for Best Actor twice in his career. He is cemented among other great actors such as Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Sean Penn, and Anthony Hopkins. Daniel Day-Lewis remains the only actor to have ever won the award for three separate performances. He also remains the third youngest...

Actor Billy Zane will debut his portrayal of legendary actor Marlon Brando later this month at the Torino Film Festival in Italy. Zane plays Brando in the film “Waltzing With Brando,” which will close out the 42nd edition of the prestigious festival. The film focuses on an unusual period in Brando’s life when he juggled roles in “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.” It also explores his plans to build a sustainable retreat on the remote island of Tetiaroa in French Polynesia.

Directed by Bill Fishman, “Waltzing With Brando” tells the true story of how Brando recruited architect Bernard Judge to help design and build the eco-friendly retreat in the early 1970s. According to festival artistic director Giulio Base, Zane brings an intense focus and understanding to his role as Brando. Base told an entertainment publication that viewers “won’t believe it” and that Zane appears “possessed” by Brando in the performance.

Billy Zane is set to make the trek to Italy’s Torino Film Festival which has secured the world premiere of hotly anticipated indie film “Waltzing With Brando” directed by Bill Fishman in which Zane plays Marlon Brando during the period when he was preparing to star in “The Godfather” and “Last Tango in Paris.”

“Waltzing With Brando,” which is is based on a memoir by the iconic actor’s architect, Bernard Judge, is the tale of how Brando plucked Judge, who was then an idealistic Los Angeles architect, from his stable existence and convinced him that he should build the world’s first ecologically perfect retreat on the tiny uninhabitable Tahitian island of Tetiaroa.

The bulk of the film was shot on Tetiaroa, where Brando and Judge tried to spearhead sustainable architecture and practices.

“Waltzing With Brando” has been set as the closing film of Torino which is also...

Veteran actor Matt Dillon will receive the prestigious Golden Alexander award at the upcoming Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece. Organizers will honor Dillon for his long acting career and diverse artistic contributions to cinema. The 65th annual festival runs from October 31 to November 10.

During the festival, Dillon will showcase several of his recent projects. This includes his portrayal of legendary actor Marlon Brando in the film “Being Maria.” The movie explores actress Maria Schneider’s experience filming the controversial 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris.” Dillon both acts in and directed “Being Maria,” which had its premiere earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.

Festival organizers will also honor Dillon by screening his 2002 directorial debut “City of Ghosts.” In addition, Dillon will participate in an experimental art installation called “Interfears.” The piece will use Mri scans to visualize Dillon’s brain activity while he performs a monologue. Both the installation...

Matt Dillon will be feted at the 65th edition of Greece’s Thessaloniki Film Festival, where he will present his recent film “Being Maria,” in which he plays Marlon Brando.

Dillon will receive the festival’s honorary Golden Alexander award on Nov. 4, before a screening of his 2002 film “City of Ghosts,” which was his debut as a film director and screenwriter.

Other honorees at the festival, which runs Oct. 31-Nov. 10, include Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, as previously announced.

“Being Maria,” which will screen at Thessaloniki on Nov. 3, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Jessica Palud, it revolves around the troubled life of Maria Schneider, played by Anamaria Vartolomei.

When Schneider, a young, struggling actress with promise, is offered the lead role in “Last Tango in Paris,” playing opposite Brando, her dreams seem to be coming true. But what seems like a big break turns...

It is nearly impossible for Luca Guadagnino to discuss one of his films without folding his cinematic hero, Bernardo Bertolucci, into the conversation. While on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast about his forthcoming release, A24’s “Queer,” Guadagnino revealed his documentary about the great Italian director behind such films as “The Last Emperor” and “The Conformist,” who passed away in 2018, is much further along than we thought.

“I’m editing it now,” said Guadagnino while on the podcast. “I have a few more conversations I want to have. Actually, Marty Scorsese, I want to talk to him about it. We’ve been shooting for a while now. They’re not interviews; it’s a conversation. It’s a very personal movie. I am the protagonist of the movie. It could be called, ‘Bertolucci and I,’ which it’s not going to be.”

The current working title is “Joie de Vivre,...

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For an industry often referred to as a "dream factory," it makes sense that what constitutes a success or a failure in the film business is based largely on perception. This is because the necessary facts in judging a film's financial performance are rarely available for outsiders to peruse. As detailed in the showbiz nonfiction classic "Fatal Subtraction: How Hollywood Really Does Business" by Pierce O'Donnell and Dennis McDougal, studios go to great lengths to conceal their "creative" accounting practices — which, in this case, allowed Paramount to use the profits from the Eddie Murphy blockbuster "Coming to America" to cover the company's overall losses.

Still, some movies are such obvious flops there's no way they're actually, despite their lousy box office performance, secret hits, right?

Ask anyone with a general sense of film history to name a film that epitomizes...

Production has begun on “Merteuila,” a new French original series for Max adapted from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ 18th century classic novel “Dangerous Liaisons.”

Directed by by Jessica Palud and created by Jean-Baptiste Delfaon, the show stars Anamaria Vartolomei (playing Isabelle de Merteuil), Diane Kruger (Madame de Rosemonde), Vincent Lacoste (Vicomte de Valmont) and Lucas Bravo (Comte de Gercourt). It’s produced by Clément Birnbaum and Joachim Nahum of Nabi Productions (Ugc Group) and Marie Guillaumond of Felicita Films (Newen Studios Group).

Filming is now underway in Normandy, France and will run until December. The ambitious show will stream on Max where the platform in available. The service launched in June in France and will soon roll out its first French series original, “The Confidante,” a psychological thriller (previously called “The Mythomaniac of the Bataclan”) based on a true story, starring Laure Calamy (“The Origins of Evil”) as a woman...

Venice has got its sexy back. Erotica of all varieties — gay, straight, kinky and theoretical — is on glorious display at this year’s Venice Film Festival, with plenty of sizzling action onscreen and little of it gratuitous.

Two of the, em, hottest festival titles this year — Halina Reijn’s Babygirl and the TV series Disclaimer from Alfonso Cuarón — open with orgasms. Babygirl also climaxes to a close, with star Nicole Kidman, playing a tech manager who discovers a taste for Bdsm, in a state of near or total undress throughout much of the movie.

Queer, an adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ autobiographical novel, and the latest from Challengers and Call Me by Your Name filmmaker Luca Guadagnino — a director apparently on a one-man mission to bring back sexy cinema — stars Daniel Craig as a drug-addicted American expat in Mexico, circa 1950, who begins to obsess over, and pursue, a younger, bi-curious navy sailor,...

The Ultimate Cut, out this week, is the latest attempt to deliver the true version of the infamous 1979 sword and scandal epic, Caligula.

Does a great version of Caligula really exist? Ever since its star Malcolm McDowell went on television, imploring viewers not to go to the cinema and see it it in 1979, there have been those who’ve championed the period epic as a would-be masterpiece – a film with literary and artistic underpinnings that was brought low by a greedy pornographer and an editing room full of people who simply failed to understand what it was they were cutting together. McDowell himself has long said that there’s a brilliant film in Caligula, which was widely castigated by critics on its release, if only someone could go back and find it hidden among all the reels of footage.

Forty-five years later, that’s what filmmaker Thomas Negovan has done:...

Billy Zane made headlines when images surfaced of his remarkable transformation into Marlon Brando for an upcoming biopic about the iconic actor. Now, Zane has revealed that the biopic, Waltzing with Brando, will contain an easter egg, calling back to Brando's role in Superman: The Movie.

Waltzing with Brando is an upcoming biopic based on the memoir written by architect Bernard Judge, and tells the story about how the two met and created an ecologically friendly retreat on an island in Tahiti. The film is directed by Bill Fishman, and also stars Tia Carrere, Richard Dreyfuss, Jon Heder, Alaina Huffman, and Rob Corddry. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Zane discussed what differentiated the Brando biopic from others in the genre, but also mentions that the film pays a humorous homage to Brando's, Jor-El, in Richard Donner's Superman. "We added this one little Easter egg for the...

Oi there, listen up! Amazon Prime Video’s list of new releases for June 2024 includes another season of its biggest, bloodiest hit.

The Boys season 4 premieres its first three episodes on Thursday, June 13. Based on the trailers, The Boys is really leaning into the political side of its social satire with a presidential election underway and Homelander on trial for the small matter of killing a guy last season. The season will continue to air on Thursdays, culminating with the finale on July 18.

Amazon is really leaning into its sports offerings this month as well. Fans will get to watch the New York Yankees, the WNBA, and the Nwsl several times throughout June. That’s in addition to a couple of sports docs: Power of the Dream on June 18 and Federer: Twelve Final Days on June 20.

But if you’re looking for something even more explosive than Homelander and Roger Federer,...