You may have heard that actor Matt Smith has recently been cast as a villain in Star Wars: Starfighter, starring opposite Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth. Starfighter will be released on May 28, 2027. This marks the second theatrical release after Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, following director Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian and Grogu, which is planned for May 22, 2026.

Smith is no stranger to playing the villain, and with a multitude of alien races in the Star Wars universe, it’s hard to know how he'll show up as he faces off against Gosling. So, who is Matt Smith? Here are some of the actor's most well-known roles, pulled from his IMDb page.

Doctor Who

In the long-running BBC science fiction series, a relatively unknown Smith landed the coveted title role as the Eleventh Doctor after David Tennant's exit from the show in 2010. His primary run as Doctor Who spanned Seasons 5, 6, and 7.

The Crown

In 2018, Smith earned his first Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Prince Philip in the Netflix series "The Crown."

House of the Dragon

Smith is most recently known for embodying the ruthless Prince Daemon Targaryen on HBO’s "Game of Thrones" spin-off "House of the Dragon." He is slated to return for Season 3 of the series, which is currently in production.

Last Night in Soho

Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) cast Smith in his psychological horror film Last Night in Soho, also starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin McKenzie.

Morbius

As part of Sony's extended Spider-Man universe, Smith took another villain role in 2022's Morbius, playing opposite Jared Leto.

See Matt Smith's entire filmography on IMDb...

Hours after news that he has been hospitalized in Rome for heart-related reasons, Francis Ford Coppola assured fans he is doing just fine in a post Tuesday evening on Instagram.

“Da Dada (what my kids call me) is fine, taking an opportunity while in Rome to do the update of my 30 year old afib procedure with its inventor, a great Italian doctor – Dr. Andrea Natale! I am well!” the director wrote.

As first reported by local media, Coppola was hospitalized in Rome for mild heart arrhythmia shortly after the conclusion of his U.S. tour for his film “Megalopolis,” local Italian media reported Tuesday.

The six-time Oscar winner had scheduled the visit with Natale, his doctor of more than 30 years, while in Rome. Just before the procedure, doctors noticed the arrhythmia, and thus kept Coppola for observation, according to local media reports.

Just before flying to Rome, Coppola had attended...

The 30th Busan International Film Festival (Biff) has selected Korean auteur Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice” as its opening film, marking the acclaimed director’s return to the big screen three years after “Decision to Leave” (2022) for which he won best director at Cannes.

The film stars Lee Byung-hun (“Squid Game”) as Man-su, a man whose comfortable life unravels when he’s suddenly dismissed from his job, forcing him into a desperate struggle to protect his wife Miri (Son Yejin), their two children, and their home. The story follows Man-su as he embarks on what the festival describes as “his own war of survival.”

Lee, who will also serve as host of this year’s opening ceremony, teams with Son Yejin for their first on-screen pairing as a married couple. The cast also includes Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, and Cha Seung-won.

Park described the project as a...

Despite years of sparing updates, a representative for Polygram Entertainment confirmed this week that Sony’s Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne biopic is still moving forward, and that “they’re currently in negotiations with a director, which could be confirmed very soon.”

In 2021, Sony announced that it would be making a film based on the heavy metal legend’s relationship with his wife and manager. The studio was developing it with Polygram Entertainment and Osbourne Media, the film and television arm of Universal Music Group and the Osbourne family’s media label, respectively. Sharon, as well as her and Ozzy’s children, Jack and Aimee Osbourne, were attached to produce alongside Polygram’s Michele Anthony and David Blackman and Sony’s Andrea Giannetti.

Lee Hall was attached to write the screenplay, fresh off the success of 2019’s “Rocketman,” where his script adapted Elton John’s life story for the screen. Polygram...

These days, you can apparently push a Cinderella only so far before she’ll summon dark forces to destroy her entire wicked step-family, one by one. That at least is the basic idea behind “The Book of Sijjin & Illiyyin,” officially a sequel to director Hadrah Daeng Ratu and screenwriter Lele Laila’s “Sijjin” from last year — which, in turn, was based on the 2014 Egyptian hit “Siccin,” which generated seven followups of its own. But “Sijjin & Illiyyin” is a stand-alone original: neither a remake or direct narrative postscript to any of the above-noted films. Its ideas are comfortably familiar though, from the abused underdog who wreaks bitter occult vengeance on her persecutors to the various forms of ickiness deployed in that pursuit.

So it seems one of the less explicable decisions at this year’s Fantasia Festival that Ratu won the jury’s best director prize for a movie that...

James Cameron may be exploring how artificial intelligence can help assist directing blockbuster movies, but he’s still aware that his “Terminator” franchise could very much become a reality if AI gets into the wrong hands. In an interview with Rolling Stone to promote the book release of “Ghosts of Hiroshima,” which he plans on adapting into a movie, the Oscar-winning “Titantic” and “Avatar” director said an arms race relying on AI is a dangerous thing.

“I do think there’s still a danger of a ‘Terminator’-style apocalypse where you put AI together with weapons systems, even up to the level of nuclear weapon systems, nuclear defense counterstrike, all that stuff,” Cameron said. “Because the theater of operations is so rapid, the decision windows are so fast, it would take a super-intelligence to be able to process it, and maybe we’ll be smart and keep a human in the loop.

Akiva Schaffer's new film "The Naked Gun" is the fourth entry in the "Naked Gun" movie series. The franchise began in 1980 with the short-lived slapstick TV show "Police Squad!," starring Leslie Nielsen as police detective Frank Drebin. Nielsen played the part completely straight (he was a stone-faced Joe Friday type), which was a marvelous juxtaposition to the absurd sight gags around him. "Police Squad!" was co-created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, the masterminds behind comedy classics like "The Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Airplane!" Sadly, the series was too funny to live, and "Police Squad!" was canceled after only six episodes.

However, the series lived on among a cult comedy crowd, and there was enough interest in 1988 to expand the property into a feature film titled "The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!" By then, the world was ready, and the movie was a huge hit,...

Alyson Stoner, the former child and teen actor from “Cheaper by the Dozen” and “Camp Rock” who also had an acclaimed career as a dancer in the “Step Up” movies and various Missy Elliot music videos, is publishing a memoir this month about the highs and lows of her Hollywood career. In a new excerpt published by Vanity Fair, she reveals the brutal diet and exercise regimen she inflicted on herself amid an eating disorder to win the role of Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games.”

“Katniss was the ultimate role and the ultimate strong female lead: purpose-driven, sharp, athletic, and, thankfully, a heroine whose capacities were more important than physical beauty. But the role was playing with fire for me,” Stoner writes. “Katniss was characteristically thin — not starving, but small enough to reflect growing up in an underfed district — and muscular from hunting and archery. If I was going...

Brian Robbins is Co-CEO of Paramount Global, and President and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon, is reflecting on his time at the company amid his exit following the Skydance merger.

“This moment of transition is, of course, bittersweet,” he said in a Wednesday afternoon memo to staff obtained by Variety. “But I step away with deep pride in what we’ve built together, and with great confidence in the road ahead. The company is in exceptionally capable hands with David Ellison and the incoming team from Skydance, and I know you’ll continue to thrive and excel with your collective talents.”

After joining the company in 2017, Robbins became President & CEO of Nickelodeon in October 2018, President & CEO of Paramount Pictures in September 2021 and co-ceo of Paramount Global in April 2024. As co-ceo of Paramount Global, Robbins has been part of the senior team that has launched and scaled Paramount+.

During his tenure running Paramount Pictures,...

As we enter the first week of August, the past few weeks have been filled with summer blockbusters and independent films for audiences to discover. From body swaps to horrors and thrillers, this season is full of blockbusters for everyone to watch on the big screen for the next few weeks.

Opening this weekend is Warner Bros. “Weapons,” a horror thriller starring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner. When a class of students mysteriously goes missing one night, the town and school community are left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

The second wide release for this weekend will be Disney’s ”Freakier Friday” starring Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. Serving as the second film in the franchise, “Freakier Friday” follows Tess and Anna as they discover that lightning may indeed strike twice as they navigate the challenges that come when two families merge.

Check out all the...

Growth at Disney’s streaming and parks and experiences were the highlights of a third quarter that saw generally solid numbers while 2% overall revenue increase to $23.7bn was slightly behind expectations.

The company also said that after it acquired Comcast’s 33% share in Hulu last month, Hulu will be fully integrated into the Disney+ app and will replace the Star tile on Disney+ internationally starting in the autumn. Hulu remains a stand-alone app in the US.

It also emerged that Disney willstopreporting subscriber numbers, as Netflix has done, starting later this year in its Q1 fiscal year 2026 report.

Across all segments,...

Disney will stop reporting quarterly subscriber numbers staring with its Q1 report for fiscal year 2026 later this year, executives said while announcing Q3 numbers on Wednesday.

The statement in an executive commentary from CEO Bob Iger and Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston follows a similar move by Netflix that came into effect at the start of the year.

“Since we began reporting the number of paid subscribers and Arpu [average revenue per user], our Dtc [direct-to-consumer] strategy and the operating environment have evolved,” Iger and Johnston said.

“[W]e believe quarterly updates on the number of paid subscribers and Arpu have become less meaningful to evaluating...

If you've been paying attention, you probably saw this one coming. Disney CEO Bob Iger has announced that Hulu and Disney+ will be merging into a single streaming interface. It's the natural extension of the "Hulu on Disney+" integration made in 2024, which added a tab for Hulu movies and shows in the Disney+ interface for users with subscriptions to both services.

Numbers from the end of June 2025 put the total number of subscribers across both platforms at 183 million worldwide, with the majority -- about 128 million -- coming from Disney+. Bundle deals between the two and Disney's other major streaming platform, ESPN+, have been common in recent years, but it's clear that the Disney+ brand is currently stronger.

"Over the coming months, we will be implementing improvements within the Disney Plus app, including exciting new features and a more personalized homepage," Iger said in Disney's recent quarterly earnings report (via CNET...

After many noble but failed attempts, the world will finally, rightly, spend an entire year praising Rose Byrne. That start-to-finish continuity comes with a minor caveat, since the acclaimed performance that kicked off 2025 is the same one likely to see it out, but that’s just the beauty of a Sundance premiere with enough Oscar buzz to command a fall release: The Park City crowd gets to fawn all over “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” nine months before everyone else can join the chorus.

In a way, 2025’s minor haul and major lift mimic Byrne’s steady rise in the Hollywood ranks. While Ellen Parsons’ senior associates (aka “Damages” fans) have known for nearly two decades there aren’t 12 comparable actors who could form a jury of her peers, it’s taken an expansive repertoire of roles to prime our favorite Aussie actor for her big year. By...

“Paradise” executive producer John Hoberg had two main goals for Season 1 of the Hulu series. First, that his nephews would watch it, and secondly that his aunt would too, and text him afterward. “Paradise” achieved both — and didn’t stop there.

“I promised I wouldn’t do the thing that I’ve done every time since Twitter’s been around, which is to go there and just search #Paradise,” Hoberg told IndieWire. “I did, and it was constant. I could just refresh, and it was just people talking — and in addition to that, they were saying ‘You’ve got to watch this show.'”

Hoberg joined “Paradise” in the earliest stages, when creator Dan Fogelman had assembled a “mini room” that included writer Scott Weinger and executive producer Jess Rosenthal. There they laid the foundations of “Paradise”; a post-apocalyptic show done Fogelman-style, and the narrative marching orders of “big, engaging,...

Grammy winner Kid Harpoon will create original music for the upcoming Broadway revival of “Art.” The Tony Award-winning show — about three friends who debate the merits of a ridiculously expensive painting — was written by Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton.

The new production stars Tony nominee and Emmy winner Bobby Cannavale, Tony winner and Emmy winner James Corden and Tony winner and Emmy winner Neil Patrick Harris. Tony nominee Scott Ellis (“Take Me Out”) will direct the show.

Kid Harpoon, a songwriter and producer, won his first Grammy for his work on “Harry’s House” by Harry Styles in 2023, the same year he produced Miley Cyrus’ hit record “Flowers,” which took home the record of the year trophy. He is known for collaborating with prominent artists spanning all genres such as Lizzo, Florence + the Machine, Inhaler, King of Leon, Jessie Ware and David Byrne.

Previews of “Art” begin on Aug.

This post contains major spoilers for "Wednesday."

Season 1 of "Wednesday" had already teased the existence of a mysterious stalker in Nevermore. Right after Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) resolves the Crackstone/Hyde debacle at the end of the season, she receives a cryptic text on her phone, replete with photos of her being stalked. The new season sees our protagonist return to the academy, where she is soon plagued with more stalker-adjacent problems, which start to take a more sinister turn. At the same time, Wednesday has to deal with something she has never contended with before — she is now the center of attention, having gained celebrity status after saving Nevermore from ruin. As expected, she detests being under the spotlight and diverts all her attention to solving the new stalker problem.

At first, she receives some cryptic letters that express morbid fascination, but the situation escalates after the stalker steals Wednesday's...

Marlon Wayans is getting back in the scary movie game with “Him.” Wayans acts as an elusive former NFL star who preys on a quarterback, played by real life former college wide-receiver and recent “I Know What You Did Last Summer” star Tyriq Withers, whose professional is cut short.

Oscar winner Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions is behind the feature that is billed to be a “chilling journey into the inner sanctum of fame, idolatry, and the pursuit of excellence at any cost.”

The film’s official synopsis reads: “What would you sacrifice to become the greatest of all time? ‘Him’ stars former college wide-receiver Tyriq Withers as Cameron Cade, a rising-star quarterback who has devoted his life, and identity, to football. On the eve of professional football’s annual scouting Combine, Cam is attacked by an unhinged fan and suffers a potentially career-ending brain trauma. Just when all seems lost,...

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles has announced its line-up of programs for the fall season. The upcoming catalog of events includes screenings, exhibits and celebrity appearances that celebrate cinema as art and culture.

Highlights include film series “The Cinematic Worlds of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer,” which offers screenings showcasing the celebrated work of the eponymous production designer-set decorator duo. The series begins on Sep. 3 and runs through Nov. 28, inspired by the Museum’s “Barbie to Anna Karenina: The Cinematic Worlds of Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer” exhibit which runs through Oct. 25, 2026.

Another series is “Born with Cinema: Gaumont at 130,” which will celebrate the French studio’s 130th anniversary with screenings from its illustrious filmography. Each screening will represent a different decade of Gaumont’s long and ongoing history as the oldest operating film studio in the world. The series kicks off on Sep. 11 with a...

Apple Original Films’ global hit F1 distributed theatrically by Warner Bros will get a re-release on Imax starting August 8.

Joseph Kosinski’s motor racing drama starring Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Damson Idris and Javier Bardem was filmed for Imax and will expand into further Imax locations and large formats worldwide starting August 15.

Currently sitting on $552.5m worldwide through August 5, of which $377.8m hails from international markets and $174.7m from North America, F1 now ranks as Pitt’s biggest global hit and Imax’s highest-grossing release of 2025 to date on $85m worldwide.

F1 was filmed for Imax and will expand into...

Brad Pitt’s “F1” is racing back to Imax theaters after becoming the highest-grossing movie of his career.

Apple’s Formula 1 racing movie will return to Imax theaters on Friday, Aug. 8, with plans to further expand on Friday, Aug. 15. Tickets are now on sale.

“F1” recently crossed $552 million at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing original feature of the year and Apple’s largest film ever. It lapped Pitt’s previous best movie, his 2013 zombie movie “World War Z” which made $540 million at the box office (not adjusted for inflation). Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, “F1” has made $85 million and counting from Imax theaters alone, which is the highest of any film this year and accounted for 23% of its North America opening and 19% of its global launch.

“Audiences around the world have embraced ‘F1 The Movie’ as an adrenaline-pumping, big screen experience, and its re-release in IMAX...

Fans of director Andrew DeYoung and Tim Robinson’s “Friendship” will recognize the scene. Craig Waterman (Robinson) is hiding out with his drum kit in the garage, avoiding the welcome home party taking place inside for his feared-dead wife Tami (Kate Mara), when a lost guest played by comedian Conner O’Malley wanders in looking for the bathroom.

The awkward small talk (about everything from the color of Craig’s drums to the ‘70s) between the strangers takes a sharp turn when O’Malley’s character accuses him of having left Tami to die in their town’s underground sewer tunnels: “How does it feel to ditch your wife?”

O’Malley’s subsequent rant in the final cut of “Friendship” is deliciously deranged, but in an outtake of the scene, debuting exclusively on IndieWire and available on A24’s newly released Blu-ray of the film, it’s evident that DeYoung and editor...

A cursed Covid-made version of the Hg Wells classic, starring Ice Cube, has emerged after five-year delay – perhaps it should have stayed buried

Just over 20 years ago, Steven Spielberg released War of the Worlds, a remake of the Hg Wells classic updated for then modern day, capturing an era of post-9/11 anxiety filtered through the prism of late-90s disaster movies. That movie’s reputation has only grown over the years – it’s basically the thinking and anxious person’s Independence Day – but the Wells text has been revisited repeatedly since its publication at the tail end of the 19th century. 2025 seems as good a time as any for another update. And if ever any viewers yearned to see a new War of the Worlds beset with the constant pinging of a Microsoft Teams chat, Prime Video has a real treat in store.

Yes, hovering towards the top of Prime...

Aubrey Plaza is adding a new project to her slate: The actress/producer is set to star as infamous ’90s Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss in biopic “The Heidi Fleiss Story,” IndieWire has confirmed.

Fleiss allegedly ran the “world’s largest high-end prostitution ring” that counted actors, politicians, and other leading men among its clients. Rachel Sennott co-wrote the script with Rachel and Travis Jackson; “The Heidi Fleiss Story” will be “Chambers” creator Leah Rachel’s directorial debut. The critically acclaimed production company Pinky Promise is behind the project. Production will take place in Los Angeles this year.

“The Heidi Fleiss Story” will center on Fleiss’ tabloid reign right before her trial along with a meta component of her attempting to tell her side of the story first. The synopsis reads: “In 1993 Los Angeles, a powerful young woman named Heidi Fleiss is arrested for running the largest high-end prostitution ring in the world.

The in-demand writer-director’s initially ambitious yet ultimately simplistic ensemble horror offers jolting moments but lacks substance

No one really saw Barbarian coming, the playful 2022 horror about an Airbnb reservation gone horribly wrong. That was part of the plan, a teasing trailer that only told a small part of the story and a swaggering title that promised something grander than we could initially see, and that might be why I found the reaction to be a little alienating. It was showered with euphoric praise upon release and first-time writer-director Zach Cregger, whose background is in comedy, was immediately heralded as a new king of the genre. For me, it was more trick than treat, a sizzle reel that showed Cregger to be a film-maker of considerable skill but also one who papered over the cracks of an exasperatingly illogical and uninspired script with flashy gimmickry.

There’s been an inevitable...

It’s been 40 years since Pee-wee Herman lost his bike, and to be honest, we’re still not over it.

Released in August 1985, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” not only introduced audiences at large to Paul Reubens’ wild comic creation, it also welcomed us into the heightened world of Tim Burton. Then just an animator with a couple of credits under his belt, Burton was personally picked by Reubens to bring Pee-wee’s living-cartoon aesthetic to life on screen.

Turns out, it was a match made in heaven. Together, they sent viewers on a rip-roaring road trip following Reubens’ grey-suit-and-red-bowtie-loving manchild as he hitchhiked across America to find his beloved stolen bicycle. With Pee-wee’s unpredictability and Burton’s eye for detail, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” defied expectations and more than tripled its $7million budget. What’s more, it propelled the duo to household-name status.

Four decades on, a lot has changed. Reubens returned for a Burton-less sequel,...

Kelly O’Sullivan and Lois Smith will co-star in “The Steel Harp.” The comedy is directed by O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, the filmmakers behind “Ghostlight.”

It marks one of the first leading movie roles for Smith, a 94-year-old character actress who won a Tony Award for “The Inheritance” in 2021. In addition to starring in the film, O’Sullivan wrote the script. Cherry Jones and Reed Birney co-star in the movie, which recently wrapped production in San Francisco.

Smith plays Hanna, a cantankerous nonagenarian, who patrols the Golden Gate Bridge every day and intervenes when people get too close to the edge. On what was to be Hanna’s last day as a “bridge watcher,” she stops Amy (O’Sullivan), a younger woman as stubborn as Hanna herself, from jumping. As the holiday season sets in, Amy and Hanna challenge each others’ resolve and form a bond.

“The Steel Harp” is...

Growing up, Don Hertzfeldt first fell in love with animation while attending screenings at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Every year in the ’90s, the venue held an annual animation festival, which his parents took him to, where he spent hours watching short films from animators as diverse as Bill Plympton, “Wallace & Gromit” creator Nick Park, and future Pixar directors.

“For a kid, growing up with Saturday morning cartoons and Disney movies, seeing that there’s an independent world out there was mind-melting,” Hertzfeldt told IndieWire in an interview. “You know, I had no idea you could do this independently, by yourself. And it was massively inspirational. I think seeing those indie films made me want to be an animator, and thinking ‘maybe someday I can have a movie in one of these programs.'”

Now, Hertzfeldt is doing one better and making an animation festival himself.

Neon has acquired another film from Cannes, taking North American rights to Genki Kawamura’s Japanese thriller Exit 8 before it plays in TIFF Centrepiece next month.

Based on the video game by Kotake Create, the feature follows a man trapped in a subway labyrinth who must find the titular exit while obeying a simple rule that forbids him from overlooking anything out of the ordinary.

Kawamura co-wrote the film with Kentaro Hirase and the cast includes Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, and Nana Komatsu.

Kawamura’s debut feature A Hundred Flowers won best director at San...

Neon has acquired the North American rights to the Japanese thriller “Exit 8.”

The film screened as part of the Midnight section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and will have its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Centerpiece section.

Neon is planning a theatrical release for the film in early 2026.

The film is based on a video game and is directed and written by Genki Kawamura. Kawamura wrote the film with Kentaro Hirase, adapted from the game by Kotake Create. “Exit 8” stars Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naru Asanuma, Kotone Hanase, and Nana Komatsu.

The story follows a man trapped in an endless, sterile subway passageway, who sets out to find Exit 8. The rules of his quest are simple: do not overlook anything out of the ordinary. If you discover an anomaly, turn back immediately. If you don’t, carry on. Then...

Exclusive: Curzon has acquired UK-Ireland rights to Francois Ozon’s The Stranger ahead of its world premiere in Competition at Venice Film Festival.

The film is adapted from the classic 1942 novella of the same name by Albert Camus, and marks French filmmaker Ozon’s fourth time in Venice Competition.

Benjamin Voisin, who starred in Ozon’s Summer Of ’85, reteams with the director to play the film’s protagonist Meursault, an unassuming Frenchman living in 1930s Algeria. After his mother’s death, he slips back into his usual routine, and begins an affair with a work colleague. However, his daily life...

When Alec Flynn was in college, the comedian began using standup as a form of medicine to help with depression. “I needed some sort of creative outlet outside of getting blacked out every weekend and hanging out with the same five people that I’ve known since I was a kid in Boston,” reveals Flynn, who is set to host this year’s Variety’s Power of Young Hollywood event on Aug. 7.

After honing his comic chops in front of audiences in New Hampshire, Flynn went on to travel America doing stand-up shows and hosting “Big Al’s Grill Asmr,” where he interviews his closest friends and colleagues online. “Every time I would be on a podcast, I just felt like I had felt pressured to be funny. I just didn’t like it. I would go, ‘What do I like doing the most? I like grilling outside with my friends and having beers.

[Editor’s note: The following interview contains spoilers for Season 1 of “Wednesday.”]

After nearly three long years, the Netflix sensation “Wednesday” is back for the first installment of Season 2.

Hunter Doohan’s character, Tyler Galpin, began as the lovable, friendly barista son of Sheriff Donovan Galpin (Jamie McShane) in the series co-created by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. As Season 1 went on, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) had a vision that Tyler was actually Hyde, a shapeshifting creature under the influence of Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci), who’d been supernaturally manipulating him.

Throughout this startling transformation, Tyler was ultimately revealed as the serial killer known for the carnage behind the attacks at Nevermore, acting under Thornhill’s direction. The season ended with Tyler’s father placing him in a police van, undergoing a transformation into Hyde once more. Viewers were left uncertain what his fate would entail.

Doohan also had to wait for that fate to be spelled out, just as audiences did. “I...

Gregg Araki is ready to bring “Mysterious Skin” into the 2020s: The writer/director will unveil the 4K restoration of the acclaimed 2004 indie at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on September 19 as part of the museum’s overall fall programming slate. Araki will participate in an onstage conversation after the screening with lead star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and novelist Scott Heim, who wrote the source material; Sean Baker will moderate. The 4K presentation comes courtesy of Strand Releasing and will tour theaters next year.

Set in the 1980s and ’90s, the coming-of-age drama stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a pre-director-days Brady Corbet, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Elisabeth Shue. It follows the lives of Gordon-Levitt and Corbet as childhood friends who were both sexually abused, and how that abuse shapes and distorts their journeys into young adulthood; Corbet’s character disappears into an alien-abduction fantasy, while Gordon-Levitt’s becomes a street hustler in New...

Fatma Hassouna used poetry and photography to record the death and devastation she saw daily. Was she targeted by the Idf? We speak to the director of Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, a film about the journalist

Israel has sought to pursue its campaign of annihilation against Gaza and its people behind closed doors. More than 170 Palestinian journalists have been killed so far, and no outside reporters or cameras are allowed in.

The effects of this policy of concealment – which the Guardian managed to pierce this week with a shocking aerial photograph that made the front page – are to ensure that the outside world only catches sight of Gaza’s horrors in small fragments, and to stifle empathy for those trapped inside by hiding them from view, obscuring their humanity. But a new documentary film, Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, seeks to open a...

After more than a decade of impassioned — and often maddeningly semantic — debate over the concept of “elevated horror,” it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the most exciting new voice in mainstream horror is a smart guy who’s obsessed with scary basements.

Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” isn’t a basement movie to nearly the same degree that his 2022 debut “Barbarian” is a basement movie (few things are!), but this sad, sprawling, and fun-as-hell vision of suburban despair takes similar pleasure in leveraging a high-concept premise for “low” genre thrills. Or, what happens in burying a nightmare under the floorboards until the grief and trauma it invariably represents gets subsumed by the full-body shiver of the fact that people were living on top of it the whole time.

That framing might have spoiled the first twist of “Barbarian,” but I promise it doesn’t reveal anything the least bit ruinous about “Weapons.

Aubrey Plaza’s call sheet is about to get a lot longer, as she’s come on to produce and star in “The Heidi Fleiss Story.”

Plaza will portray the infamous “Hollywood madam” Heidi Fleiss, busted in the early ‘90s for what was said to be the world’s largest high-end prostitution ring – which implicated Hollywood, politicians and other power figures.

The project marks the directorial debut of Leah Rachel (creator of Netflix’s “Chambers”). The film hails from Pinky Promise, Jessamine Burgum and Kara Durrett’s production company.

Heatseeking actress and Gen Z icon Rachel Sennott co-wrote the script with Rachel and Travis Jackson. Their take on the tabloid sensation follows Fleiss before trial, scrambling around Los Angeles trying to blackmail and leverage various connections to get the case dropped, with the help of an aspiring young writer named Jaclyn.

Production is set for Los Angeles in the coming months.

“The Ugly,” the anticipated Korean mystery thriller which is set for a world premiere at Toronto next month, has landed North American distribution with Well Go USA.

The movie is directed by acclaimed director Yeon Sang-ho, whose credits include smash hit “Train to Busan” and is headline by Park Jeong-min (“Decision to Leave”) and Kwon Hae-hyo (“Peninsula”).

Well Go USA is planning to release “The Ugly” in U.S. theaters on Sept. 26 following the Toronto bow.

“‘The Ugly’ is a gripping mystery thriller that explores the dark undercurrents of family and long-buried secrets,” said Doris Pfardrescher, president/CEO of Well Go USA. “With riveting performances from Park and Kwon and a masterfully layered script from Yeon Sang-ho, the film is a powerful testament to the emotional and narrative depth of global cinema,” Pfardrescher continued.

Penned by Yeon and based on his 2018 graphic novel “Face,” the movie tells the story of...

This post contains major spoilers for "Wednesday" season 2.

Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) might've returned to Nevermore Academy with the belief that she has this place figured out, but fate has other plans for our gloomy, deadpan protagonist. This comes after season 1 teased a mysterious stalker (who seems to be the one committing murders in season 2), setting Wednesday on the path of pursuing a fresh, macabre mystery.

However, this is partially revealed to be a fake-out, as the stalker in question is Agnes DeMille (Evie Templeton), a fellow Outcast student and Wednesday super-fan with nifty invisibility powers and a creepy obsession with proving herself useful. But while Agnes' misguided intentions are (mostly) benign, the individual who's committing the murders in season 2 is still out there, leading Wednesday to deduce the presence of a second, deadlier Avian stalker.

In episode 4, titled "If These Woes Could Talk," all hell breaks loose. Before these events,...

Ron Howard’s “Eden” is a paradise packed with the buzziest 2025 stars. Sydney Sweeney has a supporting role in the ensemble that includes “Night Always Comes” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” actress Vanessa Kirby and Jude Law, whose “Black Rabbit” series will debut later this year. “Ballerina” star Ana de Armas and Daniel Brühl are also in the survival thriller.

“Eden” captures the “shocking true story” (per the film’s official logline) of a group of disillusioned outsiders who left civilization to start their own society on a remote, uninhabited island.

The synopsis reads: “From Academy Award–winning director Ron Howard, ‘Eden’ unravels the shocking true story of a group of disillusioned outsiders who abandon modern society in search of a new beginning. Settling on a remote, uninhabited island, their utopian dream quickly unravels as they discover that the greatest threat isn’t the brutal climate or deadly wildlife,...

Filming is underway in the UK on Hugo Blick’s BBC series California Avenue starring Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, Erin Doherty and Tom Burke.

The drama, set in a remote countryside caravan park, is mostly shooting on location in Hertfordshire.

California Avenue is set in the 1970s and follows a woman on the run with her 11-year-old child who seeks refuge at the caravan park.

Colin Wratten is producing the six-part series for Drama Republic. Blick is writing, directing and executive producing through his outfit Eight Rooks. He previously collaborated with the BBC and Drama Republic on the Bafta-nominated series The English.

Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein’s regional film fund Moin and the Berlin-based German Federal Film Fund (Ffa) have joined forces with the Five Nordics alliance between the Nordic film institutes to launch the Nordic Nest initiative to promote co-development of feature films and high-end TV drama series.

The venture will launch at a kick-off event during the Industry Days at this year’s Filmfest Hamburg (September 25-October 4) in collaboration with Germany’s Producers Alliance, which will be attended by up to 60 experienced producers – 30 from Germany and 30 from the Nordic countries. Producers will need to have at least two feature films or TV drama series,...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is one of the world’s longest-running film festivals, known for its adventurous programming, exciting retrospectives, and nightly open-air screenings in the Piazza Grande, which is capable of seating 8,000 spectators. The latter is by no means the only screening spot, but it’s the location most associated with the festival.

Hosting world premieres and special screenings of highlights from Cannes, Sundance, and other early-year festivals, this year’s Piazza Grande selection includes the launch of Mediterranean drama “The Birthday Party,” starring Willem Dafoe and Vic Carmen Sonne; Emma Thompson-led thriller “The Dead of Winter;” Joachim Trier’s Cannes prize-winner “Sentimental Value;” a 35mm screening of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining;” Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’or winner “It Was Just an Accident;” and the European premiere of Bill Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Alexander Payne, Golshifteh Farahani, four-time Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero,...

We finally have some concrete details on the long-discussed "Stranger Things" spin-off. While Netflix has yet to give the proposed show the official green light, series creators Ross and Matt Duffer have been discussing it for several years now. The Duffer Brothers teased a "very, very different" spin-off in 2022, but have been mum on the details. They did, however, reveal that Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler, had correctly guessed the idea. Now, Wolfhard has spilled what his guess was.

In a recent interview with Variety, Wolfhard discussed his career on the cusp of "Stranger Things" season 5, the show's final season, hitting Netflix in November. The actor was willing and/or allowed to share some details regarding the proposed spin-off. According to Wolfward, it will be more of an anthology series, rather than a direct continuation of the events of the main series. Here's what he had to say about it.

World premieres of Free Solo co-directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s profile of photojournalist Lynsey Addario in Love+War and Tasha Van Zandt’s feature A Life Illuminated about oceanographer Edith Widder are among the TIFF Docs line-up announced on Wednesday.

The programme brings first looks of John Dower’s The Balloonists about circumnavigating adventurers, Lorena Luciano’s account of Catholic Church abuse in Nuns vs. The Vatican with Mariska Hargitay on board as executive producer, and Canadian filmmaker Nicole Bazuin’s sex industry film Modern Whore.

TIFF Docs will open with Canadian director Ben Proudfoot’s The Eyes Of Ghana,...

Documentaries about journalists Seymour Hersh, Lynsey Addario, and the late Fatma Hassona are heading to the 50th edition of the Toronto Intl. Film Festival.

TIFF‘s Docs program gets underway Sept. 4 and will feature 23 feature docs from 18 countries. The program will open with the world premiere of two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Ben Proudfoot’s “The Eyes of Ghana,” about 93-year-old Chris Hesse, a cinematographer who served as the personal filmmaker for Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah. Barack and Michelle Obama-led shingle Higher Ground executive produced the doc.

“The film is a love letter to filmmaking and the efforts of Chris Hesse to not only document a chapter of history, but also his work to preserve that footage,” said Thom Powers, lead TIFF documentary programmer.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras and co-director Mark Obenhaus’s “Cover Up,” about investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, will make its Canadian premiere at TIFF after a...

This year’s slate of 23 documentaries from 18 countries at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival is a melange of newsy subjects, rising directors, and potential Oscar contenders covering explorers, journalists, sex workers, activists, soldiers, and champion whistlers.

The TIFF Documentary Selection will open with two-time short documentary Oscar-winner Ben Proudfoot’s “The Eyes of Ghana,” a sales title which profiles the Ghanaian filmmaker Chris Hesse and is backed by executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama. “It is a celebration of the power of cinema,” TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers told IndieWire via Zoom. “For 60 years, Hesse, who’s still alive in his nineties and documented the early days of the Africa’s independence movement, has helped to maintain the archive of his footage from all that time.”

This year’s nonfiction lineup, culled from a record 1,000 submissions, includes 16 world premieres, many of which are sales titles. Two high-profile docs are...

Update: Twenty-five filmmakers linked with Mubi have added their names to a letter strongly criticizing the arthouse distributor for its relationship with investor Sequoia Capital over its ties to the Israeli military. The additional names include Israeli directors Ari Folman (“Waltz with Bashir”) and Nadav Lapid, plus Amalia Ulman, whose film “Magic Farm” Mubi released earlier this year, and Alex Russell, whose directorial debut “Lurker” was acquired by Mubi in Sundance and is set for release later this month.

The number of signatories now stands at 63, having almost doubled since Variety first published the July 30 letter, which urges Mubi to not just reconsider its relationship with Sequoia Capital but publicly condemn the company over what it describes as “genocide profiteering.” Radu Jude, Aki Kaurismäki, Miguel Gomes, Sarah Friedland, Joshua Oppenheimer and Cherien Dabis were among the first to sign.

Shortly after it was announced that Mubi had secured a $100 million...

Bob Iger said during Disney’s earnings call that the studio does not have a priority when it comes to movie sequels, remakes and original content, despite the upcoming slate being overwhelmingly dominated by franchise fare like “Freakier Friday,” “Predator: Badlands,” “Tron: Ares,” “Zootopia 2” and “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” Disney is only seeking to make great movies, the CEO stressed.

“We continue to be focused on creating new IP,” Iger said. “Obviously, that’s of great value to us long term. But we also know that the popularity of our older IP remains significant, and the opportunities to either produce sequels or convert what was previously animation to live action, like we’re doing with ‘Moana’ in 2026, it’s just a great opportunity for the company and supports our franchise. So I wouldn’t say that we’ve got a priority one way or the other. Our priority is...

The viral fandoms for both Liam Neeson and Joe Keery can finally unite thanks to the new sci-fi dark comedy “Cold Storage.” The “Naked Gun” and “Taken” icon and the “Stranger Things” actor both star in the latest film from legendary screenwriter David Koepp, who adapted his own novel for the screen.

“Barbarian” breakout Georgina Campbell co-leads the feature with Keery; the duo play two workers at storage facility that uncover a biohazardous government experiment. Neeson of course plays the fixer character enlisted to contain the parasite.

The synopsis reads: “Teacake (Keery) and Naomi (Campbell), two young employees of a self-storage company built on the site of an old U.S. military base, have their wildest night shift ever when a parasitic fungus escapes from the lowest sublevel of the base, where it was sealed by the government decades before. As the temperature rises underground, this highly contagious and rapidly...