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Tubi might not be as big as some of the other popular streaming services, but it does have some of the best movies and TV shows of recent times, and that too for absolutely free. The Fox-owned streaming service adds a ton of new monthly content to its ever-expanding library. So, we thought of compiling a list of the best movies coming to Tubi in July 2025.

Pale Rider (July 1) Rt Score: 94% Credit – Warner Bros.

Pale Rider is a Western film directed by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay co-written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack. The 1985 film follows a mysterious preacher as he single-handedly tries to protect a prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to take their land. Pale Rider stars Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Christopher Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny, Richard Kiel, Doug McGrath, and John Russell.

Pale Rider was one of the few westerns made during the 1980s. Clint Eastwood starred and directed. In it a group of mom and pop gold prospectors are being run off their claims by ruthless business man Coy Lahood (Richard Dysart). Lahood's thugs attack the prospectors' small shanty village in Carbon Creek. They gallop around on horseback, firing their guns in the air and committing acts of vandalism. During this act of intimidation, a cow and a small dog which belonged to 13-year-old Megan Wheeler (Sydney Penny) are shot dead.

Hull Barret (Michael Moriarty), who lives in a family unit with Megan and her mother Sarah Wheeler (Carrie Snodgress), visits the small town of Lahood. After replacing some of the things destroyed by the thugs, he is set upon by the very same men, who beat him with pickaxe handles. Here, one of Clint Eastwood's unnamed characters intervenes. Afterwards Hull takes.

Sian Barbara Allen, a onetime Universal contract player who appeared in the films You’ll Like My Mother and Billy Two Hats and played a love interest of Richard Thomas’ John-Boy on The Waltons, died Monday. She was 78.

Allen died in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, after a battle with Alzheimer’s, her family announced. She often played characters with “great vulnerability and uncommon empathy,” they noted.

In telefilms, Allen starred with Bette Davis and Ted Bessell as the title character, a housekeeper in a mansion, in 1973’s Scream, Pretty Peggy at ABC; with Claude Akins, John Savage and Patricia Neal in the 1975 tearjerker Eric at NBC; and with Anthony Hopkins and Cliff DeYoung in 1976’s The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, also at NBC (she played the wife of the famed aviator).

Born on July 12, 1946, in Reading, Pennsylvania, Allen was raised by her mother, Ruth, and her grandmother, Etta.

After she graduated from Reading Senior High School,...

Tombstone fans hankering for an equally entertaining dust-up must travel from Arizona to California and meet Pale Rider, the highest-grossing Western of the 1980s. Directed, produced by, and starring Clint Eastwood, Pale Rider marked the legendary actor's first Western since The Outlaw Josey Wales in 1976 and the last until the Oscar-winning Unforgiven in 1992. Of course, Pale Rider has plenty in common with the outstanding High Plains Drifter, with both starring Eastwood as a ghostly personification of death (though it's never been entirely confirmed in the latter).

Apart from its commercial success, Pale Rider was championed by famed film critic Roger Ebert in his four-star review, whose opinions continue to be respected 12 years after his death. Pale Rider may feature more of a supernatural and metaphysical quality than Tombstone, yet both movies are sure to appeal to vivid, violent, well-performed Westerns that withstand the test of time.

'Pale Rider's Premise,...

Clint Eastwood is typically regarded as one of the best actors of all time, especially when it comes to the Western genre. Over the course of his long and illustrious career, Clint Eastwood's filmography is quite impressive, which includes some of the best Westerns ever made. Spanning nearly 7 decades, there is something in his filmography that just about anyone can love, making him an incredibly accessible actor to get into.

Although he is primarily known for his Westerns, Clint Eastwood had roles in a variety of different genres, bringing the same gravitas and power that he has always had to each character he plays. While not every role of his was a hit, there were more that were. Clint Eastwood has played some of the coolest characters around, with quite a few being among the most iconic ever put to film.

Preacher Pale Rider (1985)

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Three days after posting a rare live performance of the title track to his 2000 LP Silver and Gold as part of his Fireside Sessions video series, Neil Young dug deeper into his past and broke out “Pardon My Heart” in a new clip. The song appears on Young’s 1975 LP Zuma, but hadn’t been played live in 50 years. Click here to check it out.

The mournful “Pardon My Heart” was first heard live on May 16, 1974, when Young played a surprise late-night set at New York’s Bottom Line after a Ry Cooder show.

Clint Eastwood fans will soon be able to stream his genre-resuscitating 1985 Western Pale Rider for free. The financially successful and critically acclaimed movie was the first mainstream Hollywood-produced Western after the huge commercial failure of the late great Kris Kristofferson's Heaven's Gate in 1980.

Pale Rider will arrive on Tubi on January 1. Produced and directed by the legendary Eastwood, the Western follows his mysterious character, The Preacher. He rides on his pale horse into Carbon Canyon, where a mining baron is waging a war of intimidation against independent prospectors and their families. The Preacher's arrival is seemingly in answer to a teenage girl's prayer, seeking deliverance from the baron after his men attack her mining camp. Sydney Penny plays the girl, Megan Wheeler, while Richard Dysart portrays the baron, Coy Lahood. The movie's also cast includes Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, and John Russell.

Related Kevin Costner's...

Since rising to the status of A-list Hollywood icon after starring in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, Clint Eastwood has been the face of the Western genre. Taking over from an aging John Wayne, he cemented that status throughout the 1970s, thanks to films like High Plains Drifter, Hang 'Em High and Two Mules For Sister Sara. Throughout his career, Eastwood has both starred in and directed some of the greatest revisionist Westerns of all time, a sub-genre he basically perfected.

Eastwood's Western movies range from the supernatural to morally-complex character studies, exploring the violence and potential of life in the Old West. Ranging from action-heavy shootouts to explorations of the turmoil of the West, the actor's films also boast a variety of brilliant scenes. Thanks to his strong screen presence to his distinguished appearance, few stars have as many great scenes under their belt as Eastwood.

Pale Rider Features...

When I first heard about Nightbitch, for some reason I thought it was a horror movie with Amy Adams morphing physically into a dog.

It isn’t. Cujo can breathe easier now.

What was so surprising about this sweet, wise and glowing tribute to mothers everywhere, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival today, is how down-to-earth and real it is. It is funny, touching and very real despite the metaphysical aspect of Adams’ Mother character thinking her body has so deteriorated after childbirth and a case of postpartum depression that she turns basically into a dog. The movie does require her to dig and sniff around the garden in full Lassie mode, but it isn’t any kind of startling thing. Adams also works opposite eight dogs in order to give the audience the full visual experience of this feeling. But that is not what Nightbitch is at heart.

Mother...

Happy 50th anniversary to Neil Young’s On the Beach, an album that, to put it mildly, is not a very sunny one. Young himself called it one of the most depressing records he’s ever made — and that was after he wrote and recorded the famously funereal Tonight’s the Night. But that album could be joyful at times, like the groovy movie in “Speakin’ Out,” or the fried eggs and country ham in “Albuquerque.” You won’t find any breakfast delights on On the Beach, but you will...

Throughout the 96-year history of the Academy Awards, the amount of acting lineups consisting only of first-time nominees has reached 37, or about 10% of the overall total. While that number may not seem high in a general sense, these cases actually outnumber those exclusively involving veteran contenders by a ratio of three to one. However, although this list expanded as recently as 2023, rookie-only acting lineups are gradually becoming less common than veteran-only ones, the amount of which has nearly doubled within the last dozen years.

Whereas 75% of veteran-only acting quintets have involved lead performers rather than supporting ones, almost the exact opposite is true of lineups full of newcomers. For instance, only one existing case of the former kind concerns supporting actresses, whereas the same category has produced 15 rookie-only rosters. The last such group consisted of 2000 winner Angelina Jolie and nominees Toni Collette (“The Sixth Sense”), Catherine Keener (“Being John Malkovich...

Sixteen years ago, in 2007, Neil Young puzzled quite a few people when he released a new album called Chrome Dreams II. Only his most devoted followers knew that the title was a reference to Chrome Dreams, an entirely different album he had put together in 1977 before shelving it in favor of American Stars ‘n Bars. The original Chrome Dreams leaked out years later as a bootleg drawn from the ’77 acetate, and many fans felt he had made the wrong choice. “In many ways,” Young biographer Jimmy McDonough wrote in his 2002 Young biography,...

Neil Young is returning to the road at the end of this month following a four-year hiatus from touring. But he’s not bringing along Crazy Horse, Promise of the Real, or most of his famous songs. He’s instead plotting out a solo acoustic show built around rarely played songs from the depths of his vast catalog.

“I don’t want to come back and do the same songs again,” he said in a live Zoom event to patron members of the Neil Young Archives. “I’d feel like...

This month’s installment of Deep Cuts Rising features a variety of horror movies. Some selections reflect a specific day or event in June, and others were chosen at random.

Regardless of how they came to be here, or what they’re about, these past movies can generally be considered overlooked, forgotten or unknown.

This month’s offerings include a Japanese slasher, a dark tale about family, a Scandinavian haunting, a terrifying coming-out story, and an aquatic creature-feature.

The Attic (1980)

Directed by George Edwards and Gary Graver.

Fathers are usually depicted as unkind and cruel in horror, and the one in The Attic is no exception. Carrie Snodgress plays the dutiful Louise who has sacrificed her own happiness for far too long. When she tries to turn her life around and do something about her loneliness, which entails adopting a chimpanzee, her tyrannical father (Ray Milland) is quick to stomp out her ambitions.

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By Todd Garbarini

Having been a film fanatic my entire life I was thrilled when, in June 1982, a new magazine burst onto the scene and quickly caught my attention. Devoted exclusively to new and upcoming motion picture releases, Coming Attractions cost $2.50 per issue and was published on a bi-monthly basis. It didn’t last long, unfortunately, but I recall that a bit of an uproar occurred over the cover of the March/April 1983 issue which featured a half-naked Valerie Kaprisky in a promo for the Breathless remake. Seriously, back in the day who complained about a beautiful naked woman on a magazine cover??

In one of the earlier issues, there was an article published about an upcoming horror film entitled Trick or Treats starring David Carradine. I don’t recall the film ever opening in my area and wondered whatever happened to it...

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“No, She’S The Sane One”

By Raymond Benson

Frank Perry was a notable director and screenwriter who in the early part of his career made some acclaimed motion pictures—David and Lisa (1962), The Swimmer (1968), Last Summer (1969), and this one, Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970). Unfortunately, his later career was marked by problems (he directed the much-maligned Mommie Dearest in 1981, for example). The earlier films were written by or co-written with his then-wife and talented scribe, Eleanor Perry.

Diary is a picture of its time and yet it can still resonate today with regards to the #MeToo movement. The 1970 vibe is overpowering, for this was when Women’s Liberation was on the rise and very much in the public consciousness. In this case, Eleanor Perry is the sole writer, adapting the script from a 1967 novel by Sue Kaufman. Starring newcomer Carrie Snodgress, who...

On August 26th, 1973, Joni Mitchell arrived at Studio Instrument Rentals in Los Angeles, where Neil Young and his band the Santa Monica Flyers were recording the boozy Tonight’s the Night. Joined by guitarists Ben Keith and Nils Lofgren, drummer Ralph Molina, and bassist Billy Talbot, Mitchell and Young tore through “Raised on Robbery,” soon to be released on her album Court and Spark.

If the Tonight’s the Night sessions were indeed a “drunken Irish wake,” as Talbot later recalled, this take on “Raised on Robbery” was the eulogy.

Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. If the pandemic has turned your household roles upside down and inside out, don’t get mad. Get mad, mad, mad, mad. For the soul of the country, y’all.

Of course, it was possible for anxiety to back up on you even in 1970. Diary of a Mad Housewife has Carrie Snodgress in the titular role. She can’t get satisfaction in her marriage, in her affair or in her therapy group. It sounds like a job for Calgon, but life has gotten so bad for her that even a long, hot soak won’t fix it.

Surely a Mad Housewife wine will pair with this film like it was born to do so. It is a “mommy wine” aimed at a broader spectrum of women who are...

Neil Young’s most recent Fireside Session featured a new rendition of his 2006 song “Lookin’ for a Leader” that lambasted President Trump and urged people to vote against him in the 2020 election. He’s now calling the song “Looking for a Leader 2020” and he’s released it onto streaming services; he’s also posted a standalone video on the Neil Young Archives.

“Yeah, we had Barack Obama,” Young sings, “and we really need him now/The man who stood behind him has to take his place somehow/America has a...

Neil Young has many complete albums tucked away in his vault, but none have captivated his hardcore fans through the years quite like Homegrown. The album was cut in late 1974 and early 1975 just as his relationship with girlfriend Carrie Snodgress was coming to a painful end. He poured all of his agony into the music, but ultimately didn’t feel comfortable sharing it with the world.

“It was a little too personal,” Young told Rolling Stone‘s Cameron Crowe in 1975. “It scared me. … I’ve never released any of those.

One Los Angeles evening in 1975, Neil Young gathered a few friends together at the Chateau Marmont to play them some music. He had two new albums in the can, and wasn’t sure which one to release. Sitting inside the same bungalow that John Belushi would die in just seven years later, Young’s friends — which included some of his Crazy Horse bandmates and Rick Danko and Richard Manuel of the Band — listened to two wildly different records.

First up was Tonight’s the Night, a grueling, Tequila-engorged meditation on fallen...

Neil Young has released the charming “Try” from Homegrown, the long-lost 1975 album that he’s finally decided to release next month. The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the record’s arrival, but we’ve already waited nearly 50 years for it to come out. What’s another few months?

The soothing barroom ditty opens with Levon Helm’s subtle drumming, as Young beckons, “Darlin’, the door is open/To my heart, and I’ve been hopin’/That you would be the one to struggle with the key.” He blankets his request with a...

Neil Young’s legendary unreleased album Homegrown will finally come out in 2020. He recorded it in 1975 and was on the verge of releasing it, going as far as commissioning cover art, when he decided at the last minute to shelf it in favor of Tonight’s The Night.

“A record full of love lost and explorations,” Young wrote on the Neil Young Archives. “A record that has been hidden for decades. Too personal and revealing to expose in the freshness of those times…The unheard bridge between Harvest and Comes a Time,...

On May 16th, 1974, Ry Cooder and Leon Redbone wrapped up a gig at New York City’s Bottom Line, but the crowd was told to stick around for a surprise. It was 2:15 a.m., and a man with a guitar appeared onstage. “This one is called, um … this one’s called, um … ‘Citizen Kane Junior Blues!'” said Neil Young, strumming the intro to “Pushed It Over the End.”

It was the public’s first glimpse of his deeply new personal album On the Beach, released on July 19th,...

Neil Young has only performed “Motion Pictures (For Carrie)” once — at New York’s Bottom Line in 1974 — but that hasn’t stopped artists from covering the gut-wrenching On the Beach track for years. Singer-songwriter Steve Gunn released a rendition of the song via Amazon Music, a day before the album’s 45th anniversary.

Gunn’s cover gives the track a funereal touch. His stark, husky voice looms over the lyrics: “Well, all those people, they think they got it made/ But I wouldn’t buy, sell, borrow or trade/Anything...

Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Young! Actress Daryl Hannah and singer Neil Young are married, according to multiple reports published this week. Daryl, 57, and Neil, 72, became an item in 2014 and allegedly tied the knot in two secret ceremonies within the last month. The first reportedly took place on his yacht in Washington State and the second was reportedly held either last Friday, Aug. 24 or Saturday, Aug. 25 in California. During an interview with People, Ron Fugere, a local boat captain in the San Juan islands, revealed that he witnessed a "small, intimate gathering" on Neil's yacht on July 27. "I saw a boat down at the end of the dock that I hadn’t recognized from a distance so I thought I’d walk down and see what boat it was," Fugere told the magazine. " thought, 'Gosh, that looks like a wedding!' We got out the binoculars and looked and sure enough,...

Bronson’s Loose Again!: On the Set with Charles Bronson is author Paul Talbot’s all-new companion volume to his acclaimed Bronson’s Loose!: The Making of the ‘Death Wish’ Films. His new book reveals more information on the Death Wish series and also details the complex histories behind eighteen other Charles Bronson movies. Documented herein are fascinating tales behind some of the finest Bronson films of the mid-1970s (including Hard Times and From Noon Till Three); his big-budget independent epics Love And Bullets and Cabo Blanco; his lesser-known, underrated dramas Borderline and Act Of Vengeance; his notorious sleaze/action Cannon Films classics of the 80s (including 10 To Midnight, Murphy’S Law and Kinjite: Forbidden Sunjects); the numerous unmade projects he was attached to; and his TV movies of the 90s (including The Sea Wolf). Exhaustively researched, the book features over three dozen exclusive, candid interviews including...

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Director Brian De Palma followed Carrie with another gory vaunt into the supernatural. Here's why The Fury deserves a revisit...

When it comes to telekinesis and gory visual effects, the movie that generally springs to mind is David Cronenberg’s 1981 exploding head opus, Scanners. But years before that, American director Brian De Palma was liberally dowsing the screen with claret in his 1976 adaptation of Carrie - still rightly regarded as one of the best Stephen King adaptations made so far. A less widely remembered supernatural film from De Palma came two years after: De Palma’s supernatural thriller, The Fury.

The Fury was made with a more generous budget than Carrie, had a starrier cast (Kirk Douglas in the lead, John Cassavetes playing the villain), and it even did pretty well in financial terms. Yet The Fury had the misfortune of being caught in a kind of pincer movement between Carrie,...

'Broadcast News' with Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter: Glib TV news watch. '31 Days of Oscar': 'Broadcast News' slick but superficial critics pleaser (See previous post: “Phony 'A Beautiful Mind,' Unfairly Neglected 'Swing Shift': '31 Days of Oscar'.”) Heralded for its wit and incisiveness, James L. Brooks' multiple Oscar-nominated Broadcast News is everything the largely forgotten Swing Shift isn't: belabored, artificial, superficial. That's very disappointing considering Brooks' highly addictive Mary Tyler Moore television series (and its enjoyable spin-offs, Phyllis and Rhoda), but totally expected considering that three of screenwriter-director Brooks' five other feature films were Terms of Endearment, As Good as It Gets, and Spanglish. (I've yet to check out I'll Do Anything and the box office cataclysm How Do You Know starring Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, and Jack Nicholson.) Having said that, Albert Brooks (no relation to James L.; or to Mel Brooks...

Heart of Glass: Costanzo’s Uncomfortable, Emotional Glance at Madness

Must every cinematic portrait of mental illness be ‘illuminating?’ Your answer to that question may gauge your reaction to Italian director Sergio Costanzo’s New York set domestic horror film, Hungry Hearts, a film best walked into cold. Ambiguity reigns supreme, and for those enjoying a feeling of befuddlement, a rarity in the contemporary cinematic landscape of political correctness, may find Costanzo’s adaptation of Marco Franzoso’s novel a winning concoction. Drawing comparisons to early works by Roman Polanski in how it swiftly throws an unraveling relationship drama into the domestic level of hell, the film instead recalls an era when allowances were made for cinematic representation of strange behaviors and dysfunctional relationships. Surprisingly odd, yet leaving us, roughly, with the feeling of being slapped, perhaps by today’s standards the film can best be understood as the anti-romcom,...

The 1994 film Blue Sky is something of an anomaly from the mid-90s. Filmed in 1991, it would be the last film feature of British auteur Tony Richardson’s career, who had been working in television for several years prior, ever since his coolly received 1984 adaptation of John Irvine’s The Hotel New Hampshire. Then, due to the bankruptcy of Orion Pictures, the film’s distributor, the final product was shelved for three years, at long last released in the autumn of 1994, going on to snag actress Jessica Lange her second Academy Award. Now, twenty years later, it’s a prestige that would seem near impossible to attain for a feature treated to the same fate in today’s market. This distinction potentially sets the film up for failure, which perhaps explains the lack of continued enthusiasm surrounding it.

Nuclear engineer Hank Marshall (Tommy Lee Jones) is forced to uproot his...

He first saw her waiting tables in a diner and wrote a song about how he couldn't get her out of his mind. But now the long romance seems over for rocker Neil Young, who has filed for divorce from wife Pegi Young after 36 years of marriage, Rolling Stone reports. Young, 68, filed papers on July 29 in his hometown of San Mateo, California, seeking to end his marriage with his wife, 61, a frequent musical collaborator and background singer who often shared stage bills with the rock legend. Their sad end comes after a sweet beginning that led Young to pen the song "Unknown Legend.

He first saw her waiting tables in a diner and wrote a song about how he couldn't get her out of his mind. But now the long romance seems over for rocker Neil Young, who has filed for divorce from wife Pegi Young after 36 years of marriage, Rolling Stone reports. Young, 68, filed papers on July 29 in his hometown of San Mateo, California, seeking to end his marriage with his wife, 61, a frequent musical collaborator and background singer who often shared stage bills with the rock legend. Their sad end comes after a sweet beginning that led Young to pen the song "Unknown Legend.

The Fury

Written by John Farris

Directed by Brian De Palma

USA, 1978

In this action-suspense picture packed with paranormal activity, Kirk Douglas plays government agent Peter Sandza, whose telepathic son (Andrew Stevens) has been kidnapped by his colleague Ben Childress (John Cassavetes), working for a CIA-like secret government agency that plans to exploit the boy’s psychic abilities for warfare. Sandza’s desperate search for his son brings him into contact with a teenage girl named Gillian (Amy Irving), who also has strong Esp powers. He gains her trust, and together, they join forces in the hope of saving his son Robin before it’s too late.

Brian De Palma’s immediate successor to Carrie was The Fury, a supernatural horror/espionage/occult/mindfuck of a movie, which, like Carrie, manages a similar variation on the theme of teenagers using telekinetic powers to exercise repressed feelings. And The Fury, not unlike Carrie,...

The Fury

Directed by Brian De Palma

Written by John Farris

USA, 1978

In this action-suspense picture packed with paranormal activity, Kirk Douglas plays government agent Peter Sandza, whose telepathic son (Andrew Stevens) has been kidnapped by his colleague Ben Childress (John Cassavetes), working for a CIA-like secret government agency that plans to exploit the boy’s psychic abilities for warfare. Sandza’s desperate search for his son brings him into contact with a teenage girl named Gillian (Amy Irving), who also has strong Esp powers. He gains her trust, and together, they join forces in the hope of saving his son Robin before it’s too late.

Brian De Palma’s immediate successor to Carrie was The Fury, a supernatural horror/espionage/occult/mindfuck of a movie, which, like Carrie, manages a similar variation on the theme of teenagers using telekinetic powers to exercise repressed feelings. And The Fury, not unlike Carrie,...

The wizards at Arrow Video have been focusing their brain waves on bringing another cult treasure to hi-def life in the UK, and the result is a brand new restoration of Brian De Palma's The Fury, hitting shelves on October 28th. Don't stare too long...

From the Press Release:

Marking the film’s UK Blu-ray premiere in style, Arrow’s team of restorers have breathed new life into this telekinetic masterpiece – it’s crystal clear, incredibly vibrant and has been newly graded, all the while keeping true to Richard H. Kline’s brilliant original cinematography. 2013 year marks The Fury’s 35th birthday... it’s never looked better.

Restoration Supervisor James White says of the project – "It's been a great honour to restore The Fury, a truly fantastic film by one of my favourite directors. Its combination of sci-fi, horror and post-Watergate paranoia thriller makes it one of the key...

I think everyone remembers where they were August 31st, 2003 when they heard that Charles Bronson had died. I was visiting my brother in Atlanta when my nephew knocked on my door and informed me that CNN had announced his death. I collapsed into a sobbing heap. Bronson was my hero, my muse, my role model. Hollywood’s brightest star would shine no more. It’s hard to believe he’s been gone ten years.

Charles Bronson was the unlikeliest of movie stars. Of all the leading men in the history of Hollywood, Charles Bronson had the least range as an actor. He rarely emoted or even changed his expression, and when he did speak, his voice was a reedy whisper. But Charles Bronson could coast on presence, charisma, and silent brooding menace like no one’s business and he wound up the world’s most bankable movie star throughout most of the 1970’s.

Another Oscar Trivia Explosion. This time it's the Actresses.

Jennifer Lawrence made quite a film-carrying impression in Winter's Bone this past summer. It was one of the leggiest arthouse hits in some time, playing for months, and wracking up $6+ million without a huge advertising budget or bankable stars and with grim subject matter. Well done. At Christmas Hailee Steinfeld will lead us on a revenge journey in True Grit. While we suspect she's the lead actress as well, people her age are almost always demoted to "Supporting" if they're sharing the screen with a big star as co-lead and she is. Hi, Jeff Bridges! But we're pretending she's an Oscar lead today so as to have double the excuse to make this list. Humour us, won'cha?

Imaginary Movie: Steinfeld. Lawrence. Winter's True Bone.

36 Youngest Best Actress NomineesAnd where Jennifer or Hailee would fit in, were they to be nominated. (Winning performances are in red.

Charles Bronson was the unlikeliest of movie stars. Of all the leading men in the history of Hollywood, Charles Bronson had the least range as an actor. He rarely emoted or even changed his expression, and when he did speak, his voice was a reedy whisper. But Charles Bronson could coast on presence, charisma, and silent brooding menace like no one.s business and he wound up the world’s most bankable movie star throughout most of the 1970’s. Bronson did not rise quickly in the Hollywood ranks. His film debut was in 1951 and he spent the next two decades as a solid character actor with a rugged face, muscular physique and everyman ethnicity that kept him busy in supporting roles as indians, convicts, cowboys, boxers, and gangsters. It wasn’t until he was in his late 40’s, after the international success of Once Upon A Time In The West...

As cannibalistic serial killers go, they don't come more influential than Ed Gein.

Since committing his atrocities in 1957, the warped Wisconsin farmer has gone on to tickle the imaginations of "Psycho" author Robert Bloch and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" filmmaker Tobe Hooper. He also prompted Thomas Harris to create the Buffalo Bill character in "The Silence of the Lambs".

Now he finally gets a picture to call his own with "Ed Gein", but other than serving to put a name on the infamous faces, this often hokey chiller fails to capture the macabre mystique of a man who has inspired dozens of Web sites, including at least one that sells Gein memorabilia.

While those fanatics will likely be drawn to this First Look release, their numbers probably won't be sufficient to keep the picture in theaters for any notable length of time, though it should prove to be a popular addition to those Gein collectibles on the Internet once it lands on video.

Steve Railsback, who previously dipped his feet in the dark side as Charles Manson in 1976's "Helter Skelter", gives a committed performance (he also takes an executive producer credit) as the introverted Gein.

Living alone in the home of his recently departed, very controlling mother (Carrie Snodgress), Gein finds company in the cadavers of women of a certain age that he has exhumed from the local cemetery. Armed with a copy of Gray's Anatomy and some sharp instruments, he converts the cadavers (mercifully off-camera) into some truly bizarre objets d'art.

With the scripture-quoting ghost of his dead mother egging him on, he then turns to living subjects, focusing on a raunchy bartender (Sally Champlin) and a grandmotherly general-store proprietor (Carol Mansell).

But shortly after their disappearance, it doesn't take too much detective work to figure out who the likely culprit is, seeing that it's hard for a weirdo to maintain a low profile in a a town of only 642 people.

OK, so make that 640.

Director Chuck Parello ("Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 2") is proficient at establishing the delectably creepy atmosphere, but Stephen Johnston's flashback-riddled script is filled with the kind of hoary fright-night cliches that prevent the film from being more than an ersatz "Sling Blade".

That prevailing lack of imagination takes its toll on character development. While Railsback's Gein is believably disturbed, he's written so transparently as "the town psycho most likely to ..." that there's little the actor can do to compensate for the film's disappointing lack of dramatic tension.

The same applies to Snodgress' deep-voiced portrayal of Gein's bullying mother, which simultaneously summons up Piper Laurie in "Carrie" and Mercedes McCambridge in "The Exorcist".

Only Mansell and, particularly, Champlin manage to inject a spark of originality into the otherwise stock landscape.

In the end, the film not only fails to add anything significant to the Ed Gein screen legacy but -- in the wake of those suggested portraits by Hitchcock, Hooper and Jonathan Demme -- it can't help but feel like, for lack of a better expression, overkill.

ED GEIN

First Look Pictures

TARTAN Films presents a Chuck Parello film

Director: Chuck Parello

Screenwriter: Stephen Johnston

Producers: Hamish McAlpine, Michael Muscal

Executive producers: Karen Nichols, Steve Railsback

Director of photography: Vanja Cernjul

Production designer: Mark Harper

Editor: Elena Maganini

Costume designer: Niklas J. Palm

Music: Robert McNaughton

Color/stereo

Cast:

Ed Gein: Steve Railsback

Augusta Gein: Carrie Snodgress

Mary Hogan: Sally Champlin

Colette Marshall: Carol Mansell

Running time -- 89 minutes

No MPAA rating...