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Our decision to declare Miami Vice this century’s greatest action film some eight years ago was neither made lightly nor received unanimously, but fortune favors the bold. Part and parcel of its canonization, Michael Mann’s classic streams on Criterion this July as part of Miami Neonoir, a set boasting Larry Clark’s Bully, the recently departed George Armitage’s Miami Blues, Out of Sight, Body Heat, and John Bailey’s lesser-seen China Moon. Series-wise, films about David Lynch, Picasso, and Basquiat fill out Portraits of Artists, while Summer Romances arrives just in time for you to imagine a better life than watching movies on your laptop.

July is a retrospective-heavy month: the recently restored, totally essential films of Jacques Rozier, works directed and shot by D.A. Pennebaker, shorts by Suzan Pitt, and Lino Brocka, Moustapha Alassane, Michael Haneke, and Hou Hsiao-hsien programs are complemented by an exposition of the Rolling Stones on film.

Taylor Sheridan, being a stellar presence in Hollywood himself, has worked with tons of actors and actresses over the years, and almost every single one of them seems to hold him in high regard. This includes the iconic actor Jon Bernthal as well, who is renowned for breathing life into the epic anti-hero from the Marvel Comics-verse, The Punisher.

Over the years, Bernthal and Sheridan have collaborated on a handful of projects, all of which seem to have been perfectly faring masterpieces among audiences. In fact, the former is so in love with the latter’s filmmaking skills that he’s down to do a remake of a classic Western from 1953 with him, which is basically his Marvel character without his rage!

Jon Bernthal wants to remake this masterpiece with Taylor Sheridan Alan Ladd in and as Shane. | Credit: Paramount Pictures.

Of all the people Sheridan has worked with to date,...

The 1980s was a lean spell for western fans. After the critical and commercial disaster of Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate," Hollywood studios were understandably reluctant to pile lots of money into a moribund genre and notable horse operas were few and far between. With the likes of "Silverado," "Young Guns," and "Three Amigos!" to choose from, Kathryn Bigelow's "Near Dark" was pretty much the best of the bunch, but that was as much a modern vampire movie as a typical oater. The classic western movie looked seriously long in the tooth, and it wouldn't flourish again until Kevin Costner resurrected it with his Oscar-winning "Dances with Wolves."

Then of course there was Clint Eastwood. If ever there was a filmmaker and a star who could buck the trend, it was arguably the best western movie actor to dominate the screen. By the mid '80s, Clint had  been...

In the first scene of Taylor Sheridan's latest drama series "Landman," Tommy Norris sits in an empty hangar with a bag over his head. We don't see his face, and we only hear his voice. In that moment, he's trying to talk his way out of getting killed by a Mexican cartel member. Of course, we know that Tommy is played by veteran actor Billy Bob Thornton, but even before we get to take a look at his rugged visage, we sense (through his voice) that this role — of an alcoholic, chain-smoking, and no-bs landman — was tailor-made for him. It's as if Thornton suddenly had changed careers and decided to ride his final years out in the scorching heat of West Texas, bossing roughnecks around, and fixing issues for billionaire oil men who run the industry.

Half of that is true. According to the interview that Thornton gave for The Daily Beast's Obsessed,...

Shane, one of the greatest Western movies of all time, is finally coming to 4K Blu-ray. Kino Lorber is releasing the film in a two-disk 4K set this summer. A critical and commercial hit upon its release in 1953, Shane influenced many subsequent films, including the elegiac superhero Western Logan.

The disc features a brand new 4K transfer of the film, taken from a scan of its original 35mm camera negative. It also features the film's original theatrical trailer and two audio commentaries. That includes an all-new commentary by author and historian Alan K. Rode, who is writing a book on the film, and an archival commentary featuring George Stevens Jr. and associate producer Ivan Moffat. The set will also include a standard Blu-ray disc of the film. Shane will be released on July 14, 2025, and will retail for $29.89 Usd.

What Is 'Shane' About?

Shane stars Alan Ladd (This Gun for Hire) as the title character,...

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

Bam

Triple Canopy Presents: In The Hole brings 35mm prints of Salò, Tsai Ming-liang’s The Hole, and more.

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese presents Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death on 35mm this Friday; Jerry Lewis’ Smorgasboard shows on 35mm Saturday; Dazed and Confused and Smiley-Face play on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

Essential Cinema brings Erich von Stroheim’s Greed and films by Dziga Vertov; Richard Beymer’s The Innerview plays in a new restoration.

Museum of Modern Art

Films by Howard Hawks, George Stevens, and more play in “The Lady at 100.”

Museum of the Moving Image

The Dead Zone plays throughout the weekend while Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shows Saturday and Sunday.

Film Forum

Mort Rifkin favorite A Man and a Woman plays in a new restoration; Bride of Frankenstein screens this Sunday.

IFC Center

Barry Lyndon begins screening for its 50th anniversary; Salò,...

Back in 1998, a little action flick came out, received middling reviews, and made only $14.5 million of its $60 million budget. A story set in the future, one that embraced the “One Man Army” trope, starring a surprisingly strong cast led by Kurt Russell and directed by the man who gave us Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon. Making things even stranger, it exists in a canonically connected universe to Blade Runner. Movies are 99% about place and time, and this flick was sadly released in the wrong era. So today, I want to explore one of the best and most underrated action films of the late ‘90s. Today, we talk Soldier.

There is something so intrinsically human about the “One Man Army” trope and how we love to see the wrong things put right. It’s been around forever—think George Stevens’s Shane, for example—but popularized (at least in the blockbuster...

Guillermo del Toro is not just one of our greatest living filmmakers. He is one of our greatest cinephiles, sharing his favorite movies all the time to introduce fans of his work to the larger film history context that inspired many of them. The “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Devil’s Backbone” filmmaker has previously made his TCM Picks as a filmmaker advisor to Turner Classic Movies. IndieWire praised his selection of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Suspicion” then, as a film by the Master of Suspense that feels oddly underrated today, despite being as masterful an exploration of subjectivity as anything in Hitchcock’s filmography.

For his March 2025 TCM Picks, del Toro returns to Hitchcock, and this time for a truly “canonical” selection from the Master, and gives some brilliant remarks about why it’s so everlasting — with even a shout-out to Hitchcock’s love of “overbearing mother figures.” It’s “North by Northwest.

Physical media culture is alive and thriving thanks to the home video tastemakers hailing everywhere from The Criterion Collection to Kino Lorber and the Warner Archive Collection. Each month, IndieWire highlights the best recent and upcoming Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K releases for cinephiles to own now — and to bring ballast and permanence to your moviegoing at a time when streaming windows on classic movies close just as soon as they open.

2025 is starting off strong, with an abundance of new releases both popular and obscure. Contemporary auteurs like Robert Zemeckis and Quentin Tarantino are represented with releases both new (“Here”) and from their catalog (“Inglourious Basterds”), while a pair of masters from Hollywood’s past — Anthony Mann and George Stevens — have gorgeous new editions of two of their most idiosyncratic works arriving on physical media.

January also sees Criterion giving Richard Pryor’s “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling” a long overdue Blu-ray release,...

Hillary Clinton, Denzel Washington, and Michael J. Fox are being honored!

The former Secretary of State, Oscar-winning actor, and Emmy-winning actor and Parkinson’s disease advocate were honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden on Saturday (January 4) at the White House in Washington, DC.

Other recipients at the white House included Magic Johnson, Bono, Bill Nye, designer Ralph Lauren, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, renowned Spanish-American culinary innovator José Andrés, director and author George Stevens, philanthropist George Soros, The Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein, conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, and entrepreneur Tim Gill.

Hillary‘s husband former President Bill Clinton and Biden‘s son Hunter Biden were also in attendance at the ceremony.

President Biden also posthumously honored the 25th Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Fannie Lou Hammer, Attorney General Robert Francis Kennedy, and American Motors Corporation president George Romney.

Soccer...

Five Came Back, a Netflix docuseries centered on World War II, dives into the legacies of five renowned filmmakers — John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens — and their work in documenting, propagandizing, and serving in the war. In addition to some riveting footage and a retelling of their harrowing experiences, the series is supported by extensive interviews with lauded directors Paul Greengrass, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, and Lawrence Kasdan, with narration by Meryl Streep.

For most of each year, Karolyn Grimes leads the sort of quiet, family-centric life that one might expect any retired 84-year-old grandmother to lead — but come December, that all changes. Indeed, when The Hollywood Reporter connected with her by telephone last week, the Seattle resident was, for the 22nd time, being celebrated at a festival in Seneca Falls, New York, and she would soon be rushing off to Detroit, where she would be a guest of honor at a similar gathering. Christmas was coming, and like Santa Claus, she had many places to go and people to see before the 25th.

That’s because 78 years ago, at the age of six, Grimes spent two weeks on the set of Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life playing Zuzu Bailey, the daughter of Jimmy Stewart’s George and Donna Reed’s Mary — and in so doing, totally unbeknownst to her,...

Terry Ree, half of the Williams and Ree comedy and music duo along with Bruce Williams, has died. He was 75.

Ree died Saturday from unspecified causes, Williams’ wife, Sharon Hallingdal Williams, said on her Facebook page. “So sorry to say Terry Ree passed away this morning. He and Bruce were partners as the comedy duo Williams and Ree for more than fifty years. Please keep his wife Carol and sons Michael and Rob in your prayers,” she wrote on Dec. 21.

Ree and Williams described their comedy and music act as “The Indian and The White Guy” as they were regulars on the North American country music concert circuit, including clubs and casinos and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. Their country and music performances were also blended with politically incorrect comedy routines.

Williams and Ree also performed alongside country music stars like Garth Brooks, The Oak Ridge Boys and Tim McGraw.

Earl Holliman, the actor best known for playing Angie Dickinson’s boss on the 1970s NBC cop drama Police Woman, has died. He was 96.

Holliman died Monday in hospice care at his home in Studio City, his spouse, Craig Curtis, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Holliman won a best supporting actor Golden Globe for portraying Katharine Hepburn’s girl-crazy kid brother in The Rainmaker (1956) — he beat out Elvis Presley for the role — and then appeared in another Burt Lancaster film, as Wyatt Earp’s assistant in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957).

In the George Stevens epic Giant (1956), the Louisiana native played the son-in-law of Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson’s characters, was the cook in Forbidden Planet (1956) and appeared as the brother of John Wayne, Dean Martin and Michael Anderson Jr. in Henry Hathaway’s The Sons of Katie Elder (1965).

Holliman also portrayed a man with amnesia in a deserted town...

Westerns have always been a hugely popular genre of movies, but theyre often celebrated for their exciting, complex storytelling above all else. However, the Westerns that are still discussed today are those that effortlessly combine these high-stakes narratives with sharp, beautiful cinematography that helps bring the natural backdrop of the American West to life on the screen. These are the films that are still remembered as the best Westerns ever made.

Westerns were hugely popular throughout the 50s and 60s, and this is the era during which directors fully took advantage of the advances in filmmaking technology to give their movies a unique visual flair. Filmmakers like Clint Eastwood and John Ford pioneered this kind of storytelling, essentially monopolizing the Western genre and creating the classics that are still watched today. While modern neo-Westerns are growing in popularity, there will always be a space for those undeniable classics that use...

Ang Lee is an Oscar-winning filmmaker who has worked in a variety of genres and styles to explore the lives of people around the globe. Let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in Taiwan in 1954, Lee’s interest in film brought him to NYU’s graduate program, where he worked as a crew member on classmate Spike Lee‘s thesis project, “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.” He directed his first feature, “Pushing Hands” (1991) at the age of 37.

Lee followed up his debut with back-to-back international successes, each one scoring Oscar nominations as Best Foreign Language Film: “The Wedding Banquet” (1993) and “Eat Drink Man Woman” (1994). In both films, the director explored the kinds of complex familial relationships that would animate many of his stories.

He was then drafted by Hollywood to helm the Jane Austin adaptation “Sense and Sensibility” (1995), which...

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

Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

Éric Rohmer’s A Tale of Autumn screens on Sunday courtesy of Amnesiascope and Rohmer Fits.

Roxy Cinema

A 35mm print of Silent Hill shows Friday and Saturday, as does a Radiohead-scored Nosferatu; the latter day brings Apocalypse Now: Final Cut and a print of Love Streams; Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro screens on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

A Brad Dourif retrospective includes the actor in-person for Wise Blood on Saturday and Horseplayer on Sunday; films by Dreyer play in “Essential Cinema.”

IFC Center

The Guy Maddin series “Forbidden Rooms” begins; black-and-white restoration of Johnny Mnemonic and Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat play, as does a 40th-anniversary restoration of Paris, Texas; Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch play late.

Museum of Modern Art...

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

Museum of Modern Art

As the career-spanning Johnnie To retrospective continues, a Samuel L. Jackson series includes Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Jungle Fever on 35mm.

Bam

A Duras-Akerman double bill plays Sunday.

Film at Lincoln Center

NYFF Revivals continues with films by Robert Bresson, Raymond Depardon, and Clive Barker, Compensation, and more.

Film Forum

A George Stevens retrospective begins; restorations of The Devil, Probably and Lancelot du lac continue; Shane screens on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

“Kill Yr Landlords” includes work by John Schlesinger, Hal Ashby, and Nikos Papatakis; films by Dovzhenko and Dreyer play in “Essential Cinema.”

Roxy Cinema

Apocalypse Now: Final Cut plays Friday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A Frank Oz retrospective begins; Burden of Dreams and Fitzcarraldo both screen.

Metrograph

Pulp Fiction, There Will Be Blood, The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice, Lolita, and...

In the wild world of Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan crafted some epic drama that had everyone talking. But did you know he took inspiration from The Godfather to keep Kevin Costner away from one actor? Yep! Sheridan, channeling some serious mob boss vibes, knew how to play the game behind the scenes.

Taylor Sheridan in Yellowstone | Paramount Pictures

As the tensions on set rose, he drew from that iconic film’s intense family dynamics, creating a unique atmosphere that kept the cast on their toes. By making strategic choices about who Costner interacted with, Sheridan ensured the show’s fiery energy never fizzled out.

Sheridan’s Strategic Move: Keeping Costner and Lucas Separate for Authentic Duttons Kevin Costner as John Dutton in Yellowstone | Credits: Paramount

In the intricate web of Yellowstone, Taylor Sheridan took a page from The Godfather to keep Kevin Costner away from Josh Lucas. Yep, you read that right!

With his long hair, sunglasses and bellbottoms, Hal Ashby was the epitome of the 1970s flower child, even though he was a decade older than most of the filmmakers working at the time. Though his flame burned brightly and briefly, he left behind a series of classics that signified the nose-thumbing, countercultural attitude of the era, with a bit of humanism and heart thrown in for good measure. Let’s take a look back at all 12 of his films, ranked worst to best.

Born on September 2, 1929 in Utah, Ashby ambled around before becoming an apprentice editor for Robert Swink, working for Hollywood legends William Wyler and George Stevens. He moved up the ranks to become an editor for Norman Jewison, with whom he shared a fraternal and professional relationship. They cut five films together, including “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!” (1966), which earned him his first Oscar nomination,...

Megalopolis director Francis Ford Coppola has joined Letterboxd, the social cataloguing service where members can rate and review films and keep track of what they’ve watched. I’m a little addicted. Coppola has shared a list of twenty films that he would recommend to any cinephile or aspiring filmmaker, which you can check out below.

French Cancan (Jean Renoir) The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa) The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra) Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg) The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey) The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis) The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa) Tokyo Story (Yasujirō Ozu) The Last Laugh (F.W. Murnau) The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg) Splendor in the Grass (Elia Kazan) Punch Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson) Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg) Sunrise (F.W. Murnau) Joyless Street (G.W. Pabst) A Place in the Sun (George Stevens) The King of Comedy (Martin Scorsese) After...

30 years after Ninja Scroll redefined how far an anime could go for audiences everywhere, Cbr got the chance to touch base with the legendary Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Writer and director of Ninja Scroll, Yoshiaki Kawajiri reflects on a career that's transitioned into storyboarding, what a new Ninja Scroll would look like, and the "No. 1" movie he's made.

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Related The Most Influential Ninja Anime of the '90s Returns to North America

30 years after its original release, the legendary anime movie Ninja Scroll is set to be screened in theaters across the United States in 2024.

Cbr: Its been over 30 years since Ninja Scroll released and left its mark on the industry. How do you reflect on the film three decades later?

Yoshiaki Kawajiri: The impact of a really good movie does not fade after time, even if it was made 50 years ago. I have...

In 1953, Elizabeth Taylor made the forgettable melodrama “The Girl Who Had Everything,” which also is an apt description of her life and her career. Over her 79 years, she segued from a stunningly beautiful child star to a va-va-va-voon sex symbol to a two-time Oscar-winner to a pioneering AIDs activist. Taylor was more than a star. More than an icon. Even a dozen years after her death, cinephiles are still obsessed with the violet-eye actress.

But a new HBO/Max documentary “Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes” illustrates she didn’t have “everything.” In the 1960s, Taylor gave interviews to celebrity journalist Richard Meryman who died in 2015. Forty hours of their interviews were recently discovered in his archive and are the anchor for this compelling piece. (There is also an interview from the 1980s with Dominick Dunne).

Wrote the New York Times: “For the Taylor enthusiast, the film is unlikely to reveal much new information.

When TCM channel host Dave Karger used to be a writer for Entertainment Weekly in his early days as a print journalist, he would focus a great deal on interviewing the big pop stars of the day, along with his duties on the film beat. But little did very many people suspect then that what he really wanted to be writing about was “Laura”… not Branigan, but David Raksin’s music for the classic 1945 noir. That was the film that really prompted Karger’s lifelong love of movie scoring.

“His score for ‘Laura’ really turned me on to classic film music, and film scores in general,” says Karger. “And then you go back and you learn that in 1945, there were 20 Oscar nominees that year in the category of best score for a non-musical film — and David Raksin wasn’t even one of the 20 nominees. That’s a score that has...

How now, what news: the Criterion Channel’s July lineup is here. Eight pop renditions of Shakespeare are on the docket: from movies you forgot were inspired by the Bard (Abel Ferrara’s China Girl) to ones you’d wish to forget altogether (Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing), with maybe my single favorite interpretation (Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet) alongside Paul Mazursky, Gus Van Sant, Baz Luhrmann, Derek Jarman, and (of course) Kenneth Branagh. A neonoir collection arrives four months ahead of Noirvember: two Ellroy adaptations, two from De Palma that are not his neonoir Ellroy adaptation, two from the Coen brothers (i.e. the chance to see a DVD-stranded The Man Who Wasn’t There in HD), and––finally––a Michael Winner picture given Criterion’s seal of approval.

Columbia screwballs run between classics to lesser-seens while Nicolas Roeg and Heisei-era Godzilla face off. A Times Square collection brings The Gods of Times Square,...

Spielberg's decision to shoot Schindler's List in black-and-white adds a sense of realism and avoids beautifying the Holocaust. The use of color in the final scene symbolizes hope, humanity, and the transformation of Oskar Schindler. Through its visual choices, Schindler's List conveys a nuanced and sensitive gaze on the Holocaust, making it a cinematic masterpiece.

Schindler's List switches between black-and-white and color during its 195-minute run time. Directed by Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List follows Oskar Schindler, a business owner who joins the Nazi party, but ends up having a change of heart and saving 1,200 Jews from Nazi death camps by hiring them as Jewish labor for his business. Starring Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley, this highly acclaimed World War II movie is regarded as one of the greatest cinematic portrayals of the Holocaust of all time.

Spielberg himself has declared it the best movie of his 54-year career.

A celebrity from the age of 11, Elizabeth Taylor was practiced at public relations for almost all her life, so there aren’t many personal revelations in Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. But Nanette Burstein’s elegantly constructed documentary, mostly in Taylor’s own words backed by illuminating archival images, works as a lively bit of film history about movie stardom in the volatile 1960s as the studio system was fading and the media exploding.

The film — which premiered at Cannes in the Cannes Classics sidebar — is based on 40 hours of recently rediscovered audiotapes, recordings Taylor made in the mid-1960s for a ghost-written memoir (long out of print). It was the most frenzied moment of her fame, when she was coming off the paparazzi-fueled scandal that was Cleopatra. Taylor, who died in 2011, recalls her many marriages — four when she made these recordings, since she was on the first of two...

While the 1950s saw the debut of many iconic Westerns, George Stevens 1953 Technicolor masterpiece Shane remains one of the greatest films in the entire genre. Westerns are often thought of as escapist fantasies that constitute light entertainment, but Shane examined mature themes of loss, regret, and isolationism. Shanes acclaimed performances, increased level of violence, and authentic emotional storytelling served as an elevation of the medium and became highly influential upon films both in and out of the Western genre. While the film is a classic that is still heralded today, Shane wouldnt have made it to the screen if it weren't for Paramounts attempt to outbid Howard Hughes.

There have been countless books written about the immortal star Elizabeth Taylor, even some credited to her as both memoir or autobiography including 1989’s Elizabeth On Elizabeth. But a book released on January 1, 1965, probably comes closest to a pure autobiography, and the cover simply says, Elizabeth Taylor by Elizabeth Taylor. It is a by-the-numbers account of her life through her own words up until that point, but it actually was written by Richard Meryman, a journalist credited with among other things the last interview with Marilyn Monroe.

Meryman got Taylor to sit for some tape-recorded sessions in 1964, so he would be able to write the book as if Taylor did it herself. Sixty years later, those presumed “lost” recordings have been found and cleared for release by Taylor’s and Meryman’s estates. They have been in Meryman’s wife’s possession all these years,...

Sergio Leone certainly didnt create the Western, as filmmakers like John Ford, John Huston, and George Stevens had already created foundational works within the genre by the time Leone changed the game with his innovative Western A Fistful of Dollars in 1964. However, the recurring hallmarks of the Italian filmmaker behind the The Man With No Name trilogy epitomized the stylistic hallmarks that led to the popularization of the Spaghetti Western in the 1960s. While The Man With No Name trilogy was highly influential and made an international star out of Clint Eastwood, Leone took on a more ambitious genre exercise with his 1968 Spaghetti Western epic Once Upon a Time in the West. A timeless exploration of the dynamic between economy and greed, Once Upon A Time In The West warps the audiences perspective of heroes and villains with its iconic twist.

Don Siegel’s 1976 western The Shootist stars John Wayne in his final film appearance, though it’s perhaps just as notable for the muted nature of its regard for the pathology of violence. After all, Siegel is the same filmmaker who half a decade prior made Dirty Harry, in which Clint Eastwood’s renegade cop relishes squeezing the trigger of his 44-magnum revolver whenever the opportunity presents itself.

There’s a propulsive mania to Siegel’s direction of Dirty Harry, tapping as it does into the curious overlap between Harry’s police tactics and a psycho sniper’s bloodlust. Wayne’s J.B. Books in The Shootist has no such compelling correlate. He’s a former sheriff turned gunslinger, now an old man easing the pain of his terminal cancer with swigs of laudanum, and he’s aiming to die in peace. It’s 1901, and the fact that he can’t...

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures with an expansive retrospective titled The Lady with the Torch, mounted in collaboration with the studio’s parent company, Sony.

Organized in partnership with the Cinémathèque suisse, The Lady with the Torch will be curated by Ehsan Khoshbakht, co-director of Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual festival in Bologna dedicated to film history and film restoration. The official unveiling will take place at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Locarno has said the retrospective will present the studio in “all its glory,” shining a light on lesser-known genre filmmakers like Max Nosseck, Seymour Friedman, and William A. Seiter, as well as celebrating auteurs like Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, George Stevens, and John Ford. After launching at the 77th Locarno Film Festival, running August 7-17, the retrospective will tour the world. The Retrospective will...

1993 was a year of change for filmmaker Steven Spielberg. On June 11, the director's dinosaur thriller "Jurassic Park" was released, making huge amounts of money and, eventually, becoming one of the biggest blockbusters of the decade. On December 15, the director's soul-rattling Holocaust drama "Schindler's List" was released, inviting a wave of praise and astonishment from audiences. It went on to win seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Up until June of 1993, Spielberg was perhaps best known for his action blockbusters and adventure films ("The Color Purple" and "Empire of the Sun" notwithstanding). After December 1993, Spielberg would become seemingly less interested in genre films and far more interested in movies aimed squarely at adults. He didn't seem terribly invested in his 1997 sequel to "Jurassic Park," titled "The Lost World," and, indeed, Spielberg's adventure films released since then have all felt distant and automatic, especially when compared to his more politically-bent historical dramas like "Munich,...

Sergio Leone certainly didn’t create the western, as filmmakers like John Ford, John Huston, and George Stevens had already created foundational works within the genre by the time Leone changed the game with his innovative western A Fistful of Dollars in 1964. However, the recurring hallmarks of the Italian filmmaker “The Man With No Name” trilogy, which also include For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, epitomized the stylistic hallmarks that led to the popularization of the “spaghetti western” in the 1960s. While “The Man With No Name” trilogy was highly influential and made an international star out of Clint Eastwood, Leone took on a more ambitious genre exercise with his 1968 spaghetti western epic Once Upon a Time in the West. A timeless exploration of the dynamic between economy and greed, Once Upon A Time In The West warps the audience’s perspective of...

There are many films that have quotable last lines such as “After all, tomorrow is another day” from “Gone with the Wind.” And who can forget Humphrey Bogart telling Claude Rains: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” But the beloved 1953 George Stevens’ Western “Shane” perhaps has one of the most endearing and emotional final lines. Young Joey (Brandon De Wilde) wants his idol, the former gunslinger Shane (Alan Ladd), to stay with his family. But the wounded hero continues to ride off.

“Shane………come back,” Joey cries out.

Be prepared to bring you handkerchiefs to the Academy Museum’s 70th anniversary screening Dec 10 at the David Geffen Theatre. Ladd, in his strongest performance, plays a world-weary gunslinger who wants to hang up his six-shooter. He ends up working for an honest, struggling rancher Joe, (Van Heflin), his wife Marian (Jean Arthur) and young son...

Two years in, the Academy Film Museum is rolling full steam ahead with a new programming director and a packed slate of upcoming films for the winter season. On Dec. 10, Christopher Nolan will present the classic Western “Shane” on its 70th anniversary and speak about the film for the George Stevens Lecture.

Other spotlight programs include:

A retrospective film series on “Parasite” actor Song Kang-ho in-person for four conversations starting Dec. 7 A 10th anniversary screening of “12 Years a Slave” on Feb. 25 with Steve McQueen. “3D-cember” with screenings like “Jaws” and “Frozen” in 3D “Works of Enduring Importance: 35 Years of the National Film Registry” starting Dec. 14 “Beware the Elements! Natural Disasters on Film” starting Jan. 4 A screening of 1972’s “Buck and the Preacher” will pay tribute to Harry Belafonte “Echoes of Africia” presents African stories on film from Feb. 1 to Feb. 9

K.J. Relth-Miller just took over as Director of Film...

Going into its third year of film programming, The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Museum has an established style: unabashedly eclectic. This winter it will showcase everything from an Oscar-friendly George Stevens Lecture with Christopher Nolan, who will present a 70th anniversary screening of classic western “Shane;” the first-ever retrospective on Korean actor Song Kang-Ho (“Parasite”); a 10th-anniversary screening of Oscar-winner “12 Years a Slave” with director Steve McQueen; a spotlight on African cinema guest programmed by Mo Abudu and co-presented with the NAACP; and a series on natural disasters in movies that kicks off with “Twister” in 35 mm.

“There are multiple histories of cinema,” said chief audience officer Amy Homma over Zoom. “And what better way to show that than with screening as many wildly diverse, broad-ranging series, genres, and decades-spanning titles as possible? Our cinematheque program is hundreds of screenings per year and we’re screening eight to 10 titles per week.

James Sanders in Celluloid Skyline: New York And The Movies quotes Deborah Kerr with Cary Grant in Leo McCarey’s An Affair To Remember: “It’s the nearest thing to heaven we have in New York.”

In the first instalment with architect, author, and filmmaker James Sanders, we discuss his timeless and profound book, Celluloid Skyline: New York And The Movies, in which he explores how deeply one informs the other. From Joan Didion’s wisdom to Cedric Gibbons’s dream sets in the sky, we touch on George Stevens’s Swing Time (starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) and Robert Z Leonard’s Susan Lenox (with Greta Garbo and Clark Gable); East River running with Jill Clayburgh and Michael Murphy in Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman.

James Sanders with Anne-Katrin Titze: “One of the aspects of a mythic city is that it can go anywhere ”

The mansion...

Documentary casts the movie star as a painful figure who inspired a new dialogue about Aids, but doesn’t do much to examine his Republican politics

The title of this efficient documentary, patching together archive footage with off-camera interview material, is naturally taken from the 1955 romantic drama All That Heaven Allows, directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson opposite Jane Wyman; it is a movie – and a genre – long since rescued from critical condescension. Hudson did indeed seem to have all that heaven allowed: an almost preternatural handsomeness with something like Cary Grant’s looks and pure movie-star glow, overlaid with a granite masculinity, and a cool, insouciant style, which appeared to enclose an enigma long before his gay identity and his Aids diagnosis was confirmed at the very end of his life.

Even when he went out of style during the American new wave, as the scuffed-up authenticity of Pacino,...

Back in 1992 Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson — who had met the University of Texas in Dallas and were roomies — decided to make a movie. But after spending $10,000 and shooting 13 minutes of the crime caper comedy “Bottle Rocket,” they ran out of money. Eventually, the short and the full script made its way to Oscar-winning writer/director/producer James L. Brooks. It just so happened that Columbia had a deal with Brooks to finance a low-budget film selected by the filmmaker. And in 1996, the feature-length version of “Bottle Rocket” was released with Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson and James Caan. Though the film didn’t set the box office on fire, critics realized Anderson was a new and exciting cinematic voice.

Anderson has made 11 feature films — his latest “Asteroid City” came out earlier this year — and has been nominated seven times for an Oscar including three for screenplay, two for animated features,...

Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest movie makers of all time, with titles such as “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” and “The Irishman.” The Academy Awards think that highly of him, too. Scorsese has reaped nine Best Director nominations. That tally ties him with Steven Spielberg. Here’s the breakdown of Best Director bids for both of them:

Scorsese:

“Raging Bull” in 1981 — lost to Robert Redford for “Ordinary People.” “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1989 — lost to Barry Levinson for “Rain Man.” “Goodfellas” in 1991 — lost to Kevin Costner for “Dances With Wolves.” “Gangs of New York” in 2003 — lost to Roman Polanski for “The Pianist.” “The Aviator” in 2005 — lost to Clint Eastwood for “Million Dollar Baby.” “The Departed” in 2007 — Won. “Hugo” in 2012 — lost to Michel Hazanavicius for “The Artist.” “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2014 — lost to Alfonso Cuarón for “Gravity.” “The Irishman” in 2020 — lost to Bong Joon Ho for “Parasite.

George Stevens is considered one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, directing classics in various genres and receiving multiple Oscar nominations and wins. Some of Stevens's best movies, like Vivacious Lady, don't even make the list of his top 10 due to their slightly lower critical acclaim and lasting impact. Movies like Woman of the Year, The Talk of the Town, Gunga Din, The Diary of Anne Frank, I Remember Mama, Swing Time, The More the Merrier, A Place in the Sun, Shane, and Giant are among Stevens's best and are highly regarded for their performances, themes, and enduring legacy.

Given that George Stevens was one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, selecting his best movies and ranking them is a difficult task. Stevens came up in the 1930s working on slapstick comedy films for Hal Roach, but he's known for directing classics in a number of genres,...

Noreen Nash, a starlet of the 1940s and ’50s who appeared in such notable films as The Southerner, Giant and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, has died. She was 99.

Nash died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Beverly Hills, her oldest son, Lee Siegel Jr., told The Hollywood Reporter.

Nash worked on about two dozen features during her two-decade career, including several “B” pictures like Phantom From Space (1953), where she portrayed an abducted scientist in a movie shot at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.

The blue-eyed, dark-haired Nash also starred as the wife of an owner of a Palm Springs tennis club on the CBS summer replacement series The Charles Farrell Show — it stood in for I Love Lucy in 1956 — and appeared on episodes of Hopalong Cassidy, The Abbott and Costello Show, My Little Margie, Dragnet and 77 Sunset Strip.

Nash played the...

Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.

Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...

NatGeo’s widely acclaimed new limited series “A Small Light” chronicles the heroism of Miep Gies and several other brave Amsterdam residents who hid Anne Frank and her family, as well as four other people from the Nazis in a hidden attic apartment in Otto Frank’s office building. After the eight Jewish residents were arrested and sent to concentration camps in 1944, it was Gies who saved Anne’s diary and kept it in her desk drawer. Otto Frank, who was the only member of the immediate family who survived the camps — Anne died of typhus in March 1945 at Bergen-Belson — returned to Amsterdam, Gies gave him Anne’s diary. And in 1947 “The Diary of a Young Girl” was published in Europe. Five years later, “Diary” made its way to America. It has been translated into over 67 languages.

Anne had received a red checkered autograph book for her 13th birthday on...

When one typically thinks of the "Golden Age" of the Western genre in filmmaking what naturally comes to mind? Perhaps it's the 1930s when the legendary John Ford led a posse of prolific films and capped off the decade with the incredible Stagecoach. Perhaps it was in the 1950s when director George Stevens crafted one of the most influential Western adventures of all time with Shane. Of course, an argument could also be made for the 1960s, which were best known for ushering in the Fistful of Dollars trilogy to fans of the genre. Suffice it to say, the Western is a genre that has stood the test of time since the art of filmmaking was born, making it one of the most prolific and eldest types of entertainment in the cinematic world. That all being said, one era that brought in a wealth of incredible content is one that...

Katharine Hepburn was undoubetdly a prototype of Feminism during the Golden Age of Hollywood, well-known for eshewing conventions in dressing and behaviour. Whilst her 'box office poison' status may have been related to these transgressions, directors such as George Stevens of Woman of the Year and George Cukor of Adam's Rib ignored the naysayers and created timeless classics led by the celebrated actress. These two comedies show the New Woman in a very different light, the former showcasing what might be considered a more 'performative' feminism, the latter, a glowing depiction of a woman fighting for a cause she believes in. All this, while trying to satisfy man's man, Spencer Tracy.

Hollywood stars and filmmakers joined for a weekend of celebrating film legacies and the impact they have had on cinema at the 2023 TCM Classic Film Festival.

To kick off the festival at the Los Angeles’ Tcl Chinese Theatre, The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and Hollywood Legion Theater at Post 43, Angie Dickinson chatted with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz on opening night Thursday about Rio Bravo, her role as Feathers and starring opposite John Wayne and Dean Martin.

When talking about what it was like working with director Howard Hawks, Dickinson said, “He was a man of few words,” and while filming, he told her and the crew to “just relax, and he and I sat there, talking about nothing. It was just to relax me and get me to the point that he wanted me to be for the scene.”

Directors Steven Spielberg and Paul Thomas Anderson also took part in a...

The Western is back, again. After it died. Prior to which it came back again.

As film historian and co-host of the How the West was Cast podcast, Andrew Patrick Nelson argues, journalists and historians love to write about the Western being dead just as much as they enjoy writing about its resurgence. However, this ebb and flow is part of a predictable life cycle that has kept the genre alive for over a century.

The origins of the frontier narrative on our public consciousness dates to 1845, when John L. O’Sullivan coined the phrase “manifest destiny” in an essay about America’s perceived right to expansion. As the Wild West came to an end and the frontier became settled, Frederick Jackson Turner introduced his “frontier thesis” in 1893. Turner hit on the binary conflicts that make the Western as a mythological place so engaging. The frontier, as he defined it,...

There have been no shortage of retellings of Anne Frank’s iconic book “The Diary of a Young Girl.” From the time it was first published in 1947 as Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) in Dutch in a small edition of 3,036 copies and went on to become one of the most translated books in the world, it’s been adapted to every medium imaginable – from stage to screens big and small, as a musical, as a dance interpretation, even as a 2017 graphic diary. The first play version of “The Diary of Anne Frank” hit Broadway in 1955 and proved a rousing success, running more than 700 performances and earning its playwrights a Pulitzer Prize. A 1959 theatrical film directed by George Stevens earned eight Academy Award nominations and won three: for Shelley Winters as supporting actress as well as its cinematography and art direction/set decoration.

Yet throughout all of the wartime story’s many renderings,...