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One of the most polarizing films of 2022 is becoming a sleeper hit on streaming.Damien Chazelle's Hollywood epic Babylon, which currently holds a 57% Rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is currently the #3 top-streaming movie on Paramount+. Despite underwhelming audience and critical support during its release, it seems that the film is now finding its audience on streaming.

Babylon was a big risk for Chazelle, coming off the critical acclaim but box-office underperformance of First Man, his Neil Armstrong biopic. Its star-studded cast reunited Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie from Quentin Tarantino's 2019 hit Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, and carried a budget of $80 million Usd. Ultimately, it too was a financial disappointment, grossing only $64.9 million. Audiences may have been put off by its epic length (over three hours), its unflinching depiction of over-the-top decadence, or by its reviews, which were wildly polarized: some critics hailed it as a masterpiece, while...

Will Smith was once offered the role of Dom Cobb in Inception before the role went to Leonardo DiCaprio. In Christopher Nolan’s film, the character is a thief who steals information from the subconscious of his targets. Smith didn’t reveal the reason why he passed on the role until now. Interestingly, Smith wasn’t Nolan’s first choice either.

Nolan’s first choice was Brad Pitt, who was earlier slated to play the lead role in Memento. The reason for Pitt to pass on the role is still unclear. However, DiCaprio nailed the role in his only collaboration with Nolan. Neither Pitt nor Smith ever had a chance to work with the Interstellar director.

Christopher Nolan was after another A-lister before he considered Will Smith for Inception Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb in Christopher Nolan’s Inception | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures

Christopher Nolan‘s story for Inception is led by Dom Cobb,...

Damien Chazelle is planning to plot a show-worthy comeback after his 2022 tentpole, Babylon, bombed at the box office. However, for his return, Chazelle is not coming alone, as he is, reportedly, trying to enlist Oppenheimer and James Bond to script his return.

As per reports, the 40-year-old director is trying to bring in the Oscar-winning actor for Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy, and James Bond star Daniel Craig for his upcoming film, Chazelle, who himself is an Oscar winner, is reportedly looking forward to a successful comeback with the two heavyweights in the helm of his project.

Damien Chazelle is tapping Daniel Craig and Cillian Murphy for his comeback project

As reported by Deadline, Damien Chazelle is working on his next project – the first since his box office disappointment, Babylon, in 2022. Made on an estimated budget of $78-70 million, the film earned only a meager $64.9 million.

Daniel Craig in a still from Skyfall | Credit: Eon Productions,...

Not all of the classic Universal Monsters were based on classic stories. While Frankenstein and Dracula came from the minds of Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker, The Wolfman, and previously Werewolf of London, was based on folklore dating back centuries rather than fiction. While the character has had a hard time coming back into the limelight with the disappointing Wolfman from 2010 and even more disappointing Wolf Man from 2025, the myth has done well for itself even while not being as in the public favor as the Zombie or Vampire. Those original films may not be based on books but that didn’t stop writers from creating their own stories or studios from adapting them. This includes the likes of Hammer Studios Curse of the Werewolf being adapted from The Werewolf of Paris and The Wolfen getting turned into the 1981 movie Wolfen. Speaking of 1981, there were two other rather small werewolf...

Margot Robbie Brad Pitt Kiss Scene (Photo Credit – Instagram)

When Margot Robbie kissed Brad Pitt in Babylon, it wasn’t just a moment between two Hollywood heavyweights—it was pure spontaneity. The scene, now iconic, was not in the script. Robbie decided on the fly that her character, Nellie Laroy, had to kiss Pitt’s Jack Conrad. And, let’s be honest, when else would she get that chance?

“It wasn’t in the script,” Robbie told E! News. “But I thought, ‘When else will I get to kiss Brad Pitt? I’m just gonna go for it.’” Robbie wasn’t just playing the part—she was living the moment, fully embracing the chaos that is her character in Babylon.

But Robbie’s bold move didn’t come without a little push. She had to convince director Damien Chazelle to let her take that leap. “I said, ‘Damien, I think...

Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie are known for their exceptional talent and the charm they bring to their movies. Robbie wowed us as Barbie and Harley Quinn, while Pitt shined as a secret agent in Mr. And Mrs. Smith and as Rusty Ryan in Oceans Eleven. Their films usually create magic on screen, so when the two teamed up for Babylon in 2022, expectations were high. However, the movie didn’t perform well and ended up being a box-office flop.

Margot Robbie in the movie Babylon | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Babylon faced harsh criticism. Despite its star-studded cast and stunning visuals, the film struggled to connect with viewers which led to disappointing ticket sales. However, as time passed, Babylon began gaining appreciation from a niche audience. Many now see it as a misunderstood masterpiece and believe it has the potential to achieve cult status. Margot Robbie, in particular, has expressed hope that...

Margot Robbie is clueless as to why her and Brad Pitt’s movie ‘Babylon’ was a box office flop.The 34-year-old actress and the 60-year-old Hollywood star starred as Nellie Laroy and Jack Conrad in Damien Chazelle’s 2022 historical black comedy drama, and the ‘Barbie’ star still can’t fathom why it wasn’t such a big hit with cinemagoers and is still hopeful that it will follow in the footsteps of 1994 prison drama ‘Shawshank Redemption’ and become a cult classic years later. During an appearance on the 'Talking Pictures' podcast, host Ben Mankiewicz said he couldn't understand why people disliked the flick – which made an abysmal $64.9 million worldwide - so much.Margot agreed: “I am still saying that. “I love it.”She continued: “I know I am biased because I am very close to the project and I obviously believe in it, but I still can’t figure out why people hated it.

Jean Smart is an actress known for her humor, sharp wit, and nuanced performances, and she recently delved into a role that challenged her emotionally in Babylon. The Damien Chazelle directorial takes an outrageous look at the excesses of early Hollywood. Among its vast and star-studded cast, Smart shares the screen with Brad Pitt, a pairing that sparked both curiosity and excitement.

Jean Smart in a still from Hacks | Credits: HBO Max

While Babylon covers the highs and lows of the golden age of cinema, Smart’s portrayal of Eleanor St. John, a Hollywood gossip columnist, brought the reality of fleeting fame into sharp focus. Her character delivers a powerful monologue to Pitt’s aging star, adding emotional depth to a story filled with over-the-top spectacle.

Why Jean Smart Agreed to Star in Babylon Jean Smart with Diego Calva in Babylon | Wild Chickens

Despite the chaotic elements of Babylon, Jean...

The year 2022 in film, looking back, was a year of Grandiosity. Yes, Grandiosity, with a capital G. In this year’s Best Picture category, we have such hits as ‘Avatar 2: The Way of Water,’ ‘Elvis,’ ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ and ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once,’ whose title itself even nods to grandiosity. Even Todd Field’s ‘Tár’ has a sense of epic proportions to it. And then comes Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon’– a film of immense proportion excitedly dreamed up by the mind behind the multi-Oscar-winning ‘Whiplash’ and ‘La La Land,’ and packed with some of the biggest stars of our time – Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, to casually name a few. A gigantic opus of a film clocking in at three hours and nine minutes long, reaching new heights in Chazelle’s oeuvre, audacious and ambitious as ever – and it flops! With a...

Brad Pitt's character in "Babylon," Jack Conrad, mirrors real 1920s actors like John Gilbert, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolph Valentino. Conrad's tragic death in response to Hollywood's transition to sound films reflects the struggles of many silent era stars. "Babylon" features fictional characters inspired by real Hollywood figures, exploring the industry's shift from silent to sound films.

This article contains mention of suicide and substance abuse.

With Babylon's in-depth look into a certain period in Hollywood history, many people wonder if Brad Pitt's Jack Conrad is a real actor. Damien Chazelle's Babylon examines the rise and fall of several stars as 1920s Hollywood transitions from silent movies to talkies. Conrad plays a pivotal part in giving Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie) and Manny Torres (Diego Calva) their big breaks, even as he feels they could replace him. At a time when the industry was in a great phase of transition,...

Brad Pitt and George Clooney star in "Wolfs," set for a 2024 release, potentially breaking their recent poor Rotten Tomatoes streaks. Previous projects starring the actors have received "Rotten" scores, prompting optimism for "Wolfs" to reverse their luck. The highly anticipated film reunites the actors after 16 years, generating excitement due to their successful past collaborations.

Brad Pitt and George Clooney are set to star in Wolfs, an upcoming movie that will be released in 2024, and it might be just what the actors need to break both of their recent disappointing Rotten Tomatoes streaks. The action comedy film, directed and written by Jon Watts of the McU's Spider-Man fame, chronicles two professional "fixers," played by Pitt and Clooney, who are both hired for the same job. Despite the initial tension between them, the two men are forced to work together.

Wolfs, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, premieres in theaters on September...

Brad Pitt has several universally loved movies in his filmography, but some have left reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes divided. Movies like Bullet Train and Troy were preferred by audiences, while critics had harsher criticisms. Ad Astra and Killing Them Softly received high critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences' scores were significantly lower.

Brad Pitt has played in a lot of great movies over the years, some of which left critics and audiences divided on Rotten Tomatoes. In most cases, the scores from both groups are relatively close to one another, with both the professionals and average-joe viewers citing similar issues or praises for a film. However, there are times when critics rave about a movie while general audiences are left feeling so-so or vice versa. In these cases, defining a movie's critical success is a little more complicated, and Pitt is among the actors who frequently leave people divided.

Oscar winner Damien Chazelle confirmed on the “Talking Pictures” podcast (via World of Reel) that he is currently at work writing his new movie, which would mark his follow-up to 2022’s “Babylon.” As many cinephiles know, “Babylon” was one of the biggest studio disasters in recent memory. Made for a budget in the $80 million range, the Paramount-backed Hollywood epic flopped with only $15 million at the domestic box office and $63 million worldwide despite A-list star power from Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie and Chazelle himself coming off his Oscar-winning “La La Land.”

“I’ve been head in the sand. I’ve been sort of busy writing. So I’ll get a real taste of how it’s changed or not [since ‘Babylon’] once I get to finish this script and try to actually get it made,” Chazelle said on the podcast when asked if his relationship to Hollywood has changed after the flop.

Tobey Maguire's character in Babylon, James McKay, is a standout with a haunting presence due to his incredibly weird and mysterious nature. James McKay's appearance, including his pale skin, yellow teeth, and sunken eyes, is a result of his drug addiction, particularly his frequent use of meth. The alligator scene involving Tobey Maguire's character symbolizes the excess and unpredictability of early Hollywood, reflecting the untamed nature of the industry at that time.

Tobey Maguire plays James McKay in Damien Chazelle's 2023 film Babylon, but many viewers are wondering what the hell is up with the villain, and what is with that alligator scene? Maguire's role in the Babylon cast is one of the film's biggest standouts, with the incredibly weird character having a haunting presence in the short time that he appears on-screen. While James McKay's background is left pretty vague, some details can be parsed out, including his...

Babylon, despite its disappointing box office performance, has found new life through streaming and has been praised by horror author Stephen King. The movie delves into the complicated lives of diverse individuals in Hollywood, showcasing the dark struggles of fame and the debauchery within the industry. While some critics found Babylon to be overstuffed and chaotic, King suggests that it may be remembered as a classic in the future, akin to The Shining.

Stephen King recently shared his thoughts about 2022's Babylon, and the acclaimed horror author is absolutely right in thinking the box office bomb starring Margot Robbie deserved better. The epic period comedy-drama from Damien Chazelle stars Robbie alongside Brad Pitt, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Jovan Adepo, and Li Jun Li as key figures in Hollywood during a significant industry shift in the late 1920s. Loosely based on real actors from the silent era of movies and some...

The following contains spoilers for Barbie and Oppenheimer, now playing in theaters.

The simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer has left many audience members struggling to find other movies comparable to what they have just witnessed. After all, Barbenheimer is the kind of cultural phenomenon that only comes around once every few years, and it's hard to know what to look forward to now that the hype is beginning to dwindle. However, one underrated, perfect film for fans of both halves of the double feature is Damien Chazelle's Babylon, released in December 2022.

Babylon follows three major players and their lives in Hollywood as the film industry transitions from silent to sound films. There's Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a young man who dreams of nothing more than being a movie star; Margot Robbie's Nellie Laroy, an up-and-coming actress who swears she'll become a star if it's the last thing she ever does; and Jack Conrad,...

Singin' In The Rain is a highly romanticized version of Manny's experiences during Hollywood's transition to talkies, paralleling the struggles he faced in Babylon. Manny's emotional reaction to Singin' In The Rain proves that he made a lasting imprint on Hollywood, reviving suppressed memories and validating his contributions to the industry. The divisive ending of Babylon, featuring the Singin' In The Rain montage, is emotionally significant and intended to evoke strong emotions, despite its mixed reception among viewers.

Babylon’s ending is divisive for several reasons, but Manny’s emotional reaction to Singin’ In The Rain is actually the perfect conclusion to his story. Babylon follows fictional movie industry figures Manny Torres (Diego Calva), Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie), and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) through their pre-Hays code Hollywood careers. One of the major turning points of Babylon comes when movies transition from the silent era to talkies, and while this...

Before Margot Robbie was Barbie, she was Harley Quinn, Naomi Lapaglia, Tonya Harding, and many more characters. There's no doubt Robbie loves her job as an actor, and while tackling the role of an iconic children's toy wasn't initially on her career bucket list, it's clear she's happy she took a chance with the role.

A month before the highly anticipated July 2023 release of "Barbie," Robbie spoke to Vogue about how playing the role never even crossed her mind. "It wasn't that I ever wanted to play Barbie, or dreamt of being Barbie, or anything like that," she explained. "This is going to sound stupid, but I really didn't even think about playing Barbie until years into developing the project."

And while "Barbie" might arguably be Robbie's most hyped-up movie in her career so far, it's by no means the only role she's slayed. Take a look back at Robbie's best movies below.

Babylon is a movie written and directed by Damien Chazelle (First Man) starring Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt.

Babylon is a movie which from its failure in the box office recalls the echoes of Intolerance (1915), in which they built those sets with elephants that were so grandiose, in a film making style of another era and an impossible dream, disconcerting, ambitious and almost orgiastic spirit.

About the Movie

Babylon captures all of this spirit from a grandiose production which did not convince the more traditional audience.

Babylon (2022)

This movie tries to reconstruct the chaos experienced in the first Hollywood times, the arrival of sound, the excesses, disconcerting situations and the fight to not wake up from an impossible dream and, in some way, reconstruct that lost Babylon that the creator of modern cinema, David Wark Griffith tried to find too.

This is a movie with a stellar cast (Margot Robbie...

Damien Chazelle's Babylon filmed in multiple Old Hollywood locations, drawing audiences into the debaucherous world of 1920s Los Angeles. The dark period comedy shows the glamour and dangers of the silent film era in Hollywood. Babylon follows the lives of an extensive group of characters including newbies in Hollywood like Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie) and Manny Torres (Diego Calva), as well as established performers like Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li), Sidney Palmer (Jovan Apedo), and Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt).

While many movies choose to use a studio lot for filming, Babylon took a different approach by using real buildings from Old Hollywood. This allowed Babylon to draw viewers into the time period represented, rather than requiring a suspension of disbelief. Though the scope of these sets became challenging to manage, according to director Damien Chazelle (via People), it made for a magical movie-going experience.

Blue Sky Movie Ranch...

For a movie about Hollywood, Babylon has a shocking lack of real-world figures, but here are all five characters that actually existed and how accurate they are in Damien Chazelle's new movie. Babylon is a portrait of Hollywood throughout the 1920s and 1930s, with the film capturing the dark and seedy underbelly of the film industry that existed during the transition from silent pictures to sound. This era was a massive shift for the Hollywood studio system, with it affecting all kinds of major entertainment industry figures, which is why Babylon portrays these five real-life people throughout the course of the film.

Damien Chazelle's massive Hollywood spectacle hit theaters in late 2022, with Babylon being one of the most memorable films of the year. The movie follows Margot Robbie's Nellie Laroy, a silent picture scarlet who rises to the top before things come crashing down as the industry transitions to movies with sound.

Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh, and Ke Huy Quan in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (Photo Credit: Allyson Riggs / A24)

Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan became the first Asian actress and actor to win Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role/Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Everything Everywhere All at Once also scored wins in the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture categories.

SAG members spread out the wins in the television categories, with The White Lotus the only nominee to earn multiple awards. Additional 29th Annual SAG Awards television winners included Abbott Elementary, 1883, The Bear, Hacks, George & Tammy, and Ozark.

This year’s SAG Awards took place in Los Angeles and streamed live on YouTube on February...

Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” is the sort of maximalist movie where every frame teems with excess, so it’s only fitting that its costumes be outrageous in both their number and designs. Between the cast of over a hundred speaking roles and the abundance of extras, costume designer Mary Zophres estimates that she and her department created around 7,000 costumes, which is even more impressive when one considers the meticulous detail that went into every piece of clothing. Nowhere did this approach pay more dividends — both in glamour and character development — than with Jean Smart’s brutally honest gossip columnist Elinor St. John. A close look at her costumes reveals the thought and care that, when multiplied by hundreds of cast members, made “Babylon” the most sartorially spectacular film of 2022 and Zophres an Oscar nominee for best costume design.

“People don’t realize how important costumes are to creating a character,...

Stars: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Jean Smart, Flea | Written and Directed by Damien Chazelle

A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, tracing the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.

One thing’s for sure – Babylon is without a doubt Damien Chazelle‘s most ambitious and daring film to date, and that’s really saying something seeing as how he’s already directed some truly wild films in the past few years including the feisty Whiplash, the syrupy-sweet, emotionally complex La La Land, and the searing First Man.

Sadly, this is the only film that Chazelle has directed that I haven’t fallen in love with. Babylon is a decently enjoyable movie but it’s filled with an absurd amount of filler that tremendously pads out the runtime to ridiculous lengths. This movie is three hours and...

Warning: This article contains major spoilers for Babylon.

The ending to Damien Chazelle's Babylon has proved incredibly divisive with audiences. Starring Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Jovan Adepo, and Diego Calva, Babylon centers on the rise and fall of four characters in Hollywood in the 1920s-30s as the film industry evolves into the sound era. In stark contrast to his sophomore film, La La Land, an almost hagiographic musical about filmmaking and jazz, Damien Chazelle's Babylon explores the seedy underbelly of Hollywood. It chronicles the sheer levels of exploitation that many film studios relied on to make their films at the pace and budget they wanted. Babylon also exposes the racism that abounded behind the scenes of these productions.

Contrary to the rest of the film's content and themes, the experimental montage that takes place at the end of Babylon can be interpreted as presenting some far more hopeful ideas.

In the last two years, Florencia Martin has quickly established herself as the go-to production designer for auteurs who want to transform modern day Los Angeles into a vivid evocation of the city as it exists in our memories, dreams, and fantasies. Her meticulous recreations of the 197os San Fernando Valley in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” and 1950s Hollywood in Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde” represent some of the most impressive design work in recent memory, but Martin was just getting warmed up: With “Babylon,” Damien Chazelle’s celebration and indictment of Hollywood in the late 1920s, the production designer has created her most sprawling, detailed, and audacious sets to date.

Working with set decorator Anthony Carlino, Martin fills scene after scene with colorful surroundings that both express and comment on the characters’ inner desires and tensions, all while remaining faithful to the period without losing a modern sense of immediacy.

Babylon (2022).Hollywood has been making movies about movies for almost as long as there have been movies. This is not surprising given the town’s penchant for self-mythologizing; the dramatic potential of silver-screen fame, always an Icarus flight on wax wings melting in the California sun; and the allure of a glimpse behind the scenes into the factory where the dreams are made. It would be hypocritical to mock the self-importance of a place that exerts such an inexhaustible fascination—on me, I own, and probably on you—and Hollywood’s addiction to turning the cameras on itself has produced a few masterpieces of clear-eyed ambivalence. It has also revealed, even in less successful efforts, a strain of insecurity and self-loathing under the celebratory tinsel. Some films portray the industry as crass and cruel, spitting out used-up stars and corrupting artistic integrity; some exploit chaotic, unhinged movie sets for laughs or thrills.

You’ve never seen Hollywood quite like the way it’s portrayed in “Babylon,” the new film from Oscar-winning “La La Land” and “First Man” filmmaker Damien Chazelle. This three-hour epic takes place in the late 1920s and opens in a debauchery-filled Hollywood in the heyday of silent films, as it then chronicles a trio of characters through the transition to talkies. Chazelle assembled an all-star cast for the film, including Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, and holds nothing back in this R-rated drama that has drawn more than a few comparisons to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights.”

So if “Babylon” is the film you’re looking to watch over the holiday break, you may be wondering how and where to see it. All your questions answered below.

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Watch How ‘Babylon’ Production Designer Florencia Martin Re-Created Old Hollywood in the Desert (Exclusive Video) When Did “Babylon” Come Out?...

Damien Chazelle's Babylon is a film that feels like a Greek tragedy, a love letter to artistic pursuits, and a dissertation on the early days of Hollywood all rolled into one. It's Chazelle's most ambitious movie to date, with a story that spans decades, setpieces that rival superhero blockbusters, and roles that demand the most of its cast. While critically divisive, Babylon is the stunning product of a strong and singular vision and is worth viewing for that fact alone.

In what must have been an interesting challenge for the film's stars, the characters of Babylon live large portions of their lives off-screen, until a fateful intersection calls for the eye of the camera. One of said onscreen collisions with a direct line to the ending of Babylon is between Brad Pitt's Jack Conrad, a silent film star, and Jean Smart's Elinor St. John, a journalist and culture reporter.

The 2023 Oscar nominees for Best Supporting Actor are almost a foregone conclusion with front-runner Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) leading our racetrack odds, followed by Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”), Paul Dano (“The Fabelmans”) and Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”). The fifth spot, however, is still up for grabs and prime for a surprise.

Eddie Redmayne (“The Good Nurse”) is currently predicted to make the cut, likely due to his recent bids at the Golden Globes, SAG Awards and BAFTAs. Despite those mentions, I would argue the final slot will go to “Babylon” star Brad Pitt for his portrayal Jack Conrad, a silent film actor struggling to adjust to the sound era. Below are my top five reasons you will hear Pitt’s name when nominations are announced on Tuesday, January 24.

See 2023 Oscars: Best Supporting Actor Predictions

1. Brad Pitt is still one of Hollywood...

You can tell filmmakers are worried about the future of cinema. James Cameron is demanding that we all give Imax escapism another go in his three-hour Avatar sequel. Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is offering a fictionalised look at his childhood fascination with movie magic. And Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light has Olivia Colman whimsically gushing over the power of the big screen experience – like that viral Nicole Kidman advert, only more sincere. But if the ending of Babylon is anything to go by, Damien Chazelle is clearly the most worried director of all.

Yet another ode to the majesty of movies, Babylon concludes with a nauseatingly saccharine sequence: a flourishing, Oscars-style montage, pulling together clips of various notable films throughout history. Spanning from the silent era to the 21st century, it features everything from Un Chien Andalou and The Passion of Joan of Arc, to Tron, Terminator 2,...

You can tell filmmakers are worried about the future of cinema. James Cameron is demanding that we all give Imax escapism another go in his three-hour Avatar sequel. Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is offering a fictionalised look at his childhood fascination with movie magic. And Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light has Olivia Colman whimsically gushing over the power of the big screen experience – like that viral Nicole Kidman advert, only more sincere. But if the ending of Babylon is anything to go by, Damien Chazelle is clearly the most worried director of all.

Yet another ode to the majesty of movies, Babylon concludes with a nauseatingly saccharine sequence: a flourishing, Oscars-style montage, pulling together clips of various notable films throughout history. Spanning from the silent era to the 21st century, it features everything from Un Chien Andalou and The Passion of Joan of Arc, to Tron, Terminator 2,...

Despite star wattage from Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, ​the ​La La Land​ director’s ​overcooked portrait of a nascent Tinseltown is more hysterical than historical

In the opening act of Damien Chazelle’s hyperventilating, splashboard portrait of early Hollywood, an elephant shits explosively straight on to the screen, covering us in a veritable sewage farm of sloppy excreta. Over the next three hours we’ll be treated to a man chomping down on live rats in the bowels of hell, a giant alligator snapping at the heels of subterranean revellers to the monkey/chimp refrain of Aba Daba Honeymoon, and a rattlesnake sinking its fangs into Margot Robbie’s neck before having its head cut off with a knife. We’ll also get to watch an actor pee on a Fatty Arbuckle-style partygoer (“Playtime with potty time!”) and see Robbie projectile-vomiting all over someone’s nice suit, extravagantly despoiling...

Babylon is Damien Chazelle’s rocket-powered dive into the early days of Hollywood, decorated with orgies, elephant faeces and cocaine. There is spanking. Bacchanalian dancing. Chairs tossed through windows. And that’s all in the first 15 minutes. La La Land, Chazelle’s Oscar-winning, Bambi-eyed paen to artists, poets and the “fools that dream”, would drop dead from fright if it ever came face-to-face with it.

Tailor-made to divide audiences, this debauched drama – and a clear repudiation to those who once accused Chazelle of being too sentimental a director – puts a bullet in the head of any notion that the film industry’s silent era was ever austere or quaint. This was a frontier time, where the art of cinema was built from the ground up with zero rules and very little restraint. It was a place where the soul-sick and hungry could reinvent themselves, but not without considerable personal cost.

In the Oscars race for Best Supporting Actor, so far the only certainty has been Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), who has won everything that isn’t nailed down, including Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. The rest of the field has fluctuated significantly, and now, as of January 18, Brad Pitt has slipped into the top five in our odds for his performance in “Babylon” in spite of abuse allegations against him. Scroll down to see how the race has taken shape on our graph.

SEE4 surprising SAG nominations: Ana de Armas, ‘Babylon’ cast …

Pitt plays Jack Conrad, a silent film star struggling to adjust to the sound era, and he currently gets 15/1 odds in the category. Just five of the Expert journalists we’ve surveyed from major media outlets are betting on him to be nominated, and only four Gold Derby Editors agree, but more than...

Margot Robbie got a special surprise while she was doing press for her latest movie “Babylon”.

The actress was walking the red carpet in her home country of Australia at the Sydney premiere for the eagerly anticipated flick when her school friends pulled up behind her.

They could be heard yelling in the background of an interview, “Hey Maggot!”

Robbie, who was talking to entertainment reporter Justin Hill at the time, turned around before jumping up and down and waving to her pals.

She then returned to face the interviewer, grinning, “I saw my school friends.”

Read More: Margot Robbie Drops New Info On ‘Barbie’: ‘It’s Still Gonna Blow Your Mind’

Robbie added, “We have been friends since we were four years old.”

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A post shared by Justin Hill (@jus_hill)

Hill shared the cute clip on Instagram, alongside the caption: “Can’t...

In 1952, Singin’ in the Rain delivered an indelible celluloid portrait of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Released some 70 years later, but during the same tumultuous transition from silent pictures to the ‘Talkies’, Babylon is both a call and response to Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s masterpiece, beautifully speaking to the timeless allure of cinema. In a little over three hours, Damien Chazelle masterfully captures the wonder and eccentricities of stardom, and does so with such panache that it’s easy to see Babylon becoming an all-time classic.

The eyes and ears of the story belong to Manny Torres (Diego Calva), a Mexican-American film assistant who aspires to more. Yet Manny is not alone in his intoxication with cinema. Early on, he meets the effervescent Nellie LeRoy (Margot Robbie), an actor hoping to find her way onto the silver screen. Their respective rises – Manny in the background, Nellie very much...

Academy Award winner Damien Chazelle is back on the awards circuit with his ode to Old Hollywood, “Babylon.”

The star-studded ensemble film charts the chaos, glory, and mayhem of the City of Angels during the transition between silent films and talkies. Set in the 1920s, “Babylon” immortalizes the A-listers of today by placing them in the context of yesterday’s golden era. Brad Pitt stars as world-weary aging film icon Jack Conrad, who crosses paths with rising starlet Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie) as she does whatever it takes to reach stardom. The foray into fictionalized film history is told through the eyes of both “Babylon” and real-life Hollywood newcomer Diego Calva, who plays aspiring filmmaker Manny Torres. Outsider Manny’s true love is cinema, and he flirts with the elusive art form as the entire industry is turned on its head.

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Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ (Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures © 2022 20th Century Studios)

The love for The Banshees of Inisherin and Everything Everywhere All at Once has spread to the Screen Actors Guild. Nominations for the 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards have been announced and Banshees and Everything Everywhere topped the list on the film side, earning five SAG Awards nominations each.

The final season of Ozark led the TV nominations, picking up four nominations.

Winners will be announced on Sunday, February 26, 2023 at 5pm Pt/8pm Et. This year marks the first time the SAG Awards will be broadcast live on Netflix’s YouTube channel. Beginning in 2024, the awards show will stream live on Netflix.

The 2023 SAG Awards recognize the best performances of 2022 in television and movies.

SAG Awards Motion Picture Nominees:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Austin Butler...

The Screen Actors Guild unveiled nominations Wednesday for its 29th annual SAG Awards as the movie awards season arrives full-steam, coming the same week as last night’s Golden Globes and Sunday’s Critics Choice Awards.

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The marquee ensemble film award category this year features Paramount’s Babylon, Searchlight’s The Banshees of Inisherin, A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, Universal’s The Fabelmans and United Artists’ Women Talking. Banshees and Fabelmans are having a good week, having taken the top film prizes at last night’s Globes.

Banshees and Everything Everywhere led all films with five nominations apiece in today’s noms announcement.

The winners of the 80th Golden Globes have been announced, with The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, House of the Dragon, and Abbott Elementary taking home the top awards for film and television in their respective categories.

Here is the complete list of Golden Globe winners from Sunday’s ceremony, along with the nominees:

Best Motion Picture – Drama

Avatar: The Way of Water (20th Century Studios)

Elvis (Warner Bros.)

The Fabelmans (Universal Pictures)

Tár (Focus Features)

Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount Pictures)

Best Picture – Musical or Comedy

Babylon (Paramount Pictures)

The Banshees of Inisherin (Searchlight Pictures)

Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24)

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)

Triangle of Sadness (Neon)

Best Director – Motion Picture

James Cameron (Avatar: The Way of Water)

Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

Baz Luhrmann (Elvis)

Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin)

Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)

Best Performance by an Actor...

This post contains major spoilers for "Babylon" and "Boogie Nights."

Damien Chazelle's newest film, "Babylon," might be one of his biggest swings to date. After his trip to the Moon in "First Man," Chazelle is back in his element, once again telling a story of ambitious dreamers making their way through a beautiful depiction of Hollywood. However, Chazelle crucially takes a big step away from his cleaner image, characterizing 1920s Hollywood through cocaine, chaos, bodily fluids and scandal. The opening scenes of "Babylon" make it definitively clear to the audience that we're not in "La La Land" anymore.

Despite finding himself in edgier, darker territory, Chazelle's reverence for the medium of film and the artists that came before him are as clear as day. Like Chazelle's other films, "Babylon" is a hodgepodge of different influences and inspirations, from a perversion of "Singin' in the Rain," to the ironic amounts...

Typically, director Damien Chazelle and his Oscar-winning editor Tom Cross (“Whiplash”) start cutting a movie from the last scene, since it’s the most challenging. So it went for the “Caravan” showdown in “Whiplash,” the “What if?” epilogue in “La La Land,” and the suspenseful Apollo 11 mission in “First Man.” But for their magnum opus, “Babylon,” they began at the top: The opening bacchanal at the mansion of Kinoscope Studios executive Don Wallach (Jeff Garland), a nearly 30-minute tour de force that sweeps through the colorful cast of characters and sets the manic, hedonistic tone for a Wild West Hollywood caught between silents and talkies in the late ’20s.

“Here we did something different because Damien wanted to make the party to end all parties, and thought it had more of the ingredients of the rest of the movie instead of the end, where we go to these dark places,...

Damien Chazelle's "Babylon" may not have had the best of luck at the box office, but that doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the movie. The film is a sweeping and bold epic that revels in the chaotic nature of the period in which it's set while also having themes focused on, as Robert Daniels wrote for /Film, "the fight between identity and assimilation." Just as Chazelle put his fascination and love for old Hollywood into the work, the actors he cast for the ensemble were sure to find interesting ways to get into the mindset of their characters. In the case of Diego Calva, who played the role of Manuel "Manny" Torres in the film, Chazelle found a way to get Calva to basically live out the role he would play in the movie.

In "Babylon," Manny is a Mexican immigrant who works odd jobs in Los...

While “Avatar: The Way of Water” is getting most of the box office attention with its meteoric holiday run in theaters, it’s time to address the defecating elephant in the room: Paramount’s box office bust “Babylon.”

After spending all of 2022 putting out multiple box office hits from different genres and budget levels — including the 1.48 billion “Top Gun: Maverick” — Paramount took a roll of the dice on Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle’s 78 million dramedy set in 1920s Hollywood. As general audiences rushed to “Avatar 2” and families have trickled in to “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” “Babylon” has accrued an anemic 11 million domestic box office total after two weekends in theaters.

Sporting a three-hour runtime, “Babylon” follows party girl Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie) and Mexican immigrant Manuel “Manny” Torres through their rise to silent film starlet and movie studio executive and their subsequent fall as the advent of...

It's unsurprising how many have compared "Babylon," director Damien Chazzelle's super-charged elegy for early Hollywood, to "Boogie Nights" and "Singin' in the Rain." In its tensions -- talent and luck, apocryphal myth-making and the lesser-known truths, moral incongruity and creative spunk, and the critique of an apathetic business that nonetheless creates empathetic works -- Chazelle's "Babylon" bears some lineage to both films.

If you only focus on those influences, however, you will miss the primary tension: The fight between identity and assimilation. These politics, as viewed through the film's protagonist, Manuel Torres (Diego Calva), position Chazelle's behemoth vision closer to "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," "Medicine for Melancholy," and "Bamboozled" as an assimilation narrative affixed to a fable.

In Joe Talbot's "The Last Black Man in San Francisco," amid a gentrifying city selling the remnants of its Black heritage to the highest bidder, Jimmie Fails (played by...

Three years after nabbing his second Best Film Supporting Actor Golden Globe for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” Brad Pitt is back in the hunt for the same prize thanks to his work in Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon.” The 59-year-old, who has now been recognized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association seven times in less than three decades, has a chance to set a new precedent among film performers. If he succeeds on his “Babylon” bid, he will be the first person to ever win three Golden Globes for supporting film acting.

In “Babylon,” Pitt plays the role of Jack Conrad, a silent era movie star who struggles to adjust to the advent of talking pictures. This period film performance as a show business professional could be his second to lead to a Golden Globe victory, since his “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” character, Cliff Booth, was a 1960s stunt man.

Much of the new movie “Babylon” takes place during the bumpy transition from silent movies to talkies in late 1920s Hollywood, paying particular attention to how it affects the fortunes of veteran silent movie star Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt) and driven up-and-coming starlet Nellie Laroy (Margot Robbie). It’s a familiar dynamic, explored in movies like “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952) and “The Artist” (2011), among others, and at first it seems like what writer-director Damien Chazelle brings to the table for this retelling is sheer muchness: This is a more decadent, vulgar, drug-fueled version of Hollywood, with a lot of influences from the past 25 years of on-screen debauchery and hopped-up style. For a guy who seemed to revere older-fashioned movies in his musical “La La Land,” Chazelle sure spends a lot of time imitating “Boogie Nights” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

But part of what keeps “Babylon” from turning into...

For those immune to the charms of Elon Musk’s Twitter — a Squid Game-like arena teeming with edgelords, crypto enthusiasts, men’s rights activists who resemble Pitbull, and daily spam messages touting “part-time work” — the current film brouhaha may have escaped notice. In short: a trio of films, eagerly anticipated by the public, were made available over the Christmas holiday weekend. There was Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron’s 350 million special-effects extravaganza featuring emo talking whales and Sigourney Weaver as a 14-year-old girl; Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,...

Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” is a long, long journey through the early days of Hollywood. At a sprawling 189 minutes, the film has one of the longest runtimes of any commercially released film this year, just narrowly beaten by “Avatar: The Way of Water.” But Chazelle made a far shorter version of the film — it was just filmed in his backyard on his iPhone.

During a Los Angeles Q&a for “Babylon” (via Entertainment Weekly) this November, Chazelle told the audience that he prepared for filming by rehearsing and shooting a full two-hour version of the movie in his backyard. To accomplish the task, Chazelle roped in his wife, Olivia Hamilton, who plays silent film director Ruth Adler in the movie and his leading man Diego Calva, to play every part in the film.

“We rehearsed the whole movie in his backyard, only Olivia, Damien and I,” Calva said at the Q&a.