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

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

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

Park described the project as a...

Talk about a two-edged sword.

Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps easily stayed atop the domestic box office chart in its second weekend with $40 million, but tumbled a worrisome 66 percent. That’s more than anyone could have predicted after the event pic opening to $117.6 million last weekend amid stellar audience and critical reaction. At the same time, it isn’t entirely outside the range of normal for the superhero genre. And there’s still a clear runway ahead before summer ends.

Fantastic Four had hoped to clear $200 million domestically through Sunday, but instead is projecting a 10-day domestic tally of $198.4 million, compared to cume of $236.2 million and a drop of 53 percent for DC Studos’ Superman in its second weekend (to be fair, the Man of Steel didn’t have another superpic to compete with, although Jurassic Park Rebirth had only opened a week earlier). Overseas, Mister Fantastic and his...

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is officially on its way.

Tom Holland celebrated production on his fourth Spider-Man film kicking off with a few behind-the-scenes photos. On Instagram, the English actor shared two pictures of himself on set, notably in his brand-new Spidey suit.

In the shots, Holland stood on top of a military-like automobile with a stunt wire attached to his body. “Spider-Man Brand New Day 1,” he wrote in the caption of the post.

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Production on Spider-Man: Brand New Day was set to kick off at the top of August. Holland’s social post gave fans a first look at his new Spider-Man costume after Sony unveiled the suit Saturday morning.

“We ready?” Holland said in the teaser clip while wearing the costume that notably sports a more classic Spider-Man look, resembling the outfits that both Tobey Maguire...

Arguably, there was no other choice…. The Busan International Film Festival has selected the latest wildly anticipated feature from Korean maestro Park Chan-wook to open its landmark 30th edition on Sept. 17. A black-comedy survival thriller starring Korean leading man Lee Byung-hun, Park’s 12th feature, No Other Choice, will have its world premiere in competition at the 82nd Venice Film Festival before heading to Korea’s biggest cinema event for its Asian debut.

No Other Choice stars Lee and beloved Korean actress Son Ye-jin as a married couple struggling to hold their family together amid mounting economic desperation. The film follows Man-su (Lee), a once-content middle-class family man who is abruptly laid off from his job, sending him into a spiral of anxiety and desperation. As he scrambles to regain employment and preserve the life he’s built, his wife Miri (Son) becomes equally determined to protect their children and home at any cost.

Willem Dafoe will receive the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival “in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the art of film.”

He joins Stellan Skarsgard and Ray Winstone, who will also receive the honor at the fest this year.

“Having made over 150 films in his career, Willem Dafoe is internationally respected for bringing versatility, boldness and dare to some of the most iconic films of our time,” Sarajevo organizers said. “His artistic curiosity in exploring the human condition leads him to projects all over the world, large and small, Hollywood films as well as independent cinema.”

At the Sarajevo festival, the star will also hold a master class where he will share “his experience and reflections on art today” with young talents, film professionals and the festival audience.

“Willem Dafoe returns to the Sarajevo Film Festival after 25 years, and it is a great honor and...

2013's "The Conjuring" kickstarted a new horror cinematic behemoth. In addition to the mainline series, where the timeline can get a little confusing, there are a ton of spin-offs like "Annabelle" and "The Nun" that have all been released to varying quality. But when it comes to the worst film in "The Conjuring" franchise, one is head and shoulders above (below?) all the others. 

It doesn't matter if you look at IMDb's ratings or /Film's review, "The Curse of La Llorona" is widely considered the worst of the bunch. Linda Cardellini plays a mother trying to save her two children from a malevolent entity trying to steal them away. It's a decent enough premise, but sadly, the execution is severely lacking, which is undoubtedly why it currently stands at a 5.3/10 rating on IMDb with 62,000 audience votes cast. 

Even "The Conjuring" franchise as a whole seemed to want to distance itself from "La Llorona.

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Tonight Show,” Lin-Manuel Miranda revealed that the movie version of his Tony Award-winning musical “Hamilton” will come to theaters on Sept. 5.

“I have an announcement!” Miranda declared during his “Tonight Show” interview. “So, tomorrow is the 10-year anniversary of ‘Hamilton,’ and we’ve been celebrating all year. But we have one more way to celebrate. We filmed most of the original cast performing in ‘Hamilton’ in 2016, and we always wanted to release it theatrically, but then the pandemic hit, and so we decided to release it on streaming so that everyone could see it at home whenever they wanted. But, Sept. 5, you will be able to see ‘Hamilton’ in movie theaters nationwide and in Puerto Rico.”

“Hamilton” debuted on Disney+ in July 2020, roughly a year before it was originally scheduled to debut in theaters. (The movie had been dated for Oct. 2021.) The movie version...

The top films of 2024 had more women and people with disabilities in lead roles but showed regression in the industry for underrepresented racial/ethnic groups and the LGBTQ+ community, according to a report from Dr Stacy L Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California.

The report, Inequality in 1,800 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals Of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBTQ+ & Characters With Disabilities From 2007 To 2024, is the latest in series of annual surveys and looked at the 100 most successful films released in North America last year.

The report found that 55% of the year’s top releases featured women...

Finding fun takes on classic stories can be difficult, but some clever creators have found ways to revisit recognizable properties while breathing a ton of life into a franchise that everyone loves. This little exercise of revisiting old faves has become almost essential for creatives looking to find a job in the current iteration of Hollywood, where everything has to have an instant hook or link to an existing intellectual property. Paramount stumbled into a delightful revision of "Grease" with "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" over on Paramount+, but that win would be short-lived as the streamer decided to cancel the series after just one season. But the reason for ditching the charming little show is depressing, because the finances of the larger studio were the main driver behind the move to pull the plug on "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies."

The show begins four years before the events of "Grease,...

The beginning of August seemed to have been sent from the heavens as the month started off with Cynthia Erivo as Jesus and Adam Lambert as Judas in the Hollywood Bowl’s electrifying production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.”

The three-night run included multiple standing ovations, high critical praise and celebrity sightings in the audience, including Erivo’s “Wicked” co-stars Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum, as well as Kristin Chenoweth, Kathy Griffin, Jenifer Lewis, Michelle Visage, Cheyenne Jackson, Dan Bucatinsky and Chris Colfer. “Jcs” composer Andrew Lloyd Webber made a surprise appearances during the first night’s curtain call.

The summer heat of New York City got even hotter with Chris Pratt and Taylor Kitsch premiering “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf” at the Regal Times Square. Also in the city were “Wednesday” stars Georgie Farmer, Emma Myers, Noah Taylor Luis Guzmán and Fred Armisen taking in WWE Raw Live on Netflix at the Barclays Center.

[Editor’s note: This interview contains minor spoilers for Season 14 of “King of the Hill.”]

For almost 15 years, “King of the Hill” was one of the most reliably funny and consistently comforting shows on network television. Mike Judge and Greg Daniels’ animated sitcom managed a tricky balancing act: Its protagonist, the old-fashioned traditionalist Republican Hank Hill (Mike Judge), maintained politics out of date with a changing culture, and with views often more conservative than many of the writers on the show’s staff.

But the series also admired Hank’s positive attributes — his work ethic, his fundamental decency — never reducing him to a one-note stereotype. In many ways, the show had its cake and ate it, too. It was a lightly satirical portrait of conservative America that conservative viewers themselves could enjoy, a series that treated its characters — from the strait-laced Hank to the conspiracy-theory-spouting Dale Gribble (Johnny Hardwick) — as both objects of laughter and endearingly lovable despite their flaws.

Now,...

Matt Smith is headed to a galaxy far, far away.

The “House of the Dragon” star has joined the cast of Shawn Levy’s “Star Wars: Starfighter” for Lucasfilm, sources close to the actor confirm. He will appear in a villain role, opposite previously announced cast members Ryan Gosling and Mia Goth. Lucasfilm could not be reached for comment.

This isn’t Smith’s first brush with the “Star Wars” franchise. The “Doctor Who” alum was previously cast in “The Rise of Skywalker,” but ultimately didn’t appear in the film. “We were close to being in it, but it never quite happened. I think the thing they were thinking of before. Eventually, the part became obsolete and they didn’t need it. So, I never got to be in ‘Star Wars,'” he told the Happy Sad Confused podcast in 2021. He declined to elaborate on the role he would...

Lionsgate will release Mel Gibson’s The Resurrection Of The Christ, his follow-up to the indie box office phenomenon The Passion Of The Christ, in two parts in 2027.Production is expected to begin in CinecittàStudios in Rome in October.

The drama produced by Gibson and his Icon Productions partner Bruce Davey will arrive in cinemas on March 26, 2027, whilePart Twois scheduled to open40 days later on May 6, 2027. The dates are Good Friday and Ascension Day, respectively, on the Christian calendar.

The feature is currently in pre-production and according to reports is expected to starJim Caviezel in the returning role as Jesus Christ.

Ben Stiller is in awe of how fast “The Bear” is shot. The “Severance” director and executive producer pointed to how “The Bear” has churned out four seasons across three years; “Severance” meanwhile took that same amount of time to make just a second season. Production on “Severance” Season 2 began way back in 2022, the same year that “The Bear” debuted.

Stiller cited how he would prefer to work as “The Bear” co-showrunner Christopher Storer does, or at least with the same speed. “Chris Storer will shoot an episode in an hour and a half or something on ‘The Bear.’ I’m like, ‘Goddamn, why can’t I do that?'” Stiller told Vanity Fair.

As for the years between Seasons 1 and 2, Stiller added, “On a certain level, it’s just the affirmation of when you follow your instinct — knowing that you have to make sure something feels right, and that...

There are certain movies that over the years have become film industry shorthand for box office fiascos: "Heaven's Gate," "Ishtar," "Waterworld," "Cutthroat Island," and so forth. But in truth, I have no idea why "Waterworld" keeps getting name-checked as a massive bomb, seeing as it eventually broke even and inspired a massively popular stunt show at Universal Studios Hollywood. Also irksome: The worst of these movies, "Cutthroat Island," is at least packed with jaw-droppingly elaborate spectacle, while "Heaven's Gate" and "Ishtar" are genuinely great movies from two of the most talented directors of their era (Michael Cimino and Elaine May).

I've long held that a film's box office is of little concern to the general public. Once upon a time, if you were interested in the movie business, you had to shell out for a pricey subscription to Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Then "Entertainment Tonight" debuted in 1981, and suddenly...

When IndieWire sat down with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Onya Nurve and first runner-up Jewels Sparkles after that dazzling Season 17 finale this spring, we held our interview until after the 2025 Emmy nominees got announced. We were confident the five-time Outstanding Reality Competition winner would have another chance at more Emmys, and we were right! So, we’re running the conversation now.

But just because anyone who follows the unscripted category — which also includes “Survivor,” “The Traitors,” “The Amazing Race,” and “Top Chef” — had the MTV show’s nomination on their radar, that doesn’t mean the ongoing success of “Drag Race” isn’t real news. Since 2009, the legendary variety competition show hosted by RuPaul has put the formerly fringe art of drag on pop culture’s main stage. Audiences have spent not just hours and weeks but years asking, “Who will be America’s next drag super star?” And, for a select contingent,...

Mattel has named Niki Kazakos as vice president of global corporate communications.

The toymaker and rapidly expanding content company promoted Kazakos this week, upping her from the senior director role she’s held since 2021.

In the new gig, Kazakos will continue to drive communications across the “Barbie” shop’s corporate, content, and franchise businesses – as well as oversee strategy for Mattel Studios’ film and series projects and verticals like digital games, brand partnerships, location-based entertainment, publishing and music.

“It’s an exciting time to be at Mattel, and a privilege to help shape the future of the Mattel story alongside such passionate and talented colleagues,” Kazakos told Variety.

Kazakos is a media vet of nearly 20 years, having held positions at Netflix, RadicalMedia, NBCUniversal and Discovery. She holds a BA from Boston University and lives in Los Angeles with her family.

She made her name shaping messaging around Mattel’s content trajectory,...

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, “Weapons” director Zach Cregger confirmed the original cast of his upcoming horror movie included Pedro Pascal, Brian Tyree Henry, Austin Abrams and “The Worst Person in the World” favorite Renate Reinsve. Then came the Hollywood strikes, which delayed production on “Weapons” so much that Cregger was forced to recast from the ground up.

“I had a whole different cast for this movie. And then we had the strike, and then Pedro Pascal’s schedule threw us into turmoil. I had to recast the entire movie,” Cregger said.

“This is what happens, right?” he added. “The strikes delayed us, and then when you delay, people’s schedules get conflicts, and then you’re back at square one. I bear no ill will towards anybody. We just kept getting delayed and delayed. It’s like a domino effect. So I had to start over again.

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"Superman" does a great job of fleshing out its world, which is already filled with metahumans and kaiju-level threats. It also sets up what's to come next, with the film's ending introducing Milly Alcock's Supergirl (who was hidden from the marketing). Her cameo is clearly meant to tease 2026's "Supergirl" (which could be even better than "Superman"), although her inclusion does raise some questions. 

Earlier in the movie, Superman (David Corenswet) becomes a pariah once it gets out that his biological parents sent him to Earth to conquer it and take up a harem of women. This message appears to be unaltered, so Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafyan) really were just genocidal despots. It's a big storytelling risk that ultimately pays off, but it does raise the question as to why Supergirl didn't tell her cousin about his parents' true nature,...

On Thursday morning, David Ellison will clock in for his first day at work as a media mogul.

That’s when Ellison’s Skydance will officially get the keys to Paramount Global — the Sumner Redstone-created corporate giant whose falling fortunes come as streaming services and YouTube have spun the industry off its axis.

But Ellison has a plan. He wants to shed $2 billion in operating costs, revive the creative engine of the studio by bringing in a new team of executives and make the new firm a tech-leaning operation. It’s a blueprint that has remained unchanged even in the face of staggering obstacles, including foot-dragging from Shari Redstone, Sumner’s daughter and former Paramount custodian; eleventh-hour rival bids; and an ugly, protracted legal battle between President Trump and CBS.

Now the Ellison era at Paramount truly begins. Here’s what he’s up against, what he’s got...

Mel Gibson’s much-delayed “The Passion of the Christ” sequel will be split into two films, with each part set to release in 2027.

“The Resurrection of the Christ Part One” is slated for Good Friday, March 26, while “Part Two” is set for 40 days later on Ascension Day, May 6. Lionsgate will release the films in theaters.

“The Resurrection of the Christ” is the follow-up to 2004’s biblical epic “The Passion of the Christ,” which, until last year, was the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time at the domestic box office with $370 million. That record was recently supplanted by Disney’s “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which earned a mammoth $636 million domestically. “The Passion of the Christ” remains one of the biggest independent films ever, with $610 million globally against a $30 million production budget. In addition to commercial glory, the movie was nominated at the Oscars for best makeup, cinematography and original score.

The original film,...

Screenwriters from Writers Guild of America, also including David Simon and Celine Song, call out president’s ‘authoritarian assault’ on free speech

More than 2,300 members of the Writers Guild of America, including Spike Lee and Adam McKay, have signed an open letter decrying the actions of Donald Trump’s administration that represent “an unprecedented, authoritarian assault” on free speech.

The letter, a combined effort from the WGA East and West branches, cites the US president’s “baseless lawsuits” against news organizations that have “published stories he does not like and leveraged them into payoffs”. It specifically references Paramount’s decision to pay Trump $16m to settle a “meritless lawsuit” about a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. The letter notes that Trump “retaliated against publications reporting factually on the White House and threatened broadcasters’ licenses”, and has repeatedly called for the cancellation of programs that criticize him.

In the dimension-hopping "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," the mild-mannered Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) once again finds himself skipping between parallel universes. His inter-dimensional would-be girlfriend Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), a.k.a. Spider-Woman, has alerted Miles to the existence of the Spider-Society, a massive cadre of hundreds of Spider-People, all gathered together from their respective parallel universes. Like in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," Miles meets unusual variants of himself, including the cold-hearted Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac), the broody Scarlet Spider (Andy Samberg), the excitable Spider-Man India (Karan Soni), and Jessica Drew, another Spider-Woman (Issa Rae).

Miles also meets the ultra-cool Spider-Punk, a black-vest-and-mohawk-sporting Spider-Man who is animated to look like a moving crumpled-up punk band flier. Spider-Punk is played by Daniel Kaluuya, and he beats people up with his electric guitar. Miles thinks that Spider-Punk is one of the coolest people he's ever met ... and he's not wrong. The character is pretty badass.

All happy families might be alike, but every family of superheroes is messy and codependent in its own way — and composer Michael Giacchino would know. Between scoring the “The Incredibles,” the last two “Thor” films, the Marvel “Spider-Man” movies, Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” and now “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” among others, Giacchino has spent a lot of time coming up with musical themes that pull us into heroic, heightened worlds.

Each film, even within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has its own demands on the score, of course. So Giacchino worked closely with director Matt Shakman to make sure that “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” had a distinctive sound that could help power the film’s tone and character dynamics.

What’s even more impressive is that Giacchino started doing this before a single frame was even in the can. The composer created the film’s main theme for a...

The Euphoria and Anyone But You star has one of the most promising careers within young Hollywood but controversy has stuck to her

Almost exactly three years ago, in July 2022, the actor Sydney Sweeney gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter that was refreshingly frank about finances.

At the time, Sweeney was 24, fresh off the contentious buzz of Euphoria’s second season, and undeniably on the up in Hollywood as one of gen Z’s very few in-demand actors. And yet, as she told the magazine, she did not have the money to cover even a six-month break from the industry. Unlike some of her Euphoria peers, Sweeney is not a nepo baby; she was raised middle-class in northern Idaho and Spokane, Washington, and began working as a child actor at 13. She acted continuously throughout her teens – on Criminal Minds and Grey’s Anatomy, then small roles on prestige projects like Sharp Objects,...

The image of a crying millennial standing in awe in front of Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World Resort has widely become the visual definition of a “Disney Adult”: the obsessive fan whose self-proclaimed love for all things Mouse House makes them a reoccurring easy target for ridicule on social media.

But in her new book that explores the modern-day Disney fan phenomenon, author Aj Wolfe says one of her key findings was that the fandom is more often the ones mocking each other. “One thing that I learned really early on that was shocking to me is that Disney Adults hate Disney Adults, too,” Wolfe told Variety.

“That was not in the original pitch to Simon & Schuster for the book,” continued Wolfe, whose “Disney Adults: Exploring (And Falling In Love With) A Magical Subculture” hit shelves Tuesday. “But as I started interviewing people, and I would ask them the question of,...

An action-comedy film adaptation of the 1980s police procedural series “T. J. Hooker” is in the works at Netflix after the streamer landed rights to the property.

The original series starred William Shatner in his first major television role since the cancellation of the original “Star Trek” more than 10 years earlier.

Created by Ryan Husky, “T. J. Hooker” premiered in 1982 on ABC and went on to enjoy a five-season run. CBS aired and produced its final season, along with a TV movie titled “Blood Sport.” Alongside Shatner as the eponymous police sergeant and war veteran, the series featured a younger cast of spunky recruits, played by Heather Locklear, Adrian Zmed and James Darren.

The Netflix film adaptation will aim for a more meta and comic tone than the original series. Producers have begun talks with Shatner with expectations that the 94-year-old will be involved with the project in some capacity.

“Pulp Fiction” is a modern Hollywood classic, but upon release, the 1994 Quentin Tarantino-directed offbeat crime thriller was audacious to say the least. It told a narrative in non-chronological order, casted John Travolta off of a career slump, showcased on-screen drug use and graphic violence and gave its gun-wielding characters ample time to shoot the breeze before shooting their targets.

Nevertheless, the film succeeded, so much that audiences are still discussing it over a generation later. “Pulp Fiction” producer Lawrence Bender attended the Variety 120 Series screening, presented by Barco, a summer-long program hosted by Jazz Tangcay, that celebrates Variety‘s 120th anniversary by showing iconic films such as “All About Eve,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Psycho.”

Bender reflected on the first time “Pulp Fiction” came into his consciousness. It was 1992 and he was meeting Tarantino in Amsterdam ahead of the Cannes Film Festival premiere of “Reservoir Dogs,” Tarantino’s...

On Hulu, nobody can hear you stream. To anyone still reading this article after an opening like that: Congrats on passing the test to prove just how big of an "Alien" fan you really are. The space-set horror franchise has exclusively resided on the big screen ever since Ridley Scott debuted his original film back in 1979, but all that is set to change with the arrival of "Alien: Earth." Not only is the property switching mediums for the first time ever here, but it's also adding a fresh new creative voice to the fray, with Noah Hawley taking the reins on what promises to be one of the wildest additions to the "Alien" canon yet.

The release of this show, however, raises a pressing question for all the "Alien" viewers out there. The original quartet of movies exclusively followed the trajectory of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley (or her clone...

The complete filmography of late director Terence Davies will be screened for the first time in the United States since Davies’ death in 2023. IndieWire can announce that the Museum of the Moving Image will present a retrospective series titled “Terence Davies: Time Present and Time Past,” from September 12 to 21. The screening series was programmed with permission from the Terence Davies Estate. Davies died at age 77.

“Terence Davies: Time Present and Time Past” will includes late English filmmaker Davies’ nine features, many of which are in rare film prints, as well as his trilogy of early short films and other rarely screened shorts.

Cynthia Nixon, who portrayed Emily Dickinson in Davies’ “A Quiet Passion,” will be in attendance for the September 18 screening. The opening night reception will also be celebrating the reissue of Davies’ 1984 novel “Hallelujah Now,” published by Film Desk Books. Highlights additionally range from “The House of Mirth,” “The Deep Blue Sea,...

Casting can be a tricky thing, and sometimes multiple performers would do a great job in a particular role, leading to a whole bunch of "what-ifs" from fans after the fact. In the case of the sprawling cast of the HBO epic fantasy series "Game of Thrones," based on the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series of books by George R. R. Martin, there were several cases of big-name stars who almost ended up playing one of the many characters in the world of Westeros. One of them, it turns out, was "Battlestar Galactica" star Tricia Helfer, who played the Number Six Cylon variants on the SyFy series. In a post on the website formerly known as Twitter from 2010, Helfer revealed to a fan that she had auditioned for and lost out on the role of Cersei Lannister, which ultimately went to actor Lena Headey. 

Helfer, who also voices...

Superman is back on top thanks to James Gunn's newest film. Despite some loud, petulant voices online, 2025's "Superman" has been met with largely positive praise, including from /Film's Chris Evangelista. Whether it's too silly or convoluted is a matter of personal taste, but it feels like there's one thing everyone can agree on: It's better than 1987's "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace."

1978's "Superman: The Movie" received three sequels (not including "Supergirl" starring Helen Slater) in under a decade, with "Quest for Peace" largely seen as the worst "Superman" film of all time. The movie sees the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) trying to undo the effects of nuclear armament around the globe. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) returns following a prison break orchestrated by his nephew, Lenny Luthor, played by a young Jon Cryer.

That's right, before Cryer was a sitcom staple on "Two and a Half Men,...

Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" was a story released in two parts, with "Vol. 1" hitting theaters in November 2003 and "Vol. 2" in May 2004. The first part was a hyper-violent, cold, low-dialogue affair, whereas the second installment was a talky, emotional film that was (to some fans) a little disappointing on the action front. It seems like each volume has weaknesses that are best addressed by the strengths of the other. If only there some sort of supercut of "Kill Bill" that combined both volumes into one big, standalone movie!

Turns out there is: "Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair" first screened at Cannes in 2006 and then released to limited theaters. It's an over four-hour film that tells the entire story. Is that a little too long for the average viewer's patience? Sure, but the movie's not for the average viewer. It's for the Tarantino superfan and for...

The "Star Trek" universe knows that resistance is futile when it comes to a good Borg story. At times, the Borg have been considered the best "Star Trek" villains, thanks to their ominous presence that comes from emotionless expressions and a collective energy that makes them larger than life. The Borg pursue perfection by absorbing others into their collective, and they even destroy injured Borg in order to ditch imperfections. 

A species destroying itself offers a horror element that plays well into the dramatic tone of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which is the "Star Trek" series that introduces this standout villain. They become a moderately consistent presence in future series, especially "Star Trek: Voyager," which focuses on how a longtime Borg navigates Starfleet life. The Borg's consistent resurgence may feel like an attempt to recycle old material, but that is not the case since each story offers new nuggets...

Indie film icon Larry Fessenden is planning a monster mash — and it’s gearing up to be a graveyard smash.

The horror multi-hyphenate has just wrapped filming of his upcoming film — “Larry Fessenden’s Trauma Or, Monsters All” — and is heading into post-production, Variety can report exclusively. The film serves as a sequel to three other films he has written and directed: 1995’s vampire tale “Habit,” his 2019 “Frankenstein” riff “Depraved” and 2023 werewolf film “Blackout.”

“It was a slightly absurd mission to present my existential take on these monsters in a contemporary mash-up, but I enjoyed the challenge and I hope the film will feel both familiar and provocative,” Fessenden said in a statement, which also shared that he is “a lifelong fan of Universal Monster classics and the powerful messages about us that they can convey.”

The shoot quietly took place on and off in upstate New York during a three-month stretch.

This month marks the 75th anniversary of “Sunset Boulevard,” Billy Wilder‘s darkly hilarious, brutally honest, and ultimately surprisingly poignant poison-pen letter to the Hollywood film industry where he made his success. To mark the occasion, Paramount has meticulously restored the film for a new 4K release that premiered at Cannes this year and is now available via streaming and physical media.

That “Sunset Boulevard” and its story of the doomed relationship between struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) and faded silent film queen Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) has endured for 75 years is not surprising to Nancy Olson, who starred in the movie as Gillis’ love interest and conscience Betty Schaefer. She was Oscar-nominated for her performance for Best Supporting Actress.

“We knew we were at another level of filmmaking,” Olson, 97, told IndieWire. “There was something being asked of us that was not ordinary, and you had to live up to it.

As much as Silicon Valley, lobbyists, and power-hungry, greedy executives would want you to believe AI is an inevitable future, we have finally reached the point where the court of public opinion is having real sway in the use of AI — at least when it comes to Hollywood. This is to say, keep using "clanker" (the term clone soldiers used to refer to battle droids in "Star Wars: The Clone Wars") as a derogatory term for robots and AI, and keep calling it out as something bad whenever a studio threatens to use the environment-killing tech.

Case in point, Disney had not one but two big attempts to include AI in big-budget, big-profile movies shut down for fear of repercussion (both legal and from the public's opinion). The news comes from the Wall Street Journal, in a report about Disney attempting to get around the busy schedule of Dwayne Johnson...

Mike Ireland, president of Paramount Motion Picture Group, is exiting the studio amid the pending closure of the Paramount-Skydance deal.

Studio sources tell Variety that Ireland will stay on in a consulting role to help with the transition, and is also considering an offer for a producing deal with the studio.

Ireland joined Paramount in November 2020, and was named co-president of production alongside Daria Cercek in January 2021, before the duo became co-heads of the motion picture group later that year.

In February 2025, Cercek left Paramount to become the president of Disney’s theatrical live-action division.

Ireland and Cercek oversaw a number of the studio’s successful films from development to release, including “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” “Gladiator 2,” “Smile 2,” “A Quiet Place: Day One” and “The Lost City.”

Ireland’s departure comes amid significant executive shuffling at the company, as the new owners of Paramount Global...

Because of the show's fraught production schedule over the last few seasons, it can be tricky at times to keep the "Stranger Things" timeline straight. The first season begins in November 1983. The core group of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) are in the fall of their seventh-grade year, while Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) are sophomores in high school. Steve Harrington (Joe Keery), who starts the series as more of an ineffectual villain before reforming his ways, is a junior, which would make him 16 or 17.

Since the first episode, the show has covered about two and a half years, with season 2 set a year after season 1 in 1984, season 3 taking place in the summer of 1985, and season 4 covering the spring of 1986. An official synopsis from Netflix released alongside the "Stranger Things" season 5 teaser trailer claims...

The "Star Wars" universe is one of the most fleshed-out, detailed, and vast settings in all of fiction. That sense of history and world-building, with countless planets and stories all fitting into a single galaxy, makes the property feel alive, like there is always something happening off-screen — even if you don't read the countless supplemental materials like comic books and novels. This also extends to the sheer number of weird creatures (big and small) in the "Star Wars" franchise, most of whom have their own lore and connection to the larger universe (like the Purrgils or the Loth-cats).

Then there's the Mythosaur, a creature we only briefly got a glimpse of in "The Mandalorian" season 3 but which had already been a huge part of the "Star Wars" mythology for decades before that. In "The Mandalorian," we get to see a real Mythosaur when Bo-Katan Kryze (Katee Sackhoff) and Din Djarin...

Film at Lincoln Center announced today the 34 films that comprise the Main Slate of the 2025 New York Film Festival. The Opening Night film is Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, and Jim Jarmusch’s latest, Father Mother Sider Brother is the Centerpiece. The Closing Night film, Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, is a world premiere, and it joins others including Gavagai by Ulrich Köhler, “an astute drama in which a film adaptation of Medea becomes the center of cross-cultural tensions.” From Sundance there is Khalil Joseph’s Blknws: Terms & Conditions, from Venice Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’s […]

The post 63rd New York Film Festival Announces Main Slate, Including Reichardt, Poitras, Denis, Jarmusch and More first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Studio Ghibli is one of the most beloved animation studios of all time, foundational in the rise in popularity of anime both in Japan and internationally. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have been responsible for some of the best anime movies ever made, no matter what metric you use to judge that.

But as famous and popular as their work with Ghibli is, Takahata and Miyazaki's pre-Ghibli work is just as important. The duo (but particularly Takahata) had already established themselves as legends in their own right, with movies and TV shows that challenged what was thought possible at the time. They drew inspiration not just from Walt Disney's work, but also from French animation and the emerging Soviet landscape. They created something unique that continues to inspire animators (and live-action filmmakers) everywhere. I've already written about some of Miyazaki's pre-Ghibli work and how unique that work is, but there...

If animation has taught us anything, it's that life is best lived in pairs. Cartoon duos are all the rage, enriching the shows with a whole lot more fun and excitement for the viewers. Seriously, imagine if Tom didn't have Jerry -- what would he do for an entire episode? Probably nap like most cats or bemoan the stretch of time in between meals. In the same vein, what if Wile E. Coyote didn't fancy a Road Runner feast? Poor coyote would be working in tech and making products that only half work –- think "The Office" but following around Acme employees.

So, much like shoes, the best cartoon characters come in pairs. Let's take a look at the best of the best and talk about why they're as seminal as they are. There's no real scientific method here, and it's mostly about how important the characters have become in pop culture.

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Despite some solid reviews, "Vampire Academy" sadly became one of many series that were canceled after just one season. But why was this fantasy horror series cut short? The show was based on Richelle Mead's six-novel series, which had previously been adapted into a 2014 film of the same name. That film performed poorly at the box office and debuted to horrible reviews, which put a swift end to that iteration of the story. In 2021, however, hope arrived in the form of a TV series. Ultimately, that attempt to adapt the source material was similarly short-lived, but it did at least fare better critically.

In 2021, Deadline reported that Peacock had ordered a "Vampire Academy" series adaptation overseen by former "Vampire Diaries" showrunner Julie Plec and Marguerite MacIntyre, who played Elizabeth Forbes on that same show. At the time, Plec spoke...

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar have been writing together ever since they met at USC’s Peter Stark producing program in the early ’90s and sold their first script to New Line Cinema.

After countless movies and TV series, this week they premiere Season 2 of their popular series “Wednesday,” executive-produced by Tim Burton, on Netflix. Having sampled the first four episodes, I can attest that Season 2 is even more delicious than Season 1.

For one thing, for budget reasons, the showrunners had to trim some Season 1 subplots, thus relying more heavily on young star Jenna Ortega, now age 22, in the title role of Addams daughter Wednesday, an amateur supernatural detective in her first year at outsider school Nevermore Academy. This time around, with Netflix loosening the purse strings, the series expands with new characters including eager-to-please Nevermore Principal Dort (Steve Buscemi) and Grandmama Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley), while giving more time...

Every episode of the 1982 Jerry Zucker/Jim Abrahams/David Zucker comedy series "Police Squad!" featured a special guest star. The first episode, "A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise)," featured a special appearance by Lorne Greene. The second episode, "Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment)," featured Georg Stanford Brown. The third episode, "The Butler Did It (A Bird in the Hand)," starred Robert Goulet. Most fun for Trekkies was episode four, "Revenge and Remorse (The Guilty Alibi)," which featured a post "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" William Shatner. The final two episodes featured Florence Henderson in "Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood)" and William Conrad in "Testimony of Evil (Dead Men Don't Laugh)." And that was it; the series only lasted six episodes.

The gag with all the celebrity cameos on "Police Squad!" was that the stars never lived past the opening credits. Lorne Green was merely pushed out...

The Spider-Verse is expanding again.

“Spider-Punk,” a spinoff of 2023’s animated hit “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” is in early development at Sony Pictures Animation. Daniel Kaluuya, who voiced the character in the comic book sequel, and Ajon Singh are developing and co-writing the feature.

Plot details haven’t been sorted out, but the film will center on the punk-rock version of Spider-Man — aka Hobie Brown — whose main weapon is his guitar. Kaluuya’s character was introduced — along with many other iterations of the beloved web-slinger — in the multiversal adventure “Across the Spider-Verse.” He is expected to return in “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” from producers Phil Lord, Chris Miller and Amy Pascal, who will also produce the “Spider-Punk” project.

It’s unclear when “Spider-Punk” will be ready to swing to theaters. For now, “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” the third entry in the web-slinging trilogy, won’t be hitting the big screen...

Pamela Anderson doesn't get enough credit for being a pretty decent comedic performer. One of her earliest acting gigs in the 1990s was a stint on "Home Improvement," which she left to star on "Baywatch." Similarly, as /Film's own Ethan Anderton noted in his review, she's "perfectly cast" in 2025's "The Naked Gun," bringing the laughs alongside Liam Neeson. But comedy can be tricky for anyone, especially when dealing with subpar material, like in 2008's "Blonde and Blonder." 

As you can likely assess from the title, the film plays off the Jim Carrey classic "Dumb and Dumber." The two films have nothing to do with one another other than the names being similar and placing an emphasis on buffoonish people. Seeing how "Blondes are dumb" jokes were all the rage in the 2000s, Anderson and Denise Richards star as Dee Twiddle and Dawn St. Dom, respectively, two women who become...

A month prior to the release of "Heathers," the American moviegoing public was warned that a couple of upstart film brats had concocted an unspeakably cruel dark comedy about the epidemic of teen suicide. The critics were generally impressed, but some worried that communities that had been traumatized by this tragedy in real life would picket theaters playing the movie (or worse). "Heathers" was toying with raw emotions, we were told. A storm was coming, one that could end the careers of director Michael Lehmann, screenwriter Daniel Waters, and the rising star duo of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater.

New World Pictures obviously wanted "Heathers" to be a sleeper hit, but the combination of the film's subject matter and the company's limited resources placed it at an immediate disadvantage. So, it toe-dipped with a 35-screen opening on March 31, 1989. The movie's per-screen average was encouraging for an indie, but not the stuff of an ambitious expansion.

In 2010, Steve Martin, the best Oscars host of all time, wrapped up proceedings for that year's Academy Awards ceremony with a thought-provoking quip: "Ladies and gentlemen, the show is so long that 'Avatar' now takes place in the past." Mandatory Oscar self-castigation aside, it was a playful commentary on the fluidity of cinematic time, and of our own real-life time by extension: The past is ever bigger, the future is never so. Even the "Back to the Future" movies are now technically 100% set in the past.

This list speaks to that fluidity: As you scroll down this ranking of the 15 greatest period pieces in film history, you will find that some of the movies on it are older altogether than the distant pasts of other entries. Cinema has never stopped looking back, to frequently moving, eye-opening, and exhilarating effect; let us then follow suit and look back on cinema's history of depicting history.