News

DeWanda Wise will star in “Killer Bee,” an adaptation of the upcoming graphic novel from David Crownson that Tommy Oliver’s Confluential Films will produce for the screen. Confluential, an award-winning, Black-owned and Black-founded film, television, and documentary production company, will co-finance the action film.

Wise, whose credits include “Jurassic World Dominion” and Spike Lee’s Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It,” will portray a retiring assassin who takes on an underground criminal network after being tasked to kill the man she’s recently fallen in love with. Crownson’s work includes the graphic novel, “Harriet Tubman: Demon Slayer.”

The script for “Killer Bee” will be written by Kevin Arbouet and Terry Rossio. Rossio’s credits include all five of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, as well as “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” and “Shrek,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Arbouet recently worked on the...

The pairing of famous directors with famous subjects proved an unbeatable combo in the documentary categories at the Creative Arts Emmys.

Ron Howard’s Jim Henson Idea Man, about the late Muppets creator, won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, one of the marquee doc categories. And the winning didn’t stop there for the Disney+ film. It claimed a total of four trophies on the night, including Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program, Outstanding Music Composition for a Documentary Series or Special (original dramatic score), and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program.

L-r Actors Jude Law, Daniel Brühl, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby and director Ron Howard of “Eden” at the Deadline Studio held at the Bisha Hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival 2024 on September 7, 2024 in Toronto, Canada.

It’s been a major weekend for Oscar winner Howard, who unveiled his latest narrative...

The First Purge director Gerard McMurray is heading to Louisiana for Goons, a new horror feature set amid the eerie backdrop of the state’s cane fields and plantations.

Power‘s Michael Rainey Jr. and The Exorcism‘s Chloe Bailey will star in Goon, which is now filming in New Orleans and nearby areas.

Tommy Oliver is producing via his Confluential Films, which will make the project under its New Fear Unlocked Productions, a new genre label dedicated to what the company says are “bold, elevated, culturally specific horror films from creators of color.”

McMurray co-wrote the script with Hodge K. Johnson.

“I can’t wait for audiences to see what Gerard and I are cooking up with the kick-ass squad we’ve assembled. I also couldn’t be more excited to kick off New Fear Unlocked with this film from such a talented director,” said Oliver, whose company is fully financing the feature.

Shōgun, The Bear and Only Murders in the Building lead the way at the 2024 Emmy nominations, which were revealed this morning.

Below is a list of the programs with five or more noms, following by a full list of nominees and the number they received.

Related: Emmy Winners For Best Drama Since 1960: A Photo Gallery

Related: Here Are The Actors Who Have Won The Most Emmys: Photo Gallery

Related: Emmy Winners For Best Comedy Since 1952

Here is the full list of 2024 Emmy nominations by program:

25 Nominations

Shogun

23 Nominations

The Bear

21 Nominations

Only Murders In The Building

19 Nominations

True Detective: Night Country

18 Nominations

The Crown

17 Nominations

Saturday Night Live

16 Nominations

Fallout

Hacks

The Morning Show

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

15 Nominations

Fargo

13 Nominations

Ripley

11 Nominations

Baby Reindeer

Palm Royale

10 Nominations

Feud: Capote vs. The Swans

Lessons In Chemistry

9 Nominations

Abbott Elementary

Slow Horses

8 Nominations

Jim Henson Idea Man

RuPaul’s Drag Race...

Filmmaker Justin Simien, best known for his breakout feature and Netflix series Dear White People as well as last year’s Haunted Mansion, has teamed up with writer Christopher Yost and Tommy Oliver’s Confluential Films to adapt Heist: Or How to Steal a Planet, a science fiction crime thriller from Vault Comics.

Simien is attached to direct the feature which has Yost, a comics author who segued into screen work with Thor: Ragnarok and The Mandalorian, writing the script.

Oliver will produce along with Wayne Horton, who brought the project to the company, and has a production deal with Confluential.

Damian Wassel and F.J. DeSanto are executive producing for Vault. Simien and Kyle Laursen will executive produce via their banner, Culture Machine.

Created by writer Paul Tobin and artist Arjuna Susini, the comic is set on the planet Heist, home to billions of the worst criminals in the galaxy.

Exclusive: Liliane Bedford has joined Confluential Films (Fancy Dance), the Black-founded and Black-owned banner of Tommy Oliver, as Senior Vice President of Film and Television, the company announced on Wednesday.

Bedford joins from Stacey Sher’s Shiny Penny Productions, where she served as Vice President of Development and Production. In her new role, she will help to manage the film and television development slates for Confluential, while expanding the company’s array of diverse content.

“Confluential Films has a long legacy of inclusivity and championing change, and I look forward to joining the talented team in continuing that tradition,” Bedford stated. “From the narratives they tell to the culture they promote, I cannot wait for this next chapter with Confluential Films in continuing the company’s rich history of powerful and meaningful content.”

In addition to Bedford’s appointment, Confluential Films has announced that Kay Dillard has been promoted from Film Coordinator to Creative Executive.

Exclusive: SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, Kyra Sedgewick, Frontline’s Raney Aronson-Rath and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Alex Borstein will among those honored at the New York Women In Film & Television Muse Awards later this month.

Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of PBS Frontline, whose doc 20 Days in Mariupol won an Oscar Sunday, will receive the Enid Roth Award for Excellence in Journalism. The Made in NY Award from Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment will be presented to actress, writer, and producer and star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Alex Borstein.

Honorees also include actress Critics Choice Award and BAFTA Rising Star Award-nominated actress Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place), who will receive the Loreen Arbus Changemaker Award; Michèle Stephenson (Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), a filmmaker, artist and author, awarded the Nancy Malone Directing Award.

Cardinal, and Latasha Gillespie,...

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual contender. As other formal (and informal) polls suggest, competitions are fluid and subject to change based on buzz and events. Predictions are updated every Thursday.

Visit the prediction pages for the respective ceremonies via the links below:

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

2024 Oscars Predictions:

Best Original Score Killers of the Flower Moon Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone Credit: AppleTV+

Weekly Commentary: It’s Ludwig Göransson taking home another Oscar for “Oppenheimer,” following his first win for “Black Panther.”

Next.

Will Win: “Oppenheimer” (Ludwig Göransson)

Could Win: “Killers of the Flower Moon...

Another big award show took place this weekend (in addition to the SAG Awards), the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which celebrates indie film and TV. One thing about this awards show is that their idea of independent sometimes makes me scratch my head a bit, with HBO’s big-budget The Last of Us nominated a whole bunch in the TV category, along with Netflix’s Beef and several other streaming shows, which I’m not sure one could call independent. For films, there’s a $30 million budget cap. For TV, I’m honestly not sure what the benchmark is because Last of Us was notoriously an expensive show to shoot, costing at least $100 million.

Indeed, The Last of Us won some key awards on the TV side, winning Best Supporting Performance (for Nick Offerman) and Best Breakthrough Performance (for Keivonn Montreal Woodard). Over on the film side, American Fiction and...

Gold Derby is backstage at the 39th Annual Indie Spirit Awards on the beach in Santa Monica, CA on Sunday, February 25, hosted by comedian, actress and “SNL” alumnus Aidy Bryant. We’ll bring you all of the up-to-date details on the presenters, nominees and winners. (See the complete winners list here.) Read on for the 2024 Spirits live blog.

The kudofest is streaming live on IMDb’s YouTube Channel as well as Film Independent’s YouTube and Twitter accounts starting at 2 p.m. Pst/5 p.m. Est.

On the film side, the nominations were dominated by “American Fiction,” “Past Lives” and “May December,” which picked up five nods apiece. Those three films are up for Best Feature along with “All of Us Strangers,” “Passages” and “We Grown Now.” Since 2012, Film Independent and the Spirits have forecast 7 of 12 Best Picture winners at the Academy Awards, including “The Artist” (2012), “12 Years a Slave...

The 39th Independent Spirit Awards will stream live on Film Independent and IMDb’s YouTube channels on Sunday, February 25. Scroll down to see our official odds in all 12 film categories (with our predicted winners highlighted in gold) and be sure to make or update your own predictions while there’s still time.

Heading into the ceremony, which will be hosted by comic actress Aidy Bryant, “American Fiction,” “May December,” and “Past Lives” stand as the year’s nominations leaders with five apiece. They will all face off in the top category of Best Picture, along with “Passages” (four total bids), “All of Us Strangers” (three), and “We Grown Now” (three).

Last year’s Spirit Awards previewed the Oscars success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which left both ceremonies with seven wins including Best Picture. Over the years, only eight recipients of the academy’s highest honor have first clinched the corresponding Spirit Award,...

Searchlight’s All of Us Strangers leads the 2024 Dorian Awards film nominations with nine, followed by the Warner Bros juggernaut Barbie with seven. Netflix’s May December is next with six noms, A24’s Past Lives (five) and Searchlight’s Poor Things (four). All five will compete for the marquee Best Film of the Year prize, presented by Galeca: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

All of Us Strangers will face off against MGM’s Bottoms, Mubi/Sbs’ Passages, Netfix’s Rustin (Netflix and Amazon MGM’s Saltburn for LGBTQ Film of the Year.

The Director of the Year race pits Oscar-snubbed Barbie helmer Greta Gerwig against Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers), Todd Haynes (May December), Christopher Nolan (Universal’s Oppenheimer) and Celine Song (Past Lives).

Along with such offbeat categories as Campy Flick and Unsung Film of the year, the Dorians will debut three new ones in 2024: LGBTQ Screenplay of the Year,...

Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” led nominations Monday for the 15th Dorian Film Awards, as voted on by the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, with nine nominations, including Film of the Year, LGBTQ Film of the Year, Director of the Year, co-lead Andrew Scott and supporting actress Claire Foy.

The group’s more than 500 entertainment critics and journalists also handed out nods to “Barbie,” which scored seven nominations; followed by Todd Haynes’ “May December” with six; and Celine Song’s “Past Lives” with five, including Director of the Year.

While the Oscars overlooked “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig this year, she’s very much in the running at this awards show, as is Song, Haynes, and Haigh.

“Bottoms” star Ayo Edebiri, who just collected her first Emmy for “The Bear,” is nominated in two categories: “We’re Wilde About You!” Rising Star Award and Wilde Artist Award, given to...

More than a week after this year’s Oscar nominees were unveiled, the documentary world is still reeling from this year’s selections and trying to figure out what they might mean for the struggling sector. Notably, all filmmakers were international and the majority lacked distribution by major streamers; presumed favorites backed by Netflix, Apple TV+ and Max all failed to score a slot on the final Oscar ballot.

Doc branch voters no longer seem impressed by the major streamers’ ability to spend millions during campaign season, documentary film leaders tell Variety, and in the view of several notables, could harbor resentment towards those who have benefited from big spending by streamers.

This year’s feature nominees are: Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol” (PBS), Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” (Kino Lorber), Nisha Pahuja’s “To Kill a Tiger”, Maite Alberdi’s “The Eternal Memory” (MTV Documentary Films...

Sundance documentaries are alive and well. And it looks like there’s some acquisition action this year, too. Which Sundance documentaries have the best shot at landing in Oscar contention this year? It helps to get bought early or to have an international footprint.

A rickety theatrical market for non-fiction features and a dwindling number of active documentary buyers meant that many Sundance 2023 films did not get picked up for distribution, or met serious delays before companies came through. As the top American film festival for docs, Sundance usually supplies as many as four out of the final five Oscar nominees each year.

And usually, by late summer, Oscar promotion is well underway. But last year, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” which was rumored to be an HBO Documentary Films pickup for months, wasn’t announced until August 29, when other Sundance grads had been campaigning all summer.

One...

The 2024 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony revealed winners Friday honoring the best of this year’s lineup in Park City.

The U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize went to Alessandra Lacorazza’s In the Summers, about two sisters who navigate their loving but volatile father during their yearly summer visits to his home in Las Cruces, Nm. Lacorazza also won a special jury prize for directing.

See the full list of winners below.

Other Grand Jury winners unveiled today in the ceremony at the Ray Theatre included Porcelain War in the U.S. Documentary competition, A New Kind of Wilderness in the World Cinema Documentary competition, and Sujo in the World Cinema Dramatic competition.

Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s documentary Daughters received the Festival Favorite Award, which Park City audiences select across all new feature films presented at the festival, as well as the Audience Award for the U.

Exclusive: The Ford Foundation is coming through for documentary filmmakers in a big way.

Today, the nonprofit philanthropic institution announced its latest round of grants under the foundation’s JustFilms division — $4.2 million that will go to support “59 innovative film projects centered on social justice globally and in the United States.”

Among the recipients are Union, the film directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story that just held its world premiere at Sundance, and fellow Sundance premiere The Battle for Laikipia, directed by Daphne Matziaraki and Peter Murimi. Union, about the battle to unionize an Amazon facility on Staten Island, New York, is in U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance. The Battle for Laikipia, in World Cinema Documentary Competition at the festival, examines “a generations-old conflict between Indigenous pastoralists and white landowners in Laikipia, Kenya, a wildlife conservation haven.” Roger Ross Williams and Toni Kamau are among the producers of Laikipia.

When the Oscar shortlist of feature documentaries was announced in December, it was dominated by films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival – films like Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, The Eternal Memory, Beyond Utopia and A Still Small Voice.

The shortlist announcement provided the latest evidence of the festival’s status as the prime launchpad for the best in documentary filmmaking – and whets the appetite for the upcoming 40th edition of Sundance, which starts Thursday.

In the new edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we talk with Sundance programmers Basil Tsiokos and Sudeep Sharma about what to expect from the festival’s nonfiction lineup. They tell us about Will & Harper, a road trip movie with Will Ferrell and his close friend Harper Steele that explores their evolving relationship after Harper’s transition, and Super/Man, the film about Christopher Reeve that features the late star’s children.

In late 2023, Taraji P. Henson created headlines for her outspoken candor on the press tour for The Color Purple. In various conversations supporting the Warner Bros. film — a musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, previously adapted for film in 1985 by director Steven Spielberg — Henson has tearfully relayed her frustrations as a Black woman in Hollywood.

Despite an Oscar nomination and four Emmy nods, Henson has admitted that finding roles that represent her stature as a respected leading lady still proves difficult. “The industry had me thinking I was too edgy, I’m street, I’m this, I’m that, and I ain’t Hollywood pretty. But the fight in me and my purpose, once I understood I had a purpose in this thing, I was like, ‘Oh no,'” she told The Hollywood Reporter in December. “There’s a place for me because there’s a girl...

Sam Green‘s 32 Sounds took the top honor of Best Feature at the 2024 Cinema Eye Honors Awards. Will this acknowledgement help raise the film’s profile for next week’s Oscar voting? The doc which premiered at the 2022 edition of the Sundance Film Festival beat out Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol, Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, Davis Guggenheim’s Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters and D. Smith’s Kokomo City which had the most noms of all docs with six.…...

And now, we wait. The bulk of precursor nominations have poured in, and Oscar voting is newly underway. Aside from the final BAFTA roster, most of what’s left is merely a swift march to January 23, nomination day. A couple of films in particular are making well-timed streaming premieres that function as end-of-the-road campaign strategies.

The contender to stream this week: “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”

This Oscar-shortlisted documentary co-directed by spouses Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, who also made 2013’s “American Promise,” follows the eponymous poet and activist through years of civil-rights evolutions. If Black women can withstand the hardships of Earth, Giovanni posits, maybe they can survive in space, too. “Going to Mars” is more experimental than the average biography, which makes sense for such an elusive figure. The film won a jury prize at Sundance and has an Independent Spirit Award nomination. It’s newly streaming on Max.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Beyond Utopia (Madeleine Gavin)

A harrowing, brave account of what it’s like to defect from North Korea, Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia follows a heroic pastor and the people he helps. Perhaps most unforgettable is a multigenerational family whose escape is shown through furtive, horror-movie-like handheld camera and revealing interviews. As Gavin offers a rundown of North Korean politics, we see this family slowly reckon with their own brainwashing and realize the world outside North Korea is not what their upbringing taught them to believe. – Lena W.

Where to Stream: PBS

The Florida Project (Sean Baker)

How, exactly, did Sean Baker do it? How did the director of Tangerine make this story of a mother and daughter living at a rundown...

There are probably countless ways to tell a story. The most common one is going from point A to point B, where A is the beginning and B is the ending. Then there are times when you’re dropped in the middle of a story that keeps going back and forth. And then, there are stories like Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, which don’t follow any particular structure. That makes perfect sense, as for someone like Giovanni, it’s rather impossible to make a straightforward biopic that starts with childhood and ends at the twilight age. It would also be quite pointless, as it clearly wouldn’t justify her socio-political impact on American culture. The director duo of Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson certainly gets all that, which is pretty evident from their HBO documentary titled Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project. It wouldn’t be...

Taraji P. Henson is no stranger to hustle. Throughout college, she spent most post-class evenings singing, dancing, and waiting tables on a D.C. cruise ship and her early mornings as a receptionist at The Pentagon to help cover her Howard University tuition. Henson still wears many hats as the owner of the haircare line Tph by Taraji, the founder of the mental wellness nonprofit Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, and most recently as the brazen Shug Avery in the blockbuster musical The Color Purple.

“I just had my house remodeled: I have an infrared sauna,...

New month, new titles! With January underway, Max has released dozens of library titles, including “The Breakfast Club,” “Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” and much, much more.

But the streamer is preparing for a big month from all of its brands, including the Bleacher Report, the platform will carry multiple big match-ups, including the NBA Rivals Week games on Jan. 23 (New York Knicks at Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers at LA Clippers) and Jan. 25 (Boston Celtics at Miami Heat and Sacramento Kings at Golden State Warriors).

There’s plenty more still to come throughout the month, including the highly anticipated return of “True Detective” with its latest installment, entitled “Night Country” and starring Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.

Check out The Streamable’s top picks for what’s coming to the streamer and find out everything coming to Max this month!

One of HBO’s former hot properties returns in a big way this January, as True Detective season four finally arrives on the service. Will this be a return to form for the gritty show? Well, that remains unclear, but this time around the anthology series will follow detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) as the long winter darkness in Alaska. When eight people at the Tsalal Arctic Research Station vanish without a trace, these detectives need to get on the case quickly.

Also hitting Max this month is the final season of Sort Of. Season three finds Sabi (Bilal Baig) dealing with the unexpected death of their father, and making some big life choices as a result.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) HBO and Max this month…

HBO and Max New Releases – January 2024

January 1

90 Day Fiancé: Holiday Special 2023 #3 (TLC) 90 Day Fiancé Pillow Talk...

By one measure, 2023 was a very tough year in documentary. The first indications of what lay ahead came in January at Sundance, where the usual panoply of films entered the arena in hopes of earning awards and the ultimate prize – distribution.

But streamers and other major distributors showed no inclination to loosen their purse strings and many acclaimed Sundance titles languished for months without distribution deals – King Coal, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, The Disappearance of Shere Hite among them. Bad Press never did get a distribution deal. Netflix, after spending handsomely at Sundance in recent years, didn’t buy any docs at the festival (it did acquire American Symphony at Telluride).

As the year advanced, the acquisition pace remained sluggish and smaller distributors found themselves in a buyer’s market, landing films that in previous years would have gone to bigger entities. On the continuum of feast and famine,...

Max’s January 2024 lineup includes season four of True Detective, led by Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, as well as the third and final season of Sort Of with Bilal Baig. Max is also kicking off the new year with the debut of On The Roam, an eight-part documentary series featuring Aquaman star Jason Momoa.

The streaming service’s January 2024 roster includes the return of Real Time with Bill Maher for season 22, along with the seventh season of Rick and Morty. The critically acclaimed documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project arrives on January 8.

Series & Films Arriving On Max In January 2024:

January 1

90 Day Fiancé: Holiday Special 2023 #3 (TLC)

90 Day Fiancé Pillow Talk: Single All The Way (TLC)

The A-Team (2010)

After Earth (2013)

Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

Aniara (2019)

Austenland (2013)

Bachelorette (2012)

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2013)

Body at Brighton Rock (2019)

Booty Call (1997)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The Brothers (2001)

Cabin Fever (2003)

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Academy Awards. 15 films from each of the categories below were shortlisted. There were no surprises when it came to most of the big film Oscar nominations like ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Barbie’, ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. India’s Oscar entry ‘2018: Everyone is a Hero’ did not make the cut in a strong International feature film lineup. There were some surprises as well with Chilean film ‘The Settlers’, Argentinian film ‘The Delinquents’ and Turkish film ‘About Dry Grasses’ being snubbed.

Documentary Feature Film

“American Symphony”

“Apolonia, Apolonia”

“Beyond Utopia”

“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”

“Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy”

“The Eternal Memory”

“Four Daughters”

“Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”

“In the Rearview”

“Stamped from the Beginning”

“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie”

“A Still Small Voice...

Oscar nominee Bobi Wine: The People’s President

Contenders in the Best Documentary category for the 2024 Oscars were announced today, with a diverse range of themes including US history, international politics, romance in the face of Alzheimer's disease, and the art of creating film audio. The 15 films were whittled down from a list of 167 qualifying films. Only a third of them will go on to receive actual Oscar nominations, and we'll find out which on 23 January.

American Symphony Apolonia, Apolonia Beyond Utopia Bobi Wine: The People’s President Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy The Eternal Memory Four Daughters Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project In The Rearview Stamped From The Beginning Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie A Still Small Voice 32 Sounds To Kill A Tiger 20 Days In Mariupol ...

Shortlists announced in 10 categories for 96th Academy Awards.

The Academy has announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Oscars in March 2024, with The Taste Of Things (France), Fallen Leaves (Finland), The Zone Of Interest (UK), Totem (Mexico), and Amerikatsi, Armenia’s first entry on the shortlist, among those making the cut in the international feature film category.

The international contest also sees Pawo Choyning Dorji’s drama The Monk And The Gun becomes Bhutan’s second film to make the shortlist after his Oscar nominee Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom from two seasons ago.

A strong showing by European...

Shortlists announced in 10 categories for 96th Academy Awards.

The Academy has announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Oscars in March 2024, with The Taste Of Things (France), Fallen Leaves (Finland), The Zone Of Interest (UK), Totem (Mexico), and for the first time Armenia (Amerikatsi) among those making the cut in the international feature film category.

The international contest also sees Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Bhutanese drama The Monk And The Gun become the country’s second film to make the shortlist after his Oscar nominee from two seasons ago.

A strong showing by European films besides the aforementioned comprises J.A. Bayona...

Shortlists announced in 10 categories for 96th Academy Awards.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Academy Awards, with The Taste Of Things (France), The Zone Of Interest (UK), Fallen Leaves (Finland), The Mother Of All Lies (Morocco), and Totem (Mexico) among those to make the cut in the international feature film category.

Shortlists were also announced for documentary feature, documentary short film, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score), music (original song), animated short film, live action short film, sound and visual effects.

More to follow…

Documentary Feature Film

Fifteen films will...

The academy released the 2043 Oscars shortlists in 10 categories on Thursday, December 21. The hopefuls in a wide range of races found out if they remain in contention for the 96th annual Academy Awards. Among these are the marquee categories for Best International Feature Film (which was pared down to 10 films from the 88 submitted) and Best Documentary Feature (which went from 167 to 15).

Both music awards – Best Original Song and Best Original Score — were winnowed down to just 15 contenders from 94 and 148 submissions respectively. Likewise for the three awards for shorts: animated (93), documentary (114) and live-action (187). The Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Sound and Best Visual Effects races were culled from dozens of entries to 10 apiece.

Documentary Feature

One hundred and sixty-seven films were eligible for consideration; there are 15 on the shortlist. Members of the Documentary Branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees. The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

“American Symphony”

“Apolonia,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Academy Awards.

The shortlists were unveiled in the following categories: documentary feature film, documentary short film, international feature film, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score), music (original song), animated short film, live-action short film, sound and visual effects.

Barbie, Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, The Color Purple and The Zone of Interest are among the film that made the cut on multiple lists.

Nominations voting run Jan. 11-16, with the official noms announcement set for Jan. 23.

The Oscars ceremony will be held March 10 at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC. Jimmy Kimmel is returning as host.

See the full shortlists below, along with the Academy’s comments about each category.

Documentary Feature Film

Fifteen films will advance in this category. One hundred sixty-seven films were eligible in the category.

Today is not just significant for the solstice and the passing of fall into winter, it also is the first bell ringing in the race for Oscar as the Academy has just announced semi-finalists in 10 categories.

Fifteen movies each are moving forward in the contests for International Feature Film, Documentary Feature, Original Song and Music Score, plus the documentary, animated and live action short-film categories. Ten movies each advanced today in the categories of Sound, Visual Effects and Makeup & Hairstyling.

Not surprisingly, 2023’s box office champ Barbie leads the way with five shortlist mentions including Original Score, Sound and three for Original Song, but curiously did not make the cut for Hair & Makeup. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon ( including two for the late musical icon Robbie Robertson in Score and Song), and J.A. Bayona’s Spanish Oscar entry Society of the Snow are next with four each.

Just in time for the holiday season, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has gifted a slew of films the honor of being included on the 2024 Oscars shortlists in a range of categories.

The annual shortlists for International Feature Film, Documentary, Sound, Original Score, Original Song, Makeup and Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Live-Action Short Film, Documentary Short Subject, and Animated Short Film were unveiled December 21, almost one month exactly before the complete Oscar nominations will be announced.

Anticipated inclusions for Oscar frontrunners like “Barbie,” “Poor Things,” and “Maestro” made the cut in a variety of categories. Ukrainian documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” and Tunisian Isis saga “Four Daughters” are both pulling double duty with shortlist inclusions in the International Feature and Documentary Feature categories.

Academy Award nomination voting runs from January 11 – 16, with the official nominations announced on January 23. Final voting will then run from February 22 – 27, with the 96th annual...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlists in 10 categories for the upcoming 96th Oscars ceremony.

Overall, Greta Gerwig’s meta-comedy “Barbie” had the most mentions with five including sound, original song for its three submissions from Billie Eilish (“What I Was Made For?”), Dua Lipa (“Dance the Night”) and Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (“I’m Just Ken”), and original score, from the latter duo. The big miss for “Barbie” was in makeup and hairstyling, which was the category that yielded the most surprises.

In addition to “Barbie,” “The Color Purple,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” all failed to make the shortlist. Instead, the branch selected A24’s eccentric “Beau is Afraid” and Universal Pictures’ horror summer film “The Last Voyage of the Demeter.”

In the music categories are compositions from Daniel Pemberton (“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”), Ludwig Göransson (“Oppenheimer”) and the late...

Our Pmc sister website Variety is reporting that the motion picture academy has named 149 movies as eligible for Best Original Score at the 2024 Oscars. See the complete list below of every score currently on the ballot for the music branch. A total of 15 will be announced this Thursday, December 21, on the Oscar short list. A final five will be revealed on January 23 as the the actual nominees.

SEEOscars 2024: Which 94 tunes are eligible for Best Original Song?

Gold Derby has been offering you the opportunity to predict the Best Original Score category for the past few weeks. Among some of the surprise omissions: “Asteroid City,” “Flora and Son,” “The Little Mermaid” and “Wonka.” Each film used too much non-original music to remain qualified.

According to our most current Gold Derby odds with over 6,800 people predicting, here are the scores ranked in the top 10:

1. “Oppenheimer” – 71/20 odds

2. “Killers of the Flower Moon...

Bobi Wine: The People’s President won the top prize of best feature documentary at the 2023 International Documentary Awards on Tuesday night.

The film follows music star, activist and opposition leader Bobi Wine amid Uganda’s 2021 presidential election.

Accepting the award during the International Documentary Association’s virtual awards show, co-director Moses Bwayo said, “The awareness this film has brought to world audiences has arguably kept Bobi Wine alive and out of prison for now.”

Asmae El Moudir won best director for The Mother of All Lies, in which El Moudir creates a replica of the Casablanca neighborhood where she grew up, allowing her to reconnect with her past.

The Mother of All Lies was nominated for three awards, along with Milisuthando, while Apolonia, Apolonia had a leading four nominations.

Incident, which reconstructs a Chicago police shooting in 2018 from numerous viewpoints, won best short documentary award. Pov and Pov Shorts...

Updated with quotes from winners and IDA’s incoming executive director. Bobi Wine: The People’s President earned the top award at the 39th IDA Documentary Awards, presented in a virtual ceremony tonight.

The film directed by Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp was named Best Feature Documentary, winning over nine other Oscar-contending documentaries, a list that included Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, In the Rearview, The Mother of All Lies, and Apolonia, Apolonia. Scroll for the complete winners list.

Bobi Wine: The People’s President tells the story of the titular Ugandan pop singer-turned politician, who dared to challenge his country’s dictator for leadership of Uganda.

Ugandan opposition politician Bobi Wine.

“The awareness this film has brought to world audiences has arguably kept Bobi Wine alive and out of prison for now,” Bwayo commented in his acceptance speech. “This film is a testament to the courage and determination of Bobi Wine,...

The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the winners in 18 categories at the 39th annual IDA Awards Show on December 12, 2023, which live premiered on IDA’s YouTube channel. A record number of IDA members cast votes for this year’s Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary nominees. Independent judging committees selected winners in all other categories.

The Best Feature Documentary Award went to NatGeo’s “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” which follows Uganda’s 2021 presidential election and music star, activist, and opposition leader Bobi Wine. “The awareness this film has brought to world audiences,” said co-director Moses Bwayo, “has arguably kept Bobi Wine alive and out of prison for now.”

This year’s Best Director was Moroccan Asmae ElMoudir, who won for innovative hybrid documentary and Moroccan Oscar submission “The Mother of All Lies,” in which ElMoudir uses clay puppets fashioned by her father to recreate incidents from her family’s past in Casablanca.

Deadline on Tuesday launched the streaming site for Contenders Film: Documentary, its annual showcase of the year’s best nonfiction films that are in the running for the Documentary Feature Oscar.

Click here to launch the streaming site.

A total of nine buzzworthy films participated in panel discussions during Sunday’s virtual event, featuring movies from Amazon MGM Studios, Apple Original Films, HBO Documentary Films, National Geographic Documentary Films, Paramount+ and MTV Documentary Films, Sony Pictures Classics, and Telemark and Greenwich Entertainment.

Panelists who joined to discuss their projects included directors Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie), Peter Nicks (Stephen Curry: Underrated), Jesse Moss and Amanda McBain (The Mission), Christopher Sharp (Bobi Wine: The People’s President), Raoul Peck (Silver Dollar Road), Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal (They Shot the Piano Player), Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), Jakub Piątek (Pianoforte) and...

"I remember what's important and I make up the rest. That's what storytelling's all about." HBO unveiled an official trailer for the acclaimed documentary Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, made by the two doc filmmakers Joe Brewster & Michèle Stephenson. This premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the top Grand Jury prize in its documentary section. This award-winning film travels through time & space to reveal the enduring influence of Nikki Giovanni, one of America's greatest living artists & social commentators. It reckons with the inevitable passing of time in a collision of memories, moments in American history, live readings, and visually unique depictions of Giovanni's poetry. Narrated by Taraji P. Henson. "Brewster & Stephenson's approach is imaginative and dreamlike, akin to the way Giovanni’s words are hair-raising in their power to summon unrealized ways of seeing." I watched this at Sundance and was also wowed by it,...

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project centers on the poet, with Giovanni herself on screen. Co-director Joe Brewster said he did not want to do a traditional documentary or biopic, and drew inspiration from documentaries on James Baldwin and Kurt Cobain.

“We actually pitched it as I Am Not Your Negro meets Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” Brewster said at Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary.

Co-director Michèle Stephenson added that she wanted the film to center on Giovanni, rather than other talking heads reflecting on her impact.

“Some of our visual vision and story vision came out of a bit of frustration with watching certain biographical documentaries,” Stephenson said. “We wanted to center her and her work and see everything through her voice to get a sense of how the process, the artistic poetry-making process happened.”

Brewster and Stephenson also got creative when Giovanni’s memory was limited,...

By the time December rolls around, a frontrunner has typically emerged in the Oscar race for Best Documentary Feature. Not this year. The contest remains wide open, more so than in any year in recent memory.

For that reason alone, it’s essential to hear from the leading filmmakers in the mix. And that’s where Deadline’s Contenders Film: Documentary event comes in. Out essential guide featuring an awards-worthy slate of outstanding nonfiction films kicks off Saturday at 9 a.m. Pt featuring panels from nine of the year’s most buzzy titles.

Click here to sign up for and launch the livestream.

Among the all-star talent on hand is Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim, director of Apple Original Films’ Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, about the beloved Hollywood icon. Guggenheim’s film recently won five prizes at the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, including Best Feature and Best Director.

Also...

Exclusive: New York-based Women Make Movies has acquired U.S. rights for Palestinian Oscar entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soualem.

The intimate work sees Soualem accompany her Palestinian-French actress mother Hiam Abbass back to the Arab village within Israeli borders, which she left in the 1980s to pursue her acting career in Europe.

There, they reflect on her past as well as the lives of Abbass’ mother and grandmother in a powerful work exploring themes of displacement, identity and survival across four generations of women.

Wmm executive director Debra Zimmerman said the film was a “perfect fit” for the label, which aims to put spotlight on the work of female filmmakers.

“It is a beautiful film about four generations of Palestinian women,” she said. “I am thrilled that we have the opportunity to have this film seen widely right now by the diverse audiences that need and deserve to see it.

One of 2023’s most awarded documentaries arrives on HBO next month. After winning the Grand Jury Prize for Best U.S. Documentary at Sundance, “Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” will premiers on the network and stream on Max on January 8.

Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024

Here’s an official synopsis of Joe Brewster & Michéle Stephenson‘s doc, courtesy of HBO:

Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project travels through time and space to reveal the enduring influence of Nikki Giovanni, one of America’s greatest living poets and social commentators.

Continue reading ‘Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project’ Trailer: The Sundance Award-Winning Doc Arrives In January at The Playlist.

The Academy has revealed the list of eligible films for consideration in best animated, documentary and international feature of the year, encompassing a broad range of blockbusters and critically acclaimed titles.

GKids’ “The Boy and the Heron,” Pixar’s “Elemental,” Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” are among the 33 animated films in the running. This is up from 27 in 2023, when “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” took home the prize.

The eventual five nominees are determined by members of the shorts and animation branch, and any Academy members outside the branch who wish to participate. The number of outside members who opt in is unknown. All films submitted for animated feature also qualify for the Academy Awards in other categories, including best picture.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

There are 88 films representing their countries for the international feature Oscar,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday unveiled the films eligible for consideration for the 2024 Oscars in the categories of Documentary Feature Film and International Feature Film and Animated Feature Film.

A total of 167 documentaries have made the cut for the 96th Academy Awards, while 88 countries are eligible for the International Feature. Shortlists of 15 films in both categories will be revealed December 21.

In the Animated Feature race, 33 films are eligible for the 2024 race.

Final Oscar nominations will be revealed January 23, 2024, with the 96th Oscars to air Sunday, March 10 on ABC hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

Here are the film lists revealed today, with AMPAS noting that not all have had their qualifying release yet, a requirement to advance in the voting process.

Animated Feature

The Amazing Maurice

Blue Giant

The Boy and the Heron

Chang’an

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

Deep Sea

Elemental

Ernest & Celestine: A...