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Fans are excited to see the Oscars ceremony unfold this year. After seeing Jimmy Kimmel for the last two years at the center stage, fans look forward to seeing a new host. Conan O’Brien will be hosting the 97th Academy Awards on March 2nd at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Besides its ABC broadcast, this year’s event will stream on Hulu, a first in the history of the Oscars.

From actors to performers to comedy greats, the Oscars have seen several celebrities take over the hosting duties over the years. The first-ever Academy Awards took place as a private dinner, without a formal host. Douglas Fairbanks, Academy President at the time, hosted the dinner alongside Vice-President William C. deMille.

Conan O’Brien is the host for the upcoming Oscars ceremony | Credits: Conan/TBS

Bob Hope holds the record for hosting the most number of ceremonies. He hosted the Oscars...

Revolution Films makes distribution debut with ‘Eleven Days In May’.

Disney opens its first theatrical release in almost three months this weekend: Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, which will look to replicate Marvel success at the UK-Ireland box office.

The fifth title in ‘Phase Four’ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the 28th overall, Multiverse will start in 685 locations, having opened on Thursday.

That number is the widest release in the series, two ahead of Avengers: Endgame from 2019. That film took a £31.4m opening weekend, still the record in the UK and Ireland by a comfortable margin...

The title has sold in Germany and Austria, Scandinavia and Australia and New Zealand.

UK-based sales outfit Jinga Films has landed theatrical deals for Russell Owen’s supernatural thriller Shepherd.

The BFI London Film Festival premiere has sold to Lighthouse Home Entertainment for Germany and Austria, Nonstop Entertainment for Scandinavia and Rialto Distribution for Australia and New Zealand.

Karim Prince Tshibangu and Aslam Parvez of the UK’s Golden Crab Film Production produce in association with Russell Owen and Steve Orams of the UK’s Kindred Communications.

It was previously picked up by Parkland Pictures for the UK, Falcon Films for Middle East,...

Alfonso Cuaron just added another Best Director Oscar to his shelf with his victory for “Roma,” a personal story about growing up in Mexico City in the 1970s. The win came just five years after his first one for “Gravity” (2013). He became the 92nd person in history to clinch that prize, beating out Yorgos Lanthimos (“The Favourite”), Spike Lee (“BlacKkKlansman”), Adam McKay (“Vice”), and Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”). Tour our photo gallery above of every Academy Award winner for Best Director, from the most recent winner to the very first one.

SEE2019 Oscars: Full list of winners (and losers) at the 91st Academy Awards

At the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1927, two awards were given for directing: one for comedy (Lewis Milestone for “Two Arabian Nights”), the other for drama (Frank Borzage for “7th Heaven”). The next year, only one prize was given.

Since 1927, only 21 directors have won this category more than once.

‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’ (Courtesy: Dale Robinette; David Bornfriend/A24)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

Nothing is certain at the Oscars, and that absolutely applies to the best picture and best director categories. While it is common for films to win both of these trophies in a given year, sometimes they can go to two different works. There’s a chance that La La Land and Moonlight could split these categories at the upcoming ceremony — but how often does that happen?

Both of these films are considered frontrunners in both the best picture and best director category at the upcoming Oscars. This site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, lists La La Land — written and directed by Damien Chazelle — and Moonlight — written and directed by Barry Jenkins — as the top two contenders in both categories in his latest check-in on the race. The two films have been...

Charles Brackett ca. 1945: Hollywood diarist and Billy Wilder's co-screenwriter (1936–1949) and producer (1945–1949). Q&A with 'Charles Brackett Diaries' editor Anthony Slide: Billy Wilder's screenwriter-producer partner in his own words Six-time Academy Award winner Billy Wilder is a film legend. He is renowned for classics such as The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment. The fact that Wilder was not the sole creator of these movies is all but irrelevant to graduates from the Auteur School of Film History. Wilder directed, co-wrote, and at times produced his films. That should suffice. For auteurists, perhaps. But not for those interested in the whole story. That's one key reason why the Charles Brackett diaries are such a great read. Through Brackett's vantage point, they offer a welcome – and unique – glimpse into the collaborative efforts that resulted in...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

With the DGA Award in hand, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has become a frontrunner in the best director Oscar race for Birdman.

Only seven winners of the DGA Award have not won the best director Oscar in the 66 years that the Directors Guild of America has given the award. The most recent case was two years ago, when Ben Affleck wasn’t even nominated for the best director Oscar for Argo, which won best picture.

No American has won for best director since 2011 and if Inarritu, who is from Mexico, takes the Oscar this year, the trend will continue. Inarritu could become the second Latin American director to win for best director, following Alfonso Cuaron’s win last year.

In the 86 years since the Academy Awards’ inception, 89 Oscars have been given for best director. Twenty-six awards (29 percent) went to non-American born directors.

At the first annual...

Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine' 1938: Jean Renoir's film noir (photo: Jean Gabin and Simone Simon in 'La Bête Humaine') (See previous post: "'Cat People' 1942 Actress Simone Simon Remembered.") In the late 1930s, with her Hollywood career stalled while facing competition at 20th Century-Fox from another French import, Annabella (later Tyrone Power's wife), Simone Simon returned to France. Once there, she reestablished herself as an actress to be reckoned with in Jean Renoir's La Bête Humaine. An updated version of Émile Zola's 1890 novel, La Bête Humaine is enveloped in a dark, brooding atmosphere not uncommon in pre-World War II French films. Known for their "poetic realism," examples from that era include Renoir's own The Lower Depths (1936), Julien Duvivier's La Belle Équipe (1936) and Pépé le Moko (1937), and particularly Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows (1938) and Daybreak (1939).[11] This thematic and...

Christopher Reeve Foundation for spinal cord and stem cell research (photo: Darryl Hannah and Christopher Reeve in 'Rear Window') (See previous post: "'Superman' Christopher Reeve and his Movies: Ten-Year Death Anniversary.") In his 1998 autobiography Still Me, Christopher Reeve recalled: "At an especially bleak moment [prior to an operation that might result in his death], the door [of his hospital room] flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in a Russian accent. For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay." The "old friend" was the recently deceased Robin Williams, whom Reeve had befriended while both were studying at Juillard. Eventually, Reeve became a staunch advocate for spinal cord and stem cell research, sponsoring with his wife the Christopher Reeve Foundation — later renamed the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation (and formerly known...

The 85-year history of the Academy Awards is rife with statistical oddities, and one that has the potential to play out this Sunday is among the most intriguing: a split between the films that win Best Picture and Best Director.

Though conventional wisdom has long held that only one film will walk away with both prizes on Oscar night, many pundits are predicting that the awards will instead go to two different movies this year, with "Gravity" director Alfonso Cuaron expected to snag the Best Director statuette, while "12 Years a Slave" (or "American Hustle," depending on where your loyalties lie) is the favorite to win Best Picture.

While such a split has occurred just 22 times since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started handing out trophies in 1929, four of the first five ceremonies produced a divide between the Best Director and Best Picture prizes. "Wings," dubbed the original...

Andy Kaufman alive? Or Andy Kaufman hoax? New York City-born comedian Andy Kaufman, little known outside the United States but well-remembered in the U.S. by those who watched the late ’70s / early ’80s television series Taxi, is alive, married, and has a (previously unknown) grown daughter who goes by the name of McCoy. Well, if — and that’s a big if (or perhaps a small one, considering people’s willful gullibility and/or downright stupidity) — you believe the story reported in numerous outlets in the last couple of days: Andy Kaufman may have faked his own death of lung cancer at age 35 in 1984 so he could escape the limelight. (Photo: Andy Kaufman) At the New York-based Andy Kaufman Awards last Monday night, November 11, 2013, a woman claiming to be Kaufman’s daughter — calling herself "McCoy" (reportedly the name Kaufman used when checking himself into hospitals) — appeared on stage with Michael Kaufman,...

(from left) Jack Lally, Anthony Molinari, Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale in The Fighter

Photo: Paramount Pictures Last week was a big week for Oscar prognosticators. Starting last Sunday we had the Los Angeles and New York film critics weigh in with their best of 2010. Then the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild added their nominations. Then, just last night the Satellite Awards were announced and while they aren't exactly the best indicator of what films are going to do what, they add their own numbers to the formula. Patterns have formed and front-runners have clearly been sorted, but there are still some questions up in the air.

After the dust settled, The Social Network was the clear Best Picture front-runner. This, however, can be attributed to more than just one thing. Obviously, the critics have been all over it, but when predicting Oscar's Best Picture you have to remember...

Like many other Hollywood filmmakers of the studio era, Frank Lloyd (1886-1960) is hardly remembered today despite his numerous box-office successes — e.g., The Sea Hawk (1924), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Wells Fargo (1937) — and no less than two Best Director Academy Awards, for The Divine Lady (1929) and Cavalcade (1933). With Frank Lloyd: Master of Screen Melodrama (BearManor Media, 2009), author and film historian Anthony Slide rectifies that matter. In his book, which focuses on Lloyd’s most important screen efforts, Tony (we’ve been friends for years) makes it clear that by disregarding Frank Lloyd’s body of work film historians are doing a disservice to Hollywood’s past. In addition to his two Best Director wins, Lloyd directed two [...]...