News

An expansion of the deal between YouTube and ‘Sesame Street’ will bring a huge amount of content to the free streamer.

The more things change, the more the popularity of “Sesame Street” stays the same. In the past year alone, the “Sesame Street” YouTube channel garnered more than 5 billion views, an increase of 130% over the year prior. Having free access to “Sesame Street” on a platform like YouTube is crucial, and that access is expanding after the two sides expanded their deal on Thursday.

Key Details: Full-length fun: Hundreds more full-length episodes of “Sesame Street” are coming to YouTube. Just for YouTube: “Sesame Street” content meant specifically for YouTube will continue to be offered.

The tournament will pit six of the top men’s tennis players in the world against each other.

Netflix has found another sport that it can turn into a major viewing event. The streamer follows that guideline with certainty, eschewing the pursuit of major sports unless it can turn those sports into appointment streaming. On Thursday, Netflix announced a deal to stream the Six Kings Slam tennis tournament from Riyadh season, an event that seems tailor-made for the streamer.

Key Details: Coming up soon: Six Kings Slam will begin streaming on Oct. 15. Only the best: The tournament will feature six of the best men’s tennis players from around the world.

Three more actors are heading to Cape Fear. The recurring ensemble for Apple TV+'s small screen reboot of Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated 1991 neo-noir psychological thriller has just expanded yet again.

According to Variety, Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Ted Levine (Heat), and Margarita Levieva (Daredevil: Born Again) have joined the recurring cast of Cape Fear in undisclosed roles, although the latter is replacing the previously cast Clara Wong. The trio joins an ensemble that includes Patrick Wilson, Cch Pounder, Anna Baryshnikov, Jamie Hector, Lily Collias, Joe Anders, and Malia Pyles, with Amy Adams and Javier Bardem in the lead roles of Amanda Bowden and Max Cady, respectively. Adams and Bardem are also attached as executive producers,...

Director Guillermo del Toro has spent the last year and a half working on one of his dream projects, an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein that is set up at the Netflix streaming service. The movie is set to be released in select theaters on October 17, then Netflix on November 7. While del Toro has said that this is “an incredibly emotional movie” that he doesn’t consider to be a horror film, the Motion Picture Association ratings board has revealed that this Frankenstein does has some bloody violence in it. In fact, they’ve given the film an R rating for bloody violence and grisly images.

Oscar...

For decades, Guillermo del Toro has dazzled viewers with visionary dreamscapes and cinematic nightmares that linger long after the end credits have rolled, showing that movie magic can truly be captured on screen through hard work, creative collaborations, and an infectious passion for the craft of filmmaking.

With the release of his latest film, Frankenstein, lurking right around the corner, Beyond Fest and American Cinematheque have teamed up to celebrate Guillermo del Toro like never before with Está Vivo: The Gods and Monsters of Guillermo del Toro, a 12-feature retrospective celebration of Del Toro's eclectic filmography, from his early films Cronos and The Devil's Backbone to his more recent features...

The show will once again assemble amateur bakers from across Britain to whip up scrumptious treats.

The appraising, steely eye of Paul Hollywood will soon be falling on the baked delights of talented confectioners from across Great Britain once again. “The Great British Baking Show” Collection 13 is debuting on Netflix on Friday, Sept. 5, and will once again see British bakers compete for the right to be named the best in the island nation. Who will be your instant favorite competitor this year? Stream every episode of the feel-good series with a subscription to Netflix.

How to watch ‘The Great British Baking Show’ Collection 13 When: Friday, Sept. 5 at 3:01 a.m.

People love Guillermo del Toro, and that’s not hyperbole.

Hollywood’s affection for the Oscar-winning auteur goes far beyond mere admiration. The Mexican filmmaker, who won best picture and director for “The Shape of Water” in 2017, has become one of the industry’s most beloved figures. His presence in any Oscar race is never just about the work he presents on screen — it’s about the depth of trust and loyalty he inspires in colleagues, craftspeople and actors alike. That goodwill may be key to propelling his latest opus, “Frankenstein,” into this year’s Oscar conversation.

After debuting at Venice, the gothic horror film adapted from Mary Shelley’s classic novel held two surprise screenings at the Telluride Film Festival on Sunday night. The 9:30 p.m. showing at the Werner Herzog Theatre and 10 p.m. screening at the Palm — the festival’s two largest venues — both sold out,...

Guillermo del Toro’s highly anticipated adaptation of Frankenstein with 77% Rotten Tomatoes score, inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic 1818 Gothic novel, is finally on the horizon. Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as the Creature, and Mia Goth as Elizabeth.

The movie has been in the works for over a decade. It marks del Toro’s first feature-length release since his 2022 stop-motion film Pinocchio. The movie had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on August 30. With the release of the movie, reviews have started coming in.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein: Rotten Tomatoes Score

As mentioned, currently, Frankenstein holds a 77% score on Rotten Tomatoes from 22 reviews.

Among the famous auteurs working today, there are a range of opinions on why one would want to make their film at Netflix, considering the lack of theatrical distribution that comes with working at the streaming service. But director Guillermo del Toro, who won an Oscar with Netflix for his take on “Pinocchio” offered a fresh angle on the matter during the press conference for “Frankenstein,” his latest Netflix film, premiering at the 82nd Venice Film Festival.

“To me, the battle we are going to find in telling stories is on two fronts. Obviously the size of the screen, but the size of the ideas is very important. The size of the ambition, the size of the artistic hunger that you bring to cinema,” said the Best Director winner. “It’s a matter of, can we reclaim scale, and reclaim scale of ideas? Can we challenge ourselves to that?”

Del...

Before Ewan McGregor fought against Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, he was a robot with big dreams in this 2005 animated classic. Robots was released back in March 2005, and 20 years later, it became a streaming hit on Hulu. This not only features the Star Wars star, alongside him are some big-name actors like Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, and Amanda Bynes.

According to FlixPatrol, Robots ranked #7 on Hulu's Top 10 Movies worldwide, just between Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and Ice Age. Robots is a children's film that takes place in a world filled with anthropomorphic robots, where it follows Rodney Copperbottom (McGregor), a robot with dreams of becoming an inventor. During Robots' theatrical run, it generated over $262 million worldwide and received a mediocre reception from fans and critics alike, earning a 64% critics' score and a 54% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. But despite that,...

The Dreaming is about to change forever — and Dream may not survive what’s coming.

It’s almost time to head back to the Dreaming. If you got pulled into “The Sandman” when it first dropped, you’re definitely not alone. Netflix’s dark fantasy series hit big, bringing Neil Gaiman’s epic world of gods, nightmares, and dreamscapes to life. Now, after a long wait, Dream’s story is finally ready to continue — and wrap up — with a second and final season. Season 2 has been broken up into three parts. The first two volumes premiered earlier this month, with a special finale episode wrapping up the series on Thursday, July 31. You can watch it all with a subscription to Netflix.

How to watch ‘The Sandman’ Series Finale Bonus Episode When: Thursday, July 31, 2025 at 3:01 a.m. Et TV: Netflix Stream: Netflix From anywhere: Watch with a subscription to a Vpn.

There's no movie I'm more excited for in 2025 than Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein." The sumptuous-looking trailer hints that del Toro's "Frankenstein" could be the truest adaptation yet of Mary Shelley's "The Modern Prometheus," but it's also unmistakably his movie; he considers this to be part of a thematic trilogy with "Nightmare Alley" and "Pinocchio."

Del Toro is one of the foremost fantasy and horror directors we have working today. "Frankenstein" will bring him back to directing outright science-fiction for the first time since 2013's "Pacific Rim."

Besides "Frankenstein," there's another classic sci-fi story that del Toro has long wanted to adapt: H.P. Lovecraft's "At The Mountains of Madness." Published in 1936 (shortly before Lovecraft's death), the story follows a university research team in Antarctica. When some of the explorers are found brutally murdered, geologist William Dyer and his student Danforth investigate and come across a prehistoric city, home...

Over many years have passed, and one name still stands as a towering figure of anime’s international prestige: Hayao Miyazaki. The creator is a multiple-time recipient of the prestigious Academy Awards and is also known for the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, setting up a benchmark of anime around the world. But since 2020, there has been a new contender that has slowly gained attention for its jaw-dropping animation. You guessed right, it is Ufotable’s anime adaptation of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.

With the series already claiming the position of the highest-grossing film of all time, it’s not a far-fetched idea to see Demon Slayer bask in the glory of the Oscars. And with Ufotable’s continued ambitions, Miyazaki may finally face a worthy competition that the industry hasn’t offered him in years

Why Demon Slayer Deserves a Seat at the Oscars

Demon Slayer‘s first big-screen project,...

At the Annecy Animation Festival this Friday morning, Walt Disney Animation Studios offered a first look at its highly anticipated sequel, “Zootopia 2,” coming to theaters on Nov. 26.

Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer and director/writer of the upcoming “Zootopia 2,” Jared Bush, made his first appearance in Annecy to delight the Bonlieu audience with new footage and images from the upcoming sequel to the beloved Oscar-winning film.

“Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about this moment,” Bush told the audience. “Being here with all of you, like all of us, together in this amazing global community of artists and dreamers who love animation. We all live for it.”

A crowd consisting of industry vets, studio execs and several hundred artists and students responded with laughs, audible “awws” and tremendous excitement to the footage, which featured returning characters Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), Nick Wilde...

Netflix signalled its next big animated swing on Wednesday, releasing a vivid teaser trailer and the first poster for “In Your Dreams,” a musical fantasy that will debut globally on 14 November 2025. The 90-second spot, timed to the streamer’s “Next on Netflix Animation” showcase at France’s Annecy festival, introduces siblings Stevie and Elliot as they tumble through a sugar-pink dreamscape in pursuit of the legendary Sandman.

The feature marks the directorial debut of Pixar veteran Alex Woo, produced with Kuku Studios and carrying a 91-minute runtime. Voices are led by Simu Liu, Cristin Milioti and Craig Robinson, joined by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Elias Janssen and Omid Djalili. “I was absolutely moved reading the script,” Liu said when the cast was announced in March. Robinson, who plays a wise-cracking stuffed giraffe, called the film “a love letter to our brothers and sisters.”

Woo, speaking at a Los Angeles Q&a, said that...

Since the addition of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2001, it has long been assumed that the winner would come from one of the industry's powerhouses: Disney, Pixar, or DreamWorks Animation. For much of the category's history, that assumption held true. However, for the last three years, the Oscar has gone elsewhere. Netflix snagged the statue in 2022 for "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," Studio Ghibli won the top prize in 2023 for "The Boy and the Heron," and last year's awards ceremony made animation history when the independently released "Flow" beat out the highest-grossing film of the year. These wins mark a quiet but meaningful shift in the Academy's recognition of animation: Despite the inherent problems displayed by the Academy's perspective on animated cinema, artistry, innovation, and emotional depth are no longer confined to the major studios.

Netflix, in particular, has emerged as a serious contender in this evolving landscape.

Rock legend Brian Wilson, one of the founding members of The Beach Boys, passed away on June 11, 2025, at the age of 82. Wilson was instantly praised by musicians and fans everywhere, who admired his career that stretched back to the early 1960s. Wilson, as many know, struggled with mental health all his life, eliciting an even deeper sympathy and understanding from his millions of devotees. The world lost a giant. Rock 'n' roll wouldn't have been the same without him.

While Wilson was a musical prodigy, when it came to movies, he was a little less well-versed. As part of The Beach Boys, he performed in a few whimsical, kid-friendly films like 1965's "The Girls on the Beach" and the Disney flick "The Monkey's Uncle" the same year. On film, Wilson was more frequently seen giving interviews for documentaries like 1994's "Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey" and the Bruce Willis mockumentary "The Return of Bruno.

Assessing the merits of the remake of “How to Train Your Dragon” is a difficult task, as it’s nearly impossible to analyze the film’s strengths and weaknesses without comparing it to the 2010 animated film of the same name. Although Walt Disney Studios has been releasing live-action remakes of their animated films for well over a decade, “How to Train Your Dragon” is the first from DreamWorks Animation, and is expected to be the first installment of a major franchise. Unlike a film like “The Jungle Book” or “Pinocchio,” which have aged for decades, the animated “How to Train Your Dragon” was a more recent release, making it likely that a significant portion of the audience is already familiar with the story.

The question with many of these remakes is whether there is a reason for their translation into live-action, and if there are significant enough changes to justify a retelling.

Animation Is Film (Aif), the acclaimed Los Angeles-based animation sister festival to France’s iconic Annecy Animation Festival, has announced its 2025 return with a run scheduled from Friday, Oct. 17, through Sunday, Oct. 19, at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatres in Hollywood.

Now in its eighth year, the festival will once again celebrate the art and innovation of animated cinema, presented in partnership with the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Gkids and Variety.

“Since its inception, Animation Is Film’s purpose has been to celebrate the idea that animation pushes the boundaries of what cinema is capable of. The growth of the festival year after year is confirmation that American audiences embrace this. 2025 is shaping up to be an extraordinary year for the medium. We love Los Angeles and are so happy to be back,” said Matt Kaszanek, Director of Animation Is Film.

“We are proud to be a partner for Animation Is Film,...

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Put on your dancing shoes — Broadway’s biggest night is upon us! The 78th annual Tony Awards are being held Sunday, June 8 at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City. We’re outlining everything you need to know about the ceremony below, including how to watch it live online via Hulu + Live TV.

More from TVLineBET Awards 2025: How to Watch Tonight's Ceremony OnlineRatings:...

If you’re not following Mike Flanagan on Letterboxd, you really should be. Recently, the famed horror director has logged Black Bag, Drop, Mickey 17, and Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar. The man not only has taste, but a pretty diverse palate as well. And honestly, it’s pretty cool to see what one of your favorite filmmakers is watching in real-time. Drop? Haha, I saw that.

While Mike Flanagan doesn’t review every movie he logs, when he does, it’s always worth the read. He’s a big fan of Lake Mungo and Kurosawa’s Pulse, a personal favorite of mine. While he principally logs horror movies, he’s just as keen on genre-adjacent fare, including Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning Pinocchio, now streaming on Netflix.

Per Netflix: During the rise of fascism in Mussolini’s Italy, a wooden boy brought magically to life struggles to live up to his father’s expectations.

The new experience will be rolling out to customers soon, and was first teased by the company next year.

Netflix is gearing up to launch a huge update to its user interface. The streamer is giving its smart TV user experience a big overhaul, and the changes are all designed to help customers find a new passion to stream, as well as to keep them engaged with the service while watching on their largest screen.

Key Details: Moving on up: Netflix is moving the left-hand menu to the top of the screen in its new Ui. AI will help: Responsive recommendations and generative AI will help customers find something new to stream more easily. Vertical integration: The streamer is testing a new vertical video feed that customers can scroll through. Sign Up $7.99+ / month netflix.com

The biggest change that customers will note in the Netflix smart TV Ui is that...

Season 2 takes fans deeper into the drama, pressure, and rivalries of NASCAR.

If you were into the first season of “Full Speed,” good news — it’s back, and the engines are even louder this time. The docuseries returns with another behind-the-scenes look at the final 10 races of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, following some of the sport’s biggest names on and off the track. From the drama in the pits to the chaos of the crashes, it’s five episodes of high-stakes adrenaline. Season 2 drops Wednesday, May 7, only on Netflix.

How to watch ‘Full Speed’ Season 2 When: Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at 3 a.m. Et TV: Netflix Stream: Watch with a subscription to Netflix From anywhere: Watch with a subscription to a Vpn. Everything you need to know about ‘Full Speed’ Season 2

How to watch ‘Full Speed’ Season 2

What time will episodes of ‘Full Speed’ become available?

Why do we recommend...

Getting a perfect 100% Rt score is not a small feat. Like, honestly, critics can be brutal, picky, or even allergic to fun sometimes. But when a movie manages to win all of them over, and we mean all of them, it’s already walking on rare air. Now, imagine mixing that fabulous critic score with a fat box office total, you’ve got a straight-up anomaly.

Sure, oftentimes movies either impress the masses or the critics, not both. But few movies managed to pull off this double act like it’s no big deal. Such movies are those that made zero enemies and all the money. They didn’t just crush reviews, they filled the theatre seats, broke records, and had people talking long after the credits rolled.

These cinematic unicorns proved that they can be both critically flawless and financially fabulous. So, if you think critical darlings can’t break the bank,...

Just keep swimming! Freeform’s 30 Days of Disney will make a splash this summer with themed weeks full of feel-good favorites and nostalgic classics.

Highlights include the world television premieres of Disney Pixar’s Elemental and Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Strange World and a lineup of must-watch films from the Walt Disney film catalog, including animated classics like Aladdin (1992), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), and Disney-Pixar films like Finding Nemo, Brave, and A Bug’s Life.

Embrace your inner Disney princess during the first weekend with enchanting films like Princess and the Frog, Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, and the Freeform premiere of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023).

Gather the family together to celebrate Father’s Day weekend with films such as Onward, The Incredibles, and Pinocchio (1940).

Elemental

Join in on epic adventures as we dive into action-packed titles like The Jungle Book (2016) and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie marathon,...

The Duffer Brothers’ latest spin-off reimagines the Upside Down in animated form.

When “Stranger Things” dropped, it wasn’t just another show — it was a full-on cultural moment. The mix of ’80s nostalgia, supernatural mystery, and that killer synth score just hit. I remember watching Season 1 and instantly knowing this one was going to be a favorite. Now, Netflix is flipping the script (and hitting the animation switch) with a brand-new spin-off: “Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.” It’s animated, it’s retro, and it’s got that Saturday morning cartoon energy the Duffer Brothers always dreamed of. Here’s everything we know so far.

Everything you need to know about the ‘Stranger Things: Tales From ’85’ animated TV series:

What is ‘Stranger Things: Tales From ’85’ about?

When will ‘Stranger Things: Tales From ’85’ be released?

Who’s been cast so far in ‘Stranger Things: Tales From ’85’?

How...

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.

Explore Awards Circuit Predictions Pages

Oscars | Emmys | Grammys | Tonys

With the feather in the cap of this past Oscar season, it’s time to look ahead to the next.

This annual Variety tradition of blindly forecasting awards season is meant to be fun and expectation-free. Last year’s edition correctly predicted three of the 10 best picture nominees — “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two” and “Nickel Boys” — but the actual winner,...

The giant corporation Disney has been in the movie business for a long time, with hundreds of successful films and instant classics under their belts. With movies like Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Tangled all taking influence from children's storybooks, one is left to wonder which character is next in becoming the next Disney classic.

Related: Disney: The 10 Worst Animated ’90s Movies (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

For centuries, authors from all over the world have created characters in their stories that are practically timeless and still talked about today hundreds of years later. With a handful of stories and storybook characters to choose from, here are 10 characters we thought deserved to be the next big Disney movie.

Hal Willner, a music producer and longtime sketch songwriter for “Saturday Night Live,” has died at the age of 64, TheWrap has confirmed.

Willner died Tuesday of an illness, according to a representative. No cause of death has been determined, though Willner’s symptoms were consistent with Covid-19.

Willner served as the sketch music producer for “SNL” for nearly two decades, first joining the NBC program in 1981. His Twitter bio poked fun at how long he’d been with the show, describing him as “so-called Music Producer & Saturday Night Live sketch music guy since Raging Bull debuted, Another One Bites the Dust a hit & Kim Kardashian was born. Oy Vey.”

Willner also served as the music coordinator on Lorne Michaels’ short-lived “Sunday Night” musical variety program on NBC. The music-centric program, hosted by Jools Holland and David Sanborn, ran for two...

“I was struck by the fact that the story was wrong,” exclaims writer Tom Flynn of his new Disney+ film “Togo.” The thrilling movie details the true story of the 1925 Great Race of Mercy in Alaska, and the heroic dog Togo who led the journey. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Many people incorrectly believe that the sled dog who saved the day was Balto. After all, that husky has plenty of accolades, statues, and an animated feature of his own. “Balto is not to be diminished” admits Flynn, but he only completed the final leg of the serum run. Musher Leonhard Seppala (portrayed in the film by Oscar nominee Willam Dafoe), and his dog team led by Togo, ran the majority of the trek through dangerous conditions. Flynn’s film sets out to tell the true tale of this brave canine.

See Disney Plus family movies: 15 best live-action classics...

With exactly one week left until its launch, Quibi has put four new shows in development, Variety has learned exclusively.

Among the additions to to the platform’s swelling slate are an animated comedy from “Curb Your Enthusiasm” writer Steve Leff, and a thriller from “A Discovery of Witches” showrunner Kate Brooke.

The Leff-created comedy is called “God’s Assistant, Emily,” and follows the trials and tribulations of Emily, an assistant to a blundering boss who happens to be God. The series will focus on Emily’s frantic struggles to ensure that her buffoonish boss doesn’t make our human lives miserable down here, and Emily and her co-workers’ lives up there.

ShadowMachine, one of the production houses behind “BoJack Horseman” and Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming stop-motion “Pinocchio” feature, is set to produce the series.

Meanwhile Brooke’s prospective show is a London-set drama called “Holland Park.” It centers...

On Feb. 23, 1940, Walt Disney brought Pinocchio to theaters nationwide. The classic animated feature went on to score two wins at the 13th Academy Awards, for original score and original song "When You Wish Upon a Star." The Hollywood Reporter's original review is below:

The doorway to captivating fantasy on the screen has been opening with increasing frequency during the past year, but when one enters the land of enchantment under the guidance of Walt Disney, the magic wand is in the hands of the supreme master. In Pinocchio, Disney has so far surpassed all his previous efforts ...

Italian director Matteo Garrone unveiled his live-action version of “Pinocchio” in Rome on Thursday together with Oscar-winner Roberto Benigni, who plays Mastro Geppetto, and other key cast members ahead of the hotly anticipated film’s holiday release in Italy.

Garrone, known for dark arthouse titles such as “Gomorrah” and Cannes title “Dogman,” made it clear that his re-imagining of the Carlo Collodi classic about a puppet that comes to life marks his attempt to break into the mainstream.

“This is a different type of film [for me],” Garrone said. “I am very happy that I feel every frame is very much my own, but at the same time I wanted to make a film that could reach a wide audience.”

Rai Cinema’s 01 Distribution is releasing “Pinocchio” on Dec. 19 in Italy on an initial 600 screens.

Benigni’s turn as Mastro Geppetto comes after a long hiatus from the big screen. He...

Walt Disney would’ve celebrated his 118th birthday on December 5, 2019. The producer and studio mogul was a pioneer in the field of animation, proving it could be used for more than just creating amusing shorts for kids. In honor of his birthday, lets take a look back at all 19 animated features produced during his lifetime or that he personally worked on, ranked worst to best.

After years producing amusing shorts, most of them staring a lovable mouse named Mickey (voiced by Walt himself), Disney broke new ground with the first feature length animated film: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937). Both a radical experiment in filmmaking and a revolution in storytelling, it proved cartoons were a viable means of artistic expression. Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, in fact, called it the greatest movie ever made, no small praise for the man who made “Battleship Potemkin” (1925).

SEE12 Greatest Pixar Films Ranked from...

British producer Jeremy Thomas, whose credits include “The Last Emperor,” “Crash” and “Sexy Beast,” is attending the Marrakech Film Festival where he was interviewed onstage by U.K. film critic Jason Solomons, who introduced him as “the Last Emperor of independent cinema.”

Interviewed by Variety, Thomas talked about Matteo Garrone’s “Pinocchio,” starring Roberto Benigni, which will be released on 600 screens in Italy on Dec. 19 and will be released in Germany, Russia and other European territories on March 20. He is still negotiating English-language world rights.

Garrone is essentially known for his dark films, such as gritty crime movie “Gomorrah,” but has dreamt of adapting Carlo Collodi’s “Pinocchio” since he was a child.

Thomas has previously produced Garrone’s English-language picture “Tale of Tales” (2015), and his crime drama “Dogman,” which competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

Italian comedy star Benigni (“Life Is Beautiful”) – who directed...

Last New Year’s Eve, Tiffany Haddish made headlines for “bombing” during a standup show in Miami. At the time, she tweeted a response to acknowledge that it happened and that she “prayed on it” and felt it would not happen again. Now, almost a year later, Haddish has used her new Netflix special, “Tiffany Haddish: Black Mitzvah,” to go into more detail about what went wrong in Miami, Fla.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Miami, but this is where the devil is,” Haddish said on stage. “I didn’t know; I found out.”

She shared she landed in the Florida city at around 10 p.m. on Dec. 30, the night before her scheduled show, and she had a lot of friends in town because they all wanted to be at her show. “Anybody got that one friend — that one friend that can motivate you to...

Netflix has picked up U.S., Canadian, and Latin American rights to Aardman’s latest stop-motion feature, “A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon,” the sci-fi/comedy sequel to the Oscar-nominated “Shaun the Sheep Movie.” Co-directed by Aardman animators Richard Phelan and Will Becher, and revolving around a martian toddler, “Farmageddon” will stream in early 2020; Netflix will support an Oscar-qualifying theatrical run next season.

This bolsters Netflix’s ambitious slate of nearly a dozen animated features, coming on the heels of this month’s initial two, Oscar-buzzy, releases: “Klaus,” the charming Santa origin story with innovative 2D, and “I Lost My Body,” the acclaimed French existential mystery about a severed hand that’s the most original animated feature of the season. After only two years, Netflix has quickly established itself as a viable alternative to the Hollywood studios and a direct competitor to indies GKids and Sony Pictures Classics.

Led by Melissa Cobb,...

Mark Harrison Nov 20, 2019

Released in 1990, The Rescuers Down Under is one of the great forgotten films of the Disney Renaissance.

In conversations about Disney Animation’s spell-binding run of films from The Little Mermaid to The Lion King and beyond, there’s rarely enough lip-service given to the overlooked milestone that came out in 1990.

Sandwiched between the transformational The Little Mermaid, the studio’s biggest box office success in decades, and Beauty and the Beast, which became the first ever animated Best Picture nominee at the 1992 Oscars and is still considered by many to be Disney's best, The Rescuers Down Under is somewhat lost in the mix.

Nevertheless, it was a groundbreaking film for the studio’s steadily regrouping feature animation department and marked a number of notable firsts for them and the medium in general. The circumstances of its production and its release would make it the...

An act of difficult transition not often captured in cinema is that of aging out, a term referring to when a teenager’s foster care term ends and they enter independent living. In his second feature, which draws its title from this term, writer-director A.J. Edwards captures this moment of isolation and loneliness with immediacy and gracefulness. Age Out tells the story of Richie (Tye Sheridan), a teenage drifter just out of foster care who finds a new love and trouble in Texas, with a cast also including Imogen Poots, Caleb Landry Jones, and Jeffrey Wright.

Following its South by Southwest Film Festival premiere, where it played under the title Friday’s Child, the film will now get a release this week both in limited theaters and VOD. We spoke with the director–who got his start working on Malick’s The New World, The Tree of Life, and To The Wonder,...

It’s a relatively contained secret that beneath the magic and the pixie dust, Disney has produced a whole lot of freaky stuff. And now that the House of Mouse has officially launched its expansive streaming site, Disney Plus, a large collection of that spooky material is available to cower over wherever and whenever you want!

Of course, this isn’t to say that there are blood fests on there – the company couldn’t even summon up the courage to include the R-rated Deadpool and Logan films – but rather point out that some of the studio’s most iconic features incorporate incredibly frightening scenes.

While the Mouse House has evidently filtered some of its more controversial content for Disney Plus – though they seem to have completely missed Dumbo‘s iconically problematic crows – Bloody Disgusting was still able to conjure up a video of some of the freakiest stuff to explore on the streaming service.

Kristen Bell and Jimmy Fallon just served some full-on Disney magic. During Tuesday's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the actress and the host teamed up to perform the "History of Disney Songs"—an epic mashup of tracks from all of your favorite animated classics, spanning from 1937's Snow White all the way to Frozen 2, which hits theaters next week. To start things off, the pair went with the classic "When You Wish Upon A Star" from 1940's Pinocchio. Next came "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins followed by Snow White's...

David Crow Nov 12, 2019

We curate the massive collection of classic animated fairy tales on Disney+ for your viewing pleasure.

When you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are; anything your heart desires will come to you… on Disney+. At least that seems to be the intent for the streaming service which will offer for the first time in forever the entire Walt Disney Animation Studios catalogue and library for streaming. So whether you grew up with that Jiminy Cricket lullaby bringing you pleasant dreams on the big screen or didn’t know what Disney magic was until Elsa let it go on a lonely mountaintop, your childhood nostalgia is about to be serviced by countless streaming delights.

Watch your favorite Disney classics with a Free Trial of Disney+, on us, here!

Below is a list of all the animated classics from Disney—and maybe a few...

Spirited Away

Blu ray

Gkids/Shout! Factory

2001/ 1:85 / 125 min.

Starring Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

The story of a lonely child lost in a beautiful and bizarre dreamscape, Spirited Away naturally begs comparison to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. But in contrast to those frenetic classics, Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece is cooly meditative – a serene head trip.

At first sight Miyazaki’s Wonderland is not so wonderful – it’s an abandoned theme park discovered by ten year old Chihiro and her parents at the end of a secluded country road (Miyazaki’s version of a rabbit hole). Though the paint is peeling and the sidewalks cracked, the barren mall maintains a suspiciously well-stocked food court. Chihiro’s folks dig right in and find out the hard way that there’s no such thing as a free lunch – soon enough mom and dad are transformed...

“Despicable Me” creator Sergio Pablos struggled to make a 2D Santa origin story, “Klaus,” for nearly a decade at his animation studio in Madrid. And the animation community has cheered him on (including influential Academy members) for trying to reinvigorate the hand-drawn technique with a modern, digital veneer. But, after being turned down by Hollywood studios, Netflix came to the rescue to produce Pablos’ pet project, which opens theatrically this weekend for Oscar qualification before streaming November 15.

“The sticking point, to my surprise, wasn’t 2D but Christmas,” Pablos said. “The studios kept saying, ‘We’re going to be up against whatever Disney has.'” Not to mention the Christmas movie curse associated with such flops as Aardman/Sony’s “Arthur Christmas” and DreamWorks’ “Rise of the Guardians” (featuring Alec Baldwin’s Santa). But Pablos persevered, honing his bittersweet Santa saga as an anti-hate story, and taking hand-drawn animation into...

Altitude Film Entertainment and Los Angeles-based producer Jason Lust’s Soluble Fish Productions have inked a producing partnership to develop high-end family films and television projects. The partnership marks the British independent production, international sales and distribution company’s first venture into the U.S. market.

Lust is very experienced in the family space having produced the “Peter Rabbit” franchise as well as “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” (Disney), and Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” (Netflix), amongst others.

Lust said: “Together, our ambition is to create family friendly movies and television for global audiences. The aim is to focus on hybrid and animated projects that are branded, many of which will have a musical focus.”

Will Clarke, chairman and joint-ceo of Altitude, said: “This partnership gives us the ability to produce and sell high-quality family films, which we look forward to bringing to the marketplace.

British production and sales house Altitude Film Entertainment, fresh off its success with Horrible Histories, has signed a production partnership with Jason Lust's Los Angeles-based Soluble Fish to develop high-end family films and television projects.

Lust was a producer on the animated Peter Rabbit franchise, as well as Disney's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Pinocchio film for Netflix. 

The deal, announced Thursday at Afm, marks Altitude's first venture into the U.S. market. The company, led by Will Clarke and Andy Mayson, has produced such features as the ...

British production and sales house Altitude Film Entertainment, fresh off its success with Horrible Histories, has signed a production partnership with Jason Lust's Los Angeles-based Soluble Fish to develop high-end family films and television projects.

Lust was a producer on the animated Peter Rabbit franchise, as well as Disney's Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Pinocchio film for Netflix. 

The deal, announced Thursday at Afm, marks Altitude's first venture into the U.S. market. The company, led by Will Clarke and Andy Mayson, has produced such features as the ...

James D’Arcy’s directing debut stars Neeson and his son Micheál Richardson.

As Afm gets underway, HanWay Films has announced a raft of sales and revealed the first image for James D’Arcy’s feature directing debut Made In Italy.

Liam Neeson stars opposite his real-life son Micheál Richardson in the story of a bohemian London artist who returns to Italy with his estranged son to make a quick sale on the villa they inherited from his late wife, only to find it in a desperate state of disrepair.

HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales on the title and...

Disney‘s continued quest to dominate every facet of popular culture shows no sign of slowing down, with the Mouse House’s insurmountable lead at the top of the box office totem pole placing them billions of dollars ahead of their competitors. The studio boasts the entire 20th Century Fox library, an upcoming streaming service, Pixar, Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe among their portfolio, but an increasingly-lucrative revenue stream over the last few years have been the live-action remakes of Disney animated classics.

By the time Maleficent: Mistress of Evil leaves theaters, these remakes will have earned over $9 billion at the box office, with 2019 alone delivering two billion-dollar hits in the form of Aladdin and The Lion King. Most of Disney’s remakes are virtually guaranteed financial successes, which would lead you to believe that the production line will simply keep churning them out until they’ve mined their entire back catalogue.

It seemed like any other movie premiere.

Journalists and photographers swarmed the red carpet as stars Tessa Thompson and Justin Theroux smiled gamely for pictures and struck a pose, just as they would for any other Hollywood screening. Except there was one key difference. The film they were in New York City to promote last week, a live-action remake of “Lady and the Tramp,” is helping to usher in a new frontier of moviemaking. Instead of bowing in theaters, it will debut on streaming platform Disney Plus.

“The pressure to perform and deliver a great movie was the same,” says producer Brigham Taylor. “We just set out to tell the best story we could. We’re just trying to connect with people, and ultimately Disney Plus could allow us to find a broader, bigger audience than we could even have found in a theater.”

The paid subscription service is part...