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Caroline Vignal’s It’s Raining Men follows Iris (Laure Calamy), a Parisian dentist whose stagnant marriage propels her into a whirlwind of app-driven dalliances, blending cheeky humor with poignant introspection.

The film’s premise—middle-aged desire clashing with marital complacency—echoes the French tradition of treating infidelity as a nuanced exploration of human complexity rather than a moral failing. Vignal situates this tale within a cultural landscape where Anglo-American audiences might demand judgment, yet here, the focus remains on Iris’s liberation.

The script nods to classics like Breathless in its breezy defiance of narrative rigidity, though Vignal swaps Godard’s frenetic jump cuts for lush, surreal detours, such as a spontaneous musical sequence set to the titular anthem.

This juxtaposition of grounded realism and whimsical escapism mirrors France’s ambivalence toward tradition and modernity—a tension as relevant in today’s #MeToo era as it was in the heyday of the Nouvelle Vague.

Film enthusiasts have much to anticipate in May with a captivating lineup of releases that span various genres and eras for the estimable Criterion Collection.

This bespoke DVD/Blu-Ray label’s eclectic selection for May includes three new films never part of the collection before Charles Burnett’s classic black-slice-of-life street poetry film, “Killer of Sheep,”—often described as very Terry Malick in tone— Abbas Kiarostami’s “The Wind Will Carry Us,” and Richard Lester’s “The Three Musketeers/The Four Musketeers.”

Read More: Criterion’s April Releases Include ‘Anora,’ ‘Chungking Express,’ ‘Some Like It Hot’ & More

Previously released titles either long out of print or upgraded into new editions include Bruce Robinson’s “Withnail and I” and “How to Get Ahead in Advertising,” Jacques Demy’s “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” and Norman Jewison’s “In the Heat of the Night.” These films offer a unique glimpse into the artistry...

Marking one of their biggest upgrade months yet, the Criterion Collection is consecrating May 2025 with new 4K editions for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, In the Heat of the Night, and (reaching well back into the library) Withnail and I, running a gamut from opulent, fantastical color to solid 60s-studio sheen to the outright gnarly.

Meanwhile, Charles Burnett‘s legendary Killer of Sheep is given a major upgrade as Richard Lester’s Three Musketeers / Four Musketeers duet also earns full honors. Which should not distract from Abbas Kiarostami’s epochal The Wind Will Carry Us coming to Blu-ray, nor the same for another Bruce Robinson-Richard E. Grant collaboration, How to Get Ahead in Advertising.

See artwork below and more at Criterion:

The post The Criterion Collection’s May Lineup Features The Umbrellas of Cherbourg on 4K, The Wind Will Carry Us & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

Chiara Mastroianni has carved her own shape in the French film industry, even despite carrying her father Marcello’s name and being the daughter of Catherine Deneuve. She’s worked with Robert Altman, Claire Denis, Raúl Ruiz, Gregg Araki… we could go on. Yes, she’s the daughter of the stars of “La Dolce Vita” and “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” but her career is marked by bracingly original work with iconoclastic directors. Her father died in 1996, and she got the chance to work with him in a handful of films, including Altman’s “Pret-a-Porter.” But she mostly had to settle for knowing her parents as a couple onscreen, as they broke up when she was just two years old.

Still, see it in the picture above: Chiara does look like her father. In her new film “Marcello Mio” (Strand Releasing), now in theaters and directed by her friend and frequent collaborator Christophe Honoré,...

French New Wave fans, rejoice. One of Jean-Luc Godard’s most colorful, joyful, and unapologetically playful masterpieces of the 1960s has received a new 4K restoration. And New Yorkers will have the chance to catch it on the big screen this February.

Godard’s 1961 musical romantic comedy “A Woman Is a Woman” will screen at Film Forum in New York City from February 7-20, which will mark the U.S. premiere of the restoration.

Released in 1961, a year after the Cahiers du Cinema veteran secured himself filmmaking immortality with “Breathless,” “A Woman Is a Woman” was Godard’s tribute to Hollywood’s Technicolor musical comedies. Featuring the bright color scheme that he would return to for films like “Contempt” and “Pierrot Le Fou,” the film stars Godard’s then-wife and frequent collaborator Anna Karina as a dancer who, eager to have a child, entertains the romantic pursuits of two men...

There are few movies in recent memory as incomparably high-profile as Barbie (2023). Due to the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon, as well as the involvement of industry darlings such as Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and, of course, the beloved director of "girly movies" Greta Gerwig. It quickly went down as one of history's most significant cinematic moments, becoming the 14th highest-grossing film of all time.

From the onset of the pink-covered press, the Barbie team pushed a moral of female empowerment, synonymous with the Barbie toy brand. However, when it came to the actual content of the movie, many viewers felt that there was plenty left to be desired when it came to Barbie's feminist messaging. While there is plenty to applaud about Barbie, notably its stellar production design and brave comedy, one must consider the impact that such a confused movie with such a distinct social responsibility will have on generations to come.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of the Moving Image

See It Big! Let It Snow brings 35mm prints of All That Heaven Allows, Doctor Zhivago, and Meet Me In St. Louis.

Museum of Modern Art

A dual celebration of Marcello and Chiara Mastroianni continues, this weekend bringing films by Raúl Ruiz and Marco Bellocchio.

Anthology Film Archives

A look at Robert Frank and his influences continues, including Chantal Akerman’s Toute une nuit and Blue Velvet on 35mm, while Scenes from the Streets begins.

Roxy Cinema

The New World and The Magnificent Ambersons shows on 35mm; Hardcore plays Friday and Saturday, the latter day bringing a Paul Schrader Q&a; Eastern Promises and Paul Verhoeven’s Elle also screen.

Metrograph

Lost In Translation, 2046, Phantom Thread, and Brokeback Mountain play on 35mm; The Holidays at Metrograph, It Looks Pretty from a Distance, and This...

The entertainment world is no stranger to speculation and intrigue in the personal lives of celebrities, especially after a celebrity suddenly comes into the spotlight. And so has been going on for the 1/2 of the iconic Wicked pairing, Cynthia Erivo, whose impeccable portrayal of Elphaba has made her a global star overnight. While she was already a household name due to her performances in projects like Harriet, The Color Purple, and more, her involvement in the musical film has renewed fans’ interest in her personal life.

Cynthia Erivo | Credit: Instagram / @cynthiaerivo

As one of Hollywood’s most talented figures who has been constantly garnering praise and acclaim, the actress has managed to keep a relatively private life. Yet, the rumors of her relationship with the actress and screenwriter Lena Waithe have been all over the internet. Although both actresses are open about their sexual identity, they have yet to confirm their relationship publically,...

Joshua Oppenheimer wasn’t planning on making his narrative feature debut about the end of the world — and he certainly didn’t think it would be a musical. And yet, eight years after the idea popped into his head, at last his bold opus has come to the big screen, ready to jolt audiences out of their complacency.

The End (in theaters now) is like no other movie this year. Yes, there are several that feature singing and dancing, but none of those take place in a lavish underground bunker...

For filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer, the beginning of “The End” came somewhat unexpectedly as an extension of his work in documentary. This might sound strange considering this narrative feature is a musical set in the bunker of a family partly responsible for an apocalyptic event 25 years prior, but throughout the project’s inception, production, and edit, Oppenheimer was constantly drawing upon his skills as a documentarian to further his examination of humanity’s ability to — drawing upon a fitting allegory — “fiddle while Rome burns.”

To hear Oppenheimer tell it, if there were a way to have told the story depicted in “The End” as a documentary, he probably would have. In a recent interview with IndieWire, he said he intended to follow 2012’s “The Act of Killing” and its 2014 followup, “The Look of Silence,” with a third documentary about the oligarchs who exploited the pain and suffering of those featured in these films to enrich themselves.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Museum of the Moving Image

See It Big! Let It Snow brings 35mm prints of Kurosawa’s Dersu Uzala, 1994’s Little Women, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Film at Lincoln Center

Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies shows on Saturday with an introduction from Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

Film Forum

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Wages of Fear play in 4K restorations.

Metrograph

La Dolce Vita, Permanent Vacation, Death By Hanging, and The Art of the Steal show on 35mm and Lino Brocka’s Bona starts screening; Ed Lachman’s Report from Hollywood and Urban Ghosts begin while Absconded Art, The World Is a Stage, and Crush the Strong, Help the Weak continue.

IFC Center

It’s a Wonderful Life and a 4K restoration of Carrie plays daily; 2001, Spider Baby, Threads, and Alien show late.

Museum of Modern Art

A Robert Frank centennial continues.

A work of profound optimism, an ambitious mishegas staring into the abyss, an experimental theater piece trapped on film, the most bizarre musical of the year in an annum filled with strong contenders for that title — this is only the beginning of possible descriptions for The End, Joshua Oppenheimer’s wild swing for the fences. A Sondheim-esque tale that’s tuneful and atonal in equal measures, this tale of a collective living in extravagance as the world gasps its last ecological breath is the kind of movie you want adventurous cineastes to make,...

As a genre, movie musicals have had some serious ups and downs throughout Hollywood history. Right now, they definitely seem to be on an upswing, especially now that the long-awaited "Wicked" movie blew everyone away at the box office — and it was only the first half of the musical to boot.

In recent years, movie musicals like "Wonka," "Mean Girls," "The Greatest Showman," "La La Land," and even the filmed stage version of "Hamilton" have become enormous hits, though critical reception has been decidedly mixed across these projects. So what are the best musicals ever according to the official Rotten Tomatoes ranking of movie musicals? Only three musicals earned 100% ratings on the review aggregate, which is — I have to say — a little surprising, largely because some all-time classics apparently missed the cut. For example, "The Sound of Music" and the original "West Side Story" only earned 83% and 92%, respectively, despite being two staples of the genre,...

A heavy influence on major recent Hollywood musicals such as La La Land, Barbie, and even, perhaps most blatantly, Joker: Folie à Deux, Jacques Demy’s musical masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg has been restored in 4K for its 60th anniversary. Starring Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo with music by Michel Legrand, the restoration will now roll out at NYC’s Film Forum starting on December 6 and at LA’s Laemmle Royal a week later, followed by a larger release.

Here’s the synopsis: “An angelically beautiful Catherine Deneuve was launched to stardom by this dazzling musical heart-tugger from Jacques Demy. She plays an umbrella-shop owner’s delicate daughter, glowing with first love for a handsome garage mechanic, played by Nino Castelnuovo. When the boy is shipped off to fight in Algeria, the two lovers must grow up quickly. Exquisitely designed in a kaleidoscope of colors, and told entirely through...

This past weekend saw the release of “Wicked,” a movie musical that broke all sorts of records. If you saw “Wicked” and want to expand your love of musicals, take a look at one of the greatest musicals of all time with “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”

Read More: The Essential Jacques Demy: The Director’s Candy-Colored Films Get The Criterion Treatment

To celebrate the film’s 60th anniversary, Janus Films is set to release a new 4K restoration of “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.” The film tells the story of the daughter of an umbrella shop owner who falls in love with a mechanic.

Continue reading ‘The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg’ 4K Restoration Trailer: Jacques Demy’s Classic Musical Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary at The Playlist.

"My love, oh my love." ☂ Janus Films has unveiled the official 4K re-release trailer for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which is getting a US theatrical release starting in early December. Jacques Demy's all-timer musical classic The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (or Les Parapluies de Cherbourg in French) celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, initially opening in France back in 1964. Written and directed by Jacques Demy, with music by Michel Legrand. Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo star as two young lovers in the French city of Cherbourg, separated by circumstance. This new 4K restoration also re-premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year with a glamorous event and celebration. This is one of the most beautiful films ever made, so vivid and colorful and emotional and evocative. The film was also restored and re-released in 2013, and is already available as a Blu-ray in the Criterion Collection. Even if this isn't...

Acorn TV has announced the titles that will be available on the AMC-owned streaming service in December 2024. The Acorn TV December 2024 slate adds to the service’s various acclaimed English and foreign-language dramas, engaging comedies, documentaries, and more.

The December schedule includes The Chelsea Detective Season 3 Christmas special, Dalgliesh Season 3, Darby and Joan Season 2, and more.

Dalgliesh Season 3 Acorn TV December 2024 Highlights

Dalgliesh Season 3 (Acorn TV Original Series) – The New Season Premieres Monday, December 2; Two Episodes Premiere Every Monday Until the Season Finale on December 16

Based on three of the novels from P.D. James’ bestselling murder mystery series, “Adam Dalgliesh Mystery,” with Bertie Carvel reprising his role as the enigmatic titular investigator.

Season 3 is made up of three distinct mysteries, each two episodes long — set in 1979 on the cusp of Margaret Thatcher’s victory and sees Commander Adam Dalgliesh (Carvel) take on three highly sensitive cases – from a...

Editor’s note: This story was originally published during the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. “Emilia Pérez” is now in theaters and starts streaming on Netflix November 13.

French auteur Jacques Audiard has been flirting with musical moviemaking ever since “Self-Made Hero” in 1996, when he and composer Alexandre Desplat discussed adapting that film into an opera. But it wasn’t until Audiard read a friend’s novel, “Écoute,” that he responded to the idea of a Mexican drug kingpin transitioning to become a woman. In that case the cartel boss was trying to escape from his life, not his gender.

“So the novelist actually introduces this character, but then doesn’t fully develop it,” said Audiard at the Telluride Film Festival, where the Cannes prize-winner “Emilia Pérez” played well at multiple screenings and generated serious Oscar talk going into its September 9 presentation at the Toronto International Festival. “I’m fascinated by the paradox...

Some of the best romantic films don't have the happy endings and fairytale romances. From The Umbrellas of Cherbourg to La La Land or Casablanca, sometimes the best stories can come from those near misses, when, despite a genuine or intense connection, things just don't work out. There may even be feelings of passion, but ends with only intense yearning for what could have been. Perhaps it's the wrong place at the wrong time or just fate that gets in the way of things. Other times, the problems may be internal maybe they were never right for each other or simply weren't right for each other at that moment. Either way, the moment slips away, and people are left with their only option: to move on.

The odd, accidental synchronicity of the movie business brought us double volcano movies, double asteroid/comet movies, double Pinocchio movies and double Truman Capote movies in rapid succession, along with four body-swapping movies over two years back in the 1980s. But “The End,” which premiered on Saturday night at the Telluride Film Festival, may be part of the weirdest trend in cinematic coincidence of them all: film-festival movies that are musicals, even though there’s absolutely nothing in the subject matter to make you think they should be.

First there was Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” which caused a sensation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival by taking a story of a Central American drug lord who undergoes gender reassignment surgery and filling it with songs. The Venice Film Festival struck next with “Joker: Folie à Deux,” which finds Todd Phillips turning his sequel to the Oscar-winning 2019 drama “Joker” into a musical,...

The Dark Lord is rising, and the battle for Middle-earth is about to begin. The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power returns to our screens this summer for a second season that sees the stakes higher than ever – Sauron has revealed himself, Galadriel is out for redemption, war is coming, and there are some of those titular rings in play.

Empire has a giant, world-exclusive look at the show’s return in our brand new issue, on sale and hitting newsstands from Thursday 4 July – but for now, here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power

One show to rule them all – as we prepare to return to Middle-earth, Empire goes on the brand new UK set of Prime Video’s Tolkien fantasy epic, speaking to showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, stars Charlie Vickers, Morfydd Clark, Sophia Nomvete and Daniel Weyman,...

This is what it would look like if Michael Bay directed a romantic musical. Though this doesn't have nearly enough explosions or mind-boggling drone shots to really live up Bay's movies. Beating Hearts is a big, epic, flashy, cheesy, nearly-three-hour long French love story thriller made by a French filmmaker named Gilles Lellouche. He last directed an absurd comedy called Sink or Swim that played at Cannes 2018, and somehow he was able to secure a Main Competition slot this year at Cannes with his latest titled L'amour ouf in French (or just Beating Hearts in English). For some reason, before its premiere the movie was being referred to as a musical – but it's not really a musical. More of an epic, sweeping romance like Romeo + Juliet with two big dance sequences and tons of famous songs used in it. But there's no singing and it's not a classic musical,...

It has been a big week for beloved musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the 1964 Palme d’Or and went on to international acclaim and five Oscar nominations and served as one of the key inspirations for Damien Chazelle’s La La Land.

The film got a special 60th anniversary Cannes Classics screening Thursday of the exquisitely new restoration at the Agnes Varda Theatre, which is named after the late director and is also wife of late Cherbourg writer-director Jacques Demy. This week also has seen the world premieres of two documentaries related to the film here. On Saturday night at the Buñuel Theatre in the Palais came the premiere of Once Upon a Time: Michel Legrand, an extensive two-hour documentary on the late great composer of Cherbourg and so much more.

Then on Wednesday night, also at the Buñuel, was the unveiling...

One of the pleasures of the Cannes Film Festival is seeing what films and what directors break out. Sure, in the current crop of films premiering at the 77th festival this May, there are some big names everybody knows; you don’t need an explainer to know that Francis Ford Coppola and “Megalopolis” are a big deal. But Cannes is also where filmmakers such as Julia Ducournau and Justine Triet gained wide exposure and became international known quantities, thanks to the prestige granted by nabbing the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or.

Introduced a full decade into the festival’s existence, the Palme d’Or has a strong pedigree associated with it; several of the films that received the prize — “La Dolce Vita,” “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “Taxi Driver,” “Paris, Texas,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Tree of Life,” “Parasite,” and way too many others to properly list — have claim...

As Cannes Film Festival kicks off, the Paris-based international sales company MK2 Films has revealed it has acquired three films and made substantial investments in new restorations, set against the backdrop of a strong presence at Cannes Classics.

MK2 Films has entered into a collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation on the global rights (excluding the U.S.) for two films directed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle: “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” (1976) and “Daddy” (1973). “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” has been restored in 4K by L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna-Paris) under the supervision of Arielle de Saint Phalle and with funding from Dior. It was presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, New York Film Festival and the new Los Angeles Festival of Movies. “Daddy” will soon be available in a restored version. MK2 Films described it as a “unique feminist work by one of...

It’s here! The first full trailer for Doctor Who‘s new series has arrived, giving us never-before-seen glimpses of Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson in action. And with it comes glimpses of a whole host of new adventures and scenarios, promising a very different take on Doctor Who than we’ve seen before.

Before we dig into the trailer for hints as to what will be in store for series 14, give the the video a watch if you haven’t already:

Alright, below are all the important things we noticed in the trailer. Let us know in the comments if there’s anything we missed!

The Hooded Stranger

The Christmas Special “The Church on Ruby Road” not only introduced the Doctor’s next companion Ruby Sunday, but also a good ol’ mystery. Like Clara and Rose before her, Ruby is much more than she appears.

“Ruby Road” began with a “hooded stranger,...

French cinema icon Catherine Deneuve has begun filming in Japan of “Spirit World,” a fantasy-drama film directed by Singapore’s Eric Khoo.

Deneuve portrays a singer who dies suddenly while on tour in Japan. But her spirit lives on and she embarks on a journey to find humanity in the after-world.

The project was revealed by the city government of Takasaki, an ancient town on Honshu Island between Tokyo and Kyoto, where production began over the weekend. Work is expected to continue for 10 days, before moving to other locations.

“I’m happy that a movie starring Deneuve is filmed in Takasaki. I’d like to cooperate in the filming,” said city mayor, Tomioka Kenji.

The film is understood to be based on an original screenplay. It is structured as a three-way production involving companies from Singapore, Japan and France and with financial support from authorities in Singapore. The producers are...

The soundtrack to Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" movie is full of wall-to-wall bangers, but the bombastic anthem "I'm Just Ken" has become a bonafide (and charting) sensation. And to think that the song almost had a much smaller presence in the film. In an exclusive featurette from Vudu to promote the highest-grossing film of the year's arrival on video on demand. Gerwig, music producer Mark Ronson, Ryan Gosling, Ncuti Gatwa, and others discuss how the now-beloved scene came to be. Ronson's song was originally just a short little ditty, but Gerwig loved it so much she wanted more.

"It went from being this song that was maybe gonna be played somewhere in the film to this song that they built this epic battle around," Ronson said. Once Gerwig heard the song, she wanted more — which became the nearly 11-minute long song.

The goal was to use the song as...

Movies about movies tend to be as sentimental as Cinema Paradiso, the all-time tearjerker in the genre, or as caustic as the recent Babylon. But Lone Scherfig finds a fine balance between love of movies and the harsh wider world in The Movie Teller, a beautifully made coming-of-age film about Maria Margarita, who acts out the Hollywood movies she has seen at the local cinema in her small mining town. Set in the Chilean desert in the late 1960s and early ’70s, the drama benefits greatly from the sure hand and clear eye Scherfig has brought to her best films, other period pieces including An Education (2009) and Their Finest (2016). All that can’t quite make up for the rocky screenplay, though.

The story is adapted from the Chilean writer Hernan Rivera Letelier’s 2009 novel. The first version of the screenplay was tackled years ago by the Brazilian director Walter Salles,...

Last year, as movies conceived and shot during the Covid-19 pandemic began to be released, we saw a sudden influx of films rejoicing in the act of moviemaking and movie-watching. From Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” to Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” from Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light” to the Indian Oscar entry “Last Film Show,” a surprising number of films bred during pandemic isolation were movies about movies.

And a year later, during the final days of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, another movie that belongs in that company had its world premiere. “The Movie Teller,” a Spanish-language film set in Chile and made by a Danish director with a cast whose biggest names are known for French and German movies, puts an international spin on the love of movies and embraces the art of storytelling in a way that is at times profoundly moving.

The film is a mixture of genres,...

When I was in college cinema courses I made a Super 8 film called Movie Girl. It was a Hollywood-set love letter to movies centered on a Musso & Frank waitress who put herself dreamily into the plots of classic films. It won an award there but was the highlight of the directing career I never had. However, I have always been partial to filmmakers who put their own early film-going experience and passion into their careers now. You may have heard of them: Kenneth Branagh won an Oscar for doing just that in Belfast. Steven Spielberg got several nominations last year for his very personal The Fabelmans. Woody Allen had his own charming take in The Purple Rose of Cairo. Peter Bogdanovich made a lasting impression with 1971’s The Last Picture Show, as did Giuseppe Tornatore with his Oscar winner Cinema Paradiso.

It is a combination of the latter two especially...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Once Upon a Time, in a Far Away Land, the Vibes Were Fucked

I’m a simple man with simple political views: I believe the United States government should take all of its pageantry cues for state events from the film “Donkey Skin.” Dead presidents should be laid to rest inside a giant glass Christmas ornament. White House staffers should be required to paint themselves red or blue to reflect the party in power. And the Speaker of the House should preside over congress while sitting on a giant stuffed cat.

While it's not very common, a number of movies have been nominated for Oscars in multiple years. As a general rule, movies can not be nominated at the Academy Awards one year and then come back another year to try again, even in another category. However, there are exceptions to the rule, mainly if the film's original nomination was in a category not requiring a U.S. release, and then their subsequent recognition came after its opening in America. This really only happens with movies initially submitted in the Best International Film category.

There are other movies that have received honors in multiple years at the Oscars but not necessarily in the form of nominations. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs broke Academy Awards rules by receiving a special Honorary Oscar in 1939, presented to Walt Disney with a unique statuette. The animated feature had previously been nominated in 1938 for Best Score.

When the human eye stares at one color for too long, it experiences a phenomenon known as cone fatigue. The cones in one's eyes are the cellular photoreceptors that process color and are particularly good at processing reds, blues, and greens. And, yes, cones can get tired of looking at certain things. For instance, when one stares at the color red for too long, the cones wear themselves out and fall into a state of complete rest. As a result, the eye will produce a "ghost" spectrally opposite image of red when it looks at a white area. Test it out! Stare at a red spot for about 30 seconds without blinking, then glance quickly to a white piece of paper. You will see, for a few moments, a "burn" of a cyan spot floating in front of you. 

The makers of Greta Gerwig's new blockbuster "Barbie" must have likely...

Designing Barbie's Barbie Land layout and color palette required going old-school.

Speaking to TheWrap, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto broke down how he and Greta Gerwig came out with the aesthetical choices for Barbie Land, pulling inspiration from Golden Age Hollywood movies like The Wizard of Oz and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Singling out Cherbourg's lighting and camerawork, Prieto said, "We didn't want to make the camera angles oblique and funky, it just has to be innocent and frontal. And the camera moves on tracks lateral or frontal, so the lighting had to be high-key, which is a stretch as a cinematographer. All of us are used to creating the illusion of depth with lighting, and that tool is gone when you're lighting frontal, so I had to figure out how to get the sensation of dimensionality and depth with color." The resulting set design, he added, "gave off a "balance of...

Barbie cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto shared his experience creating artificial reality.

Prieto was initially taken aback by director Greta Gerwig's pitch for a bubbly, 1950s musical-inspired Barbie film, especially since he was prepping for Martin Scorsese's dark crime drama at the time. He admitted in an interview with The Wrap, “It was hard for me to completely shift gears in such a tremendous way, but I was immediately intrigued and excited by Gerwig’s pitch for ‘Barbie,’ and knew I wanted to do it before I even read Gerwig’s script. I knew that she wasn’t going to do what you’d expect.”

Related: Barbie Casting Directors Told Ken Candidates to Put Their Shirts Back on During Auditions

Oscar-nominated cinematographer Prieto helped create a visual landscape that exceeded expectations. Drawing $1.2 billion worldwide, the film broke numerous box office records and became the highest-grossing domestic film in Warner Bros' history.

When Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto got a call from filmmaker Greta Gerwig to work on her next project, he was excited. He had been an admirer of her work, and was eager to work with her. But when she pitched her bubbly, 1950s musicals-inspired take on “Barbie,” he could not have been in a more different headspace — he was in Oklahoma prepping Martin Scorsese’s dark true crime drama “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

“It was hard for me to completely shift gears in such a tremendous way,” he admitted during an interview with TheWrap, but he was immediately intrigued and excited by Gerwig’s pitch for “Barbie,” and knew he wanted to do it before he even read Gerwig’s script. “I knew that she wasn’t going to do what you’d expect,” he said.

Prieto knew “Barbie” was special, but said no one could have predicted the...

Life in plastic proved fantastic for Greta Gerwig's Barbie, a movie that highlights the dangers of toxic masculinity without actually putting men down in the process. The film also gave audiences a detailed look into the titular characters' pastel paradise, a seemingly utopian society officially controlled by various Barbies. That said, Barbieland presented a morphed version of reality partially borrowed from Seahaven, the setting of Jim Carrey's philosophical comedy: The Truman Show. Moreover, Robbie's viral Letterboxd list "Watch for Barbie" provided some context clues for fans trying to piece together the film's plot and central themes.

Peter Weir's The Truman Show sat alongside films such as The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Puberty Blues, and Splash on Robbie's queue. The shared plot elements between Barbie and The Truman Show become more and more apparent as audiences watch the film. However, the setting of Barbieland...

Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is destined to be a classic in its own right, already garnering nearly half a billion dollars at the box office in under a week. The film, about a stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) in the grips of an existential crisis that sees her going to the Real World, is all manner of fun and wacky, with a number of Old Hollywood influences.

Gerwig herself has cited a number of features that either directly or indirectly inspired “Barbie,” starting with the 1939 Technicolor classic, “The Wizard of Oz.” That film, with its now iconic transition between Kansas and the land of Oz, no doubt factored into how the feature approaches color. The idea of a character transitioning from one world to another draws comparisons to “The Truman Show” and “Heaven Can Wait.”

Among the more nuanced, less obvious films, Gerwig took inspiration from “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,...

This post contains spoilers for "Barbie."

One of the many joys of watching "Barbie" is catching all the film's references to classic cinema. "The Wizard of Oz" was an obvious inspiration for co-writer and director Greta Gerwig's take on the iconic doll, from the yellow pink brick road that cuts through Barbieland to the ghost of Barbie creator and Mattel co-founder Ruth Handler (Rhea Perlman), who gradually emerges as a Wizard-like guide to Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) on her journey of spiritual discovery. Moreover, the film is a love letter to 20th-century movie musicals in general, as seen in the "I'm Just Ken" sequence -- a musical number that includes a Gene Kelly-styled dream ballet where the Kens adapt all-black attire recalling John Travolta's getup from "Grease" -- and the bold, vivid color palette of Barbieland, which brings to mind the production design for "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Film composers easily rank among cinema's greatest unsung heroes. While many directors and movie stars eventually become household names, very few film composers receive adequate adulation from the mass audience. Film scores are integral to a movie's success, providing and enhancing the mood, tone, atmosphere, and emotion of the drama at hand.

Imagine the shark attack scenes in Jaws without John Williams' score or the shower scene in Psycho without Bernard Herrmann's score. The music is arguably the primary reason these scenes have become touchstone moments in film history. Cinema's elite film composers have impacted popular culture just as much as actors, directors, and producers.

Related: 10 Best Movies With Famous Soundtracks

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin is a foundational figure in movie history who is beloved for his acting and directing. However, a much-overlooked facet of Chaplin's career is his brilliance as a film composer. Starting with City Lights, Chaplin...

“Barbie” will soon be unleashed on an eagerly waiting world, and cowriter/director Greta Gerwig would like to provide you with some context, courtesy of her Letterboxd list of films she watched for inspiration, in a clip you can watch above.

Just looking at the list, you can see where some of the inspiration would come from — the candy-colored musical world of “Barbie,” starring Margot Robbie as the titular doll, does bring to mind several of her selections like “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Red Shoes” and “Playtime.” The idea of a character transitioning from one world to another is also pretty apparent in selections like “The Truman Show” and “Heaven Can Wait.”

For “Heaven Can Wait,” Gerwig said that the movie is “extremely high concept, but always human… There’s nothing about it that makes you feel distanced from it. It totally works even though...

From the early, lo-fi days of her career as something of a muse for the mumblecore movement, Greta Gerwig has been interested in messy tales of nascent adulthood. And from her partnerships with now-husband Noah Baumbach, most notably 2012’s Frances Ha, to her own solo directorial work (2017’s Lady Bird and 2019’s Little Women), her films have continued to bear the mark of a storyteller who understands the ways that modern adults, but especially women, are burdened by the weight and expectations of responsibility.

Gerwig’s Barbie is partially inspired by psychologist and author Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia, a 1994 bestseller about how adolescent girls lose their identities while navigating a looks-obsessed, media-saturated culture. That should be enough to quell expectations of the film playing out as a show of allegiance to one of the most recognizable brands in the world. And if it doesn’t, the subversive streak of...

Every night in Barbieland is “girls’ night,” or so goes the bedazzled legend of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. The Barbies stay up late, talking, splashing in the pool, and the Kens go, well, wherever Kens go. What if one particular Ken (Ryan Gosling) wanted to stay over to make good on his promise of being Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) boyfriend? No can do. “The president is here!” Barbie insists. Ken goes home. Another day in paradise.

Gerwig’s vision of Barbieland is not so much a matriarchy but a Barbie-archy, a for-Barbie, by-Barbie culture in which every Barbie from President Barbie (Issa Rae) to Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef) to Writer Barbie is empowered to be the best Barbie she can be. The Barbies are Nobel Prize winners, astronauts, pilots. They’re happy garbagewomen and delivery workers. For the Barbies of Barbieland, their world is devoid of all that is miserable...

The age rating for Barbie is out, and it's exciting for many who have high hopes for the movie, but its rating doesn't do its potential box office numbers any favors. Greta Gerwig's film is the first live-action project based on Mattel's Barbie dolls and stars Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. In the movie, Barbie starts to get an itch to explore what's beyond Barbie Land, and Ken joins her on an adventure that leads them to the real world.

Among all the hype for the film, the hope is that it takes on a more mature tone than the other animated Barbie movies made for children, especially since Gerwig is at the helm. Then Warner Bros. Pictures released the trailer, and the first look was promising for those expecting more adult themes as it shows Barbie getting arrested, contemplating what it would be like to die,...

Not much is yet known about the plot of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. There are rumors that its plot is tangentially related to the manufacture of real-life Barbie toys; it seems that Ryan Gosling has fully submerged himself in the character of Ken; and thematically the film is expected to have a great deal in common with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer when it releases on the same day. Clearly.

Still, all we know for certain is that Barbie will be the greatest, most revolutionary use of cinematography since The Horse in Motion (1878).

Needless to say, we’ve become fascinated by this film well before it’s come out, and any snippet or clue about Gerwig’s intentions has been eagerly snapped up. So we were immediately interested when, in an interview with Vogue magazine, Margot Robbie revealed that the cast and crew regularly gathered for “Movie Church,” which was a...

Initially announced in 2014, the upcoming “Barbie” movie has quickly become one of the most anticipated releases of 2023.

Audiences have praised and criticized each “Barbie” update, but this April, Warner Bros.’ released the official first-look image of Margot Robbie as Barbie, and anticipation has been growing ever since — especially after Warner Bros.’ stoked the flames with our first look at Ryan Gosling as Ken.

In addition to co-writing the latest “Barbie” draft, Oscar-nominated “Little Women” and “Lady Bird” filmmaker Greta Gerwig is directing the project. In addition to starring as the titular character, Robbie is also a producer alongside “Dallas Buyers Club” producer Robbie Brenner (Mattel Films) and “Harry Potter” producer David Heyman (Heyday Films), as well as her husband, Tom Ackerley (LuckyChap Entertainment).

Below, we run down everything we know about the “Barbie” movie so far — from the release date to the cast to the project’s lengthy production history.

The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival came to a close on Saturday, May 27 after two weeks of films, celebrities, parties and interviews in the small city on the French Riviera. Now that the prizes have been given out, we can start looking at what could be top contenders for next year’s Oscars. Let’s analyze the results from this year’s festival and see this history that each category has when it comes to the Academy Awards.

Over the past several years the festival has been a springboard for major players in the Oscar derby. We’ve really seen it be an influence in the International Feature category where in-competition films have been nominated a regular basis. Recent Cannes films that ended up being top awards contenders in above the line categories include “Triangle of Sadness,” “Drive My Car,” “Parasite,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “BlacKkKlansman.

Every day is perfect in Barbie‘s world, as we see during the opening of the first full trailer for director Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.” But there’s trouble in paradise that begins with a Barbie dance party ending with Margot Robbie’s title character asking, “Do you guys ever think about dying?”

From there, and to the poppy sounds of Dua Lipa — who also has a role in the film as Mermaid Barbie — Barbie goes on an adventure to find out why she’s dealing with cold showers, nightmares and getting flat feet. The journey to solve the riddle of what’s happening takes Barbie to another Barbie, played with demented glee by Kate McKinnon, who offers her the ability to travel to the real world — whether Barbie likes it or not.

The real world leads to all manner of hijinks, including Barbie’s arrest for assault and a Mattel executive,...

If you’ve been paying attention to indie filmmaking for the last decade, you’ve long been familiar with Greta Gerwig, but now her ascension reaches its greatest heights yet with Barbie. Following the adaptation of the believed Little Women, her latest project finds her exploring something even more ubiquitous and, judging from the latest trailer, with very much her own style. Ahead of a July release, WB has now unveiled the first full trailer, after a number of teasers, which reveals much more of the story as we find Margot Robbie’s Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s Ken entering the real world.

In a new cover story at Vogue, it’s also been confirmed Gerwig, who scripted the film with Noah Baumbach, was heavily inspired by films like The Red Shoes and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, influences she would screen every Sunday morning for her cast and crew aka “movie church.